Friday 29 October 2010

Battlestar buggeration

Damn. There's bad news and good news for Battlestar fans...

Bad news first. SyFy (it's still a stupid name for a network) has cancelled Caprica  (click for the news story) with immediate effect. Just when it was getting good. Idiots.

To add insult to injury, somehow, the woeful Haven has been greenlit for a second series. Probably because it's cheap (and nasty). See my review of the steaming, rancid turd that is Haven  here.

The rest of the Caprica episodes will be shown at the start of 2011. It was a slow-burner without the immediate flashiness or giant battles of Battlestar, but I for one, will miss it.

Now the good news: Syfy may have redeemed themselves in my book, because, according  to the US website TV guide, SyFy has given the go-ahead for a second prequel series, called Blood and Chrome  . Frakk, it sounds good - set 10 years into the first Cylon War,  a young Ensign William Adama finds himself aboard the fleet's newest battleship, the Battlestar Galactica.

My thoughts? I have two words for you - hubba, and hubba. The 2 hour pilot starts filming next year.

I want it. And I want it now.

Sunday 24 October 2010

Elementary stuff...

Ok, occasional UK TV review here.

For my friends in the USA, you are in for a bloody treat. For tonight (24th October), Your local PBS station is going to start broadcasting Sherlock, a rare delicacy we devoured here in the UK in the Summer. Seek it it out - it's more than worth it....



In my opinion, it's the only British show of the last few years that can compare to US dramas in terms of quality, scripting, performances and production values. It is truly awesome, and must have cost the BBC a stupid amount of money (which they've undoubtedly recouped by selling it worldwide - kerr-ching!).

...a bit like Dr Who, which like it or not, has also been a gigantic moneyspinner for Auntie, So they gave Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat ,the scamps behind the current season of the show, the chance to get to grips with reinventing Sherlock Holmes. (And incidentally, Moffatt was behind the scariest Dr Who episode ever, Blink featuring a young Carey Mulligan.)

Madonna's ex, Guy Richie, also tried a revamp recently, with Robert Downey Jr as a hammy version of the great detective, and Jude Law playing Watson as a bit of a posh, tasty, nawty geezer. Hmmm......Yeah, it was all-right I suppose, giving 19th century characters modern sensibilities.

But that movie is not a patch on this new TV version.

This reboot  brings the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories bang up to date. I'll get to the excellent casting in a minute, but its pretty clear the writers love the original books. We all think of the deerstalker, the pipe the violin and so on (only the violin is retained) but Moffat and Gatiss have written a version of the character that seems to be truer in spirit to the original, than the Guy Richie version.

I've got to say at this point, (spoiler alert) that writer Mark Gatiss  (ex of The League of Gentlemen) clearly couldn't resist taking the plum role of  M, the head of MI6 in the seriesAnd of course, the M in this case stands for Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's elder brother. I wonder if Mr Gatiss has read Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where the identity of M is a running gag (see below)



Anyway, I digress - the show was a big hit in the UK, partly because it made the whole concept of Sherlock, well, a bit sexy.

The title role's played by the brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch, who seems to make laydeez (ie: my GLW and my female boss at least) emit a low growling noise, whilst simultaneously pulling what I would describe as a disturbing predatory expression - even though he plays Sherlock as a sort of Aspergers Savant - with no emotional wherewithall whatsoever, but quite, quite brilliant nonetheless.

For example, check out Sherlock's gaydar, when he meets "Jim from IT",  which puts everyone else's to shame....



Which brings me on to Martin Freeman (who's just signed up to play Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit movies).

He brings a refined depth and humour to Dr Watson - and is probably the most intelligent version of the character I've ever seen. There's nothing buffoonish about him, and he's as fascinated by Sherlock as we are. The show also explains why Dr Watson would want to be Sherlock's sidekick in the first place. His character is a soldier: an Army doctor injured in action in Afghanistan, bored and war weary, and in search of something to make him feel alive.

The scene changes and editing are exquisite (I must be a bit mental praising those - but watch 'em, they're very clever) and in the same way most shows use mobile phones as a plot device to move the scene on, Sherlock uses text messages which appear- speech-bubble like - on screen when someone's phone beeps. When Sherlock uses the net on his smartphone, his searching appears on screen next to him. It's a very clever device.

And then there's the music - the title music is ho-hum, and it's thankfully sparse throughout the show - but there's a little "Sherlock Holmes theme" which plays whenever he's examining a crime scene or the cogs are whirring in his head. It's very evocative, and I've been humming it non-stop since the show aired over here in the summer. Here, have a listen (it's the first track):



Another thing: just wait for the entrance of Sherlock's arch-nemesis, (Professor) James Moriarty in the series.

He is genuinely scary, a genuine Napoleon of Crime, who is more than a match for Sherlock. And he also has a Dublin accent to boot (can the writers be the first to have considered that Moriarty is an Irish name? Genius).

In fact, all in all, this is my second-favourite filmed version of Sherlock Holmes.

My favourite? It's "The Seven Per Cent Solution" starring Nichol Williamson as a quite barmy Sherlock Holmes, and Robert Duvall as Watson.  It's an absolutely brilliant, grown-up version of the Holmes and Watson legend. You can get it cheaply here 

The second season of the BBCs Sherlock will be broadcast in autumn 2011, and as for those of you in the States who haven't seen it - I suggest you seek out your local PBS station right now.

(And for those of you who missed an episode of two - because the BBC stupidly put it on in the middle of the summer holidays - it's on DVD and you can also download it on iTunes).

Friday 15 October 2010

Dexter, Season 5. Time to bring out the big guns (and knives)

Dexter Season 5: OMFG as young people say (as I'm reliably informed).

Look, I know there are a lot of Dexter fans out there, so I'm not going to put any spoilers for season 5 in this review - It's already shaping up to be the best yet, and it's only into its 3rd episode on Showtime.

The last time we all saw Dex over here, was the particularly grim ending to Season 4. (Spoiler Alert for that season)- Dex had sliced n'diced his nemesis, Trinity (John Lithgow), but came home to find wifey Rita dead. For those of you with a nervous disposition, don't bother clicking on this vid.



It's a strange show, Dexter, I mean, Michael C Hall plays a sociopathic serial killer who (mostly) fakes real emotions, takes extraordinary risks, murdered his own brother, and, by the end of season 4, prompted the nasty, bloody death of his own wife. And yet, dear viewer, we all root for him. All the time.

I don't think I've ever sat through a single episode and thought "Dexter, you're a sick and disturbed individual, and you need to be caught and brought to justice." - in fact, watching the show, I think I resemble my mum when she watches James Bond films. Each time Bond gets punched by a baddie in a fight, she involuntarily cries out "Oh James!".

Obviously, I don't do that when watching Dexter, because that would be very camp of me indeed.

However, while watching Dexter, I do have a habit of murmuring "oh shit..." when he gets himself in trouble, which becomes "Oh Shit!" when it gets worse, sometimes getting to "OH SHIT!", and eventually reaching "SHIT!SHIT!SHIT!SHIT!" for a particularly tense episode.

I'm articulate, me.

The GLW summed it up well. She says you get a knot in your stomach watching Dexter because it keeps you on the edge of your seat. Then the tension relaxes, until you watch the next episode, and the cycle begins again....

(God, that makes it sound like Dexter's kill-cycle. I think we need a Doctor in the Gurudad household. Or maybe a priest.)

The other reason I like Dexter, is that it's the show that keeps giving. It's that rare thing: it improves with every season, and rarely sags (c'mon, even the most diehard Lost or Battlestar fan must have thought at times "This is crap. I'm not watching this again").

And each season can be conveniently summed-up in a single sentence. You don't believe me? Allow me to demonstrate:

Season 1. Dexter meets his brother.
Season 2. Dexter and the bunny-boiler.
Season 3. Dexter finds a friend.
Season 4. Dexter meets his match.

So at the moment, Season 5 would be: Dexter fucks-up. Badly.

Damn. That was two sentences.

Season 4 is still being screened on FX in the UK, and Season 5 is airing on Showtime in the US right now

Thursday 14 October 2010

The very Good Wife

You may have seen trails for The Good Wife, lurking on More 4. Season 2 has just started in the US, and I'm going to try to convince you why you should seek it out if you get the chance. (Btw I think the first series is being repeated on daytimes on Channel 4 at the moment - so set that PVR/skybox/virgin box, whatever.)

If you're not familiar with the show, it's basically the aftermath of an incident like this:



Sorry, couldn't resist putting that in - but the Little Britain sketch actually does sum it up: the press conference with a politician publicly apologising for his sins, loyal wife at his side, has become a cliche. But no-one has really asked what happens to the poor cow afterwards....

The show is about Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies, ex of ER),the wife of former State's Attorney Peter, (Chris Noth, y'know, Big from SATC) She's the, er, Matt Lucas character in all this. Her hubby is sent to prison following a corruption, cocaine and 'Hoes scandal, and boy, does everyone keep reminding her about it.

So she has to go back to work as a single, working mum - it's pretty fortunate that 13 years earlier she was a hotshot lawyer who came top of her class at Georgetown (naah, I don't know where it is either, but I'm assuming it's somewhere prestigious and WASPy).

Anyhow, she now finds herself working in Comrade Obama's post-racial America with lots of young 20-somethings and a 2-dimensional old flame, armed only with a killer wardrobe, intelligence and heels. So far, so LA law.

But where this differs from other courtroom dramas is that it begins to dawn on you that her husband wasn't necessarily corrupt, and may have been set up by his successor, the ruthless Glen Childs (played by the magnificently-named Titus Welliver). It's this unfolding conspiracy and the battle between these two that drives this show.

But its also got a superb cast: Archie Panjabi won an Emmy last year for playing Kalinda, the law firm's freelance private detective, Chris Noth is superb as Peter Florrick - you really are never sure whether he's a good guy or an evil bastard, and of course Alan Cumming as Eli Gold (he's Peter's reputation rehabilitator, a sort of Max Clifford of the internet).

And that brings me to another point - The Good Wife is incredibly savvy about how modern media and politics work.

Look at this scene from the latest episode: a newly-released Peter is back on the campaign trail, and is answering questions in a webcam interview about justice and the importance of stiff sentencing. Meanwhile, in the other room....



V cool, eh? In another aspect, it reminds me a bit of Burn Notice* No, it hasn't got sexy Miami locations and lots of explosions, but you learn a new factoid in almost every episode. This week, the GLW and I learned the basics of US military law. So there you go.

Oh and another aspect that's equally impressive is that many of the storylines come from news headlines. In one episode, Alicia discovers youths are being given severe sentences for minor crimes by a judge, because he's getting brown envelopes stuffed with cash from a private youth custody centre, which gets paid per inmate. You couldn't (and they didn't) make it up.

Lastly, Juilianna Margulies does a superb job of portraying a woman trying to hold onto whatever dignity she has left after her husband's prozzie-shagging ways become public. It's a dream role - it must be, that woman must have spent nigh-on 20 years in cold, windy Chicago, rather than signing up to a nice, warm sub-tropical drama like Lost (or Dexter..or Burn Notice...or the Glades or Hawaii Five O...actually, disregard the last two, they're absolute shite). This, however, in my increasingly dodgy 1970s Indian soft-drink scale of goodness, is Mangola (m'lud).

*I'll be looking at Burn Notice soon.

Sunday 10 October 2010

Caprica's resurrection.

Despite my feelings about the lame-arse Haven SyFy (SciFi, goddamit!) has redeemed itself, with Caprica version 1.1



For anyone who's never seen the show, I'd have to say it's not something instantly accessible, but bear with me. It's part of the Battlestar Galactica universe, and.........hello?.... Hello?  I think I've lost a few people there already.

Well (deep breath), I suggest you start playing this music then read on....(Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen the first half of series 1, skip the next paragraph)



...It's about 2 families living on Caprica, the capital world of the 12 colonies of humankind, 50 years before the Cylons come along and wipe out all but 50,000 members of the human race - there's this rich Dyson-type inventor bloke called Daniel Greystone, his jailbait genius daughter Zoe, who gets killed in the first episode in a train bombing by these religious nutters called the Soldiers of the One - it was her boyfriend what done it - anyhow, her mum's a surgeon who understandably is grief-striken and is a bit delusional too, and mopes about a bit. She becomes the close personal friend of her daughter's creepy teacher (played by Polly Walker from Rome) There's the Adamas too: Taurons, frowned-upon by the (generally) racist Capricans - Mob lawyer Joseph loses his daughter Tamara in the same bombing. But Zoe Greystone's a genius, remember - she's made a virtual duplicate of herself in Cyberspace, and her somewhat amoral dad downloads her and puts her in this robot soldier he's got which doesn't work. Until of course, he puts the virtual version of Zoe in it. Et voila! The first sentient Cylon centurion is born, and with it, their method of resurrrection too. A virtual version of Tamara Adama is also made, and she becomes trapped in an online game and becomes uber-powerful in it. It's kinda like wi-fi, except with souls...

 
And that, friends, is my summary of Caprica Version 1.0 - I've actually left loads of detail out, because, unlike Battlestar, it was really really soapy.

By the end of the first half of the series, I was really beginning to get a bit bored, but  Caprica Version 1.1 is a different beast. Slicker and with more direction, it romps along, spanning and interweaving storylines on Caprica, Gemenon (the rather cold and inhospitable homeworld of the Soldiers of the One) and in Cyberspace, taking in religious zealotry, corporate ambition and greed, and even has a classic mob scene. Take a look: it's almost a homage to the the Godfather. Here, Daniel Greystone, in desperation, turns to the Tauron mob for help...



Episode 10 is much darker than the previous half of the series, and is all the better for it - the desires, the plotting and the scheming of the main characters has come to the fore, and what none of them realise is that the cylon race is almost inperceptibly developing in the background. And what's more, the series very cleverly shows you exactly why they hate humans enough to want to wipe them from the face of the 12 colonies.

Bravo, SyFy, Caprica has just become one hell of a ride.

Caprica will return to Sky 1 in January 2011

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Haven's above

I'm coming a bit late to this one - Haven



It's a series that started in July on SyFy (dontcha just hate that rebranding? It's like they think SciFi is too difficult a concept for big cow people in Iowa to understand..."Honey I just found this channel with lotsa weird stuff on, I think it's called Sky-fee....")

Anyway, It's based on a Stephen King novel called the Colorado Kid. And the show is dull. Sorry. First of all, don't bother adapting Stephen King novels for television, they rarely work. The only one I can think of that did is Salem's Lot (and the miniseries of It doesn't count, on the grounds that the final part was shite).

Secondly, It's set in Maine. Why does every single Stephen King story take place in Maine? Good God, man, you're rich enough - do some travelling. Ffs.

Thirdly it's about a female, blonde FBI agent (who just happens to be an orphan) investigating strange people and strange happenings in the town of Haven er...Fringe anyone? Or perhaps the X files?. Good grief.

The pilot sets up a luuuuuuuurve triangle pretty quickly between her and the handsome (note to self: questionable...) local detective, who's literally an unfeeling lump, and the beardy young psychic smuggler type who's a little bit rogue-ish and looks like a cross between Ali-G and Ross from Friends (for younger readers: that was a hit show in the 1990s. Girls liked it for some reason. You can still catch repeats of it on one of Channel 4s crappier digital channels. If you can be bothered.)

Wooden acting, a cast who aren't attractive or recognisable enough, a "who-cares" plot...Oh, I can't be arsed to tell you how mundane this show is, so I'll stop right now.

In my 1970s Indian soft-drink scale of goodness, this is definitely Campa Cola. If you've ever tsated that stuff, you'll know that's bad. Oh, and I don't know if Haven is coming to the UK soon (and in this case, I don't care).

Sunday 3 October 2010

The Event - update

You might want to look back at my previous posts about The Event.

The second episode...whoa...

The writers promised that unlike the equally flashback-tastic Lost, they were going to give the audience answers.

And boy, they really do that, less than 10 minutes into the second episode. Suddenly, you're watching a completely different show to the one you thought you were.

It's on Channel 4 from 9pm on Friday 22nd October . Watch it. It's cracking (Grommit).

Boardwalk of broken dreams

Time to feel the width and the quality:



Boardwalk Empire - I've heard it's going to be broadcast here sometime next year (probably on Sky 'cause they have that tie-in deal with HBO - betcha they put it on Box Office, just like they did with the Pacific).

What you probably already know: It's written by the guy behind the Sopranos, the first episode is directed by Martin Scorsese, it's based on a book, and stars Steve Buscemi. Oh and they spent a stupid amount of money on recreating the Boardwalk of Atlantic City in 1920, yada,yada,yada...

If you want more detailled nerdy stuff about it, these guys are
quite unfeasibly excited, and have already set up their own UK fansite here, complete with drinking game:

http://boardwalkempire.co.uk/blog

So what's the show like? Er.. well, with that pedigree, it's no surprise it's top quality. First up: check out this title sequence:



OoOOh. It's a cougaresque MILF of a show, isn't it? Mature and expensive.

The first episode lays the groundwork for the 11 other episodes to come, and it unveils just how the world is changing for Enoch "Nucky" Thompson (Buscemi), the corrupt county treasurer for Atlantic City. I'm gonna try not to give too much away, but it's 1920, and Prohibition has just been introduced in the States. Nucky sees it as an opportunity to become a major booze importer, but he also sees himself as a benign public servant (on the take). We can already see how his future is going to pan out, especially after he starts dealing with big city mobsters.

Added into this volatile mix is a young, damaged man, James "Jimmy" Darmody, who's just returned from the trenches of the World War I. He's played by Michael Pitt, and I couldn't work out why he gave me the bloody creeps, until I remembered I'd last seen him terrorising Tim Roth with a golf club in the horrible Funny Games. I've gottta admit, the boy does simmering menace pretty well.

And there are some delightful cameos, in particular, Michael K Williams* (that's right - it's Omar, Wire fans!) and my favourite, Stephen Graham (yup, Combo from This is England) as Al Capone. I swear, that man is quickly becoming the British Joe Pesci, and he steals every scene, in everything he's in. (BTW I'll be looking at This is England '86 v.soon. Shame on you if you missed it)

Anyway, the show lives up to all the hype...but..when I reflected on it, the first episode does comes across like Scorsese-by-numbers, kinda like Goodfellas in the 1920s. And it is slow, and a bit soapy. I'm not sure I have the patience to see it unfold.

In conclusion,this is Millers Crossing in the style of Goodfellas. What? you like both of those films? Good. You'll like this then.

Still, on my dubious 1970s Indian-soft-drink scale of goodness, this is a Mangola.

(and if you haven't seen Millers Crossing, why the hell not? It's probably the best gangster film ever made...)

Buy it here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Millers-Crossing-DVD-Gabriel-Byrne/dp/B00008RWW5

(*Interesting factoid: the "K" in Michael K Williams stands for Kenneth. Though I doubt anyone would go up to him in reality and say "oOH! Matron!". I suspect that would not go down well. At all.)

Friday 1 October 2010

No Ordinary programme....

I wasn't going to watch this at all. No, really, I wasn't, especially after seeing this trailer.



The trailer for ABCs No Ordinary Family. Cheesy cheesy cheesy. Excuse me while I have a strip wash to remove the overpowering smell of cheese. That's better.

But you know what? I actually really liked it. The whole programme is drenched in sunlight and good-natured charm. If it was an animal, it would be the Labrador Dug from the film Up. I kid you not. The show practically wags it's tail, jumps up and licks your face all the way through. I found myself saying "Gettoff!", but smiling and giving it a sneaky pat when no-one was looking.

I think Julie Benz (last seen lying dead in a blood-filled tub as Dexter's Rita) and Michael Chiklis (from the Shield) were deliberately cast because the parts they've played in previous shows were, frankly, a bit miserable (and in the case of Rita, a bit stupid too).

And boy, do they have fun as Jim and Stephanie Powell. And that's the point. This isn't Heroes. It's not even The Incredibles . There's not a great deal of angst going on here about getting superpowers, no sullen monologues about it, none of that crap.

They simply do what you or I would do if we suddenly discovered we had superpowers. They take 'em for a test ride! And take the piss out of the whole superhero business into the bargain. The best bits of the show so far are the scenes with Jim Powell and his best friend George (Romany Malco from Weeds), where they wander around like two little boys, trying out Jim's new powers in a wholly irresponsible way.

The things that jar slightly are the slightly unconvincing back story about the Powells being a dysfunctional family, and the slightly underwritten character of their son, JJ. Their daughter Daphne, played by Kay Panabaker (great name) is a bit more fleshed out. Another irritating thing is that there's a lot of chat directly to camera, Ferris Bueller-style. Let's hope they knock that on the head.

Oh yes, and it's got that bloke in it who played the pilot in Tales of the Gold Monkey as Stephanie's boss. Surely you remember that show. What do you mean you were in primary school? Er...yeah, so was I (cough). And he looks practically the same.



I'm still trying to work out some kind of grading system for new shows. Let's try 1970s Indian soft drinks for this one.

bad = Campa cola
ok I suppose = Limca
not bad = Thums-up cola
great = Mangola

If you want undemanding escapist entertainment, No Ordinary Family is definitely Mangola.

Hmm. maybe I need to rethink my grading system.