Aleister Crowley’s one of those people who you assume must be fictional. Just take this sentence from the opening paragraph of his Wikipedia entry:
An English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer, he founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century.
Bonkers, hey? Yet this Satanist-magician was real and if you’ve ever heard the phrase “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” you’ve heard the words of Crowley.
Also real was Jack Parsons, a US rocket scientist who helped to found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and invented the first rocket engine to use a castable, composite rocket propellant. So far, so plausible, too. However, Parsons met Crowley in the late 30s and joined Thelema. He even ended up hanging around with L Ron Hubbard.
Bonkers, hey?
And now we have a biopic of Parsons that is actually all too easy to believe.
Bella Heathcote, Jack Reynor and Rupert Friend in Strange Angel
Do what thou wilt
The first episode introduces us to Parsons, who’s played with a certain glee by Sing Street‘s Jack Reynor – one of many members of an almost exclusively non-US cast. Parsons didn’t graduate college, as he needed a job during the Depression to look after his wife (Neighbours’ Bella Heathcote), so has been working in a chemicals factory instead. Nevertheless, he and buttoned-down Caltech student Peter Mark Kendall (Chicago Med, The Americans) have been working together to create a new kind of rocket that might even take man into space.
As we quickly find out, Parsons is something of a dreamer, being a reader of lurid stories that typically involve a Chinese, harem-owning, tiger-fighting king, although Heathcote isn’t quite so approving of his reading matter. Then into their lives comes furtive new neighbour Rupert Friend (Homeland). He encourages Reynor to live a little, “Do what thou wilt” being the only law that really counts. Before you know it, Reynor’s burgling houses, nearly drowning in a swimming pool, coming up with exciting new ideas for rocket propulsion, taking all kinds of risks, and nearly blowing up Caltech professors (Rade Šerbedžija) in an effort to get much-needed funding.
Then one night he follows Reynor to a local church and discovers him in a congregation, watching while Aleister Crowley (TheCrown‘s Greg Wise) is busily sacrificing a naked virgin. Soon, stabbed to his and Heathcote’s door, is a satanic symbol. Are they in danger? Might they even want to join in?
Jack Reynor, Rade Šerbedžija and Peter Mark Kendall in Strange Angel
Happy satanists
For such a potentially exciting and lurid subject matter, this sure is tame stuff. Exploding mini-rockets are the most exciting parts of something that could have been a Satanic sexfest on AMC where it was originally pitched, but here feels like it’s a group of neighbours in a gated community getting shocked by an Ann Summers party.
There is some great attention to period detail, as well as rocket science, surprisingly enough. The cast fit their parts well, even if Wise is vastly too handsome to be Crowley. But if you were expecting something a bit more exotic, the first episode avoids every opportunity presented to it and the trailer for the rest of the season suggests two women kissing is about as exciting as it’s going to get.
All of which means that this is going to be at most a vaguely interesting biopic about a probably far more interesting man. I’d give it a miss if I were you.
One of the reasons I suggested holding off on watching Origins after the first three episodes was that Stargate Command’s pricing model was unclear. Now it’s clearer:
The Stargate Origins feature cut in 4K* is available now on iTunes! Re-live the first trip to Abydos with young Catherine Langford as she embarks on an adventure to rescue her father and save the Earth from a spreading evil and an unimaginable darkness.
Get the Stargate Origins feature cut (approx. a $19.99 value) for free with the purchase of an All-Access Pass which includes access to all Stargate episodes, movies, and more for just $20!
So there you go. Buy the film on iTunes or get it and all the TV episodes, the episodic version of Origins et al for the same price. Obvious choice? Yes. Particularly given iTunes only works on Apple things and Windows, whereas Stargate Command works on all of those, including Apple TV, as well as Android and Amazon Fire. Roku users et al? Sorry – neither work right now, but I have higher expectations of Stargate Command coming up with something for you than I do of Apple.
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
Not quite as complete a reviewing week as I’d hoped, as Impulsetook up more time than I’d expected, as did work. But I did manage to squeeze out a look at Paramount (US)’s American Woman. I did, in the end, give AMC (US)’s Dietland a try but given there was a close-up of a woman using a razor to cut open her own breast in the first minute, I decided it might not be for me and gave up pretty speedily.
I’m not sure I can bring myself to watch anything on OWN – that’s the Oprah Winfrey Network to you – so Strange Angel might be all I’ve got up my sleeve in the next couple of days as far as new shows go. However, as season 2 of Marvel’s Luke Cage is on its way, I feel a bit of a boxset coming on.
That’s all to come, but after the jump, I’ll be looking at the latest episodes of the newly replenished TMINE viewing queue: Bron/Broen (The Bridge),Condor, Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger, Mystery Road, Succession and Westworld.
