Archive for the ‘ Pilot Reviews ’ Category

Hannibal: Pilot Review

Based on the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon (most widely known for the Silence of the Lambs film) Hannibal follows the FBIs behavioural analysis team hunting serial killers by working out what makes them tick. They’re assisted by Dr Hannibal Lector. It’s Criminal Minds, they’ve just recruited one of the psychopaths without knowing it. Not a great advert for their capabilities.

The title of this blog post is “pilot review”, but that’s really not true. I would ordinarily review the first episode of a show in complete isolation, not even looking at other reviews. But this time I just couldn’t do that, because I was so very confused by the first episode that I was ashamed to write the review. Having watched the pilot a second time, and watched the second episode, AND read some comments AND talked about it with some friends… I’m still confused about the episode, but have at least come to believe that it’s not just me being astronomically stupid.

The problem is that after all those viewings and conversations, I was still confused about who killed who, why, and how. In the first episode alone, by my count there are at least four crimes. The first we see is a home invasion which is being shown to students as part of Graham’s course, but unless I missed something he never actually finishes explaining who did it and why. The other crimes all have some sort of cannibalistic element, and it’s deduced that at least one of those is a copy cat. But, again, unless I missed something, they seemed to just forget about the original crimes once the copier was apprehended. And again, I’m a bit confused about the copier’s motives, and actually got even more confused when the second episode continued to investigate that crime. Oh, and was the apparent transfer of a pair of lungs supposed to indicate the copy cat was working with the original killer, or was that just a red herring? The more I watch and the more I type, the more confused I get.

The central character is Will Graham (Hugh Dancy, Black Hawk Down, King Arthur) and I’m equally confused about him. In the first episode he says he’s not an agent (implying he wouldn’t pass they psych evaluation, which seems a fair assessment), but then he carries a gun and wonders off by himself to interview a suspect (which ends predictably badly). In the second episode he says he is an agent, and a former police officer, which I really couldn’t see at all. I do like the character, and he’s certainly interesting and well played, but his back-story seems a bit all over the place.

Then we’ve got Hannibal Lector (Mads Mikkelsen, Casino Royale, A Royal Affair). He pootles about with his odd accent, weird obsessions (even before getting into the secret ones), particular clothes, downright creepy demeaner and apparent ability to hide under the nose of the FBI’s wonder-profiler. Even without being a serial killer he is too extreme a character, like a caricature psychiatrist, continually asking “what do you think it means” rather than ever answering a straight question. He added absolutely nothing to the case he was supposedly consulting on and I fail to see why the FBI keep calling him in. Meanwhile Will Graham is equally wacky, with “extreme empathy” leaving him re-enacting events in his head and being about as stable as warm jelly. While the two of them together make for an interesting mental chess game, I’m at a loss as to why anyone trying to achieve anything practical would put them in the same room together and its unfathomable that anyone would let them out into the world unsupervised.

With those two extreme characters I was actually more interested in the normal FBI agent (Lawrence Fishburne, The Matrix, CSI) and profiler (Caroline Dhavernas, Wonderfalls) who at least seemed based on some kind of realistic idea but seemed in a completely different show to the others, not least because they sadly just didn’t share enough scenes. The second episode also featured a small gaggle of agents and CSI types, but I remain unclear about who is a full time character and who’s just background noise. The Criminal Minds trope of gathering the team for briefings in planes, conference rooms and police stations is a bit trite, but at least it lets you know who the characters are and that they form a team, there’s no such sense on Hannibal.

I found the show deeply unsettling, but for all the wrong reasons (ok the mushroom people in the second episode unsettled me for the right reasons, I’m pretty hardy, but that turned even my stomach). Because the story never settled on answers and never made anything clear, I was left completely at sea, nothing to latch onto and build mysteries from. Yet having gone to great lengths to explain to you why I didn’t particularly like the first two episodes, and why I wouldn’t recommend the series to you, I am still going to keep watching the series. I realise that completely undermines my point and I can give you no good reason for my continued viewing beyond ‘inertia’ and the fact that it’s only 13 episodes long. I guess we’ll see whether things become clearer.

2013
05/21
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
Crime Procedural
Drama
Pilot Reviews
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Banshee: Pilot Review

A man gets out of prison, immediately gets into a gun battle in the middle of New York, legs it to Banshee, a small town in Pennsylvania and finds himself assuming the identity of the new sheriff. All because he’s chasing a girl, oh and 10 million dollars worth of diamonds.

This show has a classic problem in that it doesn’t want to give away the central character’s intention. He’s a classic strong silent type, not giving much away about what he’s thinking or feeling. The facts about him seem pretty worrying, but without knowing the why it’s hard to know if there’s more to the story. Why does he take the sheriff’s identity? To win back the girl? To settle down and form a relationship with his daughter? Or just to hide from those chasing him? We see that he has a talent for forming quick relationships, sometimes friendly, oftentimes violent, he seems to take an immediate dislike to the local crime boss but is that moral indignation or just a natural reaction to the competition? With all that uncertainty the character is left as a bit of a bland fence sitter, never giving anything away to either the other characters or the audience. Quiet and mysterious is ok, but it’s also very difficult to form any kind of bond with him.

It also leaves the show floating a bit, because you just don’t know what direction it’s going to go. Shows like House of Lies and The Shield gave it all away in their pilots, giving us characters that are presenting different personas all the time but revealing to the audience where their true allegiances and feelings lie. That’s not to say their allegiances might not change over the course of the series, but at least you know what you’re starting with. In contrast something like Homeland manages to keep you guessing over and over again. Each choice led to an interesting and engaging enough pilot that I came back for more in each case, but somehow it just didn’t work so well for Banshee.

But for all the lack of interest the main character generated, almost all the supporting characters really sparkled – the off the wall computer expert that’s helping with the new identity, the ex girlfriend who’s also been living an assumed identity in Banshee, the amiable but slightly scary bartender and the crime lord separated from his Amish roots. Each is a bit of a trope, but the performances had a depth and charisma that was mostly lacking in the main character. There’s also some originality in the setting and the potential for interesting stories around the Amish community and how they do and do not integrate.

On a technical note the series is well enough put together but there’s nothing particularly outstanding there either. I could do without the cable level nudity and sex which I really didn’t think added anything to the plot, but hey ho, whatever gets them their ratings I guess. All in all, I was left feeling rather ambivalent about the whole thing, there’s nothing to hate but also nothing to love. Whether or not I watch any more will be based entirely on whether there’s anything else on… which isn’t exactly high praise, but it could be far worse.

Banshee has a 10 episode first season which airs on Sky Atlantic on Mondays and it’s already been picked up for a second season.

Huffington Post – It’s a taut, propulsive series with a distinctive atmosphere, and “Banshee” does a good job of letting the mood and visuals tell the story while keeping the plot moving briskly.

TV Addict – BANSHEE will seduce and entrance viewers as it peels back layer after layer of its percolating evil.

2013
05/06
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
Drama
Pilot Reviews
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The Politician’s Husband: Episode 1

I love David Tennant. I love love love him as Dr Who and I loved him just earlier this week in Broadchurch. My friend Sarah possibly loves him even more and even does cultured things like seeing him in the theatre. So we both eagerly tuned in to watch The Politician’s Husband. Unfortunately being located in different cities we were unable to watch together in person, so instead co-ordinated our viewing and spent the hour text messaging (god bless unlimited text plans). At the end of the hour I concluded that our conversation would probably be as good a review as I could possible manage. How much sense it makes without watching along, but given that I’ve edited out several “lols” at things that were meant to be serious, and cut down the number of “oh ffs”, you can draw your own conclusions. In the immortal words of Sarah – “utter codswallop”. And she watched the whole series of The Paradise.

Here are some edited highlights:

S: There may be a metaphorical sex scene. I mean it’s Tennant so I didn’t look away, but still.

L: I’m really struggling to get past his accent. And hair colour.
S: It’s weird actual rp. Makes me wonder if a plot point will be that it’s not his actual accent. He doesn’t do it in the home so much.

L: Hang on! There’s Peter Manyon from The Thick of It! I love Roger Allam as much as any sane person, but seems an odd casting choice

S: I could do without damp patch in ceiling allusions too.
L: I could do without having written the rest of the series after just 5 minutes.
S: So she’s leader by end of episode?
L: I’m guessing Deputy to the slime bag ex-best friend. Taken over his [husband's] cabinet seat by end of episode.
S: Oh and sex with betrayer dude and her asap
L: Oooo. I was close, she just got offered DWP. I’m laughing very hard at her expression.

S: Oh good grief this is terrible!

S: Ffs the shoe thing.
L: “A bit Theresa May” made me laugh though.

L: Also on a technicality – no minister caught dead in anything other than a Prius these days surely? Oh and I don’t think the other guy moving DWP to BIS is a promotion.
S: Tories now, they could have orphans pull them on sleds.

L: Even the geese are fleeing the scene!
S: We will not get repeat fees from this they say.

S: Show don’t tell not mean much to these guys.

L: Questionable blouse choice…
S: They couldn’t commit to that blouse being in 2 scenes. It changed colour.
L: What are they doing to her [Emily Watson]? Shapeless blouses, stretched buttons, too much lipstick
S: Think she’s meant to look like Yvette Cooper.

L: This would have been a lot better if he resigned at the end of the first episode and established the characters first. Now Tennant just looks weak and stupid.
S: Also boring

L: Wow Kirsty Wark is annoying even when scripted.

L: Do you think the ministerial drivers wait for you to get in and close the door behind you like parents do?
S: The light to go on inside no doubt.

S: Oh god this is shit. We don’t have to watch next one.
L: Deleting the series link…
S: That’s an hour I could have spent re-watching Castle.

The Politician’s Husband is on Thursdays on BBC and available on iPlayer

The Guardian – The Politician’s Husband isn’t subtle, sometimes to the point of crudeness… Oh, what the hell. It’s melodrama, and a lot of fun, a big boiling pot of hot, lusty power soup, with crunchy croutons of deceit and a generous sprinkling of revenge.
The Metro – The Politician’s Husband gave us an accurate portrayal of contemporary politics, where nobody believes in anything other than their own self-interest but it felt grubby, with all the emotional appeal of a spoiled ballot paper.

2013
04/26
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
British TV
Drama
Pilot Reviews
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Defiance: Pilot Review

I actually let out a little cheer when the very first shot of Defiance featured a space ship looming in to view. It’s been a long time since we last saw one of those on television. There are no end of series that could make some sort of claim to being science fiction – zombies, monsters, vampires and the varyingly weird and wacky appearing frequently, but spaceships have been few and far between. Syfy channel has finally however put its money where its ambiguously spelled name is and delivers a spaceship.

That said, the ships don’t stay in space very long and we soon move into an entirely earth bound series, but what Defiance lacks in altitude it certainly make up for in sheer numbers of aliens with 9 races apparently cohabiting a terraformed Earth. (Can you terraform Earth? Isn’t terraforming by definition making things more earth like?) So we find ourselves in the town of Defiance, clinging to existence with nervous relations between races and limited resources, it’s sort of Babylon 5 set in frontier land.

In fact you’ll find yourself saying “that’s sort of…” an awful lot during the pilot. The whole thing is a hodge-podge of science fiction staples all thrown together to make a dusty new whole. Fans of the genre will be able to rattle off the tropes that the series is using to build its characters, concepts and plots, but for the most part the originality of the combinations keeps things from being boring. If you watched Farscape you’ll know exactly the type of chaotic yet coherent world that Rockne S. O’Bannon (also of Alien Nation and Seaquest DSV) is capable of creating, and the incredible amount of fun that world is to visit. His writing experience also shines through in the elegant way the world is explained – there’s a minimum of exposition, yet somehow within minutes you just ‘get’ everything. There is plenty of detail hidden away, but if you don’t want to, or can’t be bothered, to pay attention to it, the meat and potatoes of the plot still makes perfect sense.

The cast is excellent, mostly people that I hadn’t seen before but playing fairly familiar characters, most notably Grant Bowler as the leading man who I’d never seen before but was instantly likeable, falling into the Han Solo, John Crichton, Malcolm Reynolds-esque loveable rogue. Julie Benz is more familiar to genre fans (most notably as Darla from Buffy), competent but lacking confidence in her new position of mayor. The two characters play off each other well, each challenging and irritating the other, but also bringing out each other’s strengths. There are plenty of other good performances and characters underneath varying amounts of latex too, and loads of opportunities for interesting relationships to build up.

The effects are a little ropey in places, but the important stuff is all there. The makeup is a fairly standard mix of bumpy noses, tinted skin and weird wigs, but quickly all blends in leaving you to appreciate the characters beyond the hairstyles. The technology that there is to play with also seems fun, again a familiar mix of weapons, shields and funky computer interfaces, but contrasting nicely with the overall shortage of resources leaving people short of food and paper, but with easy access to energy weapons. It makes for a fun mix of dusty frontier town and shiny toy shop.

I was so wanting to like this show, and I was nervous that it would screw up and doom space ships to the television black list for another 5 years, but they pulled it off. I think science fiction fans will like it, certainly myself and my two even harder to please housemates all loved it, but I think even non-fans will find a lot to like in it if they give it a chance. The only miss-step the pilot made was a little too much reliance on the Romeo and Juliet storyline, but the rest of the references were all lightly enough done that they all combined into a fresh new whole that never lost sight of the most important factor – fun. The large price tag for the series and tie-in MMO game (which I have no intention of going anywhere near) mean that it’s gonna need all the support it can get to live beyond the 13 episode first season. But I think there’s more than enough there to tell some interesting and really entertaining stories.

Defiance is on SyFy channel on Tuesday evenings, repeated frequently through the week.

Other reviews:
TV Fanatic – Overall, I’m very pleased with the pilot; the show has done a good job of telling an engaging story IN the future without it being entirely about the future.

Den of Geek – When compared to the opening episodes of such sci-fi or fantasy shows as Battlestar or Game Of Thrones, Defiance isn’t what you’d call knock-out television. But there’s something about its quirky cast of characters and its sense of fun that is entirely endearing.

2013
04/19
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
Pilot Reviews
Science Fiction
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Vegas: Pilot Review

Las Vegas, 1960s. The city is taking off, the mob are arriving and someone needs to hold back the anarchy. In rides a man on a horse.

You’ll get far more out of this show if you go in with few expectations. I unfortunately settled in to watch this hoping for an interesting historical look at the founding of a city, Deadwood moved forward a century maybe, with a similar theme of criminal activity driving progress and how politics and justice sometimes fall by the way side.

Unfortunately that’s not what you get. Instead Vegas (or at least the pilot) is a basic procedural dressed up in a show girl costume. And it’s not even a terribly good procedural. The investigation has a textbook number of red herrings, relies on pretty coincidental discoveries and lacks any kind of emotional connection to either the victims or the perpetrators, all explained via ponderous exposition. That’s all rounded off with equally obvious directorial choices that are amateurish manipulative with zooming in to close up attempting to fill in the gap of actual intensity. It generally demonstrates a lack of subtlety that would embarrass even CSI Miami.

We’re gradually (and equally clumsily) introduced to the characters. At the centre you’ve got a variation on a theme of oddball investigator; a strong sense of justice who will not rest until he finds the truth and he doesn’t care who he has to offend or what rules he has to break to get there. Yada yada yada. Dennis Quaid does his best Tommy Lee Jones impression and mumbles his way through the cliché dialogue he’s laden down with, but it’s all just so familiar. On the other side of the coin is Michael Chiklis, the big crime boss who’s just arrived to build up his casino interests. Again, it’s a completely predictable performance, even the way he ‘unexpectedly’ loses his temper is unsurprising and just very dull. I expect better from these guys.

There’s a whisper of hope glimpsed in the supporting roles, but I’m not holding my breath, the sheriff’s younger brother is more likeable thanks to being able to roll his eyes at the clichés he’s surrounded by (and being played by the always likeable Jason O’Mara) and there’s some comedy from the sheriff’s girl chasing son, roped in as an extremely unlikely deputy. Carrie-Anne Moss’s assistant district attorney shows occasional flair, but is also lumbered with a painful amount of exposition dialogue that she fails to set the world alight with and an immediately boring “will-they-won’t-they” relationship with the sheriff.

Maybe if I’d gone in with low expectations, and a knowledge that the show was going to be a bog standard procedural just tied up in a period setting, then I would have been less frustrated by it. But with the cast and potential I was hoping for something more. I may well give it a couple more episodes, because the pilot was badly enough put together that it could be an exception rather than the rule, but I’m not feeling optimistic.

Vegas is on Thursday nights on Sky Atlantic

Huffington Post – I’ll keep watching, given the caliber of the cast and the solidly made pilot, and I’ll hope that “Vegas” gives these actors more to do than standing over bodies and leveling shotguns at city slickers.

The Guardian – It could do with a few more laughs, but it was the kind of show you could easily see yourself enjoying if Britain ever goes back to having only three channels

The Futon Critic ask that comments are not reproduced but have a good summary and review summed up as ‘ok, but not as good as it should be’.

2013
02/19
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
Pilot Reviews
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The Following: Pilot Review

8 years ago serial killer Joe Carroll was caught by FBI agent Ryan Hardy. Now Carroll has escaped prison and inspired a group of serial killers to follow him.

Fans of Criminal Minds will be familiar with this much more brutal format, these murderers aren’t like the ones on CSI, they’re vicious and messy, people suffer and there’s not always a satisfyingly neat resolution for the story. For some reason Criminal Minds has never really taken off in the UK (despite ranking highly in the US, in 2010/11 it was the 10th most popular show, the only dramas rated higher were the two NCIS and The Mentalist). The Following clearly owes a lot to Criminal Minds in tone and subject, but it actually feels like it’s an evolution of that show, rather than just a shameless copy.

The set up scene at the end (which I won’t spoil) promises a fascinating and elegant set up for the structure of the series, both for episodic “serial killer of the week” and an overarching storyline to embed them in. I found myself grinning along as the details were revealed, as it all became clear how elegant the set up was. Shows like Criminal Minds and CSIs struggle at times due to the episodic nature of their “case of the week” which leaves little for an audience to get really engrossed in. If the writers of The Following play it right, they could have a multi-year show that actually encourages people to watch every week.

The performances are absolutely superb, and you expect nothing less from the type of names they’ve got, who would normally be grabbing major roles in movies. Kevin Bacon may have turned himself into a bit of a joke thanks to some miserable adverts for a phone network where he fundamentally misunderstands how his own eponymous game works, but this will remind you why he was in so many movies in the first place. Opposite him is James Purefoy, always go to the British guy who did Shakespeare for charming and chilling evildoers. Purefoy’s calculating glee opposite Bacon’s gritty angst is going to be brilliant fun to watch every week. Shawn Ashmore provides a bit of lightness and energy to the supporting cast, instantly falling into a more constructive relationship with Bacon to balance the destructiveness.

I’d been really starting to despair about this year’s new shows, nothing had grabbed my attention and many were causing me outright horror at the shoddy quality. The Following however manages to hit all the right notes, it’s got a great concept with enough material to sustain it and a great cast. It’s far from perfect, the practicalities of the set up start to look dodgy if you look too closely and the characters are pretty cliché in places, but the writers are smart enough to actually acknowledge this and that sort of self-awareness is very promising. The pilot is one of the best I’ve seen in a very long time and could easily have been a pretty decent film and I can’t wait to see how the series develops.

The Following is on Sky Atlantic on Tuesdays, Criminal Minds season 8 starts on Sky Living on Monday.

Other Reviews
Huffington Post – Ultimately, my dislike for “The Following” has less to do with its gore factor than with its essential laziness, silliness and pretentiousness.

TV Fanatic – It was an intense hour of television, one that moved at a brisk pace and featured more violence and gore than we’ve ever witnessed on network television. I loved every second of it.

Slouching Towards TV – The Following has lots of potential but it needs to prove that it can build on its premise and deliver something genuinely different without relying on the trappings of its horror origins.

2013
01/23
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
Crime Procedural
Pilot Reviews
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Beauty and the Beast: Pilot Review

Re-imagining the fairy tale, whereby Beauty is a New York cop investigating (amongst other things) the murder of her mother a decade ago, Beast is a doctor who enlisted after his brothers died in the World Trade Centre, and was turned into a supersoldier with anger management issues. He saved her the night of her mother’s murder, and they’re reunited a decade later.

According to the people that vote for the People’s Choice Awards in America, Beauty and the Beast is their favourite new TV drama series this year. I know it’s not been a great year for drama (Nashville is the only pilot I’ve seen so far that I think is actually good), but this does not bode well for the 2012/13 season or for the sanity of the voters for the People’s Choice Awards. I guess Beauty and the Beast is better than Arrow, but then that’s really not particularly hard. The lead actors are slightly more charismatic than the plank of wood starring in Arrow, they can’t act any better but they at least have a passing familiarity with human emotions and it’s possible there’s a sense of humour in that might manage to struggle out in a few episodes time. The director/network also somehow resisted the temptation to have their leading man take his shirt off every 5 minutes, although maybe that’s not a mark in the show’s favour.

One of the big similarities with Arrow is that while that was a low budget Batman, this is a low budget Incredible Hulk – “You wouldn’t like him if he got angry” and all that malarkey. The connection to the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast is so peripheral that it’s barely worth the effort. The beast here is ‘cursed’ by the military rather than a witch or whatever, but that’s the only real link. The Beast in the fairy tale looked like a beast all the time, not someone who changed back and forth. This beast is a model with a scar on his cheek, then he morphs into a model with some tiny prosthetic cheek bones. It’s hilariously un-beastly.

This show looks set to be a New York set police drama, with a slightly odd sidekick and a shady conspiracy theory over the top. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but nothing in the pilot gave me any sense that the show could do it convincingly. It seems to be trying to emulate Bones, or Castle with it’s quirky cases (next week’s is about ballerinas!), but those shows are held together by charismatic actors and well written scripts, this one doesn’t compare well. The two leads felt too young and too shallow, more drawn towards brooding and ‘love at first sight’ inevitability than any depth of character. The script meanwhile relied on chunky exposition and that most dreaded of fallbacks – a narration. The point where Beauty started talking to her dead mother via letter writing was the moment I truly gave up on the show.

The whole thing just felt flimsy, insubstantial, and cheap – a relatively unknown cast (the only name of note is Kristin Kreuk, Lana Lang from Smallville), blatantly not being filmed in New York (although it’s Toronto, not Vancouver as I guessed) and make-up effects more minimal than even Star Trek’s wrinkly foreheads. The inevitability of Beauty and Beast falling in love (despite a complete lack of real chemistry) and the way it endlessly tries to imitate other, much better shows, just makes it all rather dull. If this is the people’s choice for best new drama this year, I’m dreading watching the rest of the pilots I have waiting for me.

Beauty and the Beast airs on Watch on Tuesday nights, and has been picked up for a full season by The CW.

Other reviews
TV.com – Beauty and the Beast is such a fundamental failure that its badness isn’t even FUN to watch. It’s so bad it’s bad. It was a waste of my time and if you watched it, it was a waste of yours.

Hollywood Reporter: That is either awesome or messed up, or awesomely messed up. Because The CW doesn’t even get it. If the network got it, someone would have said, “Hey, guys, this is ridiculous even by our standards. You know that, right?”

TV Fanatic: Vincent Keller, “The Beast,” is part of an experimental military genetics program? And he’s a scientific genius? AND he’s hot 99% of the time except when his adrenaline kicks in? Yup, it’s a CW show through and through. As long as you’re aware of that tuning in, I see only good things in your future.

2013
01/17
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
Drama
Pilot Reviews
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Utopia: Pilot Review

Every year I try to watch more British TV, but recent offerings of anything other than light comedy/drama for a Sunday evening have been extremely disappointing. Last year’s BBC spy drama Hunted failed to really catch the imagination and I’ve not even bothered writing reviews for some of the other offerings such as the borderline ridiculous Ripper Street. Finally however, Channel 4 have brought something interesting to the table.

Utopia is about a small group of ‘normal’ people who find themselves thrown together and deeply embroiled in what’s looking to be a giant international conspiracy of some sort. So far, so standard, but the hook here is that there’s a graphic novel called Utopia which may hold the clue to the whole thing, there’s a pair of very bad guys who certainly seem to think it does. The gradual revealing of the storyline is well paced through the first episode, which at an hour and a half (including adverts) is just long enough to get you completely engrossed, but not so long as to overload you with information that you get lost in.

The show is incredibly well shot. The colours and lighting are vibrant and there’s some beautiful use of slow motion and creative framing that makes the whole thing just fascinating to watch. Balancing that thoughtful direction though is some brutal violence, made all the more effective by the extraordinary casualness of it. The quirkiness of the bad guys contrasts very well against the normalness of everyone else.

By making the show about regular people, it’s instantly more approachable than Hunted, and by only giving us the briefest of introductions to them before chaos unravels it gives us a chance to get to know them organically. I didn’t recognise a single cast member, which mean there’s no inherited expectations which is very refreshing. They all do an excellent job reflecting the disbelief at the circumstances they find themselves in, but also finding moments of humour and lightness.

It’s a six episode series, and I’m not sure whether the intention is for it to be a one off or an ongoing programme, and I love not knowing that! The pilot episode kept me completely riveted throughout, it’s fresh and original and felt like exactly what I’d been waiting for from British TV. It’s not trying to emulate successful series from America or trying to piggy back on successful shows from other channels, it’s just doing its own thing and it’s absolutely fascinating. I would warn that there are scenes that are very violent and not for the squeamish, but even if you have to close your eyes and hide behind a cushion for those bits (they’re well telegraphed) you can still enjoy and appreciate the rest of the show

Utopia is on Channel 4 on Tuesdays and is available on 4OD

The Guardian has an episode by episode analysis and review (mild spoilers): Utopia, written by Dennis Kelly, is a work of brilliant imagination, a murky labyrinth of a conspiracy thriller that traps you from the opening scene

Den of Geek (spoiler free): Kelly’s agile script steers between moments of thriller-style tension, knockabout sex comedy and, towards the end, a violent scene so brutal I felt (rightly, I should say) nauseated watching it.

Telegraph (spoilers): Still, if this first episode was allusive to a fault, and rather self-consciously provocative, it was also gripping stuff.

2013
01/16
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
British TV
Drama
Pilot Reviews
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Mr Selfridge: Pilot Review

In the wonderful world of media, sometimes two groups hit upon the same idea at the same time – it’s how you end up with Studio 60 and 30 Rock premiering the same year, or films about asteroids, Truman Capote or volcanoes coming along in pairs. This season it would seem the fates aligned to give British TV two shows about the early days of department stores. BBC got there first with The Paradise, which was so ridiculously awful that the bar seemed low enough for Mr Selfridge to just step over it. Instead it flubbed the whole thing, shambled straight into the bar and went ass over teakettle right over it.

I’m afraid the blame for this fairly solidly with Mr Selfridge himself, as played by Jeremy Piven. He delivers a sequence of preposterous speeches with over-the-top gestures and endless dramatic sweeping exits. I think there’s fairly equal blame here for both the writers and Piven himself, the dialogue is terrible, but the performance raises it to new levels of suckiness. On a second viewing I saw a bit more of what the aim was – to show Mr Selfridge as a ringmaster, putting on a show for everyone that’s watching, even his wife. There’s the briefest flash of the real man when he talks to his mother, but even that is played very heavy handed. Piven fails to really develop any depth to the character, it’s a performance completely without subtlety and moved rapidly from curious, to irritating, landing on downright annoying before the first ad break.

The other big problem with Mr Selfridge is just how similar it is to The Paradise, and it’s not as if those plots were particularly original the first time round. I sighed out loud at the introduction of yet another lowly shop girl who instinctively ‘gets’ what the entrepreneur is doing, flouting all that’s established and ‘correct’ about the way things should be done. There’s also an abundance of tedious batting of eyelids from some manipulative females, tutting “it will never do” outrage by the bucket load and the usual scallywag of a waiter flirting with everyone in sight. Their acting is right up there with Piven’s, actors can’t really be held responsible for terrible dialogue I guess, but the overacted mannerisms, terrible accents and rigid body language are entirely theirs. I didn’t find any of the main characters particularly interesting, the only people that actually interested me were a couple that were barely on screen for a minute – a very nervous head of women’s fashion, and a perky wannabe actress working as a lift girl.

The nuts and bolts of the production are solid enough. The period setting is beautiful, the shop floor an impressive set and every costume and hair style carefully crafted. The music is also fun, and although the directing tricks of using fast and slow motion and composite montages didn’t necessarily work for me, I was at least grateful for the creativity. If only the writers and casting agents had done a better job.

I don’t know whether I’d be more forgiving if I hadn’t seen a couple of episodes of The Paradise, or Downton Abbey for that matter. The Guardian ran a piece comparing the two that makes me wonder if the author actually watched either. While Downton has its flaws they are mostly around plot and occasionally ridiculous dialogue, they are forgivable because the show is entertaining and the cast absolutely superb. Mr Selfridge lacks the self-awareness and any real humour (except for a notable high point with a French man and a sprinkler system). Maybe the series will lighten up as it goes on and maybe the actors will settle into their roles, but it’s off to a pretty poor start.

Mr Selfridge is on ITV on Sunday nights, and you can catch up via the itvPlayer

2013
01/09
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
British TV
Drama
Pilot Reviews
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Last Tango in Halifax and The Secret of Crickley Hall – Pilots

I’d not had a great day and I retreated to bed with my laptop to catch up on a couple of new BBC series thanks to the power of the almighty iPlayer. Miraculously, this turned out to be the perfect cure for my bad mood!

First up was Last Tango in Halifax. This is an easy going six-part series which is well and truly embedded in the ‘comfortable’ zone of watching. Celia and Alan were almost sweethearts at school, but it didn’t work out. They both lived their lives and raised a family, now 60 years later they reconnect via facebook and rather nervously arrange to have coffee. Each of their daughters are meanwhile having their own problems with their families.

There’s nothing stressful about Last Tango in Halifax, it’s easy going, amiable, sweet, funny and just utterly lovely. Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi are perfect as people who have plenty of experience of life, but are also adorably nervous about a first date. Sarah Lancashire and Nicola Walker are equally great as women living very different lives, but each just trying to make the best of everything. The whole thing is full of an easy going humour and charm that made me completely fall in love with it.

After that success I wasn’t optimistic that my luck would hold for the second new series of the evening, The Secret of Crickley Hall. Mother of three, Eve Caleigh, nods off while her son Cam is playing in a park, she wakes up and he’s gone. 11 months later, Cam is still missing and the family relocates to try and escape the pressure of the upcoming anniversary. Unfortunately they pick Crickley Hall, a house with a disturbing history, gradually revealed through flashbacks to 1943 when it was an orphanage with a very strict master. The history carries through to the present and the Caleigh family start experiencing Weird Stuff.

This is a shorter series, just 3 episodes, and is moving along a lot faster, well paced so that the tension is gradually built up, but doesn’t become unbearable. The Caleigh family is extremely likeable and believable, both in how they’re dealing with the grief of their missing son and how they approach the weird events of the house. Suranne Jones (the Tardis!) Eve believes that she has a psychic connection with her son which gets a little wishy-washy, but it’s well balanced by the way the rest of the family treat her – they don’t necessarily believe her, but they are complete supportive. Maisie Williams as the older daughter steals every scene that she’s in, much as she does as Arya in Game of Thrones. It’s impossible not to like this family, they’re smart and funny, tightly knit without being saccharine and they’re really doing their best to get through the terrible uncertainty and grief.

The period elements aren’t quite as strong. Douglas Henshall and Sarah Smart are stuck with some pretty hammy dialogue and they come rather too close to pantomime villains. Similarly Olivia Cooke as Nancy Linnet, the young teacher worried for the safety of the pupils comes across as a rather too perfect rescuer. But balanced by the extremely ‘real’ feeling modern sections, the flashbacks aren’t too bad. The whole thing combines into a sort of easy-going creepiness that might make you jump a couple of times and keeps you paying attention, but isn’t going to keep you up at nights.

Last Tango in Halifax is on Tuesdays and The Secret of Crickley Hall is on Sundays and both are available on iPlayer.

Other Reviews:
The Telegraph on Last Tango in Halifax – The ways in which this story of late love might have gone wrong were numerous, but with the help of beautifully nuanced performances from her cast, Wainwright steered an entertaining course between the Scylla of sentimental regret and the Charybdis of patronising caricature.

The Independent – [Last Tango in Halifax] triumphed because it wasn’t about old people or even elderly romance, but love. This (sentimental) 30-year-old loved every minute.

The Telegraph on The Secret of Crickley Hall – It all clipped along quite watchably, but – unpardonably for the horror genre – with no sickening sense of jeopardy or threat.

Den of Geek – The Secret of Crickley Hall is entertaining and involving stuff. Nancy and the Caleighs are such sympathetic leads that the horrors of Crickley Hall have a satisfying heft of consequence.

2012
11/23
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
Comedy
Drama
Families
Pilot Reviews
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