Turning away from politics, for a wee while, I’ve been finding things have been pretty good in the TV world, recently.
I thoroughly enjoyed Life On Mars on BBC 1, recently. I expected slightly better — or at least different — of it when it was first announced: I thought there would be more (or some) ambiguity or doubt about whether Sam Tyler was experiencing it all in his mind while in a coma, or had actually travelled in time.
Shortly after the start there was no such ambiguity about that, and we were deep in The Bridge or Marabou Stork Nightmares territory (if you can compare a TV series with a novel, then I’d say it’s better than the latter but nowhere near as good (obviously) as the former). What I was hoping for in the final episode, though, is that Sam would wake up back in 2006; and that he would then look into the history of the personnel at the station, and find that Gene Hunt and the others (and DI Sam Tyler, for that matter) really existed. Maybe he would even look up a now-aged and retired Gene, an Annie who is a grandmother.
Obvious, maybe, but it could have been a nice touch.
I had some mixed feelings about the whole thing, though. I wanted it to be resolved and completed, for dramatic satisfaction. But I so much enjoyed the interactions between the characters (especially the growing and grudging respect between Tyler and Hunt) and the quality of most of the stories that I became (and remain) keen to see more. If he had woken up, there would be no going back.
The West Wing maintained its high standard through the recent season (in fact this season, 6, was significantly better than 5 was, I would say) and I’m profoundly glad that we got a digibox and so could watch it on the excellent More4, rather than having to wait for the DVDs to be released. More4 are taking us straight into season 7, so only 22 21 more weeks and then it’s over forever.
More4 is also where we get The Daily Show With John Stewart, to give it its full-length name. This is just a fabulous show; hilarious, thought-provoking and informative. What more could you ask for?
Well, I could ask for something as good — and in a similar vein — for Britain.
The IT Crowd was disappointing enough after two or three episodes that I didn’t bother to work around its clashing with The West Wing on Friday nights). I’ve read some positive comments on it, though, and it ought to have been good, given its pedigree; so maybe I’ll watch out for the repeats. I wonder if that stupid announcer ever stopped calling it ‘The it Crowd’, though?
Hyperdrive was largely disappointing, and Invasion just petered out: that is, I petered out of watching it.
Most importantly (in comedy, at least): at last they’ve started showing the trailers I’ve been waiting for: “New Green Wing. Nearly ready.” Hooray! The funniest comedy of the last few years: right up there with Absolutely I can hardly wait.
And to top all that, my old friend from uni, Paul Cockburn inadvertently reminds me that the new Doctor Who will be starting quite soon. Fantastic!
2 Comments
Hi Martin, for some reason I just remembered that you had a blog and went searching for it. I’ve tried before but every time I used to click on it from the Google links it would come up as XML source, damn. I’ll phone you about meeting up now that our German & Austrian visitors have left and the football season (Allys) is nearly over and we’ve finally run out of Saturday night fund raising events and Diane might take a break from her MA etc etc.
Anyway I’ve only read a couple of pages of the blog, looks like a good way to see what’s going on in a persons life if that’s what they write. Never looked at a blog before. Some kind of self help therapy, a digital diary, man for an IT man I really don’t keep up with the internet.
TV I’ll be brief as it’s 11:40 and I should go to bed. West Wing, only got into it last series and wish I’d seen them all, can’t switch the brain off for the weekend until it’s done.
Hyper Drive, shite,shite, shite, shite, shite. Ally now has all the Read Dwarf DVDs ( not my fault).
Didn’t watch “Life On Mars” I thought it would just be an excuse to redo a very un PC 70s cop series with speech marks round it. Cynical streak not quite obliterated yet.
House, I love it it’s the best thing on the telly apart from the West Wing & Dr Who.
Can’t be bothered to talk about TV any more it’s not that interesting mostly.
The only things I’ve seen in the cinema this year have been the Johnny Cash biopic ( can’t remember it’s name ) and Harry Potter and the something or other, both quite good really but there wasn’t much I wanted to see. There seems to be a bit of a void now that LOTR films aren’t coming out once a year. Hobbit ?
Wilson has moved but I expect you knew that, must phone him though I did get a thank you as I sent him a CD.
It will take me a while to catch up with your blog now that I’ve found itas I feel I should read it all. Are you free any time soon ?
Oh bugger, I didn’t realise this would appear on the web otherwise I would have at least tried to correct the spelling mistakes and typos, well I would at least have read it over again, damn pescy internet. There’s a new Carrot out well it was out in the last 6 months.