TV reviews

A complete archive of The Medium is Not Enough’s reviews of TV programmes since 2005

US TV

Series review: Vikings (season 1)

10 January 2014 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Vikings

In the US: The History Channel. New season begins at the end of February
In the UK: Lovefilm. New series begins at the end of February

The Vikings are a very under-appreciated bunch. Without them England, Ireland and indeed much of northern Europe would be very different places. Even at a very trivial level, the English language would probably be considerably harder and more like German, and might not have got such a purchase on world culture.

Although their importance as been glossed over and largely ignored, despite the debt we owe them, more and more they’re being acknowledged: I’d recommend going to the British Museum’s forthcoming Vikings exhibition, which will include a 37m long Viking longboat, for starters.

Also helping is the US’s History Channel, which broke the habit of a lifetime to produce its first scripted TV series last year. Now, I was on holiday when this first aired, so it completely passed me by. Fortunately, I’ve now got Lovefilm access, and was able to catch up with the show, having an idle moment or two to fill.

And I’ve very glad I did, because it’s actually a really interesting piece of work. A Canadian-Irish co-production written by historical drama go-to guy Michael “Tudors” Hirst, it’s part-educational, part-drama, telling the story of the semi-legendary, semi-historic Ragnarr Loðbrók (aka Ragnar Hairy Breeches), the man who pointed the Vikings in the direction of England (maybe) and whose sons launched the Great Heathen Army that was eventually to settle and rule most of the north and east of the country. It’s gripping, fun, thrilling, bloody, defies expectations and gives you a lot of insight into Viking culture and religion.

Ish.

Continue reading “Series review: Vikings (season 1)”

US TV

Mini-review: The Assets 1×1 (US: ABC; UK: Alibi)

8 January 2014 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

In the US: Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC

One of the US biggest traitors is CIA agent Aldrich Ames. Convicted in 1994 of spying for the Soviet Union, it’s thought that he compromised the second-largest number of CIA assets in the nation’s history.

You’d have thought that the march of time and a TV movie starring Timothy Hutton would have made his story less toxic, but The Assets, an eight-part mini-series that started on ABC last week about the investigation of Ames by CIA officers Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille, not only has the privilege of being the lowest rated drama premiere ever on one of the four main TV networks, it appears to star an almost entirely British cast and only one American.

Comparisons with The Americans will abound, given it’s another spy show set roughly in the same time period and stars another Welsh Rhys – Matthew Rhys rather than Paul (The Cazalets), who plays Ames. It’s certainly a little instructive to do so, since The Assets is to The Americans what ABC is FX: louder, less subtle, softer hitting, drowning in cheesy music (yes, Nashville, I mean you) and more interested in female characters and sacrifice for families.

The focus of The Assets is very much Sandra Grimes (Jodie Whittaker of Broadchurch and St Trinian’s), the author of the book on which the story is based. The first episode begins with the capture of both an asset and a case officer, the suspicions that raises and how Grimes then gets drafted by the head of the CIA into investigating a much larger problem in the agency. Against this backdrop we see Grimes’ home life, which initially looks like it’s going to be the standard “working women must be punished!” set up but actually reveals a very supportive husband dealing with an often-absent wife.

That is, assuming you can hear any of the dialogue – which although clunky at times, actually takes very few prisoners with its talk of tradecraft, dead drops, et al – over the constant terrible background music.

We then go on to see debriefs and the growing suspicion of Grimes, before her hard work reveals there must be a mole in the agency.

Whittaker is good, Rhys is great, a lot of the rest of the cast struggle to maintain US or Russian accents. Everything looks quite good, albeit not as good as The Americans and a bit 1980s TV movie – which you might think appropriate, but simply dressing people in hats doesn’t qualify as “convincing portrayal of Moscow” in this day and age. If this had been made on cable, it almost certainly would have been a much better show. One to watch if you’ve nothing better to do or are interested in the subject, rather than because it’s much good. Assuming, that is, ABC doesn’t cancel it before the next episode.

What have you been watching? Including Doctor Who, Sherlock, Elementary, Community, The Bridge and The Ground Floor

6 January 2014 Rob Buckley 20 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV.

There have been lots of Christmas specials and few regular TV shows over the holiday period, some of which I watched, some of which (thanks to the iPlayer’s one-week cut-off) I didn’t:

Doctor Who (BBC1/BBC America)
Bye bye Matt Smith, hello Peter Capaldi. A little bit of a smorgasbord of things here, with Steven Moffat once again reverting to usual form following The Day of the Doctor, particularly poorly thought-out, identical female characters (although Clara had a personality for once, which was nice). Stevie hates having to do anything that feels like a sequel so he injected as much original but meaningless and silly stuff into The Time of the Doctor as possible. It also meant he glossed over really, really important things (the Doctor dying, the conspiracy of Silence) in mere minutes that should have kept him in episodes for months but would have required that dreaded sequel word again. Even the cameo from Karen Gillan was a poor idea (poor Clara). But bits of it worked quite well, loose ends were tied up and there were some touching moments (the death of Handles) and good ideas (wooden Cybermen). It wasn’t quite the proper send-off we’d hoped for Matt Smith, but it wasn’t the worst Doc send-off we’ve ever had and we now have 13 more Doctors to look forward to.

But back in the world of regular TV, I saw:

Ground Floor (TBS)
Possibly the best episode so far, since, for a change, it focused on the Ground Floor and how undouchy they are compared to the Top Floor. Briga Heelan got her groove back and we saw that at least one woman works on the top floor. We also got our first Doctor Cox Scrubs joke – eight episodes they managed before slipping one in. And then there was the HR video…

And in the recommended list:

Sherlock (BBC/BBC America)
The Empty Hearse
Well, I say recommended but… Okay. In many ways it’s brilliant, but this season has effectively seen the show shift from being an innovative take on Sherlock Holmes and crime dramas, with a hint of comedy, to being a fully fledged comedy with implausible characters (well, one anyway). The New Year’s Day episode was written by Mark Gatiss who chose for his pastiche genres: Sherlock Holmes (the Robert Downey Jr movie) and… Steven Moffat. Strange it was indeed to see Gatiss emulating his co-writer, but it was like a bad carbon copy of Stevie’s finer season 2 moments. Overall enjoyable, with plenty of wry in-jokes (Martin Freeman’s wife playing Watson’s fiancé, Mary Moran; Benedict Cumberbatch’s parents playing Holmes’ parents; Cumberbatch re-using his dodgy Cabin Pressure French accent), but lacking in self-discipline – if it has just dialled itself back a bit, taken a deep breath and remembered what reality looks like, it would have been really good. As for the lack of true explanation for how Sherlock survived despite the multiple explanations that we did see, I did quite like that, even if it we ended up going through numerous levels of meta to get there.

The Sign of Three
Then there was last night’s episode. Now, the second episode of every Sherlock season is usually almost irredeemable sh*t and last night’s was no exception. In its defence, it was supposed to be a complete change of pace, a comedy character piece all about Holmes and Watson, rather than a proper crime story. It also had a pretty good plot structure, with several unsolved crime stories told in flashback that are eventually solved at the end of the episode (although if you didn’t see that coming, frankly, I’m surprised you even know what drama is, let alone what a TV looks like). But the trouble was it was 60 minutes of the utterly ridiculous and insultingly poor – and worse still, dull – before a final 15 minutes that tried to redeem what had come before and could only do so partially. It also had to twist Sherlock’s character into all sorts of weird knots to make him fit the script. How can a man who doesn’t understand human emotions at all be able to make deductions the way he does? To say he may lack empathy is one thing; to say he has no comprehension is quite another. And frankly, the hints at the stories we didn’t get were far more fun than the ones we did get.

But a lovely cameo by you know who.

Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)
By contrast, Elementary delivered one of its finest episodes. While it’s debatable just how much like Sherlock Holmes Jonny Lee Miller’s character is – The Mentalist and House give you better deductions and cases than Elementary – its Irene Adler/Jamie Moriarty is a tour de force in chilling evil. Or is she? This was a touching examination of the two characters’ bonds. I wonder where they’re taking this – redemption or double crossville? And what were all those hints by Moriarty that she knew she would soon be free about? Unlike Sherlock, this made me want to watch another episode.

Community (NBC/some random UK channel)
After the disastrous, Dan Harmon-less fourth season, it was a delight to watch last week’s double bill to be able to say Community is back and almost back to form. With a hell of a lot to do to reboot the show – in true Community fashion, the episode was called Re-Pilot and even referenced its own reboot as well as Scrubs‘ – the writers pulled out all the stops and by the end of the second episode, harmony was restored, cameos performed and the show was put back on the rails. Let’s see where this baby goes now.

The Bridge
And they’re back! Just as Sky’s remake finished, season 2 of The Bridge (aka Bron/Broen) returned, complete with the proper Martin and Saga. While not quite as sharp as the first season and perhaps a little more distant from reality again, it’s still an excellent piece of work, Saga Noren is still wonderful (and more plausible now that she actually knows something about emotions) and I heartily recommend it. I even managed to watch both episodes live on a Saturday night, that’s how good it is.

“What have you been watching?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?

What have you been watching? Including The Ground Floor, The Tunnel, Kick Ass 2 and Now You See Me

23 December 2013 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV.

Not much airing at the moment, this close to Christmas. However, there’s been a little at least:

Almost Human (Fox)
Shown out of order, this was the second episode filmed and the first episode since the pilot to show any real promise. You can see why they moved it to the end, since it involved a second Dorian android and without having had any time to get to know the first one, this wouldn’t have been as emotionally interesting and to compare the differences. But it does, in retrospect, show how the writers have moved away from certain ideas, such as giving Minka Kelly anything to do.

The Ground Floor (TBS)
I can’t quite be bothered to do an nth-episode verdict on this. It’s chugging along reasonably nicely, but clearly has a far better grip on rich people than blue-collar workers, which it appears to assume are a bunch of slackers compared to those hard-working rich people. On the other hand, it clearly also believes that women haven’t got what it takes to be salespeople, judging by the complete lack of them on the sales floor (maybe they should have a word with the producers of Work It?). It’s losing a lot of its veneer, its obsession with Skylar Astin’s singing is getting annoying, and Briga Heelan is clearly finding it hard operating at 150% every episode so her performance has been losing energy. But its charming enough in a low-key 90s sitcom sort of way.

The Tunnel (Sky Atlantic/Canal+)
And so it ends. Largely, I’d have to say this was the best version of The Bridge, with most of the original’s flaws polished and fixed, giving a thematic unity to ’TT’ and his actions that didn’t exist in either the original or the US remake; the stupider things were changed; the dialogue was improved; and Stephen Dillane was marvellous. Even though I’d seen the original and this largely followed its various plot twists and turns, it was genuinely thrilling, too. It wasn’t perfect, however. Compared to Sofia Helin’s Saga Norin, Clémence Poésy’s Elise Wasserman was a much duller, less charismatic character, albeit one who Asperger’s was for more useful and far more plausible than Norin’s more teenage Aspieness. The French side of things was more or less ignored in favour of the English side and when it was dealt with, the show demonstrated far less of the nuance and understanding it did with the English. But a genuinely good show that made me hope for not just a second series, but more dramas from Sky Atlantic.

And in movies:

Kick Ass 2
While not quite as good as the original, a sequel with a lot to offer. As well as doing with super team-ups what the original did for superheroes, Kick Ass 2 essentially switches from being a fantasy for geek boys – wouldn’t it be cool to dress up and be a superhero for real? – to being one for geek girls, giving us the ever-popular Hit Girl teaching mean girls a lesson, training up a geek boy and making him buff, and getting a first kiss from an older boy. It also gives us ‘Night Bitch’ and ‘Mother Russia’, who have their own female takes on superheroism (and villainy).

Now You See Me
Four hot young – and not so young – magicians unite on stage to rob a bank, and with the FBI in pursuit, continue to commit crimes. Why are they doing it? How are they doing it? It doesn’t matter, because the answer is utterly ridiculous and stupid, the dependency on special effects instead of genuine magic robs it of any real fascination, and it all boils down to a lot of chases, bad dialogue and things that wouldn’t work like that in real life. Perhaps its biggest mystery is how it got Jesse Eisenberg, Morgan Freeman, Isla Blair, Michael Caine, Woody Harrelson and Mark Ruffalo to star in it. Watch The Prestige instead

“What have you been watching?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?

The Tractate Middoth
UK TV

Preview: The Tractate Middoth (BBC2)

23 December 2013 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

In the UK: Christmas Day, 9.30pm, BBC2

I’ve raved on many occasions about the BBC’s Christmas Ghost Stories, most of which were written by MR James. There have been various attempts over the years, mostly by BBC4, to resurrect the idea. Now BBC2 is giving it another go – mostly at the instigation of Doctor Who and Sherlock writer (and mega MR James fanboy) Mark Gatiss.

And marvellously, it’s going out on Christmas Day. Here’s a gothic BBC2 trailer:

Continue reading “Preview: The Tractate Middoth (BBC2)”