In France: Some time last Summer In the UK: Saturday 23rd April, 9pm, BBC4. iPlayer: Episode 7, Episode 8
Never distrust Spiral. That appears to be the moral of this week’s episodes. After my doubts last week, episodes seven and eight seemed designed purely to make me feel a little silly in all my reservations, those crafty writers.
Let’s talk about bluffs, double bluffs and general wheels within wheels after the jump – and a gratuitous picture of Karlsson.
‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland were a pretty bloody time. Over 3,600 people were killed in what became a war between the provisional IRA, the British government and other terrorist groups. Although the 70s brought us things like Internment, some people suspect that during the 80s, the British government began to operate a “shoot to kill” policy, letting groups such as the army’s SAS special forces regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary kill people without warning if they were suspected terrorists.
In 1982, six terrorist suspects were killed in three separate incidents Northern Ireland by the RUC, allegedly without warning. After an initial internal RUC inquiry which revealed that one police offer had been told to lie in his statements, another inquiry, headed by John Stalker of the Greater Manchester Police, was convened. Between 1984 and 1986, Stalker investigated the shootings but just before he could make his final report, he was removed from the inquiry and suspended from duty after allegations were made he associated with criminals. Colin Sampson of the West Yorkshire Police then took over the investigation, but his findings were never made public. Stalker alleges that during his inquiry, he was repeatedly blocked, his offices bugged and there was attempts to cover up an informal but unwritten shoot-to-kill policy.
In 1990, Yorkshire Television dramatised the investigation as Shoot To Kill, a brilliant and engrossing four-hour drama documentary directed by Peter Kosminsky (who recently directed The Promise for Channel 4). The film had originally been intended to be a straight documentary as part of ITV’s First Tuesday strand. However, no one was willing to appear on-camera, partly because of the Official Secrets Act – as Kosminsky put it “They were either dead, disappeared or not allowed to talk to us.” Simultaneously, Zenith, the production company behind Inspector Morse, was looking into making a drama about the inquiry so Yorkshire Television’s head of drama, Keith Richardson, suggested merging the two projects. When Detective Chief Superintendent John Thorburn – Stalker’s number two on the investigation and the man who was in charge of the day-to-day running of the inquiry – agreed to act as a consultant, the dramatisation got the go-ahead.
Despite its four-hour run-time, the drama was utterly gripping. Starring Jack Shepherd as John Stalker, David Calder as John Thorburn and TP McKenna as Sir John Hermon (yes, three guys named John), it was nominated for a BAFTA award in the Best Single Drama category, and won the 1990 award in that category from both the Royal Television Society and the Broadcasting Press Guild. The Sunday Times critic Patrick Stoddart described it as Kosminsky’s “first and massively impressive drama”. Chris Dunkely of the Financial Times said it was “the sort of programme that makes me want to stand up and cheer”, calling it “admirable” and “remarkably even handed”, with “splendid performances… and very superior camerawork and editing. Given that Kosminsky has never made a drama before it is an astonishing achievement. But above all a heartening one”. Ian Christie in the Daily Express called it remarkable and gripping, concluding that “the film was compelling, the script and direction incisive, the performances first rate”. Nancy Banks Smith in The Guardian compared the “sense of tension and throttling pressure” of the second part to that of a “Western by a great master… Will he get them before they get him? Even though you know he won’t, you feel he might.”
However, despite the plaudits, Shoot to Kill has never been repeated or released on video or DVD. Why? Well, in October 1990, John Harmon sued Yorkshire Television for libel over how he’d been portrayed – according to Kosminsky, the libel action eventually boiled down to “how much cold tea we had put in Jack Hermon’s brandy glass”. Yorkshire settled out of court in June 1992 for £50,000 (allegedly) and suspicion is that one of the terms of the agreement was that there should be no repeats – or maybe Yorkshire just didn’t want any more trouble.
Whatever the reason, that was before the Internet and some enterprising young gentleman somewhere has uploaded all four hours of Shoot to Kill to YouTube and you can watch it below. Quality is VHS grade, unsurprisingly, but Shoot to Kill itself is still one of the best drama-documentaries ever made on British TV. Oh, and the final report of Stalker Inquiry, with up to 40 members of the RUC allegedly accused of criminal or disciplinary charges? Still not released.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jason Bourne and today I would like to apologise to you and everyone else in the world for my legacy.
No, not The Bourne Legacy, although someone should probably apologise for that. I’m talking about the effect I’ve had on movies and television throughout the world.
Now, I used to be a super cool, secret agent, able to fight, rewire things, break into buildings, hack computers – the works. But I got shot, I lost my memory, my identity and even my real name, and it took me three movies and an awful lot of fighting and travelling around the world to get it back.
In the world of movies and television, the result has been an awful lot of films and shows in which people, particularly secret agents, lose their memories and then have to fight and travel around the world a lot to get them back, usually in a not particularly interesting way.
I’m sorry to say that now, the bottom of the barrel has been scraped. Canada, a country whose last contribution to the spy genre was InSecurity, has decided with the help of the French to make XIII, a show in which Stuart Townsend – once so promising in things like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Queen of the Damned, before ruining it all with a remake of The Night Stalker – plays a secret agent who loses his memory and has to do an awful lot of fighting and travelling around the world to get it back.
And if you watch it, you’ll know what my life is like – because you’ll feel like you’re losing your memory, too. Here’s a trailer – just for fun, see if you can spot the differences between it and the trailer for the XIII mini-series made by the same people that aired a few years ago:
Since ABC is chucking these out at two a week, it’s time for a fourth-episode verdict on Happy Endings, the new rom-com in which Elisha Cuthbert dumps her boyfriend at the altar and all their friends have to pick sides. At least, that’s what the plot is in theory, but this is basically Friends for the 21st century.
Now, after a very promising beginning, the second episode was slightly less funny but still very promising: single girl about town Penny is dissatisfied with her non-stereotypical, slightly chubby, fashionless gay best friend, Max, so tries to get a Sex and the City-style stereotype upgrade instead.
However, episode three became a very odd affair, with a slightly ridiculous plot about a man living in the ceiling (don’t ask). Episode four was a return to form, with Max having to decide whether to come out to his parents, and featured a particularly funny end sketch, which I won’t spoil for you if you didn’t watch it.
So far, as you might have guessed, the gay character has proved the standout, with Elisha Cuthbert and the former fiancé getting reassuringly little to do. But Eliza Coupe’s OCD, Monica-equivalent, Jane, and her husband Brad (Damon Wayans Jr) have also proved to be worth the entry price. The acting’s still a bit shocking, but the scripts and characters are sound.
Given the rate ABC at which is burning these off, I don’t suspect the show is long for this world, but I’d love it to succeed since it is actually very funny. Fingers crossed, word of mouth will spread and people will start watching before it’s too late.
Carusometer rating: 2 Rob’s prediction: Will probably be cancelled by the end of the season, but it deserves to do better
Well, it’s still limping along, which is more than can be said for the just-cancelled The Paul Reiser Show, so let’s give this baby a third-episode verdict. As you may recall from the first episode review, this is a crime caper show crossed with The Office, in which Bret Harrison has to help Christian Slater run his security firm by breaking into things, all while avoiding office pranks and trying to woo his co-worker, Odette Annable née Yustman.
Since the first episode, things have changed a little. Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor from Smallville) has become a member of the team, the show has basically become Bret Harrison’s previous, much better show The Loop in everything but name and workplace, and we’ve had a nifty guest appearance by Alyssa Milano as Christian Slater’s ex-wife. But this is a comedy in name only and the heist scenes are pretty poor.
Slater is great, as is Rosenbaum, but they are the only two things going for this show. Avoid.
Carusometer rating: 4 Rob’s prediction: Cancelled before the end of the season
