In the US: Thursdays, 10/9c, NBC In the UK:Acquired by Sky Living In Canada: Thursdays, 10pm, CityTV
Serial killers, the doyennes of 90s cinema and TV largely thanks to a little known movie, Silence of the Lambs, that featured an equally little known character called Hannibal Lecter, are back with a vengeance this year. Although Criminal Minds has been chugging along for God knows how long, giving us deranged, implausible serial killer after deranged, implausible serial killer, and obviously Dexter has now been doing his thing for eight seasons, apparently this isn’t enough serial killing for TV because this year we’ve already had the debuts of The Following, Cult, and Bates Motel, a prequel to 1960s horror classic and original serial killer movie, Psycho.
And I’ve been wondering why, because largely they’ve had very little to offer that’s new, beyond more gore than was allowed 10-20 years ago. Lots of women getting raped and hacked up, with the writers having as much regard for the victims as their fictional sociopaths do – is this some kind of Faludi-esque backlash, a symptom of the resurgence of rape culture in society or simply a fashion, these things going in cycles?
So leave it to not quite the original but certainly one of the best serial killers to show us that there is room creatively for such shows and that they can still thrill and challenge without being exploitative. Because Hannibal Lecter is back, this time played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, in a prequel of sorts to one of my favourite movies, the much neglected cult favourite Manhunter based on Lecter creator Thomas Harris’s original book Red Dragon.
The show, written by Pushing Daisies creator and Heroessaviour Bryan Fuller, looks at Manhunter‘s Will Graham (played in the movie by CSI‘s William Petersen) and his early career, putting front and centre the man with “the mind of a psychopath”, who can empathise with and recreate the thoughts of serial killers in his mind. Importantly, it also expands on, changes and builds up how he first meets the man who would end up driving him crazy, whom he ultimately incarcerates and who in a sense defines him: Lecter himself. And they’re going to end up working together, even if Hannibal has a little secret that he’s keeping from Graham and the FBI.
Featuring a roster of fabulous actors as well as Thomas Harris characters familiar to any fan, it’s also absolutely fantastic.
Bates Motel is a salutary lesson in how The Carusometer and The Barrometer are vital tools in measuring a show’s worth. The simple fact is that the first episode of seemingly every new show these days is unrepresentative of how it’s going to turn out in later episodes.
The problem with the first episode of Bates Motel, ostensibly a prequel to Psycho but bizarrely set in the modern day instead, was there was actually very little to it beyond the trappings of the original movie: yes, the Bates Motel is there, Norman’s there, his mother’s there and there’s a murder in the motel. But that’s about it. Beyond a liking for some dodgy manga, there’s no sign of Norman’s incipient insanity and problems with women – in fact, implausibly for such a nerd with an over-protective mother, not one but two women are now interested in him. It’s Psycho without a psycho, livened up with a bit of violence.
Since then, the show has metamorphosed into something completely different. The second episode introduced us not only to Norman’s estranged brother, but also an unexpected mystery element for the show: what secret do the townsfolk have? Where do they get all their money from, despite largely making organic artisanal cheeses? Together with his cystic-fibrosis afflicted British gal pal from Manchester (Olivia Cooke from The Secret of Crickley Hall, nevertheless putting on a US accent, presumably because Norman himself, played by fellow Brit Freddie Highmore, is faking a US accent, too), Norman goes off investigating using the manga he’s found – which might actually tell a true story – and discovers more than he bargains for. That takes off even further in the third episode, as they heroically try to find the abducted girls depicted in the book.
On top of that, episode three gives us a mysterious illness for Norman, after which he starts to have bizarre hallucinations in which his (still living) mother gives him somewhat homicidal advice. Whether the illness caused the hallucinations or whether they’ve always been there, we’ve yet to see. The producers are also giving Vera Farmiga more of the look of a Hitchcockian blonde, just for laughs, and have dialled down the violence against women, which can only be a good thing. The relationship between Norman and his mother is becoming as unpleasantly flirtatious and close as you’d expect, too.
It’s still not a brilliant show. It’s certainly weird and has a decent cast. It can be creepy, too. It’s now well on its way to becoming a prequel to Psycho, rather than something that takes the name and little else. The tension of whether the crime committed in the first episode will get exposed does add a little extra frisson to things, too, and the character relationships are more involving than you might think, even if Norman does end up being a bit of a dick a lot. And then there’s now the question of whether anything we see can be trusted because it might all be an hallucination (although Perception does that a lot better).
But because this is a prequel to Psycho and so there are few surprises in where the show’s ultimate destination is, to string the plot out, the show has largely had to become something else completely unrelated and highly implausible. What’s being exposed isn’t that enticing and because the show is essentially about a psycho who does bad things to women thanks to schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder or some other mental health problem, the show has a central misogyny to navigate, something that it doesn’t manage without being partially voyeuristic itself.
All the same, it’s definitely improving so I’ll keep my eye on it in case the upward tick in quality continues.
Barrometer rating: 3 Rob’s prediction: Might just scrape a second season
In Canada: Saturdays, 9e/6p, Space In the US: Saturdays, 9/8c, BBC America
Watcha cock! What a fine how-do-you-do this is, innit, doncha know. Chim-chiminey-cheroo, I’ve been watching a bit of the old Nervo and Knox of late and it came into me old noggin like that you’d like a gander at me discombobulations about what I done saw, like, innit.
Right now, I’m sitting in my beefeater uniform, inside a red phone box, with a Tower of London hat on my head, trying to get out of the strange state Orphan Black has put me into. A Canadian show that BBC America has mysteriously picked up too, it stars a bunch of Canadians pretending to be Americans, Germans and, above all, English people. You’d have thought, given the somewhat dodgy quality of the accents that BBC America might have steered clear of this show. But given BBC America – which confusingly is an umbrella network for everything from BBC1 shows to those plucked off Channel 4 and ITV, as well as some original content – is about as authentically British as the average US ‘pub’, apparently not – even fake Brits appeal to anglophiles, it seems, and Canadians are the next best things anyway.
Besides, o be honest, it’s also a show that would be right at home on BBC3.
Orphan Black is a little like the grown-up, nastier, but essentially still tame elder sister of Canada’s other ‘streetwise sci-fi/fantasy woman’ show Lost Girl. It stars Tatiana Maslany as Sarah… and Beck… and…, well, you’ll see. Sarah is one of those ‘streetwise’ girls who appear in very comfortable, escapist dramas, living on her wits (e.g. swallowing soap to make herself sick) in a way that anyone with an IQ higher than an amoeba’s would instantly spot as mildly criminal or at the very least very odd but no one on these shows ever notices as more than her having an odd day. She’s also ‘English’, with one of those glottal-stop laden attempts at Estuary accents that North American actors do and end up sounding like a spoof character on The Simpsons instead. She’s also capable, for no good reason, of doing a slightly more convincing but wobbly ‘American’ accent. And she’s a punk chick, because she wears a Clash ‘London Calling’ T-shirt. Like all we English people do. All the time. I’ve got one on under my Beefeater uniform right now, in fact.
Sarah’s on the run, but when she gets off a train in Unidentified North American City That Could Be In The US But Is Obviously Canadian, she spots a woman who looks exactly like her… and who commits suicide right in front of her. Sarah steals her belongings and assumes Beck’s identity. Somehow, despite Beck being a cop, having a live-in boyfriend, etc, Sarah gets away with it, but before she knows it, more women who look like her start turning up. And then there are the people who are shooting at her, too.
In the UK: Saturday, 6.15pm, 30th March 2013, BBC1/BBC1 HD. Available on the iPlayer In the US: Saturday, 8pm/7C, 30th March 2013, BBC America
It’s back! Look at that, would you. A new episode of Doctor Who. Ooh, I haven’t seen one of those since Christmas. That’s because we are now entering part two of series seven, which started last autumn, and is set to finish this November, right around when a new series should have been starting (but isn’t, because Steven Moffat’s been slowing down a bit).
Despite the slight paucity of new Who in this, the show’s 50th year (my how time flies), we do have multiple treats to look forward to. As well as new companion Clara, who’s been introduced and died twice already in different guises, we’ve Neil Gaiman writing a Cyberman story, a returning enemy, a returning Doctor, and a whole lot more that if I wrote them down now, a lot of people would end up killing me over. So I won’t. Just watch the series and enjoy it.
But for this opening episode, The Bells of Saint John, which our Stevie has had simply ages to work on, we had a sort of hybrid story – half-Rusty, half-Blink – that riffed not only on the history of Doctor Who itself, but both Russell T Davies’s greatest hits as well as Stevie’s own, including Silence in The Library. And it was really rather good.
It’s “What did you watch this week fortnight?”, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I’ve watched this week fortnight that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
First, the usual recommendations:
The Americans (FX/ITV)
Archer (FX, 5USA)
Arrow (The CW/Sky 1)
Being Human (US) (SyFy)
The Daily Show (Comedy Central)
The Doctor Blake Mysteries (ABC1/ITV)
Cougar Town (TBS/Sky Living)
Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)
Go On (NBC)
House of Cards (Netflix)
Modern Family (ABC/Sky 1)
Shameless (US) (Showtime/More4)
Southland (TNT/Channel 4)
Spartacus (Starz/Sky 1)
Vegas (CBS/Sky Atlantic).
These are all going to be on in either the UK or the US, perhaps even both, but I can’t be sure which.
A combination of pluses and minuses in terms of time means that although I’ve nearly watched all of House of Cards, there’s still a lot left in my viewing queue, including the latest episodes of The Bates Motel, Modern Family, Archer, Cougar Town and Southland. I’m sure they’ll survive without me for a bit, and the Easter weekend should give me a chance to catch up. All the same, I have had the chance to try out a couple of new shows:
It’s Kevin
Kevin Eldon’s been one of the stalwarts of British comedy for the last 20 years or so – his Big Train appearances, especially his George Martin impressions, were all great, as were his appearances on shows like Fist of Fun. So I had high hopes for this, his first leading comedy role. And it’s all right. The second episode was considerably funnier than the first, but largely it’s the kind of show that’s intellectually interesting and raises the occasional smile, but nothing laugh out loud funny.
Plebs
I had firm expectations of disliking this, ITV2’s Roman era answer to The InBetweeners. And it certainly fits The InBetweeners mould, with three lads – two mates, one sensitive, one all mouth (but no trousers – literally) and their slave – moving to Rome from the country where they get office jobs (apart from the slave) and try to pull girls, with minimal success. But despite my expectations, it is actually surprisingly funny. Although essentially it’s an ahistoric transposition Up, Pompeii/Flintstones-style of modern society onto an ancient society, the show manages to maintain some degree of in-story excuse for it – that the lads are from outside Rome (hence plebs or plebeians) and the girls are from Britain, so are culturally backward – and have the actual Romans sex-happy, nudity-happy, etc, in a more accurate way (although bouncers at clubs, women without male Romans to be in charge of them, an emphasis on scrolls rather than wax tabular, and a Venus sculpture without arms because, you know, the Venus de Milo doesn’t have arms, are just some of the minor infractions that still take place for comedic purposes). Those minor niggles aside, it’s still funny, if a little conventional, the CGI to make it seem like Roman times is pretty good, and you have the likes of Doon Mackichan, Adrian Scarborough and Joel Fry to make the funny happen, so it’s a cautious semi-recommendation from me. Just don’t think of it as being “as good as revision” as some viewers have suggested.
Parks and Recreation
Yes, I have actually watched episodes of this before, but seeing as there’s a movement that seems to think P&R is funny, I thought, since BBC4 was showing them all from the beginning, that I’d give it yet another try. So far, I’ve seen all of season 1 and although it does get better towards the end of the season and I actually began to laugh at other moments and characters, for the first few episodes at least, the basic flowchart was: Is Ron Swanson on? No – not funny; Yes – funny. It was literally that simple. I’m told it gets better in the second season. I hope so.
Watch this trailer and you’ll see what I mean.
Now, some thoughts on some of the regulars:
The Americans (FX/ITV): One of those shows where if the show runner’s name is on the writing credits, it’s really good, but suffers when it’s not. Fortunately, last week’s saw our Joe return to writing duties, and we had a lovely cold piece about how spies can’t trust one another, even if they’re married.
Arrow (The CW/Sky 1): So now we have Alex Kingston (River Song from Doctor Who) in scenes with Paul Blackthorne (also British), both pretending to be Americans, not 100% successfully. And there’s John Barrowman, too. So weird. Anyway, two episodes, one utter rubbish, one pretty good – as usual, it’s Huntress (about a million miles from her comic book persona) who’s to blame, since she’s Geoff Johns’ baby and Johns appears to be a quality curse when it comes to Arrow. Felicity should also get a panic button, I reckon. But last night’s was a lot better, and the Batman Begins-inspired plot that they’ve been hinting at (potential spoiler: Merlin/Barrowman having gone off to the land of the League of Assassins/Shadows to learn how to be the Dark Archer) looks like it’s coming to fruition. Odd to see the lengths they’re going to to keep Arrow’s Chinese mentor out of the flashbacks’ main narrative, but they’re definitely going for the long game now. And is it my imagination or are they hinting that Felicity has the hots for Oliver?
Being Human (US) (SyFy): Two episodes, one funny, one less funny. The first gave us Sam Witwer’s attempt at an English accent. Or maybe it was Irish. It also showed us that essentially the whole season has been a diversion, with everything likely to return to the status quo that was the beginning of the season, after experimenting with changing more or less everyone’s set-up (spoiler: Aidan being the only vampire, more or less, before they all start coming back again; Sally being alive, then a zombie, then a ghost again, probably; Josh not being a werewolf then becoming a werewolf again). But at least Deanna Russo is getting work after the horror that was the Knight Rider remake.
The Doctor Blake Mysteries (ABC1/ITV): A story that was suspiciously about Asperger’s without actually being about Asperger’s, which was interesting. Also a fun look at what Australian TV was like at the time, with an appropriately fun ending where (spoiler alert: they all decided to play Pontoon instead of watching any more). Not necessarily the most plausible plot line, though.
Shameless (US) (Showtime/More4): A couple of funny episodes, with William H Macey really make Frank his own now. Plus Bradley Whitford playing gay (or is he gay?)!
Spartacus (Starz/Sky 1): After seasons of women being raped to provide plot motivation, Spartacus finally moves into male rape with the rape of (spoiler alert: Caesar) no less. And quite an important couple of deaths, too, although given everyone knows that Spartacus’s slave revolt failed, it wasn’t hugely surprising. Good to see them breaking up the important deaths, though, rather than offing everyone in one go, so that everyone gets their time in the sun.
And in movies:
GI Joe: Retaliation 3D A surprising movie. Or should I say movies?
While ostensibly a sequel to 2009’s GI Joe, with a few of that movie’s cast members returning (Channing Tatum, Ray Park, Byung-hun Lee, Jonathan Pryce, Arnold Vosloo, some of whom are more or less just cameos, but I won’t spoil it for you by saying who), largely it’s a reboot, designed to get rid of some of the deadwood (Christopher Eccleston, that’s you, but so are most of the original Joes), and introduce a new cast to the franchise led by The Rock, almost-Wonder Woman Adrianne Palicki, possibly Bruce Willis as well (he’s in it, anyway) and… some other guy (DJ Corona from Detroit 1-8-7 and Windfall. Yes, him. Remember him? No, me neither.)
But it’s a weird movie(s) that beyond a few elements is very little like the original. Essentially, it consists of one movie that’s a proper war movie, with people behaving like proper soldiers, with firefights and Apache gunships, and that features The Rock, Palicki and Corona. Then there’s another spy movie, where they’re sneaking into places in disguise, that features the same bunch, as well as Ray Stevenson (Rome, Dexter, The Punisher: War Zone) with a dodgy southern accent. Then there’s a third movie that’s basically Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with ninjas and its own, more or less separate cast (Park, Lee, Elodie Yung). And then it all finishes off by becoming Megaforce.
But despite having that core base layer of stupid, largely derived from its source Saturday morning cartoon to which it pays homage on more than one occasion, it does have some surprising touches. Cobra Commander’s plot to take over the world is impressively not stupid, involves actual science and hasn’t been done before. Some of the action sequences are well shot and choreographed. Palicki is over-sexualised, including a couple of quite voyeuristic points when she’s taking off her clothes, and her ability to attract any man, no matter what, is implausible, but largely she’s treated as an equal of the other Joes, she’s given some background story and a lot of the time, she gets to wander around in jeans, not being sexy (Michael Bay this is not). And since there’s the addition of Jinx to the core roster, there are actually two kick ass women, rather than just the usual token one. The motivations for the villainous Lee are also even more nuanced than you’d suspect.
It’s still epically stupid most of the time, the fast action makes the 3D malfunction, and it still somehow feels like a 1980s action TV show that’s been given a phenomenal budget, but it’s a damn sight better than the original.
“What did you watch this week?” 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?
