Archive for the ‘ Science Fiction ’ Category

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
1 comment

The Walking Dead: Season 3

The Walking DeadIt’s pretty slim pickings on television for science fiction fans these days, and while I know a couple of fans who refuse to even contemplate watching a zombie show, The Walking Dead is still in my opinion the best thing out there at the moment. It does what all great science fiction does, it makes an adjustment to reality and asks what that means for the individuals caught up in it. The plots the show is working on are not necessarily the most original, but the focus on characters and the superb acting and direction make this one of the most satisfying programmes on the air.

Each season of this show seems to move through different phases of survival, from the most immediate survival after the zombie outbreak through to more long term issues such as finding supplies, shelter and eventually a place secure enough to build a home and community. Rick’s group have spent the winter on the run, but they’ve militarised and under Rick’s dictatorship, and have actually all survived. When they stumble onto a prison they think they have finally found a home, and between that security and their well honed zombie killing skills, life seems relatively settled. Well other than the problems which come from having limited medical expertise, food and ammo and a thrown together group of people who’ve been through massive traumas.

Meanwhile somewhere nearby (facts like distances and travel times aren’t really a strong point of the writing) we are introduced to Woodbury, a town sealed off and defended from the walkers where a substantial community is living in relative comfort under the leadership of the charismatic Governor (the wonderful David Morrissey). But all is not as it seems, and when Andrea (who was separated from the group when they escaped the farm) and her scary new friend arrive, The Governor’s true colours start to show and it’s not long until Woodbury and the prison are clashing.

The similarities between the two groups are obvious and not exactly subtle – both Rick and The Governor take questionable actions in the name of protecting the group. Both are willing to sacrifice outsiders to protect their friends and families who may not see what’s being done in their name until it’s too late. It’s difficult to forgive some of the characters for not opening their eyes, or taking action which would have avoided the inevitable and bloody outcomes, I found myself shouting at the screen more than once when they just stood by and did nothing as their leaders crossed more and more lines.

The pacing of the season was also frustrating at time. While I found The Governor and the situation in Woodbury interesting, I grew bored when we spent too much time there, particularly the episodes exclusively set in Woodbury. I was frustrated that we were delayed at seeing how events were effecting those back in the prison. Similarly there were episodes where we didn’t see a single shot of Woodbury, or even some of the characters in the prison which was equally frustrating. I would have preferred the content was more evenly distributed, which would also have helped to give the new characters momentum, it’s easy to forget about people if you don’t see them for a couple of weeks.

The Walking Dead this season was something that I pounced on as soon as it was available, it really was one of my go to programs. I hated even the few days delay between the US and the UK because I knew I would be unable to resist or avoid spoilers and hence some of the biggest punches of the story were softened. Even then I was still on the edge of my seat every episode, and not just for the action sequences, more often than not it was the quiet conversations between characters that were the really intense moments. The absolutely stunning way the series is shot also adds to the intensity, the beautifully lit and framed shots give a quietness and grace to everything, counterpointed by brutal and phenomenally messy action sequences. I’m hard pressed to think of a series at the moment that I get more excited by or am more eagerly awaiting its return.

2013
04/12
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
Science Fiction
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In the Flesh

In the FleshExpectations for things about zombies are a bit higher these days. It’s no longer enough to just be “grr… brains”, screaming, shotguns and bloody messes, now to sustain a show you need to investigate bigger questions like what it means to be human and what it’s worth giving up to survive.

The concept behind In the Flesh is a fascinating one, clearly building on those questions. It is set after the apocalypse, the ‘risen’ have been defeated and once properly medicated they are being reintegrated into a society that up until recently was liberally applying shotgun pellets. Families are equal parts thrilled and hesitant about getting their previously buried loved ones back. The ‘partially dead syndrome’ sufferers meanwhile are equally conflicted with horror at what they did in their zombie states and joy at the chance of a second life.

So far, so good. Unfortunately though, that’s as good as it gets. There are two massive problems with the show. Well, really it’s only one problem, which is the writer, but his ineptitude manifests in two distinct and unforgiveable ways.

First off the tone is all over the place. Half of the series is played almost as a spoof. The government handling is laughably awful, with hideously cheesy propaganda and bumbling officials and completely unable to stand up against the local militia. The fact that I have no interest in watching a show with that kind of humour is bad enough, but it completely undermines the other half of the show which is trying to talk about exceptionally dark and complicated issues.

The second, and bigger problem though is that this show isn’t about zombies. Oh no, you see it’s about outsiders, a community who can’t understand or even conceive of the fact that some people are different, but they’re still people. But the audience might not have spotted that by themselves, so instead you must be bludgeoned over the head with it through having a separate ‘PDS sufferers’ section of the bar, a hookup between a sufferer and a ‘normal’ person which ends in self hatred and violence. Oh, and as if that weren’t clear enough, two of the characters actually ARE gay and completely avoid talking about it even between the two of them, let alone alluding to it with their families.

In the Flesh is Dominic Mitchell’s first writing credit and it really, really shows, beyond the one paragraph concept I’m not sure there’s a single thing that he managed to get right. The terrible dialogue, inconsistent characters, a too weak lead and gaping plotholes just compound the problems with tone and story. It feels like the kind of thing a student would turn in to illustrate that they’d grasped the key concepts of a lecture on symbolism without having to worry about applying any lessons on subtlety, elegance and actual competent writing. It is so incredibly unsubtle that it is actually offensive. I honestly feel bad because I didn’t switch it off and BBC Three should be ashamed for commissioning it.

In the Flesh is available on iPlayer until 7th April. Please don’t watch it!

2013
04/06
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
British TV
Drama
Science Fiction
2 comments

Eureka: Season 1

eurekaI actually think I watched this season years ago, but didn’t review it at the time. I do remember enjoying it, but I stopped watching at some point because my housemates preferred Warehouse 13 and watching both felt somewhat overkill. I recently stumbled across it again on Lovefilm instant and it turns out it’s perfect telly for baking or ironing too, which doesn’t sound like high praise, but fills a very important slot in my life.

It’s got a cute concept at its heart – what if the US government and military put all of its smartest (and most eccentric) people in one place? Eureka is a town populated by extremely bright people who cheerfully bumble about inventing stuff and creating chaos. Shepherding them along however are various bureaucrats, some well meaning and some more sinister, who manage and direct the chaos in an attempt to… well… that’s the question. Better living through better weapons? More progress through more profit? The pull between these factions is a constant source of secrecy, conspiracy, paranoia and even more chaos.

In the finest tradition of television, thrown into the mix is a normal bloke. His IQ is far from genius, he’s moderately hopeless with technology and he doesn’t know what he’s getting into. But, again in familiar television world, he has a strong sense of justice and a desire to see everyone blow themselves up as rarely as possible, and a way of seeing through the bullshit and the technobabble to solve problems with brute force simplicity. He’s also sarcastic, which instantly endears him to me.

The stories and plots fall into a regular pattern of gizmo of the week, working their way through various standard tropes such as the all powerful AI over-reacting to their programming, paradox inducing time travel, paranoia inducing satellites, escaped nanites creating replicants… all the usual stuff. But it’s not really the stories that are important, they’re just a way to get to spend more time with the characters. Everyone is pure fun to watch, each actor takes a standard character type (dumb sheriff, intellectual snob, whiny teenager, good natured professor, unabashed nerd) and gives them confidence and self-awareness, so they’re comfortable in their relationships with each other and fun to spend time with. Like many sci-fi channel shows the whole thing ends up being about teams and families much more than whatever the synopsis says.

Eureka doesn’t set the world alight, but it is Nice and it is Fun, which a surprising number of shows just fail to deliver. I’d frequently find myself pausing mid-brownie making and getting engrossed in an episode, because I didn’t want to miss the little lines of dialogue and bits of body language that just made the whole thing jump off the screen. I need more excuses to bake (or more ironing to do) so I can get straight to the second season.

Eureka is available on Lovefilm instant and dvd from amazon

2013
03/19
CATEGORY
Science Fiction
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Fringe: Season 5

fringeSome series are easy to review, each season’s plays out in its own way with strengths and weaknesses on clear display and all adding up either to a positive or negative final balance. Some series are a bit trickier though, sometimes what in isolation looks like a poor season is necessary in order to set up future brilliance, look at Mad Men for example, the first couple of seasons can very easily be labelled as boring, but without them the pay offs in later seasons wouldn’t have anywhere near the impact.

Fringe definitely falls into this area. Even if you exclude the first few episodes of season 1 which were almost a different show, seasons 1 and 2 were a bit of a trudge – X-Files style monsters of the week and glacially slow teases of what the show is really about. But then… wow. Once the true ideas really get going, the thing takes off and the audience is completely immersed into alternate universes, parallel timelines and just about every other science fiction trope that is going. It’s appeared on my ‘best shows of the year’ list for the last two years and have some of the most adventurous, creative and challenging storylines I’ve seen on television, all delivered by some of the most under-rated actors of the time.

Unfortunately if I review season 5 in isolation, it just doesn’t rank as highly. It didn’t feel as fresh or extreme as the previous seasons and although what was left return was entertaining, it just didn’t soar to the same levels. It felt much more like a return to the early days of the series and each episode was a mini-mission in isolation, hunting out this or that doodad, with little linking up between them. Maybe it’s because I watched all dozen episodes in the space of just three days, but storylines like Peter’s experimentation with observer technology seemed to come and go in the blink of an eye, with no long term impact, and characters barely had a chance to make connections before they were gone.

The setting of a post-invasion future may be original for the science-fiction light television environment these days, but compared to the worlds Fringe has previously shown us, it felt very tame. Sneaking in the shadows, avoiding checkpoints, guerilla warfare and underground resistance just felt grey and predictable. Jumping into the characters futures disconnected the audience from their previously slowly developing relationships. It was hard to engage emotionally with Peter and Olivia grieving the loss of a child, when we had never seen them with said child; how could we really grasp how estranged they’d become due to their different reactions to this loss, when we’d barely had a chance to get used to them as a couple in the first place. Similarly the flip rapid cycle of Walter’s increased, forgotten and regained knowledge left me struggling to keep on top of his emotions.

But, while season 5 may not be the best season of the series, it does make an extremely satisfying conclusion for a superb series. By jumping far into the future it cements the events of previous season as world shaping, without having to actually go through a slow burn of revelation. Isolating the characters makes everything more personal for them, they only have each other to rely on, everything they know is gone and they are seemingly the last chance for the human race, so what option do they have but to be heroes? It all makes sense in the wider story that the series as a whole is trying to tell.

I’m sure there are threads that were dropped and questions that were left unanswered if you watched the series even more obsessively than I did. For me the biggest frustration was that I didn’t feel Astrid ever really got the chance to flourish in her own right. She had an incredibly beautiful relationship with Walter (I’m tearing up just thinking about their last few scenes), but I wish we got to see more of her relationship with the rest of the team and she got more moments to shine for her own skills. Likewise I really missed the alternate universe in season 5, way back when they were introduced I didn’t think I would ever come to care for them, but their absence was a real hole in season 5 and I wish they’d used them more.

Season 5 may not be as excellent as previous seasons have been, but it was a very good way to end the series, given the limited number of episodes they had available. I think the writers and producers of the show, and the executives at Fox deserve a lot of praise both for keeping the show on the air this long, and for closing it down gradually and completing the stories. I will miss the characters and the stories, there simply isn’t anything else like it on television at the moment, and the airwaves are sadder for it.

2013
01/30
CATEGORY
12-13 Season
Science Fiction
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Supernatural: Season 7

Spoilers for the whole series and season 7

So my hope for season seven – lighten up on the guys, just let them hunt some monsters and catch some good luck for a change.

That was what I said in my season six review, and boy was I ever not listened to. Remember back in season 3 where they spent the whole season with a death sentence hanging over Dean’s head? Well that was a pretty cheerful time relatively speaking. Since then life has got worse and worse for the Winchesters every single season and season 7 is no different. Given that Dean died and went to hell in season 3 and Sam did the same in season 5 then lost his soul in season 6, just imagine how bad it is now!

I really struggled with this season of Supernatural. I watched the first few episodes early in the year and then just couldn’t face any more of them. It was only as I came up on the end of the year that I really felt I should buckle down and watch it. The word ‘should’ there really defines my relationship with Supernatural these days. It’s not a show that I actually really want to watch any more, it’s one that I feel an obligation to stick with.

That obligation has a few sources. Foremost is that I still love the characters. They are beautifully written and acted , nothing is unexpected, every reaction, over-reaction and under-reaction makes perfect sense in the context that these characters have lived. Be it laughing in the face of horror, or being scared in the face of sentiment, everything the Winchesters and their extended family do is ‘right’.

The other source of the obligation is longevity. I was late joining the Supernatural party, but there’s nothing like a late convert. The show is still good! It’s creative, wildly original in content but completely self aware. It blends standalone episodes and charismatic guest stars seamlessly with intricately crafted arc storylines and recurring characters. The whole thing has built up over seven years into a giant knot of interweaved threads without a single lose end left hanging. I can think of no other series that’s been so successful in that regard.

But, and it’s a really big but. It’s depressing. It’s devastating to see characters that you understand and love endlessly brought down. How’s this for a ‘tempting fate’ quote in my season 6 review:

What I haven’t enjoyed this season so much is the way the boys always end up pretty much alone. With the exception of Bobby, they lose absolutely everyone that gets close to them. It’s getting to be quite ridiculous that absolutely no one except the seemingly invulnerable Bobby survives befriending (or be-villaining for that matter) the Winchesters

So of course this season first they kill Castiel off. Then they kill Bobby off. Then they even kill off Bobby’s ghost. In between that they introduce old friends, old comrades, even a daughter (all be it one created by monsters) and not a one of them outlives their first episode. They even have to give up the car!

The stories are all compelling, they’re all well written, well acted and entirely justified in the context of the world threatening badness that surrounds the Winchesters. But good grief is it ever depressing. The boys end up alcoholic, sleep deprived, mentally unstable and disconnected from any kind of happiness; doomed to forever be saving the world yet unthanked and unrewarded. It’s relentless. While there’s still plenty of incidental laughs to be had from pop culture references, inappropriate smutty remarks and jet black humour, the overall tone rather drags you down into the depths of despair.

The show is still great, but it’s become harder and harder to actually watch. So I’ll reiterate my plea. So my hope for season seven eight – lighten up on the guys, just let them hunt some monsters and catch some good luck for a change.

2012
09/15
CATEGORY
11-12 Season
Science Fiction
1 comment

The Walking Dead: Season 2

The Walking Dead title screenMy principle complaint of the first season of The Walking Dead was that at just six episodes long there wasn’t really much more to it in either time or depth, than a standard feature film. The great news is that with thirteen episodes and all the foundations already in place, season 2 finally gave me what I’d been hoping for. The extended runtime was put to really good use with characters and stories being developed with far more care and detail than any film ever could.

For me, probably 75% of my enjoyment of television shows comes from watching characters develop, working why they do what they do, and how they change as they’re affected by whatever occurrences the writers throw at them. Season 2 of The Walking Dead eases up on the running around evading zombies and could almost be seen as an extended character study.

The season plays out over just a couple of weeks (maybe even only a few days) as the group find somewhere to settle for a while, maybe even permanently. As people stop having to focus on the immediate day-to-day fight to survive, priorities change, relationships adjust and the whole dynamic of the group shifts. Characters can start to evaluate what’s happened, who they are now and how they want to live in this new world. The characters grow beyond the limited fences imposed by the large cast and short runtime of the first season. Everyone gets more attention and characters that I’d mostly ignored because of their background position in the group got a little more depth and interest to them. The new additions to the group who have been surviving in an entirely different way challenge the characters and relationships even further, asking questions that may otherwise not have occurred to anyone.

There are still plenty of practical issues of survival for the group to deal with and I thought the pacing of the season was well handled, not just building and relieving tension smoothly but occasionally startling me with sudden jumps or even more cleverly, introducing moments of calm into the chaos. The show is beautifully produced, and every shot, whether an edge of seat action sequence or a lingering shot of a zombie shambling across a field is gorgeously framed and lit.

There are still a few problems with the show – cliché moments, appearing and disappearing plot threads and overly contrived scenarios litter the scripts. I also still struggle to relate to some of the ‘lead’ characters who I wouldn’t really want to be stuck with in any sort of crisis. While that’s probably intentional, sometimes it felt like the writers were trying a little too hard to make their leaders flawed and the fact the other characters don’t stage a coup becomes increasingly unrealistic. I also continue to struggle with Andrew Lincoln, I’m not sure he has enough ‘oomph’ for the role and I am unconvinced by his accent.

My recommendation to anyone that hasn’t been watching is to pick up the first two series together and just watch them straight through back to back. Season 1 is really just an extended trailer, establishing the world they are living in, It’s Season 2 where the meaty stuff kicks in and there’s an interesting exploration of what happens to people and society long term. This was far more the show that I’d been hoping for!

2012
04/13
CATEGORY
11-12 Season
Drama
Science Fiction
1 comment

Alcatraz – Pilot review

In 1963 Alcatraz prison closed. But the prisoners weren’t transferred away as everyone thinks, in fact they and all the guards just disappeared. Now it seems they’re coming back and they don’t seem to have aged or rehabilitated in the intervening half century. A special team of FBI, police and civilians is formed to track them down before they commit more crimes, and to find out who took them and what they’ve been sent back to do.

This is the latest in a string of series being heralded as “the new Lost” which basically seems to mean that the story is built around a core mystery that will encourage you to spend hours picking apart all the hints. Of course of the many things studios have hoped would be the new Lost, few have succeeded and the label is as much a curse as anything else these days. Alcatraz however has the bonus of pedigree behind it – JJ Abrams produced it, there’s overlapping writers and Jorge Garcia (Hurley, one of the best things in Lost) co-stars.

The concept behind Alcatraz looks pretty good for the Lost-model – it’s got the mystery to keep you returning each week but also a good set up for episodic story-lines to keep you entertained while it taunts you with micro-hints each week. There’s a mixture of present day cops running around and shooting and gradually revealing flashbacks to fill in the gaps. The combination of true history and made up mystery is sure to be sending some hefty traffic wikipedia’s way as well.

The problem I had with the show was that the pilot didn’t feel very well put together, in particular a lot of the dialogue felt as if someone had written all the placeholder exposition and then forgotten to address the note of “make this sound more realistic before filming it”. The characters had a similar problem, as if they’d just gone with a shorthand version and forgotten to sand off the cliché corners, for example the lead character was orphaned at a young age, raised by gruff cop, grows up into ambitious young detective, bit of a loner after the death of her partner which haunts her.

Somewhere under the cliché and poor dialogue there’s some good actors struggling to get out. Relative newcomer Sarah Jones somehow managed to take the cliché ridden character and clunky dialogue and still be interesting to watch. Jorge Garcia’s very presence brings something unusual to the show, a very non-Hollywood presence. Sam Neal may only ever really play one character, but at least he does it well. The supporting players didn’t really rise above though, the villain of the week was particularly bland.

I think what JJ Abrams has done is not re-created what he did with Lost, but instead what he did with Fringe, and I mean that in both a good and bad way. Alcatraz, like Fringe, has a good foundation to build on – elements like actors, character breakdowns, mystery and episodic set up that can come together to form a really solid and interesting series. Unfortunately, just like Fringe, I think it’s got off to a really poor start with a pilot singularly lacking in any spark that makes me want to come back. The fact that I will give it a few more episodes is solely down to the fact that I fell for that misdirection with Fringe and it took me years to realise what I was missing. I don’t want to fall into the same trap with Alcatraz.

Alcatraz will be shown on Watch in the UK from March

Other reviews – I always read the other reviews after writing my own, at which point I realised that Alcatraz actually aired the first two episodes back to back as a pilot, but I’d only watched the first. I couldn’t be bothered to re-write the review, so my stuff may not tally with the reviews below.

CliqueClack – It looked captivating, unique, mysterious and … interesting. Sadly, it is none of those things to me after seeing the 2-hour premiere.

TV Fanatic -
Alcatraz hits on all the key elements that make a show great and, while not as serialized as many of J.J. Abrams other shows (Lost, Alias), it does contain plenty of factors that make the series more than just hunting down criminals each week. Fox has another winner on its hands and I’m looking forward to seeing where this show takes its characters and the fascinating mystery that surrounds them.

2012
01/29
CATEGORY
11-12 Season
Crime Procedural
Pilot Reviews
Science Fiction
2 comments

Warehouse 13 – Season 3

Back in 2009 I wrote this of the first season of Warehouse 13:

“There’s a lot wrong with this show. On paper it looks good, but the way the concept is put into practise is really very shabby in places. The whole thing has a kind of sheen of cheapness about it – plots are unpolished and full of holes, special effects are awful and some of the dialogue is truly dreadful. However the casting is superb and all of the actors are wringing every last drip of fun out of the scripts and making the show a lot better than it deserves. I really hope next season they manage to find some writers who can produce scripts worthy of their cast and really raise this show up a notch.”

Two years later and I have to report that they really haven’t taken it up a notch, it’s still just as shabby and cheap as the first season. But the astute amongst you will notice that despite that, I’m still watching the damn the show!

It really does take a special talent to make a show as bad as this. I can only really conclude that they are either so cheap, or so lazy that they just don’t bother reviewing their scripts to see if they hang together. Every episode I can spot at least a dozen ways that the stories could be made better even while simultaneously eating my dinner and doing a sudoku. That’s not me boasting at all, that’s just how utterly awful the scripts are.

The other reason that I multi-task so much is that the simple act of watching, rather than just listening, also has a notable impact on the enjoyability of the show. It still seems to be one of the cheapest shows on television, with huge quantities of it blue screened to avoid having to go on location and the CGI seemingly priced on a pixel by pixel basis. I think the big expense this year was a relatively well trained dog, although the ridiculous amount of product placement for Priuses (Prium? Priai?) may have covered that.

So why am I still here? Two reasons. Firstly, there is painfully little sf on television, and that is about the only thing my housemates and I watch together. We never really took to Eureka, Dr Who is over for another year and there’s only so many times you can rewatch Firefly.

Secondly – somewhere underneath the terrible scripts there’s a really talented and entertaining cast desperately trying to drag themselves out from under cliché and twaddle. They’re charming and funny and bring a genuine sense of wonder and excitement to the adventures they have. Most importantly none of them are perfect, they all have their little flaws and failings that prevent them from becoming the kind of super-agents that just get really irritating. This season had a really lovely collection of little character stories, Claudia making a friend, Pete finding out a family secret, Myka finding her confidence as an agent, Artie getting a dog – it was just nice.

Fortunately Warehouse 13 is on when there’s not much else to compete with, on a quiet network and doesn’t have a very long run each season – all meaning that it doesn’t need spectacular ratings and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Thanks to all that it let it sneak below my quality radar, but I do get frustrated with it because the stuff that it’s failing at is the easy stuff and it really wouldn’t take much to make this a really great little show.

2011
10/31
CATEGORY
11-12 Season
Science Fiction
1 comment

Doctor Who – 2011

I hate trying to write reviews of Doctor Who. I love the show to pieces, but find it a little tiresome to over-analyse it. Sometimes it really does feel like it’s enough to say “that was great!” and leave it at that. Unfortunately for me apparently I made some kind of commitment to not just leave these things hanging.

The series as a whole adopted the technique of showing us what’s going to happen, then leaving us the rest of the season to work out why it happened, what it means and what happens next. It’s a good idea, keeps you guessing all along. Unfortunately they made it just that little bit too big – the doctor dies. Not just regenerates, but really properly dies and has a Viking funeral and everything. But it’s too much, as soon as they did that you know there’s a trick – the BBC isn’t going to kill off the franchise! So from the get-go you know you’re being manipulated and it will all be undone one way or the other, which rather takes the drama out of it.

The rest of the season is rather surprisingly not about the Doctor’s journey, it’s River Song’s. While certain dimwits complain about the complexities of her storyline (or timeline) I for one loved it! What’s the point of having a show about time travel if you’re not occasionally going to do things in the wrong order? Everything made perfect sense and was a really fun look at what you can do if you take ideas to their distant but logical extremes. That’s what science fiction is supposed to do. Plus Alex Kingston is wonderful.

While a couple of the more standalone episodes left a bit to be desired (pirates? Really? And what was all that with the cloned people?) I am willing to forgive almost anything because this was the season that Neil Gaiman introduced us to the TARDIS. A stunning episode, hilarious and heartbreaking from start to finish. The Girl Who Waited was another superb piece of science fiction and provided some great acting opportunities for the companions. I’ve really enjoyed the themes they play about with for Amy and Rory, I love the way their characters have gradually been clarified this season, not developed because nothing has really changed about them, it’s just that the audience and the Doctor have come to understand their characters so much better. These two companions more than any I can really remember are full characters in their own rights, they don’t just define themselves by their relationship with the Doctor.

With the Doctor, two regular companions , regular visits from River and visiting companions like the TARDIS and Craig, it’s felt pretty crowded at times but I for one have really enjoyed it. I like Doctor Who when the solitary brooding is implied off screen rather than front and centre. I think this season worked spectacularly well for combining characters, thought provoking plots, action adventure and outright fun. It’s a phenomenally difficult balance to find, but I think Doctor Who is easily one of the best shows on television at the moment – my only complaint is that there’s not enough of it.

Other reviews (containing spoilers)
Slouching Towards Thatcham – Most importantly though, was season six actually any good? It was certainly more ambitious, scary and arc-heavy than any season since the series’ rebirth. And despite a couple of clunkers early on, the quality has been consistently high.

CliqueClack and The Guardian both review episode by episode and generally like them.

2011
10/08
CATEGORY
10-11 Season
11-12 Season
Science Fiction
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