In France: Aired on Canal+ in April In the UK: Available on Sundance Now
All good things end eventually. Sometimes they finish naturally, sometimes they’re forced to stop. And sometimes they just decide to do something odd. Like The Bureau.
Probably Britain’s finest ever spy show was The Sandbaggers, a marvellously daring combination of office politics, realpolitik and verisimilitude.
It tragically lasted a mere three seasons because its talented creator, Ian Mackintosh, mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the third season. The show’s quality dropped afterwards – if not markedly, at least noticeably – with other talents simply unable to do what Mackintosh uniquely could do.
France’s answer to The Sandbaggers is Le Bureau des Légendes (The Bureau), an equally thrilling but decidedly modern spy thriller about which I’ve written considerably over the years:
I’ve compared the two shows a considerable amount over the years, but I was somewhat hoping that The Bureau would finish on a slightly higher note than The Sandbaggers, as we entered what would appear to be the final season. The show has largely improved every season, from an already superb starting point, but its creator, Eric Rochant, has decided enough is enough and has decided to move on to make his (much deserved fortune) in the US.
Yet, here I am, forced to make the same comparison as always, because while season 5 of The Bureau is largely as brilliant, and possibly even better than previous seasons, Rochant decided to hand over the reins to the final two episodes to noted French director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust & Bone, Dheepan). And while these are actually pretty good by most standards, the show’s quality drops – if not markedly, at least noticeably.
By my God, those first eight episodes…
Spoilers aplenty after the reminder (in French) of what happened in seasons one to four, the (subtitled) trailer for season 5 and the jump. If you haven’t seen the previous seasons – or this season – you’re probably better off waiting until after you have. Remember: the only place you can now watch all five seasons in the UK is Sundance Now, since the first two aren’t on Amazon Prime any more (at least, not for free).
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
Tom Hardy in Venom (2018)
Previously on TMINE
It’s been a quiet week for new tele this week, thanks to the decimated US TV production schedule. But I did offer up reviews of Tenet (2020) and Venom (2018) for the returning Orange Thursday.
Next on TMINE
I managed to watch the first two episodes of Woke (US: Hulu), so I’ll be talking about them after the jump. HBO (US) mini-series We Are Who We Are starts tonight, but it’s a mini-series so I might skip it.
Coming later this week, I’m going to be watching the second season of Criminal (Netflix), so might well give that a review – at the moment, it looks like either season two is only going to be UK episodes or it’s just the four UK episodes arriving on Wednesday, with the German, French and Spanish episodes arriving at later dates.
I’m also hoping to finally get the chance to watch season 5 of Le Bureau des Légendes (The Bureau), which will be arriving on Sundance Now on Thursday.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest (175) prequel Ratched is hitting Netflix on Friday, and I’m sure to give that a try (Sharon Stone’s in it!). But that seems to be about it.
Meanwhile, Orange Thursday will feature Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) and The Old Guard (2020).
What TMINE has been watching
The regulars list is down to a mere one show, The Boys (Amazon), the latest episode of which we’ll be discussing after the jump. But the shortness of that list has obviously given me some time to fill/waste TV-wise.
I began by continuing last year’s project: The Strange Report. For those who don’t know, The Strange Report is an ITC show from the 1960s – cf Department S, The Champions, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) – that sits between those more fantastic shows and the later, luxurious escapist likes of The Persuaders! and The Protectors.
What makes it so fascinating is it’s clearly trying to be both an ITC show and a serious, modern, Swinging 60s show. There’s the standard core cast of former Scotland Yard detective Adam Strange (Anthony Quayle) and his young associates – token American Kaz Garas (Wonder Woman) and hip artist/model Anneke Wills (Doctor Who) – who solve crimes using a combination of standard police techniques and, more intriguingly, forensics, with Garas constantly in a lab, staring down a microscope.
The plots are also a cut above the standard of the time, with early episodes seeing cult leaders being investigated, but the leaders turning out to be quite nice after all, and Chinese party officials being abducted – to be ‘re-educated’ by former prisoners who had been through the same thing themselves, resulting in some really surprisingly high-brow debates about the nature of Marxism.
It’s not had the benefits of frequent rebroadcasters and constant video releases that its telefantasy brethren have had, but the more I watch, the more it shapes up to be one of my favourite shows of the time.
However, watching The Old Guard for Orange Thursday made me want to watch some old episodes of Highlander, which is currently available for free on Amazon, albeit in a cropped for 16:9 format that leaves a little to be desired.
That’s a show that holds up less over time, although it does have many plus points, most of them Adrian Paul and the genuinely good fights, both with swords and martial arts.
The show’s biggest issue is that it was a co-production filmed in Canada for half a season, France for another half, and was filled with supporting cast members from both nations who struggled to act in English, even the English-speaking Canadians, so usually ended up with all manner of Brits being flown in to save the day. Plus it was often hokey as f***.
But there are plenty of good episodes, at least. For my first season delve, I started off not with the one with Peter Howitt (Bread) as the evil immortal mime driven mad by absinthe or even the one where Martin Kemp (Spandau Ballet) is an ex-member of the SAS (which is apparently part of the RAF in Highlander-world) who believes he’s on a holy mission from God.
Instead, I went with the ‘Die Hard in a courthouse‘ episode, which turns out to be not as good as I remember at all, and more a demonstration of the amazing power of a sharp stick to take you unawares.
Much better and funnier is the sixth season episode I went to next. For those who don’t remember the sixth season, that’s when Adrian Paul really wanted to leave the show, couldn’t/got paid a lot of money not to, but wasn’t around as much, so the producers used a lot of the episodes as backdoor pilots to a spin-off show about a female immortal. Those included the likes of Claudia Christian (Babylon 5), although Highlander: The Raven eventually (boringly) went with long-time fan favourite Amanda as its lead.
However, I was always very disappointed that Alice Evans never got the job, thanks to her performance in Patient Number 7. So I rewatched that. It was quite fun – she gets to be a musketeer and everything – plus her stuntwoman was really good, too. Shame, hey?
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
Previously on TMINE
I had a holiday. So it’s been a while, basically, since TMINE has reviewed anything.
I did watch some TV but not a huge amount, and what I did watch, I watched a little while ago, so I’m a little hazy about it. But I’ll do my best to recap, ready for September and the Autumn schedules.
Although…
Next on TMINE
…it’s worth noting that the US networks have basically pushed all new scripted shows to January 2021. Because of You Know What. So that means there won’t necessarily be a lot of new TV for the next few months. Or this week. But we’ll see what I can see.
In the schedules, at least, is Woke (US: Hulu) and The Duchess (Netflix), but I’ll probably give the latter a miss since I’m not the biggest fan of Katherine Ryan. So Woke it is.
Aya Cash and Antony Starr in The Boys
What TMINE has been watching
Long-time, observant readers will note that I didn’t apply my usual ‘Can I be arsed to catch up with this when I get back?’ rule to the Regulars list before I went. That’s because, with viewing fare scant, there was a big chance that even shows I couldn’t be bothered with I might still stick with. Conversely, holidays being what they are, there was also the possibility that I might not have stuck with shows I actually really liked.
So rather than second-guess myself, I decided to use empirical science to determine what I could actually be bothered catching up with and/or starting retrospectively.
The good news (for fans of those shows) is that I stuck it to the end of Baron Noir, Condor, Corporate, Doom Patrol, and Stargirl. I’ll discuss all of them after the jump.
The bad news (for fans of those shows) is that I really couldn’t be bothered watching any more of Das Boot, Dark or The Twilight Zone. I won’t be discussing them after the jump, but I watched a couple more episodes of Brave NewWorld before giving up, so I will talk about that after the jump, as well.
In terms of new and returning shows, The Boys was back on Amazon on Friday with three new episodes, so I watched them. Young Wallander also showed up last week on Netflix, so I gave that a whirl, too. Earlier in August, The Umbrella Academycame back for season two, and I watched all of that. My thoughts on all of those after the jump as well.
I gave the second season of The New Legends of Monkey a go, but that was feeling a little too young for me this time round, so I never made it to the end of the first episode, although at least Monkey got his cloud powers back. But I might give that another go at some point.
That made me want to watch old episodes of The Water Margin, so I caught of couple of those, which were actually really good. You remember that, don’t you? I might watch more of them at some point…
And in an unrelated development, Lovely Wife saw that Cobra Kai (seasons one and two) had come to Netflix, so we watched them in the space of about three days. She loved it for more or less the same reasons I did when I made it one of my top shows of 2018 and it really does hold up well on a second viewing, too. So if you’ve not watched it, I recommend you do.
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
Previously on TMINE
I did another one of those movie review things for Covideodrome: Aladdin (2019).
Umbrella Academy
Next on TMINE
This is the last WHYBW before TMINE’s August break, so there’s no ‘next on TMINE’. I’m on holiday! I’ll update you about that tomorrow.
That isn’t to say, however, despite COVID-19, that there’s no new TV on the way over the next month, just that TMINE probably won’t be reviewing it. Season two of Umbrella Academy is available on Netflix from tomorrow. Apple TV+ is offering us Ted Lasso in a fortnight. Lovecraft Country is coming a bit after that to HBO.
But actually, that’s about it. You can see why I don’t really bother with August, can’t you?
Corporate
What TMINE has been watching
I’ve not been able to watch anything German this week for a change (sorry, Das Boot and Dark) but hopefully I’ll be able to finish them off over August, along with all the other regulars.
I’ve now reached the point where Robert Lindsay is the captain in Hornblower. He’s a tad hammy but can’t dampen the overall awesomeness of the show – and neither can those cheap ITV models.
It’s the usual regulars after the jump: Baron Noir, Brave New World, Condor, Doom Patrol,Stargirl and The Twilight Zone. I’ll also be looking at a new Australian show Between Two Worlds and you’ll be delighted to hear that Corporate is back.
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
Previously on TMINE
I did one of those movie review things: Greyhound(2020)
Netflix’s Signs
Next on TMINE
The upcoming week’s going to be quite busy, with work mounting up pre August break, but I’m going to give reviewing Aladdin (2019) another try.
Helping to ease my workload, however, is that looking ahead through the schedules, we have practically no new shows scheduled to come our way any time soon. In fact, all I could see was Signs on Netflix, which is an imported Polish cop show from 2018.
You can tell the summer season is here, but added to Covid, we’ve hit what I assume must be the opposite of peak TV – trough TV?
I’ll just have to stick with the regulars, I guess. Talking of which…
What TMINE has been watching
So it’s patently clear I can’t do boxsets right now. And trying to do them is, ironically, making it less likely that I watch/review things (sorry, Babylon Berlin). So rather than keep muttering on about Dark et al, I’ll carry on doing what I did with Das Boot and review now what I’ve seen so far and then just treat them as shows I watch weekly.
Which given next week is the last week before TMINE’s August holidays is probably just as a stupid as trying to watch boxsets.
Anyway, that means from now on, the usual regulars will be: Baron Noir, Condor, Dark, Das Boot, Doom Patrol,Stargirl and The Twilight Zone. We can talk about them after the jump.
I did try to watch season 2 of Humans (UK: Channel 4), given it’s now on Netflix. We made it through half an episode and quite enjoyed it, but it seems to have lost its metaphor and is basically an excuse to have androids/gynoids chatting and working out their feelings. The arrival of Carrie-Anne Moss on the scene did make me consider watching more, though.
And as mentioned in my Greyhound review, I’ve started rewatching ITV’s Hornblower, which stars a rather young Ioan Gruffudd. It’s very disconcerting watching it now, because… it’s really good. It’s a really good, scripted ITV show that isn’t a crime drama, a period crime drama or something that involves the aristocracy and country houses. The dialogue is also straight out of Forester. And it’s surprisingly dark, too, straight from the outset. Plus what sets! It’s like being on the Victory in Portsmouth, they’re so good.
So I know what I’m probably watching on my holidays at least.
But in contrast to this forthcoming week, last week brought us three new shows, so after the jump, we’ll be talking about: Brave New World, Cursed and United We Fall.
