Brainy Is The New Sexy

'In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer — excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.'
Sir A Conan Doyle - 'A Scandal In Bohemia'

So, unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably noticed a certain amount of fuss over the latest television incarnation of Dr Wh.... sorry, Sherlock Holmes. Well, it's an easy mistake to make isn't it? Both are unbearable show-offs, with lesser companions to contextualise their clever-dickery. Both have brains the size of planets, quirky dress sense and most importantly (SPOILER ALERT) both have the rather useful ability to transcend death and become reborn.

Ignoring the obvious Christ analogies, this trick of recharging/reanimating a withering franchise was quite possibly Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's greatest legacy to scriptwriters, producers and directors. The sleuth's reappearance from the dead after his tussle with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls at least normalised the device of bringing back heroes from seemingly impossible dead ends. From Superman to Ellen Ripley; we owe it all to Sir Arthur.

But back to the timelord comparisons...The genetic makeup of the modernised Baker Street sleuth and the causes of his massive success are largely down to the men who have successfully taken Conan Doyle's original text and coated it with 21st century slickness and gadgetry: Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss. Both wrote for Dr Who (it's worth noting that Sherlock directors Euros Lyn and Toby Haynes also directed the Gallifrean) and both are quite obviously people who, as school children, didn't quite get out enough at break time; preferring to pore over books and other such girly things. Dr Who (at least from the reign of Russell T Davies onwards) has been revenge of sorts of the sci fi geek: Sherlock's furtherance of this gold-plated success has shown that a deep and abiding love plus obsessive familiarity of the principles and twists that made up the mechanics of Sir A's books (and let's not forget that Conan Doyle wrote a lot of sci fi as well) really does prepare one for world TV domination. For, once you get the balance of scientific method and sexual politics right, you have the makings of something unbeatable. As Irene Adler (she of the quotation above) says in A Scandal In Belgravia, the first episode of the recently finished series of Sherlock: 'Brainy is the new Sexy'. And how...

Moffatt and Gatiss have served us up a world where plots and on-screen CGI trickery almost fall over themselves to scream, 'look! I'm being clever!', whether it's with animated texts popping up in the air or via whip smart scripts that combined humour with the most important sleight of hand needed in a detective thriller: subtle exposition. In all three parts of this second series, original plots were hinted at just enough to make the connoisseur chuckle (The Speckled Band became the Speckled Blonde, the appearance of the deerstalker - although in the books Holmes never wore one), recurring jokes rewarded the regular viewer (ie: the constant denial of Holmes and Watson's homosexuality) and above all none of the details were over-explained, although a certain amount of plausibility was maintained. After all: Sherlock is nothing if not the very embodiment of rationalism versus superstition. But that isn't to say that our modernised titular hero had no soul or even any desires.

Take another look at that opening paragraph. Conan Doyle's original existed in a different era: one that worshipped the rational above all. Adler is admired more than other females because Holmes was bested by her; ultimately by escaping with her (unused) blackmail material and with a new husband, to boot. Interestingly, the character of Irene Adler has been used time and again by those who sought to extend the franchise, as a cypher for the one woman (THE Woman) who could get to Holmes' heart. Billy Wilder's The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes is probably the most famous example. But in the most recent incarnation the power play is markedly shifted.

Putting aside recent attempts to brand Moffatt's treatment of Adler as a lesbian dominatrix as sexist, the episode featuring Sherlock's encounter with a woman who doesn't bore him (the one quality he abhors in all of humanity) takes a new turn with the old plot device. Here Sherlock's admiration quickly turns into something approaching mystification. To all intents and purposes, lovelorn, following her supposed death, on hearing that she still lives he literally floats down Baker Street to his front door. We see the one thing that Conan Doyle's hero never displayed - he's confused; dumbfounded at the effect of another human on his world.

But that's not to say that only one episode was sexy. Episode two's take on the Hound of The Baskervilles (plural hounds in this case) was spiced up by default, not only by Watson's chatting up technique, but also by the mere presence of Russell Tovey, BBC Three shorthand for desirability (although his 'stunned taxi with its doors open' act does nothing for me). It wasn't quite as alluring, but luckily the biggest guns were reserved for the finale. Andrew Scott's Jim Moriarty chewed scenery but made something of a mark by luring Sherlock, not with his very own viciously camp charms, but by appealing to Holmes' greatest love... himself.

While it could also be argued that the trio of Moriarty, Watson and Holmes made up a very palpable male love-triangle, ultimately Holmes' downfall was effected by the one thing that was obvious all along: his narcissism. How he loved to show off. It is a portrait of a man who needs unconditional admiration from the whole world but saves the messy stuff for his own head. Moriarty's lustful defrocking of the genius says more about the arch-criminal's need to get his attention, but in the end, as Sherlock (MORE SPOILER ALERTS) watches Watson cry at his graveside, it becomes apparent that other's love for him is merely baffling; for no one loves Sherlock quite as much as Sherlock.

The fact that I've expended several hours and some paltry brain power on a mere detective series confirms to me that this was great telly and superb drama. Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and Andrew Scott all shone, although on second viewing I found Lara Pulver's Adler somewhat more stilted than it previously appeared. I must have been somehow distracted...

And that's exactly why Moffatt and Gatiss deserve our thanks. In using such subterfuge, distractions and trickery, they're easily the equal of Moriarty himself. Brainy, sexy nerds. I look forward to series three.

Hello Damon!

(Firstly, an apology: I promised myself I wasn't going to write another word on the shark-jumping spectacular we call Lusht here at Garuda-towers. But bear with me. Normal service will be resumed etc. etc.) Yes folks this is it. I've finally turned into another of those chuckleheaded idiots who get so involved in their drama that they start to think that the TV IS TALKING DIRECTLY TO THEM. In other words, I watched this week's partial return-to-form episode of Lusht (The Man From Talahasee) and suddenly realised that Damon Lindelof had left me the biggest possible clue as to who 'The Great Man' aka 'Jacob' aka the leader of the Hostiles etc may be. It's ME! Good grief, I know this show was kinda interactive but come on...I never saw that one coming etc. etc.
Re-watching the mind-bending sequence where evil Ben and born-again Locke chatted about the Island and its powers (and let's not even talk about the weird hamster-related clue) I suddenly noticed what Ben had on his dining table. Yes, it's a GARUDA (see pic!!!). Call me paranoid. But are those crazy guys at ABC going inside my head? What next? Let's hope they look at my Last.fm page too. Then we'll get King Crimson instead of all that Mamas and Papas and Three Dog Night nonsense ;-)
So Lindelof, you can write to me here when you want my character to appear on the programme. But I don't get out of Streatham for less than 20 quid, y'hear?

Me And My Big Mouth (another PLOT SPOILER!)

Typical. In my last post I sang the praises of Katee Sackhoff - Kara Thrace AKA Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica, the most irksome, infuriating, contrary, warm, lovable, sexy and downright HUMAN character on the whole shebang and what happens? Yup, THEY KILLED HER OFF!!!
Now I'm paranoid. Is someone at the Sci Fi channel reading this?
Of course not.
But after everything I said about the whole family schtick that BG has goin' on, this hit hard. Too hard actually. It can't be healthy to grieve for a fictional character can it? But it just goes to prove that I was on the money too. This series is awesome and (by all accounts ) will continue to be so right up to the last episode of this season.
Meanwhile, bye lovely Starbuck. You were frakked-up, but still wonderful...sniff. See you on the other side...

(ps I KNOW she'll be back, so don't write to tell me)

Lost in Space

Now that Lusht has returned from its 'hiatus' (ie: 'hey guys, how do we make this thing start moving again?'), let's look at exactly how wayward it's become shall we? Firstly the two month break was an insult that no amount of calling it a 'mini-season' could disguise. Don't be surprised if a slew of time-wasting episodes followed by an eight week disappearance affects your ratings, you morons at ABC. Frankly I would have thought that the success of the thing so far would have guaranteed some kind of top-level solutions as to how to get it back on track. But no...
From this you have probably gathered that I'm losing my patience. OK, I've lost it. maybe that was the point of the title all along. They could have a new mega billboard campaign with the words: 'HAVE YOU LOST IT YET?' hovering over the lush jungle. Or a picture of one of Jack's fabulous Jackfaces! Boy, they've been plentiful over the last couple of weeks.
Of course the real problem was that when they started revealing stuff the whole edge-of-your-seat feeling was going to decrease exponentially. Like Pandora's box, no amount of trying to retrospectively stuff things back in will stop its steady decline. Thus we end up with a dismally extended section on the awful 'others' and their 'it's more complicated than that' explanation-avoidance stuff that they trot out instead of actually summing it all up in one sentence and thus making the next two years completely redundant. The people who watch this aren't total idiots (apart from the subscribers to this kind of nonsense) and can only take the same type of disappointment so many times before we know that any question posed will only result in some kind of vague obfustication that delays any gratification for the sake of franchise extension. This week's episode (plot spoil...oh who CARES?) was a fine case in point. Hurley's questions to the returned Sawyer (after weeks in the Others camp) amounted to 'Where's Jack?' (answer: the doc didn't make it) and were left at that. See? Even the main characters have given up hoping for anything but vagueness!
To be fair the series is still high on production values - this week's meteor strike was both hilarious and impressive, while still filling the viewer with the usual post 9-11 dread at it came whistling outta the sky (see pic). Plus it contained some genuine laugh-aloud moments - Sawyer's getting ALL the good lines these days. It still manages to produce a palpable sense of mounting edginess that gets the heart pumping. So, pace, editing etc - not bad, but as I say now we know that one mystery just leads to another, less-interesting one (cf: the Others' 'real' home ferchrissakes. I'm starting to wonder if there's an infinite number of islands now). It means that no matter how many weird bits the writers gratuitously shove in (the brainwashing room, the man with the eye patch, Desmond's life flashing before his eyes, Claire's incredible changing hairdo - in fact EVERYONE'S hair. Jack's appears to have just stopped growing etc.) you can't help shake the conviction that whatever happens will be a disappointment. Oh well, for one and a half seasons it was awesome...
Which brings me to my other televisual obsession, Battlestar Galactica. At approximately the same point in the run (season 3) as Lusht, it may have vaguely gone into hibernation with a couple of holding-pattern episodes about racism and unions in time of war (small-time stuff, then), but it's still the most compelling thing on MY screen these days. (I know, I'm missing Heroes, Deadwood, the Sopranos and err...Primeval out here, but frankly, I've only got a spare 40 minutes here and there these days, and life goes on). I know, I know - I'm even losing friends to this series, I keep banging on about it so much. But it occurred to me - as I wept like a pussy the other night as The Chief got the President's approval to begin union negotiations with the government and Admiral Adama demonstrated gritty determination in the face of Baltar's evil faux-prole scheming (I wish he HAD put Cally in front of a firing squad, mind) - that the big difference between Lusht and BG is the ability to make you care. While BG has just as much manipulation and nonsense it involves you by making you part of the family. Lusht just leaves you slightly satiated and wondering about all the enormous plot holes (and I'm not just talking about the imploded hatch).
There, I've said it; these people ARE like a family, with all their bickering, dysfunctionalism and deep, deep love (Starbuck's a fine case in point: never have I simultaneously hated, admired and just plain fancied a character). I used to wonder why the person who writes the TV Without Pity summaries got so deeply upset by the characters' moral and spiritual foibles until this week, when I realised I was doing it too. It sounds heavy, but frankly it's cathartic and all the healthier for it. PLUS it makes you think about the real world, while you're digging the awesome space-based action. How cool is that? Still on the agenda are the extremes a state/race will go to ensure its survival, the notion of one god verses a pantheon, and the true existence of fate. Such trivia.
Look, you can get the DVDs of the first two series on box set. Do it. You'll thank me. Honest...

Brought to B(r)ook(er) 3

My ambivalent relationship with bookshops due to a decade long career managing the bloody things has meant that I can easily miss out on stuff until it's been out for ever. Thus, while finally getting round to buying the latest M John Harrison novel I picked up Charlie Brooker's Screenburn, the collection of his TV criticism pieces from the Saturday Guardian dating from about 2000 onwards.
There's something utterly charming and comforting about reading a column which makes your own misanthropy look like mild irritation with a broken shoelace. Brooker hates for the UK, and all of his targets are utterly deserving. What's more he's incredibly fair-minded. While he bemoans the idiocy of reality show contestants, minor celebrities and Pop Idol contestants, he reserves his real ire for the complete c***s who think this stuff up. Not for nothing did Brooker invent the incredible Nathan Barley back in the day when he ran TV Go Home - the website that regularly had me laughing my tea through my nose (my favouritist ever TVGH character was Teeterlegs Jackson - the furious black 4 ft high detective who went around on stilts).
Not only this, but he's almost a poet in his use of language. No, really. Anyone who can describe Nigel Lythgoe as looking 'like Eric Idle watching a dog drown' or Anne Widecombe as having a face like a 'haunted cave in Poland' has to be some kind of genius.
But the real genius is the index. On its own it would make a great half hour read; with entries like Baker, Tom: has limbs torn off in space, 292 or Aspel, Michael: is considered dull, 8; possibly excretes eggs, 26; might as well fellate guests, 27. Whoops there goes my tea again...

PS: His Screenwipe on BBC Four is also fantastic. Try to catch it.

Plotspoiler quarterly (Lusht jumps the shark)

Got that? I'M GIVING STUFF AWAY HERE! Ok, for all you Sky-watching freaks, stop now.
However, it's my sworn duty to report on what appears to be a severe crisis at Lusht production central. Now into its two-month 'hiatus' (ie: christ, let's really go back to the drawing board before we get cancelled, guys) until February. The first 6 episodes of series 3 of the national tourist board of Hawaii's premier TV show (Check the utterly Lushtous pic below) is floundering badly. The trouble is, I still enjoy it.

The initial trick (as mentioned earlier) of making Jack quite a sympathetic character has been dulled by the endless dragging out of the whole Henry gale/Ben plotline about his bloody spinal tumour. Maybe it's the fact that the 'Others' are turning out to be as unpleasant, bitchy and disorganised as those island inhabitants who stupidly flew Oceanic, but the 'mysteries' behind everything seem to be mere placeholders to keep an increasingly flimsy series of illogical events in place. Not even the reappearance of the 'monster' in the latest episode could bring back the old magic. And why take a character like Eko to whole new bad-ass levels (the murderation in Yemi's church was ace), only to squish him against a tree? Eko's opposite number, John Locke, is looking increasingly less like the keeper of deeper knowledge and more like a middle-aged fuck up floundering through portents and visions (but at least we now know that he knows how to grow weed, hehe).
There HAVE been some great little moments. Ben/Henry telling Kate how unpleasant the next two weeks were going to be; Desmond's strange psychic/future vison stuff, and who is the man with the eyepatch???
But boy, the whole Others stuff at the Hydra station is really beginning to feel like the producers have NO idea to go until they get their big screeen version in the pipeline. At first it seemed that the mind games were all very cool, but now it just seeems as though we're gonna have to go with Kate, Sawyer and Jack's 'Escape from Stalag Lost' and just put up with EVERYBODY'S inability to answer a question in a straightforward manner. Meanwhile the beach dwellers continue to flail pointlessly until someone decides to give Desmond a bigger role, stop Sayid being so fucking serious (ok, I know he's been through a lot) , throw Charlie in a hole and give us more about the Hanso stuff. Hey ABC, I'm still here, but it's looking more and more likely that, like Twin Peaks, a cutting-edge piece of psycho-drama is turning into a bloody expensive soap.

They wouldn't put up with this in the States y'know...

(Alt. title: The License Fee - The Case Against)
God knows, I'm not one to rock the boat, especially when it may contain the hand that feeds me ;-) BUT my exposure to the first two episodes of Dr Who spin-off, Torchwood, last night did result in me doing my rabid dog impression. Honestly, are there really no half original ideas left in the UK? Obviously not.
Ok, ok I'm probably the worst person to judge such lightweight fare, especially as I've spent all year getting frustrated (which can be a good reaction to evoke in your audience) by Lusht and frankly floored by Battlestar Galactica - both of which are now into their third seasons, more of which later - but even compared with its parent show, which is designed for KIDS, it sucked on many, many levels.
Let's deal with the issue of CHEAPNESS first. Ooh, we're back to FZ again - and as he says: 'i LOVE cheap monster movies, in fact the cheaper the better'. Frankly we KNOW that the BBC's publicly funded budgets don't come close to those of ABC or Fox. The amount spent on an entire series of Torchwood would probably just about pay for Matthew Fox's face coach. But for some reason, the Beeb feels it necessary to try and poorly emulate the things that have long since become the norm for prime time adult Sci Fi in the US. Dr Who's recent resurrection saw perfectly fine CGI work (though clunky by comparison with even something like Lexx) which was leavened by amusing multi-levelled scripts and not-at-all-bad acting (though I don't totally buy the Billie Piper reappraisal. She's still only one level above X Factor stage school scum). Sure, it raised the bar, for a BBC drama, but had it tried to give us anything other than what was, at heart, nothing more than the old skool favourite with a fancier wrapping it would have failed miserably. Torchwood tries to repeat the rather quaint style but, in combining this with its more 'adult' themes, it draws attention to its huge deficiencies rather than letting you say 'bless, it's all just a jolly silly romp innit?'. Despite the fancy HQ set and the flashing lights you found yourself getting annoyed at the rubber antics of the 'Weevil' and the derivative nonsense of a purple alien sex fiend gas which, frankly, could have come from a 1967 episode of Star Trek. Of course, to cap it all, the feeble excuse to film it in Cardiff, of all places, because THE PRODUCTION TEAM IS BASED THERE was laughable. Despite numerous in-jokes to deflect its naffness ('CSI Cardiff, I'd like to see that' etc etc) it remains a deeply unsexy place to base anything, let alone a prime time Sci Fi drama. Oops there go my Welsh readers...
Which brings me on to the 'sex' aspect of Torchwood. A lot has been made of the ambiguous sexuality of the 'team'. How was this demonstrated? Well, by having the obnoxious Owen pick up both a man and a woman in a morally suspect use of alien sex pherenomes; by having the 'human interest' bore, Gwen, get some girl-on-girl action, and by constant references to Captain Jack's love of shagging anything that moves. The really clasy bit was when he snogged the alien sex fiend host/victim, giving her some of his cosmic 'juice' if you will, and then arrogantly proclaimed something like 'imagine what the rest of me's like if you get that from a kiss!'. Pillock.
This is not an 'adyult' depiction of sexuality. The whole charade had the smell of 16-year old boy's bedroom about it. In fact the whole sorry thing was like some adolescent comic fan's version of grown up land. In battlestar galactica recently we've had sex used as a bargaining tool with the enemy, as a desultory cure for the sheer mind-numbing boredom of war and as an allegory for political underhandedness. Now THAT'S entertainment...
The script, containing such gems as 'we're outside the government, outside the UN, outside the police etc etc.' veered wildly between in-jokes, dull ponderings on the gulf between cosmic shenanigans and cozy domesticity and hilariously ponderous declamations on SF gobledegook.
Which brings me on to the acting. Not ONE of the cast can do it. Seriously. Humour, timing, emoting, pathos. these are just a few of the things that Torchwood cannot ever deliver. It's bad enough that Captain Jack is (pointlessly toadying towards US conventions) a yank who looks like Gary Numan without the make up in his sub-goth trenchcoat, but Eve Myles as Gwen takes the biscuit. Here's how she describes herself: "She's a very down-to-earth girl, kind and generous, but extremely ambitious, feisty, intelligent and witty. But she's also very human - she's really the girl next door. Because I'm playing her, I put a lot of me into it and I take a lot of my own characteristics.".
Well, as far as I could tell she brought ALL her characteristics, leaving no room for a character at all. Whingey and devoid of any skills required to kick alien ass, she was crowbarred in to keep it 'real' presumably. Urgh...
As to the plotlines, I shall pass, except to say that anyone who's seen a fraction of TV or cinema from the last 30 years will have guessed the outcomes aeons before they happen.
Here's what (ex) BBC Three boss Stuart Murphy said: "Torchwood is sinister and psychological... as well as being very British and modern and real."
No, it's ill-conceived, ratings-chasing, provincial nonsense....
Meanwhile back at TV heaven we have a Battlestar Galactica which gets bleaker by the second. Cylon mind-fucks, treachery by those we hold dearest and an increasingly damaged crew make this (along with some of the best effects: stylised beyond reason and all the better for it) about the best Sci Fi you'll see this decade. How ironic that while the UK produces TV for adolescents under the guise of 'adult' entertainment, the USA sneaks grown-up TV into a show format that was originally aimed squarely at early teens. I'll be doing a proper round-up later.
As for Lusht. Well, it may quite possibly have jumped the shark, but it still looks great and hangs together far more coherently than Torchwood. Which is some going when you consider their making it up as they go along. Episode One of the new season was dripping with evil, and even Matthew Fox got my sympathy. Way to go Jack! Cry, you sad man! You're NEVER getting the wife back!!!

Popular TV as political allegory (beware the Cylonic jihad! etc)

It being the end of the summer and with nothing but the mighty CSI (which, one day, I will bore you to DEATH about hehe) on the TV, I've been steeping my brain with box set binges. Notably series one of the reversioned Battlestar Galactica. While worrying that maybe I was taking it all a bit too seriously I read this and realised that it really IS something quite special (I need critical back-up in these times of blog paranoia to allow me to form an opinion, natch).
More post-9/11 than Lusht (though it uses the same clever metamedia ideas to keep its fanbase involved), more pointedly dealing with bad recent history than an Oliver Stone movie, BG is a real eye-opener, especially for those who still subscribe to the wrong-headed notion that dumb USA makes dumb TV.
It takes the late 70s original which was all post-Watergate/sub-Star Wars laser infused disco fantasy and turns it into something predictably darker, and then some...
People old enough to remember the original (hem hem) will have fun initially with the inversions. Starbuck's a woman (as is the president). Colonel Tigh is white. Gaius Baltar is a jittery English sex symbol. The Cylons look like us! etc etc. This final point isn't just an excuse for cost-cutting though. The old Cylons are there in all their metallic CGI glory, but the new ones, naturally ramp up the paranoia factor.
They're TERRORISTS. We get ships loaded with nukes ramming the Battlestar, suicide bombers, security breaches and an enemy that's religiously fanatical. Meanwhile the humans are drunks, liars, sexually wayward, prone to bickering, bigoted...oh, and religious fanatics.
The reason the human race fails? Because of the internet - we learn that networked computers led to the first defeat at the hands of a technologically advanced enemy with a good idea how to plant viruses. What's more WE created the enemy.
Sci Fi is so good at this stuff - I remember my film tutor telling me that Star Trek was 'imperialism in space' - and while I know that for any film student raised (as I was) on basic theory it will seem a little heavy-handed, but in this day and age, and from a nation whose president makes apocalyptic tales of mankind's demise seem that much more feasible, this is something special.
Now I'm wading through series 2 and the fact that the producers are political science majors is really starting to shine out. Somehow they manage to reference the assasinations of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald, make pertinent points about the true nature of democracy and still fit in a few good battle scenes (I LOVE the way the CGI is all shot as though with hand-held - in fact the camera work is all super-dynamic. Adding to the rushed, panicky, ragged feel of the whole thing). I get the feeling this is subversion by stealth. While the pilot was competent, the first series became gradually more insane in its exposure of the desperate straits of a race on the brink of extinction yet split by internal politics. Now, beginning series two you get the idea that this could stretch out to be the first long-running series since Twin Peaks that could have the ultimate in downbeat endings (as Leslie Halliwell used to say). At times you even question whether the human race SHOULD survive. Now that's dark...
I know all you West Wing fans will be screaming 'nothing new here!' but I urge anyone who wants a really good idea of how America is coping with the war on terror to watch this as soon as possible.
POSTSCRIPT: Since I wrote this I've entered the considerably darker world of Series two. If Season One was bold, this one beggars belief as to how the hell it even got made. halfway through and I feel as drained and strung out as the crew. As to the basis in contemporary political atrocities...let's just say 'abused prisoners of war' and leave it at that...

Weekend Views No.9 (oh, beehive! etc...)

Do you know that feeling, when you've perhaps been out too late/not got enough sleep etc. and a film greets you on the television that is SO BAD that you find it kinda comforting in your depleted state? The dialogue is so stilted, the performances so phoned in, the effects so crummy, the plot is negligible/defies any logic - but it all means that instead of having to be a)moved b)think or c)care - you just let it wash over you in all its cheesy glory. Such a film is The Swarm: Irwin Allen's 'three strikes and you're OUT' final disaster movie.
Let's look at the cast, eh? Michael Caine (notorious for his 'take the money and run' performances - so he hardly counts); Katharine Ross (a woman so devoid of charisma you'll think your television is an oil painting while she's onscreen); Fred McMurray (hold on, he was in DOUBLE INDEMNITY ferchrissakes!); Slim Pickens; Cameron Mitchell; Richard Widmark (who looks like he's trying not to laugh throughout); Richard Chamberlain; Jose Ferrer!; Olivia deHavilland!!; Ben Johnson!!?!; HENRY FONDA!?!?! NEVER has such a cast been so wasted in the pursuit of a story about some pissed off insects.
I apologise to those out there who already know of the legendary awfulness of this piece of tripe, but I have to say hats off to the exec at Channel 5 who managed to not only put it on, but put on the DIRECTOR'S CUT which ran to a mind-boggling 2 and 3/4 hours!!! Gee, thanks.
But strangely I'm feeling like a better-rounded individual having seen how inept the US government were at handling billions of angry African Killer Bees (who flew in from South America - spot the mid-70s paranoia) who, in a rather unfortunate scripting move got referred to as just 'Africans' in the latter parts of the movie (ie:' How are we gonna stop these Africans spreading all over the country?'). Houston got burned to the ground. That's not such a bad thing is it? And Michael Caine in the final hopeless scene couldn't even be BOTHERED to kiss the girl. I urge all my readers to see it asap. It defies belief...

Bottom Of The Despised(s)

Well, I knew it wasn't gonna be pretty, but I've just witnessed the shambles that passed for the last ever Top Of The Pops and it was one of those occasions where you honestly didn't know how to laugh or cry.
Initially, especially for someone of my advanced years, the reaction to seeing the terminal patient that used to be 'Britain's Number 1' having its plug pulled is to offer sigh of relief. For too long now has this 'institution' been obviously completely irrelevant to every single music-loving person in the UK. But, hold on...wasn't it always thus? Anyone who can remember what it was like as your whole family gathered around to witness the travesties of chartdom paraded, unconvincingly miming, before your eyes (and that's a lot of people) will know that TOTP was ALWAYS naff. Obviously. But by the end of this hour of 10 second clips and ill-chosen 'highlights' from the last 42 years I got all nostalgic. Because yes, it was always terrible. Just as Radio 1 was always terrible because it was a political move to lure teenagers away from the license-dodging pirates; the Pops was born of a desperate attempt to capture a teenage market already won over by Jack Good's ITV-based Oh Boy (his earlier 6.5 Special which was on BBC was fatally marred by the beeb insisting on putting educational material in the mix. They also tried to ban tennagers from the audience) and Elkan Allen's Ready Steady Go.
Yet it was a central part of my childhood. Like everyone else, I had my middle-English value system worn down by a series of eye-popping delights over the years. And these made me the mensch I am today. Keith Moon's leer; Freddie Mercury's overbite; Pan's Peoples legs; Noddy Holder's top hat; Alice Cooper's rapier; Arthur Brown's flaming headdress; blah blah etc etc. And so much more. Every week you knew 90% was going to be taken up with Englebert Humperdinck, Boney M or even, God forbid, Ken Dodd's new atrocity, or the like. But still, there was the chance to glimpse (and this is where I lose my younger readers) something cool. Maybe.
There was virtually (unless you were allowed up to watch the Old Grey Whistle Test, and this was even before stuff like the Tube, Revolver or even - gulp- Rock Goes To College) NO pop music on TV.
So even though the DJs were all super-annuated creeps (except for the mighty Blackburn, and the strange period where Peel and Jensen got all subversive), the fact remained that it was kinda mandatory watching. Thus, to see this awful smorgasbord of sublime and utterly awful tonight broke my heart. I found myself shouting at the screen when (in, I guess, an attempt to explain to an audience of under 25s who wouldn't even understand WHY this was a poignant moment) they wheeled on several no-mark contemporary Radio 1 jocks and some modern clips that, frankly, served to underline how pop music used to be good, but isn't really any more. Beyonce flouncing around doesn't really stand up to Bowie and Ronson camping it up to Starman. It just looked like a sexy black girl shouting at the TOTP crowd 'are you with me?' a lot. Charmless.
And who let Edith bleedin' Bowman read out the final top ten countdown? Even next to DLT she looked and sounded about as charismatic as a Glasgow docker.
In fact there was a dearth of the legendary names we used to love to hate in them days. Where were Bates, Powell, Freeman, Jensen, Edmonds, Brooks and even Diddy David Hamilton? This could have been SO much fun...
The new DJs represent a generation that doesn't give a flying fuck about such programming. And neither should they. Andi Peters isn't evil (well, much) because he failed to rescue the show and turned it into a pale shadow of its former glory. No, it was dead in the water years before. Anyone in their teens now has choice up the kazoo and a zillion ways to get the stuff. Why WOULD they care about it? We watched this crap for years so they didn't have to. As such any attempt to represent anything from the last ten years was a waste of air time. We didn't need to see Gnarls Barkley (despite it being, actually one of the more creative uses of the TOTP stage in recent times). It was only ubiquitously on the radio about five minutes ago.
So shame on you BBC. Not only did you bury the show without honour or care, you managed to remind us all how empty and sad most of modern life is, too. Cheers...

Lost...in Lost

Wooaah...spooky! Yes, I'm hooked and I'm desperately trying to work out WHY. The plotlines vacillate wildly between devilishly clever to soap opera-cheese. Half the cast are useless or just plain irritating: Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) still being a freakin' Hobbit; Michael, the highly strung artist who's main aim in life is to be uncivil to everyone and esp. the nutjob french woman (who's actually Croatian) who was also awful in Babylon 5: the list goes on...


But the look of it? Lost should be renamed Lush. A virtual tourist brochure for Hawaii, its colours are almost edible. Watching the second series it becomes obvious that the studio charge card has now been put under the producer's name. Never has dirt looked so clean. And the blues and greens of the sky, sea and jungle look as if they were made to test new hi res tellies. At one point I thought the leaves must have been sprayed to make them brighter. I'm sure I read that Coppola did that in Apocalypse Now...


Lost is more Apocalypse How? Its sci fi meanderings are pure open-ended post-everything babble, but somehow you keep forgetting that the story will NEVER end. Whereas Twin Peaks took true art and made it into television; Lost takes 911 paranoia and makes it into a giant tropical chatroom filled with sub-kabbalistic mutterings and pixel by pixel dissections. Gotta love that Dharma...


It's not as good as My Name Is Earl btw...