TV reviews

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

What did you watch last week? Including Political Animals, Covert Affairs, Wallander, The Newsroom, Perception and Line of Duty

17 July 2012 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

It’s “What did you watch last week?”, my chance to tell you what I watched last week 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 recommendations from the first-run shows are: Continuum, The Daily Show, and Suits. Hunt them down.

Also being added to the list this week (with some reservations) is The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing-but-with-journalists TV show within a TV show. It’s still very flawed; white, usually middle-aged men are still the heroes, with everyone else orbiting around them and glorifying their names; and the whole Bigfoot thing in the latest episode was beyond ridiculous. But this was the first episode that really felt fun, that dialled all these flaws down to a minimum, that actually made me like Olivia Munn a lot, and that didn’t feel that smug at all. Worth tuning in if you miss The West Wing.

Ken Branagh’s Wallander is back on as well, although I’ve only seen the first of the two episodes that have been broadcast so far. Although the absence of Tom Hiddleston (Loki from Thor/Avengers Assemble) is keenly felt, this was the first episode from the three series so far that I felt actually worked as both a proper crime story and a Wallander story, rather than simply a great big hour and a half version of ‘The Scream’, in which a guy with minimal understanding of police procedure twats around and falls over his own feet a lot. While there was a certain element of that (spoiler: Wallander’s breaking into the yard), it was a decent story, well executed. I’m not sure if that’s because it was only based on a short story, so the script writers had to fill in the blanks himself or herself, rather than relying on Mansell’s apparently sketchy approach to police procedure. Added to the recommended list anyway.

A new show and some returning shows appeared on the radar and I’ve given them a try, at least:

  • Political Animals: Basically, a parallel universe in which Sigourney Weaver is Hillary Clinton, Ciaran Hinds is Bill Clinton, and after Hillary loses the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama, she asks Bill for a divorce. Everyone involved seems to find this all very funny and entertaining, in a cheeky schoolboy, “look how naughty I am!” kind of way, even Weaver, but I lost interest after about 10 minutes, just after the Russian foreign minister goosed pseudo-Hillary at a press conference.

  • Covert Affairs: there have been changes promised and as well as the death of one regular and the welcome arrival of Sarah Clarke (Nina Myers from 24) as Piper Perabo’s new, kick ass, women-power boss, we have the somewhat surprising casting of Richard Coyle – yes, Jeff the Welsh one from Coupling – as a Cambridge-educated, billionaire super-spy, who used to be in the Russian special forces. Hmmm, that’s not entirely plausible, is it? I wouldn’t say it’s that much better than it was before – even the death of the aforementioned regular had the emotional impact of being told that your local convenience store is out of Bran Flakes – but it was intriguing enough for me to want to watch the next episode, particularly since the first episode was not only set in Morocco, but actually filmed in Morocco, rather than the Mojave Desert, which is the usual way of these things.

Here’s a few thoughts on those and what else I’ve been watching:

  • Burn Notice: Nice to see Painkiller Jane/Terminator 3‘s Terminatrix Kristanna Loken getting some work again from someone other than Uwe Boll, but even though it’s innovating, it still feels like it’s going through the motions.
  • Continuum: After last week’s lacklustre effort, we’re back on form again, albeit one that only lightly touched on the series arc. Guest starring Tahmoh Penikett from BSG and Dollhouse (I suspect he’ll be back in future episodes), we got a fleshing out of sidekick’s character and most important of all, the return of the suit and some decent sci-fi concepts.
  • Line of Duty: Such a shame. Episode three started so well. It wasn’t as ridiculous as it had been in previous episodes, there was progression, character development. It was almost going to end up on the recommended list. Then something so stupid happened (spoiler: Lennie James is kidnapped by the drug dealers) that I had to abandon it in disgust.
  • Perception: although a somewhat format-bound show, there were more than a few sparks of intelligence in the second episode. As predicted, we did have a guest syndrome, although not in the way I predicted it, and so the show actually managed to come up with a plot I’d never seen before (unless I squint at one of the worst episodes of CSI: Miami that was ever made). BSG‘s Jamie Bamber is a welcome addition, although he sounds like a complete tool with his normal accent for some reason. And they’re playing with the hallucination side of things pretty well, too. Worth watching then for what they do on top of the formula, rather than the formula itself, I think.
  • Royal Pains: The return of Boris to the main plot is to be welcomed, as is the (spoiler) reintegration of Hank into the Hankmed family so that all the regulars are in one place. But Paige’s storyline needs some work and Reshma Shetty needs acting classes urgently.
  • Suits: Really, this is the top show on TV right now, so you should be watching it. Good to see the return of Eric Close as the only guy who can mess with Harvey and the Louis sub-plot is being handled well. The minor complaint, as always, is that it’s all very ‘male gaze’, even when dealing with the strong female characters.

Still to watch on the Sky box: Mesrine – Killer Instinct and Sinbad. Still. Plus Sky Arts 2’s Maison close, which started on Sunday. Anyone catch it?

“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?

Classic TV

Nostalgia corner: Casting The Runes (1979)

12 July 2012 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Casting The Runes

Since we’ve been talking a bit about the BBC’s Ghost Stories for Christmas this week, it seems appropriate to have a look at ‘the one that (almost) got away’: ITV Playhouse‘s adaptation of MR James’ Casting The Runes.

Virtually all the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas were adaptations of short stories by James. Only 1976’s The Signalman, written by Charles Dickens; 1977’s Stigma, written by Clive Exton; and 1978’s The Ice House, by John Bowen, deviated from this tradition. However, this wasn’t because the producers had run out James stories to adapt – far from it, since BBC4 went on to adapt James’ View From A Hill and Number 13 in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

In fact, just as the BBC was winding up its annual Ghost Stories for Christmas, ITV’s ITV Playhouse anthology series chose to get two of its rival’s contributors, writer Clive Exton and director Lawrence Gordon Clark, to adapt James’s Casting The Runes. This wasn’t the first time ITV had adapted James or even Casting The Runes: there had been four black-and-white productions made of James stories between 1966 and 1968, including Casting The Runes, which have now been virtually lost (although some parts do remain of the adaptation of Casting The Runes), and it had adapted Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance for schools in 1975. But unlike those previous adaptations and those of the BBC, which had all been period pieces, this was a modernisation and extension of James’ original story.

Starring Just Good Friends‘ Jan Francis and Children of the Stones‘ Iain Cuthbertson, Casting The Runes took James’ tale of a covert, supernatural battle between a man and an outraged mage who’d received a bad review from him and transposed it to a modern day conflict between a TV journalist (Francis) and a notorious self-styled Aleister Crowley-like figure (Cutherbertson), outraged at being mocked by one of her documentaries.

Most of the features of the original story remain, from the Satanic curse secretly passed to Francis when she least expects it to the demise of a previous critic thanks to the curse a few years earlier, although the narrative is more linear and more eventful than James’ original. While lacking the quiet, haunting atmosphere of the BBC adaptations that perhaps only age, the empty countryside and a lack of people can bring, the ITV Playhouse version overcomes this by effectively using visual and sound effects – although Cutherbertson’s costuming and performance add an element of unwanted comedy to the proceedings.

Strangely, despite ITV Playhouse running for another five years, there were no more adaptations of James’s stories by the series – or by any other series – until Janice Hadlow revived the format for BBC4 and continued it once she moved to BBC2. Hopefully, now that BBC4’s drama budget is being handed over to BBC2, we’ll get another one this year.

If not, as in 1978, there’s now a golden opportunity for ITV to revive the tradition. Are you listening, Peter Fincham?

The full thing’s not available on YouTube, although Network DVD have very kindly released it on DVD (as a bonus, you get that adaptation of Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance as well), but here’s a trailer for it:

The CarusometerA Carusometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: The Newsroom (HBO)

11 July 2012 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

In the US: Sundays, 10pm, HBO
In the UK: Tuesdays, 10pm, Sky Atlantic HD

The Newsroom is frustrating. It is perilously close to being brilliant – with Aaron Sorkin writing it, how could it not be? Yet it’s also very flawed and often falls far from the Brilliant Tree.

Essentially, this is a show in which Sorkin tells us how TV news reporting should have been for the past two years, by going back to incidents we all know about and using the benefit of hindsight to give us the facts that may or may not have been apparent at the time. As with The West Wing, it posits a team of dedicated and mostly talented people working towards the betterment of humanity. Here though, that team is journalists – as with Studio 60, this is a show within a show – rather than politicians and their aides.

Or should I say male journalists? Because this is where the problems start. There is an almost universal divide between competent, dedicated male journalists, focused on doing the best job possible, and dizty women worried about their relationships, usually with the male journalists. Even when they are doing their best, they either fail or it’s to help the men do the best they can and to glorify those men.

While this was to a certaint extent apparent in the first episode, the entire second episode had lead female Emily Mortimer failing to comprehend the basics of corporate email and worrying that the entire company thought that Jeff Daniels had cheated on her. This from a seasoned war reporter and executive producer.

Meanwhile, in the third episode we had her former producer using his war reporting experience to minister field training to help one of the female journalists during one of her panic attacks. We’re almost beyond pastiche at this point.

Even the arrival of Jane Fonda in the third episode as the Ted Turner-like tycoon who owns the network didn’t help, since she’s not on the side of the angels, but only cares about business, and is a bit rusty in the old acting department.

That leaves us in the unprecedented position of relying on episode two’s new arrival, Olivia Munn (of The Daily Show, Attack of the Show, Perfect Couples, Iron Man 2, et al), to be the competent, intellectual heavyweight of the female team. She’s a welcome oasis of professionalism and snark, although the effect is slightly spoilt by Mortimer recruiting her because she has ‘nice legs’.

Another problem with the show is that it’s on HBO. Nothing wrong with that you might think, until you realise that means no adverts and Sorkin is trying to pad out 40 minutes of actual material to a full 60 minutes. The show feels in dire need of an edit because there’s not quite enough there at the moment. It doesn’t help that without the talents of Thomas Schlamme in the direction department, everything is much slower than it should be: where there was once ‘walk and talk’, there’s now ‘sit and prosletyse’.

Bar Munn, who’s had about 10 lines so far in three episodes, there are no characters to really like yet. We’ve also reverted to Sorkin’s default of loving lawyers, with it apparently not enough that Jeff Daniels be a journalist in order to ask probing questions – he’s also a former lawyer because Sorkin loves lawyers. That’s kind of disheartening for people who thought the show might be a tribute to journalists, rather than a slating.

But squinting hard, ignoring these flaws and forgetting for a moment that a lot of the plots and ideas are recycled from Sorkin’s earlier shows, this is a very good programme. There’s sparkling dialogue, decent plotting and an actual message trying to be imparted. True, it’s the same message that Keith Olbermann was doing in slightly more hyperbolic terms until he was fired, but it’s a worthwhile message nevertheless. It’s also fun, even while it’s being frustrating.

So give it a try, because even if it is almost Sorkin by numbers, it’s one of his better shows and certainly one of the best shows on at the moment. With time – and HBO has already committed to a second season – Sorkin will actually have to give the female characters some work to do and there’s even a chance they’ll do it competently.

Carusometer rating: 3
Rob’s prediction: Will definitely last two seasons and might even go to three or more

US TV

Review: Perception (TNT) 1×1

10 July 2012 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Perception

In the US: Mondays, 10/9c, TNT
In the UK: Not yet acquired, but you can bet Alibi will pick it up

There’s a great big swinging pendulum off in the TV universe somewhere that mysteriously dictates who solves crimes on tele. First it was talented amateurs, then it was private detectives, then it was the police and now, it seems, the pendulum has swung back to talented amateurs again.

See, the police have to follow rules and if they don’t, there are all kinds of political problems – either that or your show is escapist enough that people are prepared to suspend their disbelief. But if you have an amateur consultant, they can do whatever they like, more or less.

They can also have all kinds of personality quirks that probably would count against them in an institution like the police. Of course, in a crowded televisual landscape, or even on a crowded network like TNT, which already has the likes of Southland and Rizzoli & Isles, there’s something of an arms race in personality quirks as shows try to grab the viewers’ attention and distinguish themselves from the competition.

Now Perception takes us to Defcon 2 in the quirks arm race with neuroscientist, university professor and FBI consultant Dr Daniel Pierce (Will and Grace‘s Eric McCormack), who trumps The Mentalist, Psych, Lie To Me and practically every other amateur detective yet to grace our screens. Because Pierce goes into territory even Raines feared to tread: he’s a schizophrenic who refuses to take his meds so a lot of the time, when he’s talking to suspects, the suspects aren’t always there – although they have a lot to say for themselves.

Here’s a trailer:

Continue reading “Review: Perception (TNT) 1×1”

Streaming TV

What did you watch last fortnight? Including Parents, Romanzo Criminale and Drive

9 July 2012 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Sky 1's Parents

It’s “What did you watch last fortnight?”, my chance to tell you what I watched last fortnight 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 recommendations from the first-run shows are: Continuum, The Daily Show, Suits and Prisoners of War. Hunt them down.

Here’s a few thoughts on those and what else I’ve been watching:

  • Burn Notice: Continues to tread slightly away from its formula, so I’m countenancing watching it again.
  • Wilfred: Is now just dark, not funny at all, so I gave up after the first 10 minutes of episode two.
  • Suits: Loving the Hardman narrative and that they’re starting to explore the secondary characters more. The must-see show of the week.
  • Continuum: Starting to weaken a little, now most of the SF elements have been stripped from the present-day side of things. But still a pretty good show, and Rachel Nichols is an involving lead.
  • Men At Work: Thought I’d give it a try again since Alex Breckenridge was in last week’s episode, but they gave her one funny line, and the rest of the show was as desperately unfunny as the previous episodes I saw.
  • Parents: I must remember that although Sky Atlantic is getting better, Sky 1 is merely trying to get better. Despite the presence of Sally Phillips and Tom Conti, this is a really poor sitcom about Phillips getting fired from her job and being forced to move herself and her family back in with her parents. Couldn’t even survive one episode, although Phillips is as excellent as always and it did have a few decent touches.
  • The Newsroom: Dear God, what is up Sorkin’s writing of female characters. Quite a poor episode, too, that had me yawning for most of it, and it comes to something that Olivia Munn was actually the least annoying actress on the show (Emily Mortimer and Alison Pill beating her on that score). I’m hoping last night’s episode was better
  • Line of Duty: Episode two was marginally less ludicrous than episode one, but most of the flaws are the same, particularly the lead’s lack of charisma. But it did have a very interesting cliffhanger, so I’ll be sticking around for episode three.
  • Romanzo Criminale: Sky Arts is currently repeating what is supposedly Italy’s finest TV show. This is a very low bar indeed, apparently, because this tale of the Mafia in the Rome of the 70s was so laughably ridiculous, I switched off after 10 minutes. I think there’s an intended level of humour to it, but it was just plain daft.
  • Royal Pains: Marginally improving, but the departure of Jill Flint in a typically unresolved, undramatic way signalled a sharp downturn in quality for the last episode.
  • Prisoners of War: It’s interesting to see what elements of this were retained for Homeland, since they are both similar and different. No terrorist plot and no real Carrie character for the original, but still enough elements retained by the remake that you can still see how much the remake owes to its originator.
  • Alan Partridge: The two new Sky Atlantic episodes both contained a good number of funny moments, but I didn’t think the episodes as great as everyone else seems to. But a good deal funnier than Parents.
  • Coming Here Soon: BBC3 does investigative reporting. Give me strength. Just horrendous. Like a lot of BBC3 shows, this has a good concept at its core – here, it’s let’s go and talk to the people on the ground about how the economic crisis is affecting real people in different countries – and then in an attempt to get young people to watch it, puts a suitable young person with no training or perceivable talent beyond an ability to talk to other people in the role of reporter. Here we had Stacey Dooley tackling Greece – someone who thinks the Parthenon is the Akropolips (sic) and who “totally, totally gets” the situation. While she had a certain gumption and the show did manage to speak to some useful spokespeople, it was so utterly bereft of any ability to ask any probing questions of those it had concluded had done Greek society wrong, that you might as well have sent a tape recorder instead – and then ignored it and simply passed judgement anyway. As a sample, in an interview with a Greek politician who said there were basically two ways to resolve the crisis – a bad way and a very bad way and the politicians had had to go for the first option, all Dooley could do was say after the interview was over “I don’t understand how people can do this.” What option would she have picked or does she disagree with the fundamentals of the politician’s premise? Who knows. It’s just A Bad Thing and politicians should only do Good Things using their special magic powers. Judging by the BBC3 blog on the subject, I’m not the only one who thought it was a bit of a waste of time.
  • Blackout: No, not the SyFy gameshow but BBC1 trying to do noir with Christopher Ecceleston (currently appearing as quite a poor Creon in Antigone at the National at the moment. Sigh) and apparently that means renting out an old copy of Dark City. Possibly a good script in there, although given that the way to indicate Ecclescake is an alcoholic is to have him with a drink in his hand at all times and having is wife comment on it so not the subtlest of scripts if it is, but the direction is so effected and stupid, that it’s impossible to pay any attention to its possible saving graces.

And in movies:

  • The Ghost: Essentially, one of the least thrilling thrillers ever, with Ewan McGregor as a ghost-writer hired to edit the memoirs of Pierce Brosnan’s Blair-like former PM, following the demise of the previous ghost-writer in suspicious circumstances. Sometimes funny, with one good twist, but that’s about it.

  • Drive: Starring that Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, who are both so hot right now, this is a La Samourai-esque thriller about a taciturn getaway driver who’s empty existence is turned upside down by a waitress he meets and her ex-husband. Surprisingly little driving but a whole lot of ultra-violence, it’s a beautifully shot and intelligent thriller with a great cast that includes Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman. Not to everyone’s taste, but if you can stomach a little blood and do look the occasional tense car chase, this is one movie that is very definitely worth watching. Incidentally, it’s free on Netflix – yes a decent recent movie on Netflix: how extraordinary. The trailer does give away almost all of the movie, mind.

Still to watch: Mesrine – Killer Instinct, starring the always reliable Vincent Cassel, in a French gangster mini-series that has already aired on FX but is now on BBC4. Anyone seen it? Also on the Sky box is the latest Ken Branagh Wallander and Sinbad, which looks fun and has that nice Naveen Andrews from Lost as a baddie.

“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?