TV round up

I have to squee at you dear reader, please take a seat. I have to squee because I've got a new show which ticks my boxes and that doesn't happen as often as it should do.

Forbrydelsen.

Or The Killing if you prefer. How did I miss this first time round? Dear old BBC Four didn't really trail it and I'd heard the hype but didn't want to come into something half way through and was going to rent it from love film but Auntie saw fit to give this show a repeat showing. 20 tense episodes over four weeks.  I currently am one episode behind as its hard to make time enough to sit down and watch on a daily basis but its so good my chap and I caught up at the weekend and we can happily watch two episodes when we get behind.

So what's so good about this show? I know a lot of people get put off something if they have to watch it with subtitles, but not this puppy. Denmark seems familiar but different; we've had a lot of rain recently and the colouring of the show matches it perfectly. A lot of US shows are very colourful and sunny, this is bleak looking but there's beauty in the bleakness.

The protagonist is Sarah Lund, she wears chunky jumpers and in that respect alone, she's a woman after my own heart.  She's dedicated to her job so much so, she can't leave even though she has a young teenaged son and a Swedish boyfriend who looks like Richard Gere.  She's also very good at her job, she has principles and she isn't an alcoholic and she doesn't have any of the more usual foibles which detectives all seem to have in modern mysteries.  Her grumpy replacement Meyer is irked by Lund's continued presence and her boss doesn't want her to leave.  Meyer and Lund don't really get on, he's somewhat slap dash but his heart is in the right place even when he goes for the easy option.

Add to the mix the family of the murdered girl the Birk Larsen's their reaction to their daughter's death played beautifully and truthfully. 

There's also a political Layer Troels Hartmann campaigning to become mayor, he has his advisor and lover Rie and Morten his campaign manager.  His party are backstabbing and his opponents seem to be capable of stooping to ever more scary depths.

The story is utterly compelling, littered with red herrings and twists, just when you think you've got a handle on things and a working theory, new information comes to light and your prime suspect is now innocent.

I'm loving the tenseness of the show its operating on so many levels and seemingly effortless while it does so.

I can't wait to see how it does.

I'm also rejoicing because Doctor Who is back.

Let's Kill Hitler was a romp wasn't it? Many questions answered, and a fair few more asked. Thank you Steven Moffat, this was excellent when a Good Man Goes to War felt to me to be all set up with not enough satisfaction.  I love that the title was a joke and Rory Williams is a complete BAMF.

I can't really discuss much about the show without spoilers but I will say, "you are authorised;  your existence will continue" made us guffaw along with "you may experienc a tingling feeling then death."

The Borgia is my current catnip.  Its sumptuously shot and Jeremy Irons is second only to Alan Rickman in voice and making me go kind of gooey.  He is quite simply acting the socks off anyone else in shot with an extreme close up and an eyebrow quirk.  The show itself is ridiculous in the way that the Tudors is and in that respect most enjoyable but I'm not expecting nor even wanting historical accuracy. And what's more I don't care I'm having fun watching it and that's all that matters.

I'm also watching the third season of Warehouse 13 which is now being shown in the UK on SyFy.  The show goes from strength to strength, I love the quirkiness of it and the steam punk elements which make this show great for family viewing.  The cast is a great ensemble and its always reasonable viewing.  Its never going to change the world but who said every tv show had to?

Changes to this blog

I'm a bad blogger, I don't have a regular schedule and I'm a bit random, though random about TV film theatre and books.

So I've been thinking, and I'm wanting to organise myself a little bit better.

The plan is this: to write three regular blog posts per week, one for the TV I've been watching, one top ten/top five/pic spam and one lucky dip.

If you want to prompt me with a theme for a list please comment.

So with out further ado I give you My Top Five Shows that were cancelled too soon.

1.  Dollhouse.

I was one of the few.  I loved this show and thought it was pretty damned epic. The premise sounded hokey I'll give you that and the first five episodes of season one were not very good and we know that was all down to the network interfering in Joss Whedon's show.  When the plot arc took off the show really did come into its own. So many layers of deception and it just kept on getting twistier. (What you say twistier isn't a word, well  damned well should be.) I was amazed when it got a second season and what a second season it was. The red herrings, the feints, the grand reveals, Epitaph 1 and 2. I'll concede that Eliza Dushku isn't that strong an actress but as with all Whedon shows it wasn't about Echo, it became about the Ensemble.  The subject matter wasn't an easy sell either but it was a great show and I for one really miss it.

2.  Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

I'll let you into a little secret, I actually prefer Studio 60 to the West Wing.  Now, before you call me out and want me shot, let me explain my theory why.  I came to Studio 60 first, I'd missed out on the West Wing and the goodies it had to offer and my introduction to Aaron Sorkin was this gem which ran for 22 episodes.  The writing for the pilot is completely exquisite and some might argue that the show lost pace half way through its run, I still loved every second. I have a deep abiding love of Matthew Perry and the relationship between Matt Albie and Danny Tripp is one of the most absorbing friendships I've ever seen portrayed on screen.

3.  Firefly

Its a must on any list for a show that was cancelled too soon. Another one of Joss Whedon's greats. Completely underrated when it first aired and pulled too frakking early.  Now another little confession and a controversial one. I prefer Dollhouse to Firefly. There I said it and I believe it so deal with it.  I like Firefly and yes it was cut down in it's prime but it didn't hit some of the buttons for me that Dollhouse did. I don't know maybe I'm just born that way or something I don't know.

4.  Caprica

I really got into this series I watched the first ten episodes fanatically, I was so excited there was going to be ERic Stoltz there was going to 'Grandpa' Joe Adama as a younger man, young William. So many possibilities and I loved the forties Noir feel of the show and then came the hiatus.

And we waited and we waited and the show got buried.  I still haven't finished watching this show, but I will, one spare weekend I'll over dose on the lot. It had some great promise and Sasha Roiz as Sam Adama. Who could ask for more?

5. Pushing Daisies

Oh this show was so saccharine it hurts your teeth but its a bittersweet too. Another show that managed two seasons before getting chopped off despite having some great little plot arcs, it was romantic and sweet and funny and very very knowing.  

Where else could you fine Kristin Chenoweth and Ellen Greene in the same show? Remember this was pre Glee!

Olive Sings Hopelessly Devoted to You

Torchwood Miracle Day

I've been quiet the last couple of weeks because I was hoping that Torchwood would improve and its with a heavy heart that I have to report that its completely lost the plot.

I'm not someone who is adverse to change, I like it and equally I find shows that retread the same set of tropes endlessly somewhat a chore to watch.

I've been reading a number of opinions out there on what's going on with Torchwood and the consensus is that it has lost it's charm somewhere along the flight across the atlantic.

Some people have suggested that Miracle Day started life as a 5 parter like Children of Earth it's true that the pace of the show feels like there's rather a lot of padding going on.

As far as the characters are concerned, Rex can go die-in-a-fire. Esther who was a little bit like Tosh 2.0 is so consistent at doing stupid things I'm about ready to pop a vein when I see her on the screen.  Gwen and I have always had a difficult relationship, I didn't really like her, although she utterly redeemed herself for me in Children of Earth by being AWESOME.  Miracle Day, she veers between almost likeable and bat poop crazy. I love Eve Myles and it is fantastic that we see a normal woman sized woman on the screen but by the cringe Gwen makes me want to stab my own eyes out.

And where the hell is Jack?  For many people Jack is Torchwood and in Miracle Day he's around briefly and he's all out of character and not the Captain Jack we adore and love to see taking names and kicking ass.

It’s a mess, a big mess. I'm persisting with the show because its one I used to hold so dear and it makes me sad to see the show that I used to enjoy so much become so much of a chore.

True there were moments where I laughed out loud, but they weren't comedy moments, they were meant to be moments of drama which came across as the bat poop crazy variety.

Also we've had lots of coverage of Oswald Danes and Kitty only for them to be completely ingnored in episode six.  Where were they?  Come to mention it, what happened with the creepy mask wearing cult, the souless? THey disappeared pretty quickly and without explanation, also the Dead is Dead Brigade were offed pretty quickly. I'm not a script writer but all the loose ends that are discarded are pretty frustrating for a viewer. There is a frustrating lack of answers and I'd have thought that over half way through the series answers would at least begin to be forthcoming. You know something, anything.


One thing I've been talking to people about is how this show isn't Torchwood anymore, for episode seven I'm going to try watching it as though its called something else, maybe I'll be able to enjoy it then?


So I'm sticking with it out of sheer bloodimindedness.


Wish me luck.

Futile Flame and Demon Dance by Sam Stone

Where the first novel focuses on Gabrielle the second novel concentrates on Lucrezia (yes Borgia) and her story. I have to say Sam Stone doesn't shy away from tough storylines and the second chapter might be rather tough for some readers.

The pace of the novel is quick and I've had to do a few things one handed the last couple of days just so I could see what happens next.

The last third of the novel really takes an unexpected turn and I'm not 100% convinced by it, it's quite a departure to what has gone before, what I will say is that it didn't make me any less determined to read the third in the series.

Demon Dance is the third in the Vampire Gene series of novels and by far the most complicated in terms of its narrative. Futile Flame left us dangling with Lilly disappearing and then phoning up from Sweden and Demon Dance picks the tale up from that point and runs with it.

Again I don't want to give much of the plot away but the major theme in this of time travel and paradox and places which were visited within Futile Flame are returned to and explored from a different point of view.  Lilly is very different to the version we meet in killing kiss. The change is necessary and  does make sense once you start reading.

I have to confess some elements of the book didn't move me, some of the mystical stuff was a bit bangly hobbity for my tastes and the Allucians don't really work for me but having said all that it didn't stop me from enjoying the book.

I like that the author is prepared to make her narratives unreliable and things that one character has told us might not be the truth. I like being hoodwinked by an author it means I have to make decisions as a reader and that's always fun.

I do like the author's use of language, the imagery that she uses to describe scenes is evocative and I particularly enjoyed the description of the relationship between Lilly and Rhuddlan castle.  The description of her magical elements, ley lines and gene magic are both utterly compelling and so vivid.

One thing that I thought sorted itself a tad too easily was the triangular relationship between Lilly, Gabrielle and Caesare. I would have expected there to be some awkwardness even if that was dealt with in the next book.

Overall a very enjoyable and entertaining read, less disturbing than the previous one, I'm looking forward to the next one which I believe is out soon.

Thundercats Ho!

One of my favourite cartoons on tv when I was growing up was Thundercats. To my unsophisticated six year old self it was truly ace, a corking theme tune, memorable characters and good stories, I can't say for sure whether the stories were as ace as I remembered them, I've not seen them since the late 80s but they did stick with me and yes, from time to time I do say Snarf snarf in the voice, just because I can.  I had a crush on Cheetarah, and I adored Wiley Kit and Kat. We almost certainly played thundercats in the school playground.

I found out from various sources over the weekend that Thundercats was being remade. My initial reaction best summed up as (OMGWTFBBQ?) and then when the opportunity presented itself to stream said episode (rather later than it should have been last night) I clicked the link and watched. To be fair I only intended on watching the first five minutes, but you know what? I really enjoyed it and instead of just watching one episode I ended up watching the whole two-parter.

Now the remake is not exactly the same as the old Thundercats, the characters have been redesigned. They are all in a manga/amime style which I love and they seem to have been reimagined but in the good BSG way rather than the bad (insert your own example of a bad remake here) and what they've come up with is a really engaging cartoon, that held my interest for forty five minutes because it was a good story even if a lot of the animation looked a bit cheap.

Now, it could be down to my curiosity to see how the characters had changed, in the redesign, Snarf, is still Snarf but doesn't speak (which is good but I miss the snarf snarfs.) Cheetarah, still hot fwiw and wiley kit and Kat still rock.  I don't want to get into too much about the plot of which there is lots, even if they do pay homage to the Trojan horse.

I felt it was a good, there was humour and there were epic battles. Yes there is still Slythe and Mum-Rah so its not all that different and I think I'll be tracking down more of this cartoon just because it was actually that enjoyable.

Unexpected blasts from the pasts updated for the new millennium ftw.

Torchwood Miracle day ep 3

It seems that I do have an opinion every week on the show I wasn't sure that I would have so here we go.

Firstly minor squee here, Jane Espenson one of my favourite writers (wrote most famously for Buffy and has written some Battlestar Galactica co-created Warehouse 13) put pen to paper for this episode and I really wanted to embrace it and love it because this woman wrote some of my favourite telly moments and you know what?

I'm feeling back to square one in not feeling this new Torchwood.

First off, BBC you've cut some of the naughty scenes, really in this day and age do you have to?

Right back to the plot, still loving Jilly the evil PR woman she is deliciously devious and we've learned that she's working for the EVIL big pharma company Phicor. Also she's managed to win over the horrendous Oswald Danes.

The 'team' Jack is having a bit of a mid life crisis it seems, coming to terms with being mortal is a big thing, and he tackled it the way that most people tackle things that they find hard to handle and sought solace at the bottle of a glass and with a cute (male) bar tender. Gwen is Gwen and I don't think that her character has changed at all, her world has got bigger but she's the rock of this series.  When Jack calls her, clearly not coping in the middle of the night Gwen has managed to speak to Rhys and Annwyn which obviously shows where her priority lies.

I like Esther, I do even though I feel that they are just pushing her into the role that was vacated by Tosh and characteristically they are similar. I still feel like Rex is meant to be Owen Harper mark II and no sorry he does not work in the sarky role because he doesn't appear to be able to be sarcastic. Though props to the makeup team, his chest wound was quite disturbing.  I find the doctor too a little bit of a non entity and again it feels like the tropes of series one Torchwood with what happens when Tosh found out that Owen was having an affair with Gwen.

I liked the bit in the warehouse "its bigger on the inside" oh lol. Also the contact lenses that we first saw in Children of Earth. I also liked the soulless, those masks are disconcertingly creepy.

So what about the plot? Well it seems that EVOL!BIG!PHARMACOMPANY is EVOL! They have been stockpiling drugs for a long time which implies that they knew that this was coming. Dun dun dun. With the Oswald thing, who is using who? I'm not sure yet.

So we've got a bunch of questions to which more will be added next week, at least according to the trailer we will, I'm wondering if I'll reach saturation point for the Questions.  An answer or two would be nice.  

Oh by the way, if you are missing Owen Harper all the more by Rex being a Fail!Owen!Replacement! you can catch Burn Gorman, being awesome in the Hour.

This blog post was brought to you by the music of Bear McCreary and Jon Bon Jovi and The Next ten minutes from The last 5 Years.

What I've been watching

A number of things actually, my chap and I have worked our way steadily through Treme which is a superbly crafted piece of television. The pacing of the show is glacial but it certainly rewards those of us who stuck with it.  Some TV can be mainlined you need to watch many episodes to get your fill, Treme doesn't work like that.  I found that one episode is enough, it is almost as though the show is so dense and rich that you have to give your brain time to digest what it has seen. I've not seen a show that's made me want to stop and think so much since the first time of watching Battlestar Galactica, though Game of Thrones has its moments.

We're following it up by embarking on The Wire.  This is my second attempt at watching the wire, I tried to follow it on the BBC when they showed it late night every night on BBC2, this did not end well. This time I'm going to do it right and not be tired when I'm watching, I'm also going to be unplugged as I know its a show that will demand my concentration.

In the meantime we're watching Episodes which we are loving and is something that we've been able to mainline. I never thought I would say this but I'm loving Matt Le Blanc, he's playing a version of himself which seems to us to be completely plausible.  It also stars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Grieg and it is a very funny show.  I'm a bit of a sucker for shows which are meta like this one.

I've also  literally inhaled the whole of season 2 of Nurse Jackie, its one of those shows that has got me on the edge of my seat, I love how the viewer roots for Jackie, even when she's one of those dubious protagonists that seem to be incredibly fashionable right now.  That isn't meant to be disparaging, Nurse Jackie is original and very funny and the drama derives from the situations that Jackie get's into with a great supporting cast.

I'll have to book another day off so that I can do the same with series 3.

Over the weekend we had a house guest and she's reignited my love affair with Sherlock and Studio 60 on the sunset strip.  Rewatching Sherlock is a joy because it is so sexy and put together so perfectly. The art direction and the casting and the writing especially on A Study in Pink and The Great Game is just perfection. Studio 60 also has one of the best pilot episodes I've ever seen, I love the writing and the banter in that show and I still feel raw that the show got cancelled after only one season.