TV | Wanderings and ... wonderings.

Jan 15 2022

Technology, Television, TV, TV series, United States

Cobra Kai season 4 bored me.

This season is unfortunately a bit stale and diluted, and the elements which could have salvaged it – the first season’s unrelenting reverence for the ’80s and its accompanying cheese, the dark humour and the amusing SJW bashing – are in short supply. Johnny Lawrence is just not as interesting as an upstanding nice guy as he is as a fish-out-of-water shambles lost in the wrong century. The staid version of Johnny is one without an edge, and it’s as if the show has been robbed of its biggest star.

Other things are annoying, from the constant switching allegiances, the pointless cameos from past characters that go nowhere, and the moments of catharsis that are simply not earned. It had some decent craic in it and the choreography was great as always, but this show should probably end now.

And I’m probably taking it all a bit too seriously.

Tagged Cobra Kai, Netflix, The Karate Kid, TV streaming

Nov 27 2021

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Art, Trains, Travel, TV, Uncategorized

The Signalman (1976) is a classic for a reason.

It’s totally gripping and eerie and surely too adult and atmospheric for TV. One would think for that era, anyway. Denholm Elliott is best known for his role as Dr. Marcus Brody in the Indiana Jones movies, but he was more than capable of going proper convincingly nuts in a Gothic horror.

This is Charles Dickens done right.

Here we are:

Tagged 1976, Charles Dickens, Denholm Elliott, The Signalman, Trains, Travel

Mar 18 2021

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Art, Television, TV, TV series, Uncategorized

Rome (2005-2007) really should have been given another season.

It’s your classic HBO series that deals with the upper echelons and the gutter, the senate and the Aventine, Caesar, Pompey, Mark Anthony, Octavian – Roman Republic to Empire and buttressed perfectly by the characters Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, these based on two centurions mentioned in Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War. James Purefoy especially excels here as the dashing and charismatic Anthony. He’s Bond material (he did actually audition twice for the role and almost got it).

Rome doesn’t skirt from the depravity, the rituals and religious sacrifices of the era, and the creative use of naughty language is funny as hell. It succeeds so well at building a world and bringing that period to life, but these people also talk like we do; there’s none of this long-winded theatricality to the wordplay. The spectacle and ambition of the show is unrivalled for its time. The first season is nigh on perfection yet the second so very rushed; they were clearly tying everything together and trying to end the story in a satisfying way.

Apparently they just didn’t have the money to make any more of them which is a shame because it’s rather great.

And what an opening title sequence:

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) is timeless chuckles.

Shockingly (for me as I’ve catalogued most of these ’80s classics) I’d never seen this until last week. It could be made today, that’s how ‘undated’ it is. What an experience – genuinely a hoot and wholly relatable. We’ve all been stuck next to some annoying blabbermouth on what seems like a never-ending journey into the abyss. And who can’t relate to a transportation fiasco.

It’s also a subtle portrayal of class, the difficulties of breaking barriers, and ultimately and reluctantly working together to get where you need to be. A life lesson! This should be screened at office training days or something.

One scene came out of nowhere in its profanity, and it’s quite the spectacle seeing Steve Martin finally crack. He wasn’t going to intimate that rental agent, but he did a wonderful job in articulating the pain of dealing these sorts.

First-class movie.

Tagged 1987, Comedy, Drama, John Candy, John Hughes, Panes Trains and Automobiles, Steve Martin

Aug 26 2020

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Britain, Television, TV, TV series, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

The Office is still pure cringe.

More Netflix throwback viewing brought me to The Office, the early nougthies apotheosis of workplace ennui, inanities, and bury-your-head-in-your-hands moments of embarrassment. Your everyday office environment is so well portrayed that I actually know these people: the delusional ‘boss’ who’s been there for two decades and whose work defines his/her life, the go-getter who thinks they’re in the FBI or something, the joker who isn’t funny, and the roughly 50% of them who know it’s just a job so get on with it.

The most striking aspect of the show is how it highlights the existential funk of the vast majority of workplaces – what we do isn’t particularly important to anyone, and a monkey can perform most tasks if you train it correctly. One looks for meaning in the wrong places. I’ve always been dubious of folk who proudly announce, “I love my job.” They have to be either psychologically pumping themselves up to cope with the pain or are putting on a show, or have to be burdened with actual real-life mental issues.

Unless they have an interesting job. Which is a rarity.

Anyway, The Office defines life.

Tagged Britain, Comedy, Office, Sitcom, The Office, TV, TV series, UK, Workplace

Jul 29 2020

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Internet, Television, TV, TV series, Uncategorized

How Better Call Saul got great.

Better-Call-Saul-Season-4

This show took a LONG time to get going but bloody hell once it did … oaft!

It finally shrugged off the tedious, totally unnecessary and frankly plodding shite with Saul’s brother, and now Saul is firmly in the criminal underworld (rather than dipping in and out) things have been much more tasty. There is also another reason for its current awesomeness: Lalo Salamanca.

He is by far the most charismatic ‘villain’ from both Saul and Breaking Bad, and the proof that moustaches aren’t just for novelty value. The bloke needs a spin-off show from this spin-off show. It’s an obvious statement, but characters make shows. And the lack of them in their dimensions is why most of the stuff out there is garbage. Stringer Bell in The Wire, Ralph Cifaretto in The Sopranos, Lalo is up there.

I think I am in love.

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Tagged Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Netflix, Television series, TV

Jun 18 2020

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Architecture, Art, Britain, Building, Cinema, Construction, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Scotland, Technology, TV, TV series, Uncategorized

Fawlty Towers – leave it alone!

The current liberal/woke/SJW mission – they are in the tentative throes of an unofficial alliance these days – is their war on the past, their need to chop and change, to ‘fix’ that which does not conform to their present-day ‘world view’, to erase artefacts from another age which were celebrated in that age. Their fascistic ways are influential: we have it here with the latest act of cowardice by BBC-owned UKTV in their pulling of Fawlty Towers episode The Germans, an iconic staple of British TV originally aired in 1975 yet now derided by the aforementioned Axis of Intolerance. It has since been reinstated following counter-protests by what must be, and I hate to appropriate a Nixonian term, the Great Silent Majority.

Someone is offended! Phone the police! This war on … everything is the modus vivendi of hysteria culture. In the middle of a pandemic we now have folk trying to tear down statues of slave traders, these protesters (or whatever) wearing clobber made in Indonesia by slave children. The lack of self-awareness is almost funny.

I expect the following will soon appear on their proscriptions: anything Nazi-related, lauded TV series The Wire, the Crocodile Dundee movies, motion pictures featuring cross-dressing, The Silence of the Lambs (1991) because Buffalo Bill likes to put his willy between his legs, and Gone with the Wind (1939). Oh, wait a minute ….

What a horrible time to be alive. Plonkers.

Safe – relishing the ridiculous.

safe-tv-show-poster-750x254

More highly addictive utter trash binged on Netflix again, this eight-episode thriller a cross between a ’90s peak Joe Eszterhas number and those seedy Hollyoaks specials that were broadcast after the watershed. The appeal of this kind of show is in its cliffhanger formula; every chapter has a spanner chucked in the works or a new revelation.

Unadulterated rubbish it may be, but the sordid spectacle is worth it for trying to pinpoint where the fuck in England Michael C. Hall’s ‘accent’ is meant to descend from. It’s eight different counties mixed in a verbal blender, Owen Hargreaves meets Gillian Anderson.

Bizarre.

Tagged Netflix, Safe, TV series

Feb 09 2020

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Internet, Technology, Television, TV, TV series, Uncategorized

The Stranger – another wasted (Netflix) marathon.

the-stranger-netflix-review-season-1

This started off so well. For seven episodes I was gripped. It was so intricately put together and had a masterful Breaking Bad cliffhanger quality to it. Like most contemporary dramas, though, it crumbled into the nonsensical at its denouement. The last episode was so dire it ruined the preceding madness. Depression kicked in and I was then reminded of how Lost completely … lost the plot.

Stay away from this rubbish. Anyway, there’s always a good doc about Nazis to help ease the melancholy.

Tagged Internet, Netflix, The Stranger, TV

Jan 21 2020

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Cats, Crime, Internet, Technology, Television, TV, TV series, Uncategorized

Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer.

Dont-Fuck-with-Cats-Hunting-an-Internet-Killer-1024x614

Watching this was a regret – I hated every minute of it but was compelled to witness the ghastly proceedings unfold. I usually have a weekday curfew of 11:00 p.m. but here I was lucid way into the wee hours with a WhatsApp cat topic frenzy on the go. Lesson learned: Do not ever Netflix (verb) when it’s dark.

The Internet is the Digital Frontier and all that, and now it appears to be the case that the apotheosis of human endeavour is an outlet for almost every single looney with a vengeance; the World Wide Web and the sociopath are meant to be.

The online sleuths in the three-episode show are more competent than the cops meant to be doing the basics of their jobs as professionals, which says rather a lot. The only reason I kept on watching was how in the fuck they managed to uncover the things they did. It is must-see detective work.

Wanderings and … wonderings.

Category Archives: TV

Cobra Kai season 4 bored me.

The Signalman (1976) is a classic for a reason.

Rome (2005-2007) really should have been given another season.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) is timeless chuckles.

The Office is still pure cringe.

How Better Call Saul got great.

Fawlty Towers – leave it alone!

Safe – relishing the ridiculous.

The Stranger – another wasted (Netflix) marathon.

Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer.