DVD and Blu-Ray reviews

An archive of the blog’s reviews of DVD and Blu-Rays

US TV

Review: Caprica 1×1

29 April 2009 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

A Cylon in Caprica

In the US: SyFy, 2010
In the UK: Sky One, 2010

I’m confused. This is a review of a DVD that contains an extended version of the pilot episode of Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica, which won’t be transmitted until next year. So is it a preview or a review?

Whatever it is, let’s begin.

Science fiction is a lot of things to a lot of people. It can be space exploration, like Star Trek; it can be alternative reality fare like Eureka; it can be science extrapolation like The Six Million Dollar Man.

Battlestar Galactica is loosely credited with revitalising science fiction, taking the dull, lifeless and artificial people and situations of Star Trek and replacing them with a dark, gritty, quasi-realistic examination of the horrors of war. But BSG only really addressed one category of science-fiction.

Caprica takes away the war, combat and exploration of BSG to revitalise another vein of science fiction: what another, futuristic society might be like. More of a soap opera concerned with relationships and the nature of belief and society than with spaceships and war, Caprica isn’t really like anything you’ve seen before – although it’s probably like something you might have read.

The burning question: do we have a soul and if we do, can it be copied?

Continue reading “Review: Caprica 1×1”

Classic TV

Lost Gems: The One Game (1988)

24 April 2009 Rob Buckley 20 Comments

Patrick Malahide and Stephen Dillane in The One Game

The story of Merlin and King Arthur has been around for centuries, so it’s not surprising that every so often, someone wants to retell it*. Most recently, we’ve had the BBC series Merlin, but there have been numerous other retellings including the Sam Neill mini-series Merlin, the movie Excalibur, the Clive Owen historical, King Arthur, and mild American 70s sitcom Mr Merlin.

Back in the 80s though, there was a more subtle adaptation of the myth set in modern times. Starring Patrick Malahide (Minder et al) as the Merlin-esque ‘Magnus’ and Stephen Dillane (Hamlet, Spy Game, Welcome to Sarajevo) as Nick, the King Arthur of the piece, The One Game posited the question: “What would have happened if Arthur had been made King with Merlin’s help – and then Arthur had kicked him out?”

This being the 80s, however, for the retelling Nick was the MD of a games company and Magnus was the creator of his best-selling game, thrown out and sent to a mental asylum after he couldn’t handle Nick’s rejection of his newest invention. Magnus escapes from the asylum and using his near-magical skills, steals all Nick’s company’s assets and plans his further revenge.

What made The One Game so interesting and worthy of being described as a Lost Gem was its then-unique concept: during the course of the four episodes, set over a Bank Holiday weekend, everyone Nick meets – including friends and loved-ones – and everything he does and comes across may be part of ‘The One Game’, a live-action and possibly deadly game invented by Magnus to teach Nick a lesson.

It was only ever shown once on ITV1, was released on DVD but is no longer available. It’s The One Game and it’s a Lost Gem. Here’s the the opening titles to the second episode, Saturday, complete with theme tune sung in Patagonian Welsh and annoying 80s narrator recapping just enough of the plot for you to know what’s going on.

Continue reading “Lost Gems: The One Game (1988)”

Welsh TV

Review: A Mind to Kill – series one

6 March 2009 Rob Buckley 11 Comments

A Mind To Kill

You wouldn’t know it from the BFI’s celebration of 25 years of Channel 4 and S4C, but S4C does in fact produce television programmes, some of them quite good. Have a look at Caerdydd. Go on. It’s good.

But it would be a mistake to think this is a recent development. A case in point is A Mind to Kill, Wales’ answer to Taggart. Starring Welsh man-god Philip Madoc as widower Detective Inspector Noel Bain, A Mind to Kill was a dark and gritty 1991 TV movie about neo-Nazis set and filmed in South Wales.

Shot in both English and Welsh – as (Noson) yr Heliwr (which, I think means either The Night Hunter or Hunter in the Night. Anyone?) – the film, the charismatic Bain and the series format proved popular enough that a series of sequel films was made, running for five series from 1994 to 2004 – even making the transition to the rest of the UK by airing on Five. Yet almost nobody remembers it.

Praise be, then, the first series is being released on DVD by Network on March 16th.

Continue reading “Review: A Mind to Kill – series one”

Classic TV

Lost Gems: Ultraviolet

3 March 2009 Rob Buckley 43 Comments

Let’s face it, vampires are silly. Yes, they are. They so are. Unless you’re stuck in some perpetual Twilight of gothdom/Emodom, the whole “vampiredom is cool/mysterious/sexy/dark/a great way to live” should have been replaced in your psyche by vampiredom is “sad/ridiculous/obvious metaphor for oral sex and venereal diseases” years ago.

To be fair, in part, that’s because of the daftness of general TV depictions of vampires, which should have put you off them altogether. The vampires on Buffy very quickly became laughable and Angel very rapidly became self-parody. The Marc Warren Dracula adaptation was awful, and no matter how good the 1970s BBC adaptation with Louis Jourdan was, his flapping his way up a wall like an overladen man on a spacehopper was enough to cause hysterics – and not the frightened kind – in any viewer.

But it needn’t be so. As Being Human in the UK and to a lesser extent True Blood in the US recently showed, you can do vampires convincingly in this day and age if you do them right.

Ten years ago, Channel 4 did the first – and possibly the best – of the modern vampire stories. Starring Jack Davenport, Susannah Harker and Idris Elba of The Wire, Ultraviolet managed to bring science, intelligence, moral ambiguity, decent characters and all the hallmarks of modern storytelling to the vampire story – all without saying the word ‘vampire’ once.

Although it’s been repeated and issued on DVD, it’s hard to get now (although you can watch every episode on YouTube) as it’s been deleted, so it’s officially a Lost Gem. Here’s a shiny fan-produced trailer for you, albeit one with a very bad choice in soundtrack:

Continue reading “Lost Gems: Ultraviolet”

Classic TV

Lost Gems: Look Around You – Series One

29 January 2009 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

Look Around You

If you grew up during the 80s (or even the 70s) in the UK, like me, you were probably subjected to some pretty rubbish teaching programmes during science classes – they were usually narrated by Chris Tarrant, if that helps jog your memory. Joe has just reminded me of the marvellous first series of Look Around You, in which Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz mercilessly and very surreally sent up “television for schools and colleges”.

I won’t say too much about it, since it really does speak for itself. Here’s a scary clip of the ‘Helvetica Scenario’ from the pilot episode, Calcium, for those that just want a sample.

For those with more time and who liked that taster, here’s the entire pilot episode. Be warned, you will feel a palpable sensation of nostalgia within about five seconds if you are over 30 and British.

And here’s the Sulphur episode, which is one of my favourites:

If you’re in the US, you can watch all the episodes (with a few adverts) on Adult Swim‘s web site,  since it’s currently airing on Sunday nights. If you’re in the UK, if you loved it, you can buy the whole series, including pilot episode, on DVD.

There was also a second series that sent up Tomorrow’s World and Micro Live, but it wasn’t as good IMHO – although it was still pretty hilarious at times. Here’s a sample – you can get it on DVD, too.

PS: At no point should you rely on Look Around You for accurate scientific information.