Even More Reviews of British Television:
Dec. 2nd, 2008 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skywaterblueSurvivors -- Episode Two
Cooper and I have determined that this show hangs by the fact that Tom and Greg are really interesting. He actually felt that episode two was better than episode one, because it had fewer plot holes. I felt it was less compelling than the pilot and thus a bit of a failure.
However, he is convinced that Paterson Joseph is gonna be an excellent Doctor, so there's that.
Also, this episode made me really hate Abby. She's classified as 'the dumb survivor' in my post-apocalyptic book, since she still thinks her son is alive and is thus willing to risk her own life in obviously stupid ways. Likewise, Anya had a couple of dumbass moments in this: one, not telling other people she's a doctor, when that would help them survive. Two: not believing Tom when he told her he was a committed felon.
Mainly, we really hate Al, and think the little boy out acts him in every scene they are in together.
The Devil's Whore -- Episode Two
Admission: I know relatively little about the English Civil War. There was Cromwell and he was a bastard but a Republican bastard and therefore the American sort of bastard, and they kill the King but Cromwell is a dictator and it all goes ass up. Somewhere in there you fit in the Great London Fire and Pepys and Milton.
I am well-educated on the period by American standards, actually. Try and imagine how much time American classrooms devote on the subject. I'll wait.
Anyway, what was good about this episode: Angelica and Saxby! They have a great mysterious chemistry and any time these two are alone together the episode lifts itself out of boredom. I liked the bits where they were murdering fools left and right, wearing men's clothes and being Highwaymen in the forest. Also, skinny dipping.
What is kind of stupid is the missing two years between the episode. What exactly WAS Angelica supposed to be doing to support herself while on the streets, if not prostitution? And then she allows herself to stand trial for murder even though she could probably have claimed leniency due to being preggers. (Maybe they're saving that for next episode.)
Oh well. Shame about the second husband getting murdered by Cromwell, they should have left for America. They would have made great colonists. ;)
Sarah Jane Adventures: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith
I think "Father's Day" is a really great, really disturbing and mawkish episode. I cried the first time I watched it, and then the day after felt icky about having done so. So I was kind of icky about reusing the plot for Sarah Jane.
I actually ended up feeling it worked a little bit better here, because both Sarah Jane and Luke know the danger going in and they know it's a trap, but the thrill of getting to solve personal mysteries and long-put-aside longings is too tempting to not do it. And Luke not being able to exactly force his mother to do the right thing makes more sense than The Doctor playing seconds and thirds with Rose.
Plus, Rani and Clyde get to work together as a team and are really smart and capable! And it's a wee bit shippy, with her kissing Clyde on the cheek. And Clyde thinking he should be heroic a bit more often.
Also brilliant: Victoria and David Beckham! "Yes, ethnic person in the fifties! Moving on." Heh.
Ultimately, it works best because it takes the situation with a bit of a pisstake on a whole bunch of things done a little less gracefully in Doctor Who.
Charlie Brooker's "Dead Set" + Season Five of Screenwipe
Episode One was better than Episode Two, primarily because good reviews are less fun than bad reviews. The poetry bits are a mistake and Cooper and I fast forward through them.
As for Dead Set, it was really good! I called it successfully in the middle of the first episode that this was going to be an EVERYONE DIES zombie flick. The zombies are just too deadly in this. The scene where the producer butchers the dead? Squicked even us hardened zombie film watchers.
However, I'm generally really pleased about how everyone who survives the initial round of killings (save for the people in the house, obviously) are good survivors who tend not to make too many stupid mistakes. Which immediately made this show better written than 'Survivors'. (Of course, in 'Survivors' they don't have to fight the undead.)
Even the decision by the boyfriend to go back for his girlfriend makes brilliant sense in the context of the show -- something that almost never works in zombie dramas!
Finally, one of the things that I thought elevated the series was the sense of time. The main characters who are survivors are survivors because they wait and think decisions though before making them, and not always through sheer luck.
Cooper and I have determined that this show hangs by the fact that Tom and Greg are really interesting. He actually felt that episode two was better than episode one, because it had fewer plot holes. I felt it was less compelling than the pilot and thus a bit of a failure.
However, he is convinced that Paterson Joseph is gonna be an excellent Doctor, so there's that.
Also, this episode made me really hate Abby. She's classified as 'the dumb survivor' in my post-apocalyptic book, since she still thinks her son is alive and is thus willing to risk her own life in obviously stupid ways. Likewise, Anya had a couple of dumbass moments in this: one, not telling other people she's a doctor, when that would help them survive. Two: not believing Tom when he told her he was a committed felon.
Mainly, we really hate Al, and think the little boy out acts him in every scene they are in together.
The Devil's Whore -- Episode Two
Admission: I know relatively little about the English Civil War. There was Cromwell and he was a bastard but a Republican bastard and therefore the American sort of bastard, and they kill the King but Cromwell is a dictator and it all goes ass up. Somewhere in there you fit in the Great London Fire and Pepys and Milton.
I am well-educated on the period by American standards, actually. Try and imagine how much time American classrooms devote on the subject. I'll wait.
Anyway, what was good about this episode: Angelica and Saxby! They have a great mysterious chemistry and any time these two are alone together the episode lifts itself out of boredom. I liked the bits where they were murdering fools left and right, wearing men's clothes and being Highwaymen in the forest. Also, skinny dipping.
What is kind of stupid is the missing two years between the episode. What exactly WAS Angelica supposed to be doing to support herself while on the streets, if not prostitution? And then she allows herself to stand trial for murder even though she could probably have claimed leniency due to being preggers. (Maybe they're saving that for next episode.)
Oh well. Shame about the second husband getting murdered by Cromwell, they should have left for America. They would have made great colonists. ;)
Sarah Jane Adventures: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith
I think "Father's Day" is a really great, really disturbing and mawkish episode. I cried the first time I watched it, and then the day after felt icky about having done so. So I was kind of icky about reusing the plot for Sarah Jane.
I actually ended up feeling it worked a little bit better here, because both Sarah Jane and Luke know the danger going in and they know it's a trap, but the thrill of getting to solve personal mysteries and long-put-aside longings is too tempting to not do it. And Luke not being able to exactly force his mother to do the right thing makes more sense than The Doctor playing seconds and thirds with Rose.
Plus, Rani and Clyde get to work together as a team and are really smart and capable! And it's a wee bit shippy, with her kissing Clyde on the cheek. And Clyde thinking he should be heroic a bit more often.
Also brilliant: Victoria and David Beckham! "Yes, ethnic person in the fifties! Moving on." Heh.
Ultimately, it works best because it takes the situation with a bit of a pisstake on a whole bunch of things done a little less gracefully in Doctor Who.
Charlie Brooker's "Dead Set" + Season Five of Screenwipe
Episode One was better than Episode Two, primarily because good reviews are less fun than bad reviews. The poetry bits are a mistake and Cooper and I fast forward through them.
As for Dead Set, it was really good! I called it successfully in the middle of the first episode that this was going to be an EVERYONE DIES zombie flick. The zombies are just too deadly in this. The scene where the producer butchers the dead? Squicked even us hardened zombie film watchers.
However, I'm generally really pleased about how everyone who survives the initial round of killings (save for the people in the house, obviously) are good survivors who tend not to make too many stupid mistakes. Which immediately made this show better written than 'Survivors'. (Of course, in 'Survivors' they don't have to fight the undead.)
Even the decision by the boyfriend to go back for his girlfriend makes brilliant sense in the context of the show -- something that almost never works in zombie dramas!
Finally, one of the things that I thought elevated the series was the sense of time. The main characters who are survivors are survivors because they wait and think decisions though before making them, and not always through sheer luck.
