Monsters – or can a TV series go on too long?

Last week Being Human series 4 ended on BBC3 and Dexter series 6 started on FX and I asked myself can any long running TV series really keep fresh?

Of course there have been and are long running TV series but generally they tend to be soaps or soap like dramas like Coronation Street on ITV or Casualty on BBC1 and these are popular and successful programmes, although not my personal cup of tea anymore I watched them and others like them in the past. Likewise I watched the hugely successful US imports like CSI and House – for a while. But in my opinion they got stale several series back. I don’t bother with them anymore.

The trouble with any successful TV programme is that those that commission and broadcast them want to milk that success for all its worth and care not if the standard falls as long as people keep watching. And of course if a series keeps going long enough it becomes a habit to watch for some people, which is why soaps generally do so well.

I was surprised when a new series of Being Human was commissioned. At the end of series 3 arguably the main character, the vampire Mitchell, was killed off and although the future was uncertain for the remaining characters as well as an introduction to a new threat, the Old Ones, I couldn’t see where the story was going to go next. This however was quickly answered in the opening episodes of series 4, killing off the next major character, the werewolf, George, leaving only one of the original cast, the ghost, Annie, and this was swiftly followed by replacements for the characters, Hal, the vampire and Tom, the werewolf (who had featured in series 3) and the story line of George and Nina’s baby, Eve, who may or may not be the saviour of humankind in the face of the vampire hoards.

This story line, with its prophesy element, reminded me of the excellent Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a programme that ran for 7 series by the way). There was also a bit of Blade going on with the vamps trying to take over the world. But as ever at the heart of Being Human was the struggle of the characters to live in the human world while being outsiders, monsters even. Annie has to become mother to Eve; Tom still has to find his way without his werewolf father McNair and Hal, who is an Old One, who has fight the urge to drink blood and kill by being OCD. Practicalities have to be dealt with while hiding their true nature and fighting off threats from their own kind.

But how long can a series run of one underlying theme?

Dexter is a very different kind of monster and as series 6 begins everyone’s favourite serial killer is also still learning to live in the human world. His issues are similar to the characters in Being Human; he has to hide what he really is, live in a world he is not really a part of but he has to also sate his ‘dark passenger’, that part of him that has to kill.

Of course Dexter has an advantage over Being Human; it’s also a cop-show. There’s a race between Dexter and his colleagues in Miami homicide to catch a killer. And his colleagues give another dimension to the story line in each series outside of Dexter’s world. Even so can we keep going along with Dexter in his seemingly unending task to learn how to live in the world? There has to be an ending sometime before we tire of his world view.

I believe the reason that Being Human and Dexter are successful is because the characters speak to us about our own isolation, our own difficulties sometimes in connecting with those around us, of living in the world where other people can seem unfathomable, different from us. I just hope these programmes end on a high and not dragged out till no one cares about the monsters anymore.

Why archaeologists make me annoyed

Anglo-Saxon Christian grave find near Cambridge 'extremely rare'
This item on BBC news website is really annoying. Now I know that when the media reports academic work it often simplifies the findings / theories etc. But if any of the quotes given are in the least bit accurate it is just another example of the way archaeologists make huge assumptions about their finds.
Here they have found a grave of a teenage girl buried with a gold and garnet cross. The cross they assume is a sign of Christianity and therefore presumably the faith of the girl. This maybe not be the case at all. 
How can anyone possibly now what this unknown girl believed? Unless the girl is identified and some other proof of her faith is discovered all we really know is she was buried with a cross.
Now as a deceased person has no control over how they are buried and what with, it could be argued that those that buried her were Christian. But again we cannot know that for certain. The cross may have been looted or even found and just a favourite piece of the girl. 
Archaeologists need to be more honest and say 'we just don't know what the significance of this find' because they really can only hypothesize.

The past is another country - is Bradford?

Last week, for want of anything else to watch on TV, I ended up viewing 2 programmes I hadn't planned too. One was the first episode of new BBC2 drama 'White Heat'. In this one of 7 former flat mates has died and as the survivors begin to gather at the London flat they once shared their stories are told in flashback. So far so unoriginal. But that's not the reason I wasn't going to watch. The flashbacks start from 1965 and as the last 20th century historical piece on BBC2 'The Hour' was did not work either as a thriller or a docudrama I was wary. And going by this first episode I was right to be so. The character's are cliched and were introduced against a backdrop of social and political events of the period. This was to be expected; we all must be constantly reminded that the 1960s was a period of GREAT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHANGE and don't you forget it! As if no decade has ever been as important. Obliviously nothing of significance ever happened in the 1950s, 70s, 80s etc. One thing this consistent referencing of events in 1965 did do however was reinforce the cliched characters.
There's Jack, whose daddy owns the flat. He thinks he's a revolutionary and can afford to be because daddy is a MP and can and does pay off his debts. 
Charlotte, a naive, virginal nice middle-class girl from the suburbs who has to leave home to realise her dad is having an affair and her mummy drinks so much gin because her miserable life as a hausfrau and absent husband. Charlotte reads DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', gets the Pill and has sex with Jack, only to find out he's got no emotional feelings for her at all.
Alan is from t'up North. He thinks he's better than those he's left behind but is still deferential to the old order.
Victor is a law student from Jamaica. Home sick and subject to racial prejudice, he fancies Charlotte. 
Lily is an art student, already seduced by her tutor and under pressure from her parents to give up art and return to the 'real world'. Alan fancies her
Jay is a medical student and closet gay. But his secret is out to the final flat sharer, Orla, who sees him with another boy at a party. 
Orla is the only surprise in this mix. A frumpy catholic girl from Belfast, not attractive and very different from the rest - she's the only reason I'd keep watching as I'd like to see where her story is going.


After seeing 'White Heat' I decided to watch Channel 4s 'Make Bradford British'. What's the connection? Well in 'White Heat'  Alan says that Jack choose them all to share the flat as a kind of social experiment. And what else could you call sticking 8 people from different backgrounds into each others lives to see what happens? I didn't see the first of this 2 part docu-reality programme but I had read that it caused some outrage by groups in Bradford who saw it as provocative and made the town sound so divisive. The 8 were chosen from a group of Bradford residents who failed the citizenship test and I gather in the first episode the 8 were all living together. In this second one they were paired off to spend 2 days living in each others homes to see what makes us British. 
What followed in it's abbreviated and edited way was a short insight into prejudice and preconceptions that reflect on us all I guess to some extent or another. 
Jens, retired policeman and pillar of this almost exclusively white community, was like a throw back to another era. Paired with Desmond, Black British, born here of Caribbean parents, Jens at first cannot see past Desmond's colour and makes continue remarks about it until Desmond takes him to a pub where as a young man he was attacked just for being black. For his part Desmond is impressed by the charitable and community work that Jens does. Both do seem to learn from each other.
Pub landlady Audrey, whose dad was black and mum white, has Sabbiyah as her partner. We don't see much of her at Sabbiyah's but at her pub Sabbiyah is exposed to a truly unpleasant tirade from a white customer that reduces her to tears. Maura is not as understanding as one might have expected her to be but reflects on her own past experiences of racism and comes to realise that she, as she puts it, is racist and uses her colour to argue that she can't be.
Damon, young, white and recently split from his girlfriend and mother of his child is with Rashid, who is welcoming and takes him to his local mosque, where Damon discovers Islam is not about terrorism. Damon is impressed by the way the local community and Rashid's family take care of each other and when Rashid reveals that he has a broken marriage and children the two men realise that they have more in common than they thought.
The last pairing went very wrong. Taxi driver Mohammed and former magistrate Maura are just too different. Maura is appalled at the way Mohammed treats his wife and daughter and he sees her as bossy. Briefly when Maura goes out with him to work she sees how he could view white British society in a less than favourable way. But at Maura's house Mohammed snaps at being asked a question about his daughter bringing home a white boyfriend and walks out not to return. 
I wasn't surprised at this. Of all the participants Mohammed looked the most uncomfortable and probably regretted ever getting involved. Sadly though he also confirmed a stereotypical view of an Asian man, marrying off his daughter as a teenager to someone back home and having a house bound wife who doesn't speak English.
So did this social experiment achieve anything? Well it showed to some of the participants their own prejudices and perhaps makes us all reflect on what makes us the same and not different - family and belonging. But the title of the programme was meaningless and I can't help feeling it was just there to provoke. The only thing that can make people feel British is the feeling that they belong.

Some thoughts on religion

‘Most people think, 
Great god will come from the skies, 
Take away everything 
And make everybody feel high. 
But if you know what life is worth, 
You will look for yours on earth’    Peter Tosh & Bob Marley 
Intro
I always liked this verse from ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ - it makes me think of something said by my cynical old English teacher, Mr Jones; Humans, he said, made up beliefs in life-after-death because they just couldn’t face the fact that when they die, that’s it. And is it seems to me that all religions are based on the hope of something better after death some people forget to live in the here and now. Live and let live that is.
My Personal Experience of Religion 
I was not raised to be religious. I wasn’t baptised, didn’t go to church and my mum told me the only reason my parents wed in a church was because my gran insisted and back in the 1950s only divorced people got married in register offices. This is not to say that I had no exposure to religion or that when I was young I didn’t believe in God. At primary school we had religious assemblies along Church of England Christian lines. That is we sang hymns such as ‘We plough the fields and scatter’, ‘All things bright and beautiful’, ‘To be a pilgrim’, ‘For those in peril on the sea’ etc. and we said the Lord’s Prayer. We were told child-friendly versions of Biblical stories – Moses, Noah, Joseph and Daniel from the Old Testament and of course Jesus’ birth from the New. I pretty much just assumed there was a God – A Protestant Christian God.
Cynical Years
I’m not sure at what age I stopped believing there was a god but by the time I moved to secondary school I had decided I could not believe in something no one could prove existed.  I was given a King James’ Bible at this time and started reading bits of it in that typically cynical teenage way, looking for inconsistencies and contradictions, of which there are very many. Religion, organised religion, to me was all about control and I was scornful of it and those who professed to be religious, with their hypocrisies and unquestioning belief. In particular I would quote bits of the Bible back at people. My favourite being Genesis 11:1-9 (Babel )– where God, seemingly fearful of what humans could achieve, confused our language and scattered us across the Earth. What did that say about this God and his attitude towards his creation?
Why do people believe?
As I have gotten older my attitude towards belief has changed even if my feelings about organised religion have not. I can understand why some people would believe in god(s). Just look around – from the simple beauty of a flower to the vastness of the universe as seen through telescopes to our own abilities to create and invent, to be brave and compassionate, the wonder of our existence could make anyone believe that some divine power is behind it all. But then nature can be cruel; floods, droughts, earthquakes can destroy and kill; humans are capable of unspeakable cruelty, inflicting suffering and violence upon each other. Even so I imagine people with faith in their god(s) must take comfort in the belief that all these things are in the ‘plan’ and will be explained in the next life. I understand then why some people believe. It’s what they do in the name of these beliefs that cause all the problems.
Killing in the name of
I know that for some people killing, cruelty and the oppression of their fellow human beings is not driven by religion. I know that when it is observed how many people have been killed and oppressed in the name of one religion or another, others will counter with the examples of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China as atheistic states that killed, imprisoned, tortured and used terror on the people not in the name of god but ideology. This misses the point. These tyrants developed the cult of personality to the point that they replaced god(s) but more than that their regimes prove the dangerous and destructive power of belief, of faith even, to make some people blind to what is being done in the name of such beliefs. Throughout history leaders, religious and political, have used belief to control, to keep control and to blame the ‘unbelievers’ for everything that is wrong. Sometimes this control is subtle, sometimes it is blatant and oppressive but it is always divisive.
Conclusion
The divisions created by fanatical belief keep us apart and prevent us from achieving our potential, which should be limitless.

Chronicle

What would you do if you suddenly had superpowers? Would you become a hero or a villain? Or would you play tricks on people just for the hell of it? Anyone who's ever read a comic book or watched a film or TV spin off from one has wondered this - don't lie, you know you have!

In recent years the latter two genres have focused almost exclusively on the dark side of having such power. Chronicle is no exception. Directed by Josh Trank Chronicle is in many ways unoriginal from it's loser lead, Andrew, played by Dane DeHaan, to it's shooting by Andrew's video camera. Does that make it a bad film? No it's doesn't. The friend I went to see this with said it reminded her of Carrie, and that's a recommendation in itself.

In Chronicle Andrew is a loser. Bullied at high school, bullied & undermined by an alcoholic and abusive father at home, he starts to film the world around him, which is pretty bleak what with the bullying and his dying mother. So far so cliched. He has no friends just a cousin, Matt, played by Alex Russell, who takes him to a party, where along with popular kid & class president candidate, Steve, played by Michael B Jordan, they make a discovery underground. We don't see exactly what this is but soon after the three boys begin to develop telekinesis. And nosebleeds. A sure sign that this will not end well.

The pranks the boys play with their new power are amusing until Andrew (of course) goes to far and almost kills someone. Matt then lays down rules which they should follow. The other two agree but we can see that Andrew has no remorse. What he has done means nothing to him. Oh dear.

The boys then discover they have another ability; they can fly. Cue quite amazing shots of them zooming through the clouds - I say amazing because this is a low budget film, just $12m as opposed to the last Mission Impossible film which had a budget of $150m. The sheer joy of being able to fly is well expressed and brings them closer together.

Things even look up for Andrew when Steve talks him into entering the school talent show. Using he powers he wins over his normally hostile or indifferent fellow students. But of course it all goes wrong with a girl (who looked old enough to be his mother by the way) and Andrew heads into a downward spiral ending in confrontation and death. And blowing up lots of buildings, cars etc.

The moral of this story is - don't give superpowers to the damaged teen. But go see the film anyways.

Sherlock vs Sherlock

On New Year’s Day I went to see the film Sherlock Holmes – A Game of Shadows and Monday night I watched the opening episode of the new Sherlock BBC series on catch up TV. Two different spins on Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective and two follow ups.

I saw Guy Ritchie’s first Sherlock Holmes film with Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson when it was released and have to say I largely forgot it. As soon as I started watching the second film I began to remember exactly what I’d felt about the first one – nowhere near as clever or as funny as it thinks it is.

 

A Game of Shadows does have some mildly amusing moments but the humour is poor and verging on slapstick. As for action, well there are fights & stunts that are pretty good but on the whole while Robert Downey Jr. is always watchable and is obviously enjoying himself there is nothing captivating about his Sherlock. Nor does Jude Law bring anything to the character of Watson. In fact he was hardly necessary at all. And don’t get me started on Stephen Fry’s Mycroft Holmes, who played Sherlock’s older brother like an idiot.

The film also features other Conan Doyle characters – Prof Moriarty (played by Jared Harris) and Irene Adler (played by Rachel McAdams). The latter made so little impression that I didn’t even remember she played the same role in the previous film. The former was okay as villains go but neither creepy nor evil enough for my liking.

What about the plot? Basically it’s Holmes versus Moriarty. The Prof has an evil plan (don’t we all?) and Holmes has to stop him. On the way Watson’s wedding is nearly ruined and his honeymoon bride thrown off a train by Holmes. The real couple then pick up some gypsies - there is, well not exactly a sub-plot, more of a side line, about a gypsy woman’s brother being drawn into Moriarty’s scheme – and set off to foil the Prof. There is a confrontation between Holmes & Moriarty at Reichenbach, which is where Conan Doyle killed off Holmes. I won’t spoil the ending….

So how does the film compare to Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss’ 21st Century Sherlock on the BBC?

Both use things to show Sherlock’s methods. In the film we get Sherlock’s internal dialogue as he works out how to oppose his foes. Works quite well. The TV series uses on screen text both to visualise Sherlock’s deductions and to display text messages. This works much better. Also the humour is much cleverer and wittier than in the film. And there is a much greater sense of the relationship between Sherlock and John. For a start they use their first names not surnames (ok that’s a historical thing 19th century blokes probably didn’t use each other’s first names) and they laugh together. It seems a more genuine relationship because of this.

Relationships or lack thereof, is the theme of the episode A Scandal in Belgravia. It kicks off right where the last episode of the previous series ended but quickly moves into a new story. Based on Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia the story revolves around The Woman aka Irene Adler (played by Lara Pulver); a dominatrix who provides ‘services’ and collects items for future insurance and protection on her camera phone. Sherlock is called in by his brother Mycroft (here played by Mark Gatiss far more convincingly as the elder brother, who is just as smart, if more conventional and definitely establishment, as Sherlock himself) when Miss Adler reveals she has compromising photos of a royal princess. Sherlock and John set off to retrieve said photos but Miss Adler is waiting for them – naked.

Sherlock cannot make her out at first. When he looks at her we see only ????? rather than text on screen. She is smart and fascinating and a flirt. We see Sherlock become more interested in her and yet can only wonder if the interest in love or lust or just curiosity in a woman that seems to have an intellect close to his own. His very peculiarities prevent us and John from truly knowing his feelings. When it is believed that Miss Adler is dead John asks Mrs Hudson if Sherlock has ever had a relationship with anyone. The answer would appear to be ‘no’. He forgets his own relationship with Sherlock.

As for Sherlock when he goes to identify Miss Adler’s body with Mycroft, he asks him, observing other peoples grief: ‘Do you ever wonder if there is something wrong with us?’ – Mycroft replies: ‘All lives end; all hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage’.

Miss Adler is however far from dead and there is more on her camera phone than compromising photos. She returns to Sherlock and ‘tricks’ him into decoding a vital email, sending the information to Moriarty (played very camp by Andrew Scott, but he does get some outrageously good lines e.g. ‘if you’re lying to me I’ll make you into shoes’). Mycroft then reveals the significance of the email to Sherlock and describes him as ‘a lonely naive man showing off to a woman clever enough to make him feel special’.

In end though Sherlock saves face by working out the code to Miss Adler’s phone. He tells her: ‘I always assumed that love was a disadvantage; thank you for the final proof’.

I won’t reveal the ending but suffice to say Miss Adler lives to fight another day.

I really like Moffat & Gatiss spin on Sherlock Holmes. I enjoyed the previous series and was looking forward to this one especially after running into the filming of a stunt at Bart’s hospital some while back. This episode didn’t disappoint. Clever and funny but with that underlying theme of relationship’s it worked really well.

And it made me think about why John Watson would be friends with Sherlock. The scene at 221B Baker Street when they are gathered with Mrs Hudson, DI Lestrade, John’s girlfriend and Molly Hooper (from Bart’s mortuary) at Christmas shows Sherlock at his insensitive worst. He insults John’s girlfriend by running through a list of John’s previous girlfriends to work out which one she is and makes cringe worthy comments to Molly who carries a torch for him: ‘You always say such terrible things. Every time, always, always’ she says to him and while he apologises we have no idea if he is really sorry that he has hurt her or just that he can’t help his own clever observations. This is a man who carries on talking to John when he’s not even there, not noticing that he has left, and talks down to everyone including John. Why would anyone stay around such a person?

Miss Adler describes them as a ‘couple’ and John’s girlfriend asks him not to make her compete with Sherlock Holmes. John repeats again as he did in the first episode of series 1 – A Study in Pink - that he is not gay. But it is clearly more than friendship that holds him to Sherlock. He admires and is impressed by Sherlock’s abilities to be sure yet is equally appalled by insensitivity and apparent lack of feelings for others.

I think John stays not just for the thrills, adventure and danger but because he is protective of a man that is vulnerable to his own cleverness. As Miss Adler proved and as John himself had to in A Study in Pink where he saved Sherlock’s life by preventing him from going too far.
Now that is love.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Keeping up tradition me & my friend H went to the cinema yesterday. Being as we don't go for chick-flicks it was a choice between 19th century Victorian action - Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows or 21st century action (albeit based on 20th century TV series) - Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. We opted for the latter & went to Imax cinema to watch (I'd never been to Imax before & it was well worth the extra cost for the clarity of the picture & fantastic sound).

But was the film any good I hear you ask? Damn right it was.
 

 

For those unfamiliar with Mission: Impossible (either the TV show or previous films) the premise is simple. A shadowy, but 'good guy' agency called IMF (Impossible Missions Force), send agents on missions to prevent the end of the world by hostile forces which seem impossible (as well as improbable). The agents have a choice as to whether they take to missions but if they fail or are captured the IMF will deny all knowledge of them. In MI Ghost Protocol this denial is taken one step further - the IMF itself is disavowed by the US President. The agents are on their own.

There is nothing original in MI Ghost Protocol. The villain, Hendricks (played by Michael Nyqvist) is mad, plotting a nuclear strike. We don't really understand his motive but we don't really care. The film is all about the chase.

Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) is broken out of a Russian jail by 2 IMF agents, Jane Carter (played by Paula Patton) and new to field work agent Benji Dunn (played by Simon Pegg). The former is there purely as eye-candy for the boys, although she does get some girl-on-girl action (by which I mean a fight scene! This film is only rated PG-13!) As ever the female characters in these types of films are largely surplus to requirements as it's always about the boys. As for the latter Simon Pegg gets to play the techie & gets the majority of the funny lines. And he does it all very well.

After the breakout the mission begins but as is inevitable it all goes horribly wrong and Hunt & his team soon find themselves chasing the villain while being pursued by the Russians and with no back up. Oh no!
 

It's at this point the team is completed by the addition of William Brandt (played by Jeremy Renner). He is supposed to be an IMF analyst, but like all good late additions he has secrets....

 

The action moves on to Dubai & the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world) . Here the stunts & camera work go into overdrive. Warning - if you are afraid of heights you might need to look away!

Hunt & his team however are thwarted again and have to chase the villain to Mumbai in order to save the world. Which of course they do and things are nicely set up for the team to join up for another film.

This film has plenty of action and while its PG-13 rating limits the violence (very little shooting, not much blood) there are enough outrageous stunts, explosions, chases, tech toys and bone-crunching fight scenes to keep action fans happy. And the humour is an added bonus.