Robin Williams - Weapons of Self-Destruction (HBO 2009)

At DAR Constitution Hall, Robin Williams gives his first solo special in seven years. He covers – in the words of the producers - "such topics global warming, sex and politics, the state of health care in the country (suggesting a cash for clunkers program for elderly relatives, among other things), drugs - recreational and otherwise - and more personal topics, including his recent heart surgery" – and that heart surgery thing actually is when, after about one hour, he really wins his audience back, they are rolling on the floor with laughter, waiting for their own coronaries to burst. Who will win the post-surgery battle of Viagra falls: heart or dick?
Williams has good moments such as the LSD visions in a football stadium, and some straightforward equal offender jokes covering fairly all breeds, nationalities, races and origins. There are some moments of brilliance and hilariousness. It is never boring, it is well-timed, apart from the energy that is not the same as twenty years ago he really seems to be on old form. Nice to see the unchallenged champion of stand-up comedy on his home turf, and to see that he can still do it.
And a very nice Walter Cromkite joke hommage at the end – need to remember that for future use…

Breaking Bad (TV, Vince Gilligan 2008)

A chemistry teacher gets diagnosed with cancer. He decides to "break bad", grabs a young crystal meth dealer and teams up with him to do some applied chemistry. By cooking the best meth ever, he stirs up some mud in the local drug scene, and soon becomes entangled between police investigation (his brother-in-law, actually), the drug lords, and his family trying to help him through his cancer treatment.

How did I come across this: you have to read the Stephen King column at EW, that's how. Then you know that this was the best new show of last season (more accurately quoted: "The best scripted show on tv." wham!), and you also know that Life on Mars (BBC) is the best show of the last decade or two. Also some other stuff, but those are the important findings. There is a physical evolution of Walter White, he gets skinnier and loses his hair through therapy - and the disease hence drags him to look his new profession, a badass drug cooker and ballsy dealer, who even in the face of the big fat drug cat does not twitch, but rather throws a little chmistry toolkit bomb at him. He is a great character because he does not know he has all that in him, he is scared to hell, weakened through cancer and chemotherapy, coughs or pukes his guts out every other minute, and gets up to remove bodies, blow up druglord townhouses, break into chemisty depositories and run a big-style meth operation. In other words, he is the way everybody who suffers his fate would love to be (he was the bright guy at university, but got outsmarted in terms of patents and business by his buddy, now the rich boss looking generously down on his environment): The message is: if you want to turn bad, you can, just be dilligent with the recipe. Great acting by Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse (Aaron Paul), the former student who happens to stumble into Walt at a drug raid. Jesse the cool slacker learns some lessons from the wise man, and gives some inspiration back, and maybe even some love.

One of those shows for which US cable tv should get a Nobel price of sorts.

State of Play (BBC TV Show, Paul Abbott 2003)

The research assistant of a Westminster MP dies, as does a supposed drug dealer, and a motorbike courier gets shot at. A team of reporters from the "Herald" newpaper set out to dind the story, and when they start linking the bits and pieces, they realise many events are interlinked. Reporter Cal uses his old friendship with the MP Stephen Collins to protect him from a withchunt when it turns out that Collins had a relationship with the researcher and wanted to leave his wife. Offering shelter, at the same time he digs deeper with his team into the doings of the Engery Select Committee, the Minister, some lobbyists, and a powerful oil company. It all, however, does not turn out the way he expects it to.

If one thinks - as one should, believe me, just ask me, the rest of my family and Stephen King - that "Life on Mars" not only was one of the best tv shows ever conceived by humans (might be a slim possibility that Venus TV has come up with something more coherent, sly, intelligent, warmhearted and funny - but I cannot comment, have not been there in a while), then it is an easy guess that if two of the reasons for this quality, the actors John Simm and Philip Glenister, are in another show, it also must be at least very very good. Assumption correct? With a sample of one: yes, absolutely! The cast here is brilliant, with the mentioned John Simm up front, and the first time I saw David Morrisey in action ("Hello to David Morrisey" - at last I can understand!). Morrisey / Collins is excellently written and played - he is solid and big and tough, at the same time he has the soft side to him that his researcher no doubt found attractive, he enjoys the power of office, and he surely is haunted by something more than he admits. He only gives away the information he is confronted with, and he never enters a breakfast room without grabbing a whiskey bottle. And Polly Walker, and Kelly McDonald and Bill Nighy and and and. It is, of course, not too uncoventional a story, it is like a provincial level "All the President's Men", with the usual lot of smoking and drinking that you have to do in serious nvestigative journalism, and with the piles of old newspapers on everybody's desk (anybody ever wondered why they need to be there in 2003? You can save it from the online edition, for crying' out loud!). Slimy intermediaries (Mr Foi, did you get your name awarded by the writers to honour that instrument of hope for all researchers, the freedom of information act?), ruthloess spin doctors, haunted politicians who ever only wanted the best for country and constituency… but could not restrain from making some sacrifices on the country's behalf for a nice shag.
The format of State of Play is also just perfect - I increasingly believe that the seasonal shows the US tv offers are a misunderstanding, and that reasonable mini-seasons of a maximum of five to seven shows allow the authors to maintain a decent storyline. If you cross that line, you have to start cheating and becoming irrelevant to the main narrative - especially if you cannot decide in advance how long the story will get milked.
On all accounts: wonderful cinema? "Cinema", he said? Yes, this was one long very good thriller, that I happened to watch on tv, but that had all the qualities of good cinema.
Do I need to mention that there is no reason to remake this as a Hollywood production? There is not a single reason!

TV Show Comeback

Now let's see. I had a period of depression on the tv output of the fall. Writers' strike after-effect? Tiring of concepts? Just a bad streak? Fed up with the format of weekly deliverables again (as I was for the most part of my adult years)? Don't know yet, but I am sure come Summer I will be able to tell. Because: Now that quite a few shows have finished their odd half-seasons before Christmas (Heroes, Dexter, CSI, Life, Fringe) and some of them will not come back in a while (I hereby solemnly declare to myself that "Heroes" is officially off my radar), the master class has started again. If those don't catch my attention again, I am back to arthouse cinema:
* 24 - with a big hiatus after prison and strike time, it would be fatal if the show's 7th season is anything but fantastic, making the disoriented season six forget.
* Battlestar Galactica - it is the final, there is no room and excuse for distractions. These are my favourite characters over the last three tv years, and what better can happen to writers and directors than to know exactly that the quest will end now. This season. In an od dozen episodes. The only thing I have to decide is whether to follow week by week or just tie myself to a chair and wait until I can watch it all in one go.
* Lost - others were shivering in excitement about their new president (for us 24'ers, nothing but a prettyboy copy of David Palmer, wise ruler of the free world as early as six years ago!) - I, at the same time, had to keep me from reading all the Season 5 previews of "Lost". That show is in danger of strangulating on its own complexity and ambition, but with a clear target (like BSG, but slightly further away at epside 100, so more dangerous to get "Lost" on the way, haha).

That should be a great tv spring, if not, the boxed set of "Sopranoes" is all that is left for me...

24: Redemption (Jon Cassar 2008)

Where is Jack Baur? Somewhere in an African crisis country. What's he doing there? Helping an old buddy from special forces times to run a missionary and school. He has retired form all those Los Angeles evils, and he needs to retire as remotely as possible, because the Congress is looking for him for questionsing about inadequate torture methods. When the revolutionary forces start rising and recruit more and more kids as child soldiers, Jack needs to help them get to the embassy for evacutation. He does not know that the coup is being supported from the White House, where the new president is about to be inaugurated, unaware that there are forces at work who will make her administration a nightmare.

An interesting experiment to provide a two-hour real-time episode, but there are some flaws: the usual effect of being bounced around by fate and tragedy and plotting does not take place, as there is not enough time for plot twists. Even for the key action, they run through the jungle, pursued by some avenging revolutionaries… not enough substance to make it really interesting, as the nature of the film is serving as a preparatory setting for the forthcoming season. And that means the parallel setting in Washington needs to be prusued, the new president introduced, her background villain presented, and some separate drama placed there, as well, to avoid boredom.
Altogether nice and entertaining, but not more special than a half-episode of a regular season. The hope remains that all that time the writers and producers had to think about how to revamp the 24 principle will pay off and we will be rewarded with something special and fresh.

Life on Mars - Season 1 + 2 (BBC 2006)

Sam Tyler, London police detective, is in the process of catching a serial killer when being struck by a car. He wakes up to find himself 30 years in the past, in 1973 Manchester. Still a cop, strangely fitting into his new role, but disconnected from his environment and on the quest to find a way back. Is he mad, in a coma, are these the final moments of his life we are witnessing? He does not know, neither do we. But over the length of two seasons with 8 episodes each, he follows the traces to find a way back, while managing the day-to-day routine of having to catch the bad guys of his new home.

Sam Tyler (played by John Simm), Gene "the guv" Hunt, Ray, Chris, and Annie - it's a bit like those "5 Friends" of the Enid Blyton novels. Not all of them are nice people, but once you get into it, you cannot but love the ferocious humanity that Guv Hunt oozes, the big bad bloke with heart, liver and the biggest balls in town. One of the best-designed characters, played by an incredibly credible Philip Glenister, without whom the whole setting would surely fall apart in a heartbeat. How wicked do you need to be in order to do what cops are for? He impersonates that question, and provides the antagonist to the ambitious, talented Sam whose naivite about right and wrong occassionally turns out to do harm both to his job and his quest for home. They all evolve, and they become the most lovable team of tv law enforcement that ever was. No kidding: the hands-on, no shit Guv, jumping right into the middle of a football hooligan brawl, or shoving the drug dealer over to "The Toolman" for further killing so that the burden of the law is spread more fairly between public and private sector, that guy is one of the best tv characters ever. And Sam, handsome Sam with his tight leather jacket that fits as if made form him, invented for him, alternates between dilusional visions of hospital rooms, listening to the voices and watching the faces shimmering through the veil of reality, trying to be good and learning how to be better. Being tempted and lured into staying, being forced back to his old life, discovering a love interest and being abandoned by his wife, suffering terribly under his torn existence and more than once being shaken about through fits of mediaction and medicine machinery that he does not understand or could affect. Maybe a life in helpless state of coma, or a time traveller torn between the worlds, he finally has some heart-breaking truths to discover, and when the show comes to an end, one wonders whether ever has there been a better finale to a story told on television. So perfect and logical, yet unpredictable that whoever wrote that bit of teleplay deserves his seat in Heaven on the right-handed side of the Lord. The Lord Gene Hunt, that is, at his favourite spot on the bar, with a pile of beer in front of him and a bottle of booze in the jacket pocket.

I watched episode 1 of the US remake and do not want to see more.

TV shows and other reflections

I have hardly ever been expecting a tv show as eagerly as I was expecting the 4th Season of Battlestar Galactica over the last nine or so months (now how is that about being auspicious?). In the last two years, I have been catching up with quite a bit of tv show material that I could never be bothered to watch before, or where the sheer format - the weekly installments putting their cruel dictate upon me - were just not my kind of ball game. Some considerations on this self-surprising development:

I suppose most of my change of attitude is due to the age of DVD boxes and online download platforms. It started, I remember, when I VHS-taped the first season of "24" a couple of years ago (and even before that, I was the occassional "X Files" and of course "Twin Peaks" audience member), but only took really off with the boxed sets of the first season(s) of "Lost", "Heroes", and "Battlestar Galactica". I admit that those four shows have turned me around - I was absolutely amazed at the high quality of tv that is being written and produced on any given day in the wide world of US tv (only very recently did I realise that for some strange reason, all the best US tv premiers on Thursdays and Fridays - and I cannot for the life of me imagine why a broadcaster wants to offer his crown jewels on a Friday night, honestly!).

Outside those BIG FOUR, there is plenty of material with which I could brighten my day any time: the perennial "C.S.I.", the hard-hitting "Dexter", very clever "Californication", eerie "Life" (will you be back, Damon? Pleeease!), terminated "Jericho", sexy "Entourage", even the recently re-discovered "South Park" (all episodes online, takes only about a month to watch 12 of them. Seasons, I mean). There will be the day when I will get the complete "Sopranoes" box set, no doubt. And "The Wire" lurking behind the corner, waiting to be discovered.

Through the writers' strike, it became clearer to me how difficult it must be to sustain a coherent story line, credible characters and just the right pacing for each of these dramas to work out. The strike messed it all up royally, and nowhere was it as visible as in the case of "Heroes", where the transition from excellent character drama to completely disoriented and pointless superheroes patchwork took exactly one day - last episode season 1 to first episode season 2. Arbitrarily introduced new characters did not work, storylines got lost, nobody really saw what the actual drama, the McGuffin driving the story, was. You cannot pack a show designed for 23 episodes in just 11 or so. It got random, and while there is the hope that the long hiatus gives the writers and producers the unprecedented chance to write the best and most intelligent and most dramatic season in tv show history, chances are rather that the show will glide into oblivion, having missed the chance to keep up the high quality, and not getting another one. "Lost" had a similar problem, actually, also introduced a new set of characters for the new season, but managed slightly better to keep their profile low, indicating that somebody out there knows what to do with them - only next year instead of this.

Even the shows that are running on very high steam and with constant quality for years - BSG and Lost, maybe - are extremely fragile in that respect. The audience's urge to come back every week - to watch it or to start the download or to get home and watch the TiVo recording - can evaporate just like that if you push the wrong button once too often. "Lost" almost achieved that when they lost track of their mythology by introducing new characters and killing them off right away within one episode: the two guys who got buried alive in season 3 were not just irrelevant to the show, they were an intruder from the hostile planet of "continuous tv programming", where a tv show's story having a beginning, a mid-section and an end is considered blasphemy against the God of profitability. One-off stories allow a show to go on forever - and going on forever is exactly what all those shows I like cannot do without destroying themselves (with maybe the only exception and guilty pleasure of CSI, assuming that Grissom is immortal, and why should he not be?):

"Lost" needs to find a way to either get the people off the island for good - or to keep them there for good. "Heroes" and "24" are odd brothers in that they must find a new apocalyptic threat per season (one that did not really exist in Season 2 of "Heroes", and a couple too many in the last "24" season), and Battlestar Galactica must lead the colonial fleet to Earth - or get smashed by the Cylon armies to smithereens - which is what I still kind of hope for: a truly heroic ending for that beaten-up garabage truck and its brave crew.

Before BSG had decided to fulfil its mission after season 4 (and praise the Lords of Kobol for this wise decision!), isolated episodes were seeping in by the minute: about Sagritarian sects, rogue doctors, admirals' wedding anniversaries, trade union nonsense and so forth. I believe the high concentration of these episodes in the second third of season 3 made the decision to terminate the show after one more season unavoidable, unless you can live with the fact of turning a high-quality drama in a rubbish soap opera (as the X-files creators did, of course - learn from history, shape the future…). "Lost" is a bit more hesitant, but 100 episodes will be enough for them, two more seasons to go. The "24" format has reached a point where you cannot just repeat the same pattern, because only so many presidents can get assassinated per tv show. Unless they re-invent themselves after the long long long break, they should consider also going out with a bang (make Jack president, and have him shot when swearing the oath - and then his annoying daughter takes over his job, longing for revenge, and we will never have to watch again. Or we have to watch the loop re-runs of episodes 1 - 7).

As all the shows have been taking breath recently, and only the Battlestar has been revving her engines again, with plenty of waiting time ahead for all the others, I was wondering: what's coming next? Where is the next "Lost", the other BSG-like re-invention of Science Fiction drama, where is the proof that there can be decent tv outside those shows? I am a bit concerned, to be honest, that the time of big-scale drama may already be at an end, that shows that are running over a couple of seasons, but hardly ever lose their aim, their target out of their eyes, may be outdated? Or too expensive? Please no… I just got used to them.

Entourage (Season 1-4)

Sometimes it is worth listening to the elderly, and in this case it was the surprisingly Malcom McDowell of Clockwork Orange fame who mentioned in a radio interview that he enjoyed playing in this US tv show of the title "Entourage". Simon Mayo confirmed it was good fun, so I checked it out and enjoyed four seasons of perfect-length HBO cable format (24 minutes) that gets you addicted or annoyed after a very short while. Addicted, in my case. The entourage around new movie superstart Johnny-Depp-clone Vinny Chase, his older brother of past fame (Viking Quest), Turtle the chubby driver and self-declared rap producer, and E - Eric the Little One, who tries to manage Vince's carreer while keeping the buddy boygroup together in their efforts to chase women and spend Vince's money. The star of the show undoubtedly is Ari Gold, agent, maniac, evil charmer, roller and shaker, who is the way anybody wants to be in that shark pool - especially as you cannot but love him. The only guy getting on my nerves is the arhouse director who manages to mess up several things over the course of several seasons: E's ego and Vince's carreer, for example.
Sugar coating being provided through nice cameos by people like Dennis Hopper, James Woods, Paul Haggis or James Cameron (and most likely dozens of others of whom I have never heard before). Season 5 in preparation, I hear!

Disoriented tv shows

Is it just me, or:
* was the second season of Heroes lying in a heap of uninspired and all-over-the-pace shambles, with nonsense plot lines (virus) and boring new characters (this latino chica/chicko team), a miserable patchwork abruptly ended by the strike. For some reason beyond me, the makers decided to pretend this was a closed season instead of just having the breath for a 6 month break.

* was the last season of 24 (was it 6 or7?) fatally stuck to a concept that became so formulaic that even the impending death of millions was not able to create tension anymore, and the repetitive "crisis-resolution-more-crisis-more-resolution" pattern was used up for good, probably making the authors grateful for a strike that gave them another year of thinking time.

* should Jericho have ended after one (maybe slightly longer) season, because the effect of being cut off from a world about which you don't know anything, struck by you don't know what, could not hold forever. And once the post-Apocalyptic action sets in, the show loses a lot, because re-building an anarchic society is a completely different story, one which requires larger patterns and larger pictures - in both of which the Jericho production is not as good at as in the chamber drama of "Locked in our little town".

* did "Lost" modulate dangerously between fascinating and desperate efforts to make it to the show's finale, with catastrophic blackouts such as the "I am paralysed by a spiderbite" episode last season, and with an eerie effort to get more things resolved within one episode. This is not necessarily benefincial to a drama that needs to pace towards its finale, and where every resolution along the way only takes away this pace.

The only real high-quality constants of the shows I watch have been CSI (I guess those guys are just too routined to get distracted by anything) and Battlestar Galactica, where there is hope that with the end in sight, there is no danger of losing faith and the path. But then again, we have not yet seen the start of the final season, and dammit, has that last season been long ago!

Masters of Horror, Season 2-04: Sounds Like (Brad Anderson)

If it continues like that, I will watch the remaining episodes in fast forward and stop wondering why there has not yet been a third season. A call center supervisor has developed some super-hearing abilities (not clear why or how) which drives him increasinlgy mad. His wife also dies (not clear why and how) and he completely loses it. Nonsense, but the lead actor is actually not bad. IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0817400/

Masters of Horror, Season 2-03: The V-Word (Ernest Dickerson)

I don't know who Ernest Dickerson is, and after this episode I do not want to find out. He directed it. Mick Garris wrote it, confirming again that inventing a horror show does not mean one should necessarily hire oneself as an author for it. Maybe the worst episode in two seasons so far: breaking and entering into a morgue zombie chase, results in more zombies. All this in a teenager setting. Bah! I really have to do away with the remaining episodes and move on to better stuff. IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0817401/

Masters of Horror, Season 2-02: Family (John Landis)

Number 2 of the Season was much better than the first one, even though the story of the all-American, traumatized couple, wanting a new start after their kid had died, but unfortunately setting up shop next door to a serial killer who will soon be after them is a bit … transparent… predictable? But the characters are pretty good, and the killer himself (George Wendt) is the guy I always initially think of as John Goodman's big brother. Everybody gets what they deserve, only the thing about little girl's new big sister did not work out. And what is John Landis doing these days anyway? IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0782399/

Masters of Horror, Season 2-01: That Damned Thing (Tobe Hooper)

Catching up with season 2 of the recently discovered Anchor Bay / Showtime show: A bit of a boring start into the new season, with some black blurb coming and possessing the family line. Duh…not worth mentioning, if not for the strange fact that it has been directed by Tobe Hooper, but is still very boring and unworthy as a season opener. What happened?? IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805419/

Writers' Strike's Positive Side Effects

Here, writers' guild, eat this! As they are unwilling to produce more sustainable stretches of Lost, 24, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica or Life (at least they will finish off Jericho decently, even though I am not sure the screener episodes are too promising - even within the first three episodes a serious deviation from the principal mythology?? Killer virus flu?!?), they have to bear the consequences, being: me checking out other and new programmes, off the radar stuff and the hidden gems of US cable stations. I am currently personal-test-screening:

* Californication: oh, yes! See previous entry.
* Dexter: starts a bit clumsy, the dialogues moving like sirup on a plain, and a horrid voiceover narrator, somewhere positioned between CSI, Life and any other serial killer, forensic investigation. The starting point, however, is so tailor-made to my tv needs (I love serial killers, I love CSI LV, I like Jerrey Deaver's Lincoln-Rhyme-novels, I find Seven and Silence of the Lambs to be entertainment at its best) that I just have to keep watching.

* Entourage: very entertaining, I can watch 4 episodes in one go, but then I need three weeks' break from all these fake identities and indecent levels of casual sex

It is all but a sad substitute for Starbucks, Sawyer, Jack Baur and Co., but better'n'nottin'

Addicted: Californication

I will admit that I am prone to addiction, and it is easy as hell to get me on the hook: just write passages into your teleplay such as…

"Getting your asshole bleached would be much more fun than having him make up things about your life."
"Now you're giving me that look like I fingerbanged your cat."
And my personal Season 1, Show 1 favourite:
"Father!" - "Daughter, what's up?" - "Why is there a naked woman in your bedroom?" - "Stay here, I'll take care of it." - "She has no hair on her vagina, is she allright?" - "I'll check."

Thank God it's only 12 shows in that first season, because I will have to watch all of it tomorrow!

Masters of Horror Season 1

Quite a find - as always with tv productions, I am kind of two or more years behind, but that means I can catch up with two seasons in one go, which keeps one busy if the episodes are real 60 minutes such as with this one.

* Season 1-01: Incident on and Off a Mountain Road (by Don Coscarelli: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0181741/)
Ok, there is not so many people who watched Bubba Ho-Tep, the Curse of the Ass-Sucking Mummy, or whatever the working title was, but I did after continuous mention by some cinema weblogs. And now that director has the honour of opening one of the more uncompromising tv shows in history.

* Season 1-02: H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witchhouse (by Stuart Gordon: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002340/)
For some reason, Stuart Gordon does not call it a day in his films before he had some eyes being popped out of their sockets with the necessary gush of blood to go with it. That's actually quite entertaining. Lovecracft's stories pose some challenges, however, because that guy obviously was crazy as a craphouse rat and hence the rats have human faces, which are a bit ridiculous to play in a low-budget production. But Gordon has Lovecraft experience aplenty, so he uses the blood-drenched version, which is rather convincing. Oh Abdul Alhazrad, mad Arab wizard - oh Necronomicon, oh unspeakable horrors from beyond, you entertainers of my innocent youth! Audience advice: contains full frontal female nudity, both fresh and rotten.

       
* Season 1-03: Dance of the Dead (by Tobe Hooper: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001361/)
Good fun, among the more convincing post-Apocalyptic visions of a depressing future, with nice backstory about the Blix that falls down occassionally and burns people to death, with Zombie-fluid and with Freddy Krueger as the Conferencier of the Doom Room Show that makes you want to swing along. Extremely disrespectful for a tv show. Audience advice: contains decent amounts of necrophilic blow-jobs and excursions into the ugly side of blood donation. And we wonder whether Richard Matheson the scriptwriter is Richard Matheson the author of gruesome esteem? Aha, just checked, it's his son: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1075295/bio.

* Season 1-04: Jenifer (by Dario Argento: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000783/)
Iiiiek, well, ooooh. Both, I mean, the film is terrible, but you get rewarded for staying with it frequently by being exposed to the nice and nicely naked body of the title heroine. If she was only wearing a bag over her ugly face … Dario Argento may be one of the godfathers of modern horror movies, but this one was a bit uninspired and predictable. Plus the

* Season 1-05: Chocolate (by Mick Garris: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0308376/)
A bit dull of a starting point, with a guy having visions of being in somebody else's body (I am absolutely sure the impules for writing this episode came from the author wondering "What would it be like for a man to dream to be be in a woman's body - and then get laid?"). They are taking whatever is in this situation, but it's not too much.

* Season 1-06: Homecoming (by Joe Dante: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001102/)
Some approach their attitude to war and politics with subtlety, some are more blunt about it. This episode can be counted into the latter category, with formerly deceased veterans coming back from their graves to take civil action against those who sent them into useless battle. While the initial idea is pretty funny, the episode is not, as the idea does only yield a handful of hilarious situations. Disliking the political establishment can be done better, see "Wag the Dog", even without zombie soldiers.

* Season 1-07: Deer Woman (by John Landis: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000484/)
The most important thing is of course the self-reference to that wold that showed up at Picadilly in the 1980s… yes, I remember what fun that werewolf theme was at the time, and for some reason, that's one of the motifs that seems to be wearing off. You cannot do a serious werewolf flick anymore, you have to use it with irony and boobs. Both included here, and both very nice. The best part is the dream sequence where our hero visualises all the possible scenarios for those hoof prints on the poor trucker fellow.

* Season 1-08: Cigarette Burns (by John Carpenter: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000118/)
Udo Kier, formerly known as the Baby that came out of Lars von Trier's crazy Kingdom dreams, …  A nice episode for all film buffs, and are we not all on the quest for the ultimate movie experience. This would certainly be one to remember, even though the motives are well known from previous Carpenter films (what's the one with the author whose books make people go mad and violent? Probably the last Carpenter film I watched apart from that whose name thou shalt not speak LA thing). The violence is pleasantly gory, if you are in that kind of stuff, and the creature that apparently was captured out of "the film" and chained to the living room door may well be remembered in one nightmare or the other.

* Season 1-09: The Fair-Haired Child (by William Malone: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0540532/)  
Starting with this one (which I did, it was the first of the season I watched) is a bit misleading, as it is more weird than offensive or gruesome. The kidnapped girl shall be the twelveth one, but the fair-haired child's plans are differing from it's parents. So fortunes are reversed, and the devil gives a bargain, two for one, and she shall live and they together happily ever after. Audience advice: contains Gollum, but with teeth.

* Season 1-10: Sick Girl (by Lucky McKee: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1031246/)
The effort to be funny goes slightly awry, in this tale of a bunch of girls struggling with a bug infection. That bug is quite nasty, indeed, but in the end, they are all family.

* Season 1-11: Pick Me Up (by Larry Cohen: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0169540/)
I liked that one. The plot about two not very nice people taking their sports out into the woods and creating collateral damage on the way (with hitchhikers, punks, bus drivers, and paranoid travellers who see murder around every corner…) evolves nicely and slowly, the showdown is cracking and the final twisted in a way I savour it.

                                               
* Season 1-12: Haeckel's Tale (by John McNaughton: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0573796/)
Based on a story by Clive Barker, the story of Ernst Haeckel is the one of Frankenstein (who is quoted, actually), with silly experiments on dead bodies. Hard to say whether there is anything of redeeming value, but now that I think about it, the only thing I actually clearly remember is the very nice and very naked body of Haeckel's young wife, so I guess it is worth watching if you like that kind of thing (very nice very naked female bodies, I mean).

* Season 1-13: Imprint (by Takashi Miike: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0586281/)
Gory Japanese geisha variation, although I am not perfectly sure what it was about. Stretching audience patience to some limit with the torture scenes, but apart from this, there is not much interesting to be said about it.

IMDB Series overview: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448190/

CSI - Crime Scene Investigation

In terms of tv shows, I am a late adopter (maybe in all terms, but here in particular). Until two years ago, I would have insisted that the only tv shows I watch or watched are / were "Twin Peaks", "X Files" (only the Mulder ones, of course), and "24" (well: "Kir Royal" and "Monaco Franze" for the Germans out there - but that is a completely different league and will never be matched by anything). Meaning all those that had a story with a beginning and something like an end to them, in other words (in the case of X Files that would be the promise of a forthcoming end that was never kept and killed the show. I hope it died in pains. Didn't watch). With (1) more interesting stuff coming up recently, and (2) the best invention since bicycles: DVD box sets! … that changed a bit now. "Heroes", "Lost", "Jericho". Now that the "Sopranoes" are done I am considering catching up with those, too. But at the end of the day, I guess I am in for thriller, mystery things more than for the drama. So even though I never liked Quincy, the hardcore version of Quincy is just my thing, as it combines best of "Seven", "Silence of the Lambs", and Jeffrey Deaver's "Lyncoln Rhyme" books. So then: CSI.

Now this posting is more like a justification for the poor record on film watching and reviewing lately: that is what happens when you are hooked up with a show that you never watched before, start enjoying, and realise that seven seasons have already gone bye - not to speak of the two or three spin-off shows that I haven't even touched yet. So the world had to arrange itself into little 43-minute clusters (sometimes multiple 43-minute clusters. Most of the times, actually) over the last months, and now that we are moving towards the end of Season 7, there is room to spread some praise for a show that not only evolved quite a bit over the seasons, but that showed some particular improvements especially in the latest one: with the introduction of what the "X Files" or "Lost" makers would call a "mythology" thread, or at least a red thread resurfacing again and again and having some great potential (miniature killer). Also the development of characters, them getting shot (Season 6) or tired (season 7), falling in love (Season 6) or starting to admit it (Season 7). Great stuff, even though I think I will for the moment stay away from those Miami and New York sister shows, as it is hard to imagine that the characters established in the original Las Vegas CSI can be matched if you start watching the other ones that late in life. And you learn so much about what to do and what not to do when committing a crime that one should compile some form of handbook for junior murderers.

CSI Season guide at IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247082/episodes

Heroes, Season 1

One thing to start: these mid-season breaks are as annoying as a rash on the butt. Nobody needs them, everybody hates them, and judging from what happened to "Lost", they cannot contribute too much to story development. The only thing that may happen is that audiences look for different hobbies and never come back. Similar in "Heroes": the show came off to a spectacular start, with interesting characters doing their best to keep up the tension, with two dramatic highlights (1. the death of the cheerleader, 2. the nuking of New York) being established early on. So everything set up to allow continuous and pleasant watching, suffering and even a bit of laughing, as the likes of Hiro, Claire and Claude (at least) do have their ironic (well, in Claude's case: their sardonic) side. I really liked the way these people have their respectively very distinct ways of coping with their abilities - from being freaked out by them (most of them, early on) to using it for good business (the lady who can hear rain approachin three days in advance), to playing with its adolescent implications (Claire), to just having a wretchedly good time pickpocketing and running from the enemy (Claude). None of them is really a stupidly blunt Superman-style hero, every single one has to figure out a way to live on despite of the abilities. Being a true follower X-Files during the Agent Mulder years, the background story about the "company" running this whole secret programme to … without spoiling too much … collect the ability-improved guys (and preferrably breeding them, I guess) allows for a very nice villain setup in the story, namely Claire's father who is established as a person of ambiguous motives and character, and who can serve to provide any necessary twist. Which he does.

Many complained about the season's finale, which was called "anti-climatic" and "a downlet". I don't share this opinion. On the contrary: I think most people are not used to having a propoer narrative ending to a show anymore. I am very grateful for a season finale that actually brings the story to a proper ending. I do not hate "Lost"-like finales because of the tension I cannot stand - I hate them for being bad story-telling, and for showing that the authors didn't have a clue where they were going to begin with. So: Heroes, Season 2 will have a new story, and that is a very good thing. Looking forward to September 24th…  Even without cliffhangers, that is soo long. But in the meantimes, there's truckloads of stuff to be discovered on the website: http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/

A Sound of Thunder

I never heard of this until I read with incredulity about the production story (http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/kino/0,1518,490956,00.html, German only)  and went out to find the film in order to chek it for any trash-cult potential. It is outright and indisputable rubbish. It has the worst cgi since… hm… the one mentioned here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGm59vRAlsI (from 1:59, but also observe the "most random movie line ever"). The story's premise (meaning the Bradbury part of it) is quite interesting, being one variation on the evergreen topic of "what if we could travel into the past and what if we fucked it up?" And they (I don't know whether the original story or the scriptwriters for the film) found one way of allowing for some drama and development in the present, by not having past changes affect all at once and as a continuous development since whatever past happened. They introduce rings of change that roll over the world and bring about jumps of changes. So there is some opportunity to jump and run and to actually know that something went wrong in the past. The  way it is executed is beyond words, with Ben Kingsely wasting his talent (again…), a couple of very standard tv explosions and subway implosions taking place, and no depth in the script that would go beyong two molecules of dinosaur-monkey crap.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318081/

24, Season 6

I wonder what I would do if I had to write the next season of "24": the challenge is that after a couple of show that had very similar patterns, there is now a need to break out of that pattern, while the pattern existed for very good reasons. The key element of the pattern is: You have to provide highlights, not just at the end of the season, but in regular intervals. That requires that you "resolve" situations frequently. This again requires that the situations you resolve are not the most critical ones. So there's always a bigger fish coming up, and the audience knows it, and you know the audience knows it. I will be glad to see how the makers get started into their "re-booting of the franchise", which they promised for next season, because Season 6 clearly suffered from the audience being too well acquainted with the mechanics of this show.

My impression was that the producers try to compensate by making the villains as interesting (and as many) as possible. The best way to do this is to abuse personal relationships, and in come…

*** Spoilers from here ***
Jack Bauer's brother. And Prince Philipp … ah sorry that was in "The Queen", here he is Jack's father! Now how personal can it get? And the Chinese bad guy who captured Jack and tortured him for two years (I do have the feeling that the show's fate on Chinese tv has been sealed with this installment - last time they just captured Jack for a reason, this time they are nasty!). And a Russian who is unimportant enough to get killed soon in the process, but is responsible for all this mess. And a vice-president who is a jerk, and a right-wing warmongering  jerk at that. As usual, you have the ambigious character, this time played by Peter McNicol, giving us the Presidential advisor Tom Lennox. I have a bit of trouble liking the current set of characters they way I liked theor predecessors: Milo is not up to Edgar, and gets what he deserves for being in love with the wrong woman (who is boring herself), and nobody could ever step in to fill the gap Tony left behind. At least Jack's annoying daughter has been done away with, and I hope it stays that way.

As for the action, there is no need to complain: we have ourselves an A-bomb blowing part of LA to smithereens, a couple more to keep up the threat over some episodes, and then indeed something that can be called a little cheat: the storyline about the bombs is over, really, they won't go off, but of course we are only somewhere near episode 18, so what to do with the rest of the time? Start new trouble, out of blue nowhere, because those devices built into the Russian nukes grant access to "the whole Russian defence system" - shame nobody had mentioned that before, would have been a bit more credible as a plot twist. Anyway, so there's a new reason to keep moving and kill relatives and gross out parts of the audience by new and innovative ways of getting rid of implanted tracking devices ("Careful with that axe, Eugene").

It all kinda works out, the pacing is done well enough to entertain, but there is this feeling of being not really sure in what kind of McGuffin world we ended up (and in retrospect, it's pretty and increasingly hard to distinguish the seasons). I like the very end of the end, however, where for a change people do not shout at each other, where Jack is allowed to look deep into the bottomless pit of his empty life, and where all the running and spinning and crashing stops just long enough to make us wonder whether that show could not really do with a bit of humanity in the next season. Maybe that would be the way  of saving it from utter arbitrariness.

Lost, Season 3

I kind of simulated the US watching experience by wathcing the first (pre-break) episodes a couple of months ago and then waiting for the season finale before I got into the rest of the season, and devulged it in one piece. I read criticism that people were unsatisfied with the story moving over to the "others"' place early in the season. I don't share that feeling - I was actually glad  to get at last some less mysterious background on them, some factual knowledge about who they are, what they are up to  and where their soft spots are. That was provided, through the backstories on Ben and Juliet, and through that, the whole direction of the show was pushed into a more rational one. While through the previous two seasons, it seemd embarassingly apparent to me that the authors had no idea of where they would lead the show when they drfated the beginning, and that they would need some serious force majeur to get some of the less explainable story elements reapired at some point between now and the show's end, I now think that the dissatisfaction of many viewers with the show's occasional arbitrariness has yielded some good results: the total length of the show has been defined (with three more 16-episode seasons to go), and it appears to me that they have also outlined the show's ending and some ways to get there. That's good, and the show became more coherent through it. I only hope that they have signatures under all the actors' contracts they need until the end.

** Now spoilers follow, beware
I wrote the last because an exit as ridiculous as Mister Eko's is not necessary again, if you want my opinion. Was about as useless as last season's shooting of the two girls who got into police trouble and needed to get removed from the show (forgot her names: Hurley's love interest and Sawyer's sex interest).

Overall findings: I still don’t like the character Kate (Mother Theresa, as I like to call her), and her screwing around with Sawyer is nothing I would appreciate (I am sure she will give him a pillowtalk lecture on philanthropy now and again, the useless bitch). I still think Jack is in general a bit boring, but pretty interesting when under pressure, or drunk, or drugged, or all of this, while doing surgery. Sawyer is getting better and better every day (especially with the edge now that he's a full-fledged murderer, yessirsonfabitch!), and if he ever gets removed from that show it will be then end of it, sonofabitch. John Locke recovered well from a dull first half-season (maybe also due to the authors' work on the show's future story threads and ending?) and has gone from creepy to threatening. Charly's untimely death is nothing to cry about, the only downside is that he did not take Claire with him, that bore (somebody on a blog wrote that there may be case for Charly coming back into the show through flashbacks, and threatened to kill somebody if it will lead to more replays of the offensively bad hit-single his band had. I already plead for that man's pardoning). For some reason Sahyd kept a low profile, and I am a bit worried as for the reasons. Is that an exit strategy? Or will he come back with a vengeance, and lead the endfight against a group of "Others" lead by John Locke, after having tortured Jack to death in an effort to retrieve information on the whereabouts of Jack's father's body? Just speculating, sorry…

The finale of the season was fun, and for a change I surprised myself by very soon figuring out what all this "flashback" was about. My personal interpretation: one of Desmond's flashes, nothing more, because there is no way anybody will seriously get off that island before sesaon 6. But let's be patient and eat a lot of veggies and fruit so we stay healthy and live to see the next season. Sonofabitch!

Battlestar Galactica - Season 1 - 3

Mercy is for whimps. The tough guys go for the big tasks, and how big as
mankind's extinction can it get? So show no mercy and engage in the bloody
battle between humans and cylons, jump on the train headed towards the 13th
colony, Earth, believe in the schoolteacher and her well-balanced humanity
("throw them out of the airlock"), believe in Starbucks' immortality until
she show she knows better, cry with Adama over an expensive ship model, see
the figure of survivors drop every episode. Issues about BSG, as we pros call it:
* there are surely elements in it, and the main A story line (couple of
genocide survivors searching a new home, supposedly to be found at a planet
called Earth) belongs to it, which belong to the best-written tv show
material I have ever seen. This material is up to the standard of the X
Files core drama, but mostly produced on a higher level and better played.
It's an often rough and dirty show, with a lot of funnily disguised
swearing, with a considerable amount of sex, with killing and getting killed
aplenty. The ship doctor is a chain smoker, the female hero is (or was at
least, the habit gor somehow lost on the way) in cigars and wants to get
laid now and again - sometimes even by her husband. A promiscuous supermodel
shows her gorgeous back regularly, while the XO's wife fucks for freedom.
* there are some superb actors involved, namely Michael Hogan and Dean
Stockwell, but most of the others, too (honorary mention for "Chief").
Intermission:
I don't like "episodic" tv shows, stories unrelated to the overall plot. I
don't like shows were you can jump in for just one episode, get the idea,
and never come back. I hate tv serials, I want big stories, narrated in one
piece, with only technical interruptions for toilet, sex, and work, in that
order. I love "24", I despise stuff like "Sex and the City", because it is
as boring as the world is. On the other hand, I would never watch a tv shows
that stretches over months with one storyline (the way I would not walk out
of a movie halfway through, having a ticket for next week's screening in my
pocket, when I will be watching the rest of the film). If it's one story, I
need to watch it in as close as I get to one go. I love DVD box-sets and I
also love broadcasters offering their shows online.
* over time, new cast members come in that are rather arbitrary and would
not be missed: Sam, as one example, also Helo, actually, are among the
weaker characters (even though well-played). Fortunately this also happened
on the Cylon side - and the writers punished D'Anna for annoying too many
people, I guess, by wrapping her up quickly.
* from season 3 on, there are a lot of episodes that are completely
dispensable: Union strikes, divorces of 40 years ago, racism and xenophobia,
. blablabla. It's not only that they start interrupting the core drame -
they also indicate a frightening development, which is: you need this kind
of episodes to make a show infinite. They did that with X Files, and killed
it by doing so. I hear they are starting similar things on Lost, and
audiences get nervous about it. I hope they will regain focus on BSG, and I
think they might: in one of the highly recommendable audio commentaries by
the creator, he voices his own dissatisfaction with some of these arbitrary
episodes, and states, on another occasion, that the "Maelstrom" episode to
him clearly opens the 3rd act of the overall show, not just this season.
At the moment (end of Season 3) the creators manage to keep up some
credibility on their overall mission, which is to find that planet where
milk and honey (probably also some Cylon blood) flows and where everyone
will be able to live happy everafter. I hope they are aware that many
audience members do not think this can be extended and streched eternally.
As soon as the hope for or the believe in this final moment of relief is
gone, I am sure manymany peopple will lose interest in the story and the
characters. If they manage to wrap up the whole thing in Season 4, end it
with a blast, and say goodbye my friends, was a pleasure - then it will have
been a truly great reinvention of an already pretty entertaining tv show.
Again, judging from Ron Moore's commenatry, I am optimistic. He stresses
this dedication to the search for Earth, and I have the impression he would
himself not be satisfied with giving away this powerful force for the sake
of just another season full of more or less arbitrary plot disctractions.

Lost - Season 2

hmmm... now what to make of that? They manage to introduce a whole new bunch of people - and get rid of most of them with utter efficiency? Mid-season reviews not so good, apparently... no, wrong: what I heard was that the ladies who go to meet their maker actually got into legal trouble at the shooting location so the producers had to dispose of them - which they did without further ado. The characters that were established in the first season turned out to be strong enough to carry through number 2, anyway. There is no way around the likes of Sawyer, Jack, John and Hurley - with Mr Eko they may have a new strong lead at  their side (which they can do with, given the final of season 2), and I judge that no new ideas came up on what to do with Charly and more or less all the female characters (the females are still frighteningly weakly written, this is clearly a boy film). There are chances that we will see even less of them in part 3. Maybe a ghastly and untimely death? I would not mind...

The show had to suffer from the fact that when you open such a series, you couldn't care less about plot lines and resolutions, you go hunting for the spectacle. Only after realising that the show might be a long-time companion do the screenwriters need to worry about all these loose ends and these strange and in some cases definitely paranormal phenomena. This Pandora's box of narrative is already taking its revenge in season 2, where the ferocious monster that was shaking trees and killing pilots on season 1's opening hardly ever shows up, because apparently somebody decided that it will mess up a multi-season planning by killing all the major personae within too short a time. So now it's still wicked, but Roman-Catholic stoicism paired with cold-blooded attitude beats it, meaning that we can forget about it. Surely, somebody will soon explain to us about this swarm of nano-robots that went rabid for a short while but now is back in its cage. Away with it.

Jumping into "Others" territory was also, it seems, more like a bit of a surrender to all this time that has passed, because the initial authors would surely have preferred to keep these guys mysteriously absent. So it's men with artificial beards, all right. Why do our heroes more or less hand themselves over to them voluntarily, without showing so much as the slightest bit of human intelligence? We don't know. Do we expect there to be a mysterious release without explanation so both camps are at full  staff again? Yes, I do. Will Kate (my nickname for her being "Mother Theresa") keep boring us with her indecision on whom to shag? You bet. Will Sawyer keep having the best lines of the respective seasons. I hope so. By the way, my favourite scene of Season 2 of course being him telling Jack that he'd had a romantic intermezzo with Ana Lucia, and responding to jack's question why Sawyer tells him that: "Because you are the closest thing to a friend that I have around here." Isn't that touching? I bet my money on Sawyer to save the world in Season 7!

24 - Season 5

There are these bad habits in life that one just cannot really control: smoking, eating ice cream, reading Stephen King books and watching "24". Actually, at any given time I am a frequent user of 1 tv show at max. Usually I hate them, primarily because they don't have one conclusive story, but pretend to have one every week, they don't have one line of tension, but one every week, the kind of pretend to build primarily on the characters they deploy. Admittedly, I am not very interested in these people haunting "Desperate Houswives", "Aly McBeal", "CSI" or the "Sopranos". I don't even know how to spell them correctly… I like 24 because it is not a tv show. It is one film, a bit over-lengthy, but that's alright, I also like Angelopoulos. Thinking about it, the only tv shows I ever really liked in the last decades (with the possible exception of the X Files) were those that did have a weekly format, but only to the annoyance of the audience, as they were really one long film: "Twin Peaks" most prominently, or the German "Heimat" masterpiece. This specific preference of mine disallows me to watch them on tv, of course. That would be akin to stepping out of "King Kong" after one hour, with a ticket to come back next week for the middle part.

Ag well: 24… Not much to say without spoiling the fun, apart from stressing that every single one of our favourites is back in play, some for longer, some for shorter periods. Fortunately, among the short appearances is Kim Baur, the nerv-killing daughter. Tony and Michelle, Chloe and Edgar, Audrey and her daddy, the president and the ex-president. I still keep wondering whether either Nina Myers or Palmer's wife (whatshernameagain?) might turn around the next corner soon, but the script spares us this. It might be worth checking the IMDB entries whether everybody is actually played by the same actors, as there are some very-short-term appearances and I was wondering whether the actors had already checked out beefore shooting and needed to be replaced for a short getting-killed take. Oh yes: some people get killed, most tear-jerkingly at 6:55 pm, if I remember correctly. It is interesting to see how the makers have improved on their abilities to make some characters come alive. I am thinking of Aaron the White House security guy in particular, who had always been some form of sympathy pillar, but now the pillar turned from stone to flesh.

The Emmy nominations have given many reviewers the opportunity to stress that this season may have been the best one. I am not sure, but I am sure that they need to e very careful with the pattern they use, with the succession of issue-resolution-new issue-another resolution-etc. It worked excellently for me this time, again. It only felt a little bit as if next time, it might wear off a bit.

Eternal truths: (1) a happy end after 24 hours of catastrophes is a bit too much to expect, (2) there is no room for humour of any kind when you are busy saving civilisation as we know it.