Tuesday, September 23, 2008
How can an individual episode of a television show be a metaphor for the franchise in it's entirety? That can't be right. I've just watched the sixth episode of the fifth season of Stargate Atlantis, The Shrine, and it blew me away. In it Doctor McKay contracts funky space Alzheimers, slowly losing his mind and intelligence until, in order to give him one more day with his faculties returned before he dies, the team find a source of radiation that, wouldn't you know it, allows them to cure him. Set over about three weeks, the episode is interspersed with clips from a daily video diary that McKay makes to keep track of his degeneration and we see him slowly forgetting more and more, and reacting to his situation in a number of ways, humour, abuse, embaressment, anger and fear.
The reason it seems like a metaphor for Stargate in total is that watching the entire thing has been like watching a dear family member succumbing to senility. All right, so the first season of Stargate wasn't so good, but over the next three or four years it started to specialise in some intelligent and solid script-writing. But then, around about series six, it started changing. One season started with a clear mandate, to save Earth from what was threatening it this time round, the Stargate team had to find an ancient city. They then proceeded not to do this for the rest of the season until the finale, when they suddenly found it and defeated the big bad. Only for him to return at the end of the following season so he could be defeated again. By now the stakes were so high that entire episodes would be spent being completely trashed by the enemy, only to just about survive at the end of the episode, only to do the same the following week. Nabbing a couple of Farscape escapees managed to slow but not stop the rot. And with Atlantis, what admittedly limited promise we had in the early days has now turned into a revolving door of mysterious illness, Wraith and Replicators, an enemy that were good before they were defeated in some fifty different episodes.
But this episode, using standard Stargate Atlantis plot #4, is a little different. It's become something between a truism and a joke that actors play terminally ill or mentally divergent characters to win awards but David Hewlett really does deserve something for his work this week. Dr McKay is something of a limited role, this week Hewlett got the chance to show what he could do and his portrayal of McKay, near the end and reduced to almost nothing, is heartbreaking. Despite the fact that we know that McKay will be fine before the credits roll he commits totally and I don't think anyone who appreciates drama would fail to be moved.
But once the credits roll, we know that it will probably be back to the same old shit next week and that this will probably prove to be a moment of the old genius in a sea of mediocrity. And I'll keep coming back, because even if it doesn't recognise me any more, I feel a duty to the old franchise for the times it did make me happy.
The reason it seems like a metaphor for Stargate in total is that watching the entire thing has been like watching a dear family member succumbing to senility. All right, so the first season of Stargate wasn't so good, but over the next three or four years it started to specialise in some intelligent and solid script-writing. But then, around about series six, it started changing. One season started with a clear mandate, to save Earth from what was threatening it this time round, the Stargate team had to find an ancient city. They then proceeded not to do this for the rest of the season until the finale, when they suddenly found it and defeated the big bad. Only for him to return at the end of the following season so he could be defeated again. By now the stakes were so high that entire episodes would be spent being completely trashed by the enemy, only to just about survive at the end of the episode, only to do the same the following week. Nabbing a couple of Farscape escapees managed to slow but not stop the rot. And with Atlantis, what admittedly limited promise we had in the early days has now turned into a revolving door of mysterious illness, Wraith and Replicators, an enemy that were good before they were defeated in some fifty different episodes.
But this episode, using standard Stargate Atlantis plot #4, is a little different. It's become something between a truism and a joke that actors play terminally ill or mentally divergent characters to win awards but David Hewlett really does deserve something for his work this week. Dr McKay is something of a limited role, this week Hewlett got the chance to show what he could do and his portrayal of McKay, near the end and reduced to almost nothing, is heartbreaking. Despite the fact that we know that McKay will be fine before the credits roll he commits totally and I don't think anyone who appreciates drama would fail to be moved.
But once the credits roll, we know that it will probably be back to the same old shit next week and that this will probably prove to be a moment of the old genius in a sea of mediocrity. And I'll keep coming back, because even if it doesn't recognise me any more, I feel a duty to the old franchise for the times it did make me happy.
Labels: actors, science fiction, Stargate
Friday, June 22, 2007
Found myself at London Bridge at lunchtime, so popped into Borough Market to get the constituent parts of lunch, then strolled along the South Bank. Passed Billie Piper doing more Belle Du Jour filming in her Belle Du Jour coat by the National Film Theatre, then finally went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 which was certainly fun but suffered from a middle section the point of which seemed to be to have people change allegiance amongst themselves regardless of reason. The climactic battle scene was well-staged.
Labels: actors, London, movies
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Queen
I don't think Tony Blair has much to worry about. For all that bloggers want his blood, either for the war or because he's Labour and they are Tories, for all that he is currently electoral poison for much the same reason, for the fact that he will be remembered for the war in Iraq than for anything else he did in Government, I suspect history may well treat him better than current affairs. One need only look at the various dramas in which he has been portrayed. They've tended to show someone nice . Someone who surprises everyone else by being the only moral man in a morality-free age. It's not his fault we went into Iraq, he was duped, his sense of right and wrong was subverted and used by that crooked Texan who wouldn't know 'right' if it was etched on to a gold brick and used to club him round the head. Gordon Brown has more cause to worry as The Deal showed him as too out-of-touch and old-fashioned to be either a decent Labour leader or Prime Minister and The Trial of Tony Blair had him as a weak and indecisive poor replacement for Tony. Two strikes against him and the only time he's in 10 Downing Street so far is to sleep at night.
And so we have The Queen. I don't understand why Helen Mirren is getting so much acclaim for her role as Liz Two. The film is largely a sequel to The Deal , a television drama of a few years ago about the careers of Blair and Brown up to the former's becoming the leader of the Labour party in the mid-nineties. The film opens on the day of the General Election in 1997, the Queen sitting for a portrait while Blair goes to vote. Michael Sheen reprises his role as Tony Blair and it's really his story, from his first meeting with the Queen when she asks him to form and lead a Government after his success in winning the election, through the long week after the death of Diana and his struggles to stop the Royal Family from letting tradition march it to self-destruction. Helen Mirren does not give a great performance as her role gives her no opportunity to show what she's capable, save perhaps a scene in the middle of the film when her car breaks down in the middle of the Scottish highlands and we see from behind her shoulders shake as the frustrations of the aftermath of Diana's death briefly overcome her. But the rest of the time she's stoic, albeit increasingly angered by Blair's attempts to steer the Royals away from protocol for their own sake. She is the solid centre around which everyone else revolves.
Apart from Sheen the other great performances are James Cromwell as Prince Philip and Alex Jennings as Prince Charles. Given that most of the genuine articles appearances in real life tend to tip into self-parody anyway Cromwell and Jennings outshine Mirren by not trying to make their parts direct imitations of what we 'know' the Princes to be like.
Peter Morgan's script is superb and deserves more acclaim than it's been getting. He treats the Royal Family with a light touch, so even when Philip is testily arguing about exactly why there is no flag flying at Buckingham Palace it makes perfect sense of the protocol rather than seeming ridiculous. And the sparing use of clips of Diana throughout the week help to emphasise the pressure on the Family, even if they don't really recognise or understand that it exists until it's almost too late. I rather expected that when the Queen and Prince Philip finally agreed to return to London we'd get some terribly staged scene of 'commoners' no longer willing to tip the knee to the Queen until she made some attempt to apologise for her behaviour but the script also avoids that trap, as just her presence then seems to make up for her distance before.
In a telling scene at the end the Queen exposes that this film is about Blair, not her, warning him in one of their weekly meetings that one day the people will turn on him, and question whether he should stay in the job, as they briefly did with her. There's no mention made that when the Queen's jubilee came around several years later , or the death of the Queen Mum, any fears for a Republican revolution in the immediate future were shown to be baseless.
I wonder how long we'll have to wait until Frears and Morgan give us their third film about Blair's great love affair with George Bush?
And so we have The Queen. I don't understand why Helen Mirren is getting so much acclaim for her role as Liz Two. The film is largely a sequel to The Deal , a television drama of a few years ago about the careers of Blair and Brown up to the former's becoming the leader of the Labour party in the mid-nineties. The film opens on the day of the General Election in 1997, the Queen sitting for a portrait while Blair goes to vote. Michael Sheen reprises his role as Tony Blair and it's really his story, from his first meeting with the Queen when she asks him to form and lead a Government after his success in winning the election, through the long week after the death of Diana and his struggles to stop the Royal Family from letting tradition march it to self-destruction. Helen Mirren does not give a great performance as her role gives her no opportunity to show what she's capable, save perhaps a scene in the middle of the film when her car breaks down in the middle of the Scottish highlands and we see from behind her shoulders shake as the frustrations of the aftermath of Diana's death briefly overcome her. But the rest of the time she's stoic, albeit increasingly angered by Blair's attempts to steer the Royals away from protocol for their own sake. She is the solid centre around which everyone else revolves.
Apart from Sheen the other great performances are James Cromwell as Prince Philip and Alex Jennings as Prince Charles. Given that most of the genuine articles appearances in real life tend to tip into self-parody anyway Cromwell and Jennings outshine Mirren by not trying to make their parts direct imitations of what we 'know' the Princes to be like.
Peter Morgan's script is superb and deserves more acclaim than it's been getting. He treats the Royal Family with a light touch, so even when Philip is testily arguing about exactly why there is no flag flying at Buckingham Palace it makes perfect sense of the protocol rather than seeming ridiculous. And the sparing use of clips of Diana throughout the week help to emphasise the pressure on the Family, even if they don't really recognise or understand that it exists until it's almost too late. I rather expected that when the Queen and Prince Philip finally agreed to return to London we'd get some terribly staged scene of 'commoners' no longer willing to tip the knee to the Queen until she made some attempt to apologise for her behaviour but the script also avoids that trap, as just her presence then seems to make up for her distance before.
In a telling scene at the end the Queen exposes that this film is about Blair, not her, warning him in one of their weekly meetings that one day the people will turn on him, and question whether he should stay in the job, as they briefly did with her. There's no mention made that when the Queen's jubilee came around several years later , or the death of the Queen Mum, any fears for a Republican revolution in the immediate future were shown to be baseless.
I wonder how long we'll have to wait until Frears and Morgan give us their third film about Blair's great love affair with George Bush?
Labels: actors, British Royal Family, Government, Labour, movies, Royal Family, Tony Blair, United Kingdom
Phil Spector's Looking Good
Originally uploaded by Loz Flowers.
Labels: actors, comedians, Flickr, humour, music
Saturday, March 17, 2007
I know that pointing out Weebl and Bob is funny is like pointing out the night is dark or that water is a really crap thing to rub yourself with when you are seeking to be dry. But special mention has to be given to their take on the Carusobot.
Labels: actors, humour, Television, YouTube
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Hot Fuzz is chuffing excellent . I went and saw it this afternoon and I've still got a silly grin on my face. It takes the buddy-cop movie and twists it around nicely to fit into a parochial village setting, as supercop Nick Angel is sent to a small village just before a series of murders occur. It improves on the mighty Shaun of the Dead as it's less Spaced with zombies and tries to spread it's wings a bit further. Simon Pegg is great as Angel and Nick Frost shows excellent comic timing as his sweet bumbling sidekick PC Butterman, while the great and good of British cinema (Timothy Dalton, Billie Whitelaw, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy) play a variety of small village characters. It has loads of little jokes and sight gags, before the inevitable "fuck yeah!" high-octane climax. Like Shaun of the Dead it's a humorous film that's not directly parodying it's genre but playing it relatively straight.
The only unfortunate thing about going to see the film was that first I had to sit through an advert for Norbit which, if there is any justice in the world, will continue the long line of stinkers that Eddie Murphy has spent the last decade or so producing. He plays both a nerdy black man and his fiance and all of the comedy in the film looks like it's going to come from the fact that she's a sexually assertive woman who is also fat. < gasp! > Norbet has to work out how to get rid of the monster so to be with the thin and beautiful woman instead. You have to wonder why, when obesity levels in the US and UK are rising, these fat-phobic films get made, and what appear to be openly misogynistic ones too. Obviously the film makers are disconnected from reality but where do the viewers come from, people in denial, or is it a nation of fatties able to completely disconnect what is said on screen from what it says about them?
The only unfortunate thing about going to see the film was that first I had to sit through an advert for Norbit which, if there is any justice in the world, will continue the long line of stinkers that Eddie Murphy has spent the last decade or so producing. He plays both a nerdy black man and his fiance and all of the comedy in the film looks like it's going to come from the fact that she's a sexually assertive woman who is also fat. < gasp! > Norbet has to work out how to get rid of the monster so to be with the thin and beautiful woman instead. You have to wonder why, when obesity levels in the US and UK are rising, these fat-phobic films get made, and what appear to be openly misogynistic ones too. Obviously the film makers are disconnected from reality but where do the viewers come from, people in denial, or is it a nation of fatties able to completely disconnect what is said on screen from what it says about them?
Labels: actors, Eddie Murphy, fat, Hot Fuzz, movies, Nick Frost, Shaun of the Dead, Simon Pegg, Spaced
Friday, February 09, 2007
Ian Richardson has died. Bum-clamps. I saw him on stage last Autumn in The Alchemist as Sir Epicure Mammon. His delivery of Mammon's lengthy flight of fantasy about what he would do when he'd used the Alchemist's Stone to make himself immeasurably wealthy and immortal was a joy.
Labels: actors
