bad puns

Consult this

MattLeave a comment

Oh, Auntie. After a year of bigger and smaller disappointments and only one moderate success, you’ve shown me you can pull it off. And how… 2010’s Sherlock was a great treat: funny, exciting, smart. But it was also only three episodes, one of which was decidedly weaker than the others. Would a 1 1/2 year hiatus help? Judging from the New Year’s Day episode and season starter “A Scandal in Belgravia”, the answer to that is a definite, loud, positively orgasmic “Yes!” Honestly, has there been witty dialogue, chemistry between the characters and stylish execution like this in any UK production in the last couple of years?

No, “Scandal” wasn’t perfect; it did have a couple of very cheesy moments, two of which weakened the female guest star in ways that are perhaps a bit iffy (mind you, I wouldn’t agree with the extent to which Jane Clare Jones criticises the episode), and it was perhaps too self-consciously cute with its references, punning and otherwise, to Doyle’s original stories (I groaned at the “Speckled Blonde”, though I loved the hat bit). Regardless, the episode was pretty much perfect in terms of being wonderfully entertaining – and just when you thought the humour might become self-congratulatory, Sherlock throws a scene at you that works as drama, showing that for all his brilliance, the main character is deeply flawed. The series is a fan of Sherlock-as-genius, but it doesn’t make the mistake of becoming fanboyish – or -girlish, although I gather that Benedict Cumberbatch does make for rather yummy eye candy. Then again, the testosterone brigade can hardly complain after a guest starring spot by Lara Pulver that would have made Mary Whitehouse’s head explode.

Oh, and the dialogues! If you were wondering where the sparkling repartee of a The Thin Man had gone, look no further: the Beeb’s been stockpiling it, refining it and quite possibly enriching it with steroids. This exclusive trailer from The Guardian website may be a bit weird, but it has a fantastic exchange between Holmes and Watson:

So, BBC, bring it on. Give me what you’ve got. And I’ll be willing to forgive you for the wasted potential of Exile.

More series business

MattLeave a comment

How many different series can a person watch and still keep them all apart? Right now we’re watching Angel, House  M.D., Carnivale and Heroes and Grey’s Anatomy, I’m rewatching Six Feet Under, Battlestar Galactica and Life on Mars, we’ve just finished Fringe and we’re waiting to continue The Sopranos and Buffy. Well, at least no one can accuse me of being a total elitist snob when it comes to telly series…

I enjoyed Fringe because it fulfilled my post-X-Files FBI-investigating-weird-shit cravings. Is it a good series? Not particularly – it’s repetitive, some of the acting is dubious and with half the episodes I think that I’ve seen them before, only Mulder and Scully did them better. It’s great turn-off-your-brain TV fast-food, though, and I’m looking forward to more Leonard Nimoy in season 2. “It’s all lies. But they’re entertaining lies. And in the end, isn’t that the real truth?” (Damn you, YouTube, for not having a clip of that scene!)

The answer is, "No."

Grey’s Anatomy has been something of a guilty pleasure of mine, and throughout much of season 4 it wasn’t all that much of a pleasure, to be honest. The series’ problem – well, main problem – is that they’ve got a number of very good actors and even the middling actors know their parts by now, but the writing (especially with respect to character development) covers the whole range from maudlin to obvious to plain bad, with the occasional strong scene. If the series could decide to be a comedy, it wouldn’t matter that most of the characters are written to be highly unprofessional so much of the time (typical example: some patient is dying and needs urgent care, and doctor X decides that this is the right moment to ask doctor Y why they didn’t have sex the previous night – remind me not to get ill in TV Seattle…). It takes very good writing to make the constant jumps from quirky comedy to serious (melo)drama work if the characters aren’t to come across as nincompoops at the mercy of the script. Season 5 had many of those weaknesses, but it had enough strong moments to keep me watching. Still, there are some developments and storylines that just annoy the hell out of me: a resident at a big Seattle hospital going more or less bankrupt from one day to the next because Daddy cuts her trust fund? Swapping one interesting lesbian character for cute but eternally bland blondie because you want eye candy rather than an actual character? Derek Shepard yet again going all pompously self-righteous, and still no one takes one of those circular saws to his perfectly coiffed head?

If we all gang up and stab him with scalpels, it shouldn't take too long...

In the meantime, I’m rather enjoying where Angel season 3 is taking us. Yes, there were a couple of false steps – Gunn and Wesley going all mooney over Fred wasn’t cute, it was just annoying, and having it go on for several episodes made me want to go Angelus on them all – but it’s fascinating to see how Angel, Cordelia and especially Wesley develop during the season. Just 2-3 more episodes to go until season 4 – and I’m ignoring all those people who say that it’s one of the worst seasons ever in the Whedonverse, because it’s something we have to get through before season 5 and “Smile Time” and the (wait for it) bitter-sweet finale. (Yes, Lucy, I put that there just for you…)

Oh, before I forget: gotta love this recent article in The Onion: Next Tarantino Movie An Homage To Beloved Tarantino Movies Of Director’s Youth.

Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. How many fights is that? A lot.

And finally: I’ll be writing a weekly entry at The Best Shows You’re Not Watching, alternating between Six Feet Under and Life on Mars. You can find the first one here. Let me know what you think!

Fangs for all the memories

Matt2 Comments

Eugh. Okay, I admit, that one was quite atrocious. Still, it fits, I’m afraid. 

So, how does one replace Six Feet Under as the weekly Sunday morning programme? Does one go for something equally HBO – The Sopranos or Carnivàle? Or indeed The Wire? Well, the last one wasn’t an option, since a friend of mine has the DVDs at the moment.

For reasons that I won’t go into in great detail, we chose Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Perhaps it’s the whole death/funeral/cemetery thing. In any case, I’ve been watching Buffy for a while, usually while working out, and I’ve just started season 7. My love hasn’t seen any of the series, so we just watched the pilot. Here are some of my thoughts on revisiting Buffy:

  • My god, they’re all so young! And not just the usual suspects, like Buffy, Willow or Xander. Giles looks younger than I am! And they definitely played up the “British pansy” bit much, much more at the beginning. Can’t wait for him to become his later snarky self.
  • Cordelia? Nope, still don’t particularly like her. At least not in this series. She works better in Angel. (Yes, I watch Angel too. I never said I wasn’t a geek.)
  • Eric Balfour is dangerous to hang out with, at least if you’re a highschool student. Either he’ll turn into a crazed druggie juvenile delinquent (only to turn up a year later, blissfully dead) or he’ll become a vampire and much cooler than you, at least until you drive a stake through his heart.
  • I don’t think David Boreanaz is a particularly good actor. He works okay in his Angel role, mainly because he’s grown into the character. But in his first few scenes in Buffy? Ow. Ow, ow, ow.
  • And: they’re all so young!

 So, for all of those who hate Sarah Michelle Gellar’s guts or who couldn’t care less about teen/twen angst dressed up in vamp metaphor, combined with some of the coolest character work Joss Whedon did before the much-mourned Firefly, you may want to give future Sunday blog entries a miss. In which case I may just have to hunt you down and drive a stake through your heart. And then make a witty quip about it. While looking good in miniskirts. You’ve been warned.

… so young…