Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 13- The Trickery Lantern

 "Well, one can't desert a brother when he's put a fork through his foot."

So that's it, certainly for this season. This has bee a decent little quirky kids' farcical comedy, but I can't say it's more than quite good, or is particularly worth watching for those, like myself, with no particular nostalgic memories of the programme. It is, at this point, by no means certain that I will eventually blog the second series. It's more Sapphire and Steel first.

This final episode is different from the various farces that preceded it in that this is the episode where Catweazle- suddenly, after a much underexplained epiphany at the end of next episode- knows how to get back to the th century just like that. It feels very much as though he's doing this just because the series is ending, which he literally is. But at least we finally have an episode where the reset button won't just be pushed at the end.

It's also nice, and unexpected, to see a young-looking Nana Moon from EastEnders as Flo, George's ghost-obsessed sister, who seems to recognise Catweazle as a ghost from her childhood- it's a shame the episode doesn't end with Catweazle travelling back only forty years to meet her as a little girl.

So thar's it. I'm almost as shocked as Carrot to see Catweazle go. I assume the next series doesn't have quite the same premise?

Go on then. I'll watch the next season if anyone can persuade me it's worth my while!

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes: The Creeping Man

 "Always carry a firearm east of Aldgate, Watson."

Oh dear. It has to be emphasised that Granada can hardly be blamed for the fact that this is one of Conan Doyle's less well-regarded short stories (Nicholas Meyer goes so far as to have Watson describe it as fake "drivel" in his excellent novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution), but they chose to adapt it where many other options were available- and this is a tale about a professor who chooses to inject himself with the essence of a primate in order to rejuvenate him ahead of a marriage to a girl about a third of his age.

Worse, the adaptation- while generally well-made and written- chooses to lean into the sci-fi silliness of its premise by adding a subplot of primates stolen from zoos, and features both a man in a gorilla suit, which makes one wince to see, and Charles Kay in a tree whooping like a gorilla. It's embarrassing to watch, and Watson's instincts at he beginning of the episode are quite correct..

There are redeeming features in pretty much everything other than the above. Brett and Hardwicke are never less than superb, and Charles Kay is excellent as the Professor, undignified though his final scene may be. The script, quite rightly, emphasises the ickiness of the Professor's  proposed marriage to a girl he calls "my dear child". It's also good to see Colin Jeavons for the last time as probably the definitive Lestrade. Nevertheess, this episode is hardly the series' finest hour.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 12- The Wisdom of Solomon

 "My mum's cousin had a horse that looked like that once. We had to shoot it."

This penultimate episode of the series is the best we've had in a while. Patricia Hayes is splendidly awful as the vile Mrs Skinner, whom George has hired as a housekeeper along with her equally loathsome son Arthur who goes to school with Carrot (their uniforms have caps.which dates the episode just as much as the reference to ten bob), and threatens to ruin and expose everything. They are by far the modt effectively evil baddies we've had so far, and the theatrically passive-aggressive Mrs Skinner is a masterful creation.

Their nastiness makes their inevitable comeuppance at Catweazle's hands all the more enjoyable.

This all even leads to permanent changes- Castle Saburac is no longer available, while Catweazle has an idea, involving water. I somehow suspect he won't be arund much longer, and I'll be able to replace Catweazle with the second series of Sapphire & Steel...

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 11- The Flying Broomsticks

"I shall not be so easily gulled by false magic!"

This episode is pretty much a farce, as they all are, but it's above the usual standard. We even get some minor arc progression as Catweazle finally exhausts Rapkyn's spell book. Never mind the fact that Sam starts out back in Geirge's employ again, as though nothing at all had happened between them.

This time the foil is a new police sergeant, a city boy who knows not of country ways. So, when he ses broomsticks being nicked and burned (Catweazle's doing, of course), he assumes some kind of satanic ceremony. And a series of comical misunderstandings puts Sam in potential trouble although his only actual offence is to be late renewing his car insurance.

The farce is well done, and the ending is both funnier and goes further than expected. There's even a nice little subtext in how the town copper is too quick to stereotype country people. Nevertheless, even a good episode of this is not quite enough to make me anything other than relieved there are only two episodes to go.

Monsters (2010)

 "Amigos? These guys have guns!"

This low-budget debut from director Gareth Edwards, a native of my neighbouring town of Nuneaton, is quitely brilliant, leveraging its tiny budget to combine horror via suspense with arthouse, bordering on arthouse, techniques. The scenes feel semi-improvised, which improvs the effectveness enormously, This is a film which manages to be superb by aiming relatvely low yet hitting the target.

Critics have, er, criticised the core performances of Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able, which I find bewildering. Both Andrew and Sam feel like real people and not Hollywood cyphers, and are all the more compelling for it. It also very much shows, not only in the camerawork, but also in the line delivery, that the scenes and dialogue are semi-improvised. This is enormously effective and removes the arificiality of scripted acting that we so often overlook. The characters feel real ro the extent that Andrew really is a bit of a creep, especially in a post-#MeToo context.

Thie whole premise- a NASA probe falling to Earh and releasing alien life into northern Mexico which is swidtly quarantined- is an obvious metaphor for refugees, particularly with the presence of a wall on the US southern border before Trump had even thought of such a very stupid idea. There's a nice little scene where out American protagonists are repped off by traffickers.

The film rather cleverly uses its low budget to its advantage, using television broadcasts and signs to build context to the world we see as Sam and Andrew make their way through the Infected Zone. The alien monsters are glimpsed only briefly until the end, using the devastation they leave in their wake to evoke their destructiveness. Only at the end do we see them as fully realised Lovecraftian horrors.

An excellent film. Not bad for a Codder.

Easy Rider (1969)

 "I'd like to try Porky Pig."

If I'd seen this in my late teens I'd have devoured it in the same way I devoured all that old "counterculture" literature back then- Kerouac, William S. Burroughs,  Hunter S. Davies- so uncritically. Anything counterculture was cool to me back then, and I vaguely assumed to to be progressive, free thinking, an unalloyed good thing.

But I didn't. I saw the film tonight, at forty-three, much more ambivalent about a hippy movement that owed as much to right wing rugged individualism as it did to socially progressive causes. Billy and Wyatt may seem like free spirits, but their money comes from a cocaine deal, and Wyatt expresses admiration for both a poor Arizona farmer and a commune for their self-reliance in living off the land, and they end the film in a brothel before dying. Yes, the bigoted, corrupt and racist South that taunt and eventually kills them is much worse morally than they are, but these two men could easily have voted for Reagan or even for Trump if they'd lived.

Poor George (you can see why Jack Nicholson's surprisingly small but incredible performance elevated him from prominent actor to movie star overnight) is simultaneously much more intelligent (he has a clearer idea of freedom) and more naive than either of them, and probably too innocent to live.

This is a beautifuly directed film, obviously looking ahead to the Hollywood auteur films of the next decade. Surprisingly, much of it is just pocaresque rod movie stuff with as much music as dialogue. It's superbly shot, though- there's a particularly good panning shot of the peole of the commune- and the film deals with a great deal of themes- the ambivalent nature of the counterculture and the uneconsruced nature of the Deep South among them. This is a unique film, but a sublime one.  It reminds me of the literary works I mentioned above but, unlike On the Road or Fear and Loathing, it still has an appeal to this forty-three year old with long hair.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes: The Illustrious Client

 "You go your way. Let me go mine."

This is one of those rare Sherlock Holmes stories which are not whodunits at all. A fairly late short story, it is perhaps surprising that Granada should have adapted this most unusual tale ahead of others. But here we are.

This is a well-made piece of television with some strong performances. It's just odd that the plot concerns an attempt to prevent a naive young lasy from marrying one Baron Gruner- a bounder, a cad and a foreigner to boot- who has numerous crimes, including murder, in his past, and "collects" women to abuse. He's a deeply disturbing and loathsome individual, and t's instructive to hear Conan Doyle's dialogue explaining gaslighting before the term was coined.

This is a thriller, not a murder mystery, and feels intended as an adaptation of a piece of classic literature to a greater extent than is usually the case even with Granada. Nevertheless, it works, and gives the ever-sublime Jeremy Brett the chance to play different angles as Holmes while Anthony Valentine twirls his moustache with aplomb. Surprisingly decent, but I wouldn't hope to see too much more in this vein.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 10- The House of the Sorcerer

 "Canst thou wind me back?"

It's still all farce... but this is a better episode. Yes, it concerns an an eccentric wildlife obsessive, a nice little guest part for Bernard Hepton, who is mistaken, inevitably, for a wizard by Catweazle, with predictable farcical hijinks ensuing. But there's also an amusing little scene where Sam quits, and both he and George dissolve into childish argument in what is a rather good little bit of character comedy. Will he get his old job back after the end?

The best bit, of course, is a glimpse at life in 1970, hence the hijinks with tape- and, with some jealously, how easy it seems to be to casually quit a job and start a new one. Overall, though, there's not much going on here.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes: The Boscombe Valley Mystery

 "Watson, all this fresh air will kill me."

It's odd, at this late stage and after sdaptations of so many of Conan Doyle's later stories, that now should appear an adaptation of one of his earliest, first published in The Strand in 1891. It's an excellent episode, though, probably this series' best at this point. It helps that a strong cast is led by a young Hames Purefoy, and both Leslie Schofield and Peter Vaughan appear in short but powerfu scenes. Genial Harry Grout, in particular, gives a spellbinding performance.

The story is, sensibly, relocated to Cheshire to be closer to the Granada studios, and the rural location enhances the episode enormously. There are some nice little character moments between Holmes and Watson- I love the nuances of Jeremy Brett's mannerisms as he tries to persuade Watson to interrupt his fishing holiday for the case.

It's odd, perhaps, to see such an early short story made so late in the Granada series' run, with Brett not, sadly, looking well at all, but I'm very glad we have this.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 9- The Demi Devil

 "No more monkey business!"

In a sense, this is yet another straightahead farce, in this case based aroung the idea of Catweazle thinking he's turned Carrot into a monkey, and later getting blotto on posh wine. I realise farces are complex and take skill to write well, but I'm struggling wth this series and may not watch the second series. That's no reflection on the cast, but I personally cannot subsist on a diet of farce alone.

Geoffrey Bayldon is nevertheless superb, as ever, but the character he's playing is now starting to seem a bit one-note. It's also extremely cool, mere weeks after the casting coup of Hattie Jacques, to get another Carry On star in Peter Butterworth to play the Colonel, although he's blatantly too good for the part.

Otherwise, I'm just hoping- probably in vain- that the last four episodes of this series give us something a bit different.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes: Shoscombe Old Place

 "You're not the only one that likes a plunge on the horses from time to time, Doctor."

This is an interesting episode, based on the last ever Sherlock Holmes story ever written by Conan Doyle on the one hand (penned in 1927, three years before he died) on the one hand, and featuring a very young Jude Law on the other, long before his days of Hollywood stardom.

It's a decent story, faithfully and expertly told. Yet the episode fails to catch fire, in spite of the satisfying conclusion where we learn of the nature of Sir Robert's deception, his debts and the troublesome moneylender being but a massive red herring. Perhaps it's because it's a little too obvious that the lady in the carriage is keeping "her" face hidden and may not be Lady Beatrice, but this was always going to be difficult to hide in any translation of this story from print to screen. No: I think it's simply that the guest cast, while never committing any acting sins, simply lacks presence and charisma. We can't depend on young Jude for that; he's probably still in sixth form.

Jeremy Brett, it must be said, is as excellent here as ever, but he seems to look older, frailer and, may I say, podgier with every passing episode. If it was, indeed, the part of Holmes that was to kill him, the process of this happening may already be quite visible.

The Kiss of the Vampire (1963)

 "Made by grapes trampled by the feet of a peasant..."

Another Hammer. Why not? 

This isn't a well-known film, particularly. It has no stars, and makes do with Edward de Souza as leading man. It is essentially a collection of set pieces based around predictable horror film tropes which gradually reveas itself as a neighbourhood which exists to trap visting couples into surrendering the female of the pair, as a kind of droit de seigneur siruation, to the local lord, who happens to be a sexually magnetic vampire in the mould of Dracula- an aspect many films miss.

The tropes come thick and fast- the coupe, in their charming Edwardian roadster, break down in a sinister rutal area where the only buildings are sinister-looking edifices. The only local hoteliers are extremely sinister and mysterious. A bearded figure warns them to leave the area and ask no questions. This is a great film for horror film tropes bingo.

The twist is clever, though; the whole set-up is a cuning trap, and I love the scene where Gerald is gaslighted into believing, or nearly believing, that there never was a fancy dress ball (another trope), and that he came alone, without his wife. Gerald, an Englishman finding his wife seduced by some dastardly Mittel European foreigner, is fortunate to find that the bearded bloke is a kind of Van Helsing archetype, so they're able to defeat the vampire lord and his comical cult- with a chalk circle and vampire bats, naturally.

This film is delightfully bonkers.

Highlander (1986)

 "There can be only one!"

Everybody has really big films they haven't seen, even those of us who have blogged over five hundred. For me, Highlander was one of them until tonight, despite the fact that the '80s were the decade of my childhood.

It's extraordinarily good, of course; really well made with lavish production values but, far more importantly, a masterfully paced and structured script that takes a simple idea (superpowered immortals who duel for the "Prize") and executes it well in a more than usually thoughtful blockbuster. Oddly, it matters not that Lambert doesn't really shine as MacLeod; he's as good as he needs to be. He's outshined, of course, by genuine Scotsman Sean Connery who plays... a Spaniard, or an Egyptian, but certainly not a native of Caledonia. Yet Connery is perfect as Ramirez, Roxanne Clark is excellent as leading lady Brenda (still a young woman's name in 1986, apparently) and it's awesome to see Alan Police Squad North as a detective inspector, or whatever they're called in America.

There's some thoughtful meditation on what it must be like to be immortal, and see your loved ones age and die, but there's a deeper subtext to this that is perhaps not intended. Like Flash Gordon, this film is splendidly soundtracked by Queen, and the use of the song "Who Wants To Live Forever" these days evokes the AIDS pandemic of the time, especially as I saw this film in the wake of It's a Sin.

There is, I understand, much more fiction set in the intriguing world of this film. It is, however, satisfying as a whole. A superb '80s classic that I should have watched well before my forties.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 8

 "We'll jump off at eleven..."

After eight episodes, it all finally comes to an end- with an episode that feels awkward and, ironically, rushed. Seven episodes of too much padding and so much happens in this episode.

I can see what Hammond was going for, and there's some good stuff here. All the timey-wimeyness is shown very effectively with camera trickery rather than expensive effects. Sapphire's dark eyes- and Joanna Lumley's performance- give us a terrifying Darkness... to whom Steel, of course, is as rude as ever.

There's even a horrifying twist in Steel's betrayal of Tully, which appals even Sapphire, and Tully's trust and need for approval are heartbreaking. Yet the deal doesn't really make any sense from the Darkness' perspective, and Sam Pearce, who thinks (rightly) that Steel is a total bastard, agrees to stop being a ghost very suddenly, and appears to speak for all the other ghosts.

It doesn't work, despite the emtional kick of what happens to poor Tully; the plot holes are too big in a finale that relies on ideas rather than character drama and so can't get away with plot holes.

This serial is based on sound ideas, and there's a good (albeit much shorter) serial in here. But it's not just overly long; it's poorly paced throughout with an ending that doesn't work We end Sapphire & Steel's first season with a disappointing serial which, unfortunately, covers more than half of the season as a whole. Unfortunately the season as a whole, after a promising start, is dragged down.

Surely things get better?

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes: The Problem of Thor Bridge

 "I'm falling into your involved habit of telling a story backward."

This is, surprisingly, one of the finest episodes of the Granada Sherlock Holmes series to date. Surrising, I suppose, partly because the popular Conan Doyle stories have all been done and that now, in the '90s and after a gap, and with a visibly frailer Jeremy Brett (significantly more pronounced in this episode, I would say, than in the previous one) we are left with the less well-known short stories from His Last Bow and the Case-Book; this episode is the first adaptation from the latter.

Yet I'd forgotten how good these later stories, written by Conan Doyle in the 1920s, could be. Here we have an ingenious whodunit which begins, on the face of it, with damning evidence of Miss Dunbar's guilt yet, through devilish clever plotting, has Holmes reveal a very different and ingenious truth- and the gold magnate Neil Gibson is a nuanced and not altogether pleasant figure. He may be rich and powerful, but he has an acknowledged history of domestic abuse; is Miss Dunbar truly so fortunate as Holmes and Watson assume?

This is a superbly made episode, with excellent guest performances from Daniel Massey and Catherine Russell. The setting of Miss Dunbar's cell as she awaits trial and potentially the gallows is suitably chilling- and this is, I believe, the first episode to feature a car. This series promises to be better than I perhaps expected.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 7

 "My faith has taken a knock..."

Well, that's certainly a change of direction, and a welcome one. In some senses this feels, in spite of being a penultimate episode, that it's the first part of a two-parter at the end of the wider serial.

It takes a few minutes for Sapphire and Steel to work out that they've been moved forward twelve days in time, but these are a quality few minutes as our two protagonists work through what has happened and why.We, and they, are getting used to the status quo; the Darkness and the ghosts appear to  be gone, although Tully mentions that several new ones arrive.

And Tully is at the centre here- such a well-rounded and realistic character. He's come to experence real spitits, something he's yearned for all his life- and he's bloody terrified. The very thing that has given his life meaning proves to be something he cannot handle, and this lonely man will have to find something else to occupy his remaining years. He's a decent man, if comewhat small "c" conservative, and doesn't deserve such a devastating experience. This experience may have ruined his chances of happiness.

And yet all is not over, as Syeel wishes to make a deal with the Darkness. This serial is getting good again.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes: The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax

 "I've failed".

Granada's Sherlock Holmes, after a couple of yars' absence, is back for the '90s, a new decade and a new title. It's interesting that we begin with an adaptation of a later short story, written in 1911, and one clearly set after the the turn of the century- Suffragettes are mentioned, and the Boer War has ended, so it can be no earlier than 1902. Holmes and Watson are middle-aged, and it is no longer obviouly trues that Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke are really too old to play their characters, wh would both have been aroung fiftyish.

There's also a hint that Holmes' faculties may be declining with age; he solves the case- and prevents poor Lady Frances from being buried alive- soon enough to save her life but too late to prevent what appears to be severe PTSD. His sense of failure and guilt is very much played up by the direction and the excellent performance of a mildly frailer-looking Brett.

The filming in the Lake District is breathtaking, and the early scenes, with Watson on holiday writing to Holmes. Lady Frances' delightful eccentricity in these scenes is in horrible contrast to the tragedy that is to befall her- and Michael Jayston's superb performance as her aristocratic brother reminds us that, privileged though she may be, Lady Frances exists at the whims of men who control the purse strings.

The air of religiosity around the earlier scenes feels most odd in a Sherlock Holmes story but it is, of course, a clever piece of misdirection: it is the saintly missionary who turns out to be not only a confidence trickster but a murderer.

This is a strong opening, but possibly one that may herald an older and less confident Holmes?

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 6

"We shouldn't be here on this particular assignment."

The upsurge in quality continues this episode, as we get some excellent character moments with all three of our main characters. This is there from the start as a curiously subdued and even contrite Steel is almost polite to Tully.

Sapphire is still in a coma, psychically "lost" after the impromptu end to the seance, yet apparently also on the paltform as a ghost with the others. This leads to two parallel scenes- Tully talks to the comatose Sapphire about himself, his life and, poignantly, his wish to reach an old age we know he will never reach, having less than five years to live. Steel has a curioussly awkward talk with Sapphire, whom he admits he "loves", with their usual mutual ease and affection curiously absent as she tries to persuade him the ghosts are harmless. It doesn't work, of course, but this is a rare and fascinating character moment.

We also learn more of the airman, desparate to find any mission other than the one he has as his last one before leave. I'm sure we will see more of him, but we end with the best cliffhanger yet- Steel wounded, on barbed wire, waiting to be shelled...

Black Sabbath (1963)

 "I do hope you haven't come alone..."

What is this that stands before me? Figure in black that points at me? Well, no, it's Mario Bava's most famous film, a highlight of Boris Karloff's career and, of course, famously seen at the cinema by one Geezer Butler.

It's also an extraordinarily shot film, wit studio and location made to look creepily effective by means of camera framing, movement and a thoughtful deployment of a colour palette based around magenta and green. This is a film that plays around, and has fun with, the concept of what is a horror B movie and what is a more serious film, and deliberately blurs the distinction. It's a portmanteau film based on short stories by such names as Chekhov, Tolstoy and Maupassant, yet the script cheerfully diverges from the source material in the pursuit of the grand guignol, artistically depicted.

The three tales are each very different, with effective twists, but all have in common the very effective use of tension- as well as the use of the camera to make elements that may look cheap or ineffective in the hands of a lesser director look terrifying. The first tale has overtones of male violence against women, yet is told from a female perspective (and gaze), while the second tale, with Karloff truly oustanding, is a clever take on the vampire myth, moving it to a creepy rutal Russia of Czernobog gloom. The third tale may be the slightest, but it perfectly illustrates how much Bava can do, even with relatively basic material, to wring the maximum amount of effectively paced and creepily shot horror out of whatever he's given with.

An impressive film but although, yes, Karloff is ecelent, essentially this is an example of a film raised from the ordinary to the extraordinary by superb direction. Bava is magnificent.

Blade II (2002)

 "Lock up your daughters, boys and girls. The dark knight returns."

This film is bloody good, possibly better than the first. Partly it's the direction- Guillermo del Toro in Hollywood superhero blockbuster mode, as in Hellboy as well as here, is almost a sub-genre within his own oevre, given the very strong sense of visual and narraive style between the Blade and Hellboy films.Partly it's the strong cast. And partly it's the strong script by David S. Goyer.

What's odd here, perhaps, is that the large gang of rather cool characters as compared to the previous film may make one assume the film takes a lot from the comics- yet the only Marvel character here is Blade himself, although I understand the original plan was to use Morbius, who would have to wait a decade or two. Everyone else is a new character, and even the vampire mythology (a virus rather than mystical) seems to owe very little to my possibly dated undesrstanding of Marvel lore.

What can't be doubted is that Wesley Snipes is again charismatic and effective, if not necessarily subtle, while Krus Kristofferson is extraordinary and Norman Reedus is fun. It's particularly good, though, as a Red Dwarf fan, for me to se Danny John Jules in a fairly meaty serious role.

The film is shot superbly, as you'd expect, and is essentially a series of extremely well-done set pieces in the "house" style. Yet the plot, with its series of double crosses and opaque agendas, is also strong. A quietly impressive Marvel blockbuster.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988 Film)

 "Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"

And so we end the 1980s for Granada's Sherlock Holmes adaptations- they will next resume, after a gap, with The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes in 1991, a new decade, unless one happens to be gulping them all up thirty years later. Nevertheless, The Hound of the Baskervilles- the most famous, most often adapted, and most familiar story that Conan Doyle ever wrote- is a fitting coda to the decade.

It is, of course, only right that Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke should get their own Hound, and this does not disappoint. Yes, the budget is clearly lower than with the previous year's The Sign of Four- some of the mire scenes are fairly obviously done in the srudio- but the programme hardly looks cheap and, above all, the story (as ever with Hound) and performances, barring a few dodgy Mummerset accents, make this a quality production nevertheless, although perhaps the ending is a little rushed. And the much-maligned hound itself looks pretty decent, I think. It's hardly B movie stuff, and I should know.

Ronald Pickup impresses with a nuanced performance as Barrymore, and it's a delight to see good old Bernard Horsfall as Frankland. But it's James Faulkner (looking just a little older than he was in I, Clavdivs) who stands out as that rotter Stapleton, and never mind that the emphasis on Stapleton in this production makes it perhaps a little too clear that he's the killer.

Overall, though, this is an enjoyable version of the story, much better than its reputation.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Bruce Partington Plans

 "All the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men cannot avail us in this matter."

This is the final episode in the guise of The Return of Sherlock Holmes; sees the return of Charles Gray as Mycroft; and is one of the finest episodes thus far, after a couple that were perhaps a little below par. It's a fitting end to the eighties for the regular episodes.

Brett and Hardwicke are very much on form, with plenty of character moments, and the deduction in this episode is first class- the way Holmes sees the significance of the points, and what they mean for Cadogan West's place of death, is an extraordinary sequence. We also have some superb guest actors, not least of which is Catweazle himself.

It's also exciting, especally at the end, so see Sherlock Holmes straying into spy territory. It's also interesting to see how Mycroft is far more important within the Civil Service than we had previously been told, beng a kind of proto-Cabinet Secretary. This is an appalingly small Civil Service, too, with "clerks" being given what seem like senior responsibilities. On the other hand, "junior clerk" Cadogan West appears to be paid rather well, so some Victorian values are certainly worth emulating. It's also instructive that MI5 does not yet exist, so Inspector Bradstreet is called in.

Diversions aside, though, this is a truly fine episode.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 5

 "I don't want to talk to you!"

At last- an episode with lots of exposition and lots of answers.

The episode may consist mostly of the seance continuing (Joanna Lumley is outstanding, spending most of the episode as Edwardian village schoolteacher Eeanor), but we learn so very much. The soldier was Sam Pearce. He was in a relationship with his old teacher, twelve years his senior. He was a sweet boy, who loved nature... and he was killed eleven minutes after the armistice on 11th November 1918. That's his grievance; it's not just that he was killed in a war, but the deep unfairness of being killed after the war was over.

There's more, of course. There are hints about the "Darkness. Steel continues to alienate everyone by being such a rude git, and seems to struggle without Sapphire being there to handle the diplomacy. And we see the airman being sent out on his final mission, presumably to be elaborated on later.

I enjoyed this episode. It's amazing what a difference it makes when stuff actually happens. There's a good story here, it's just padded out over a ridiculous number of episodes.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: Wisteria Lodge

 "We must not confuse the unlikely with the impossible."

This episode is... well, not bad, but disposable. It's well made, produced, shot and (mostly) acted, but this is not one of my favourite Conan Doyle short stories. The initial premise- a house guest (splendidly dressed in Victorian pyjames and one of those pointy hats for sleeping in) wakes to find himself alone in the house- is intriguing, but the resolution (the machinations of a deposed former Central American dictator) seem to owe little to the beginning.

Still, any episode of this programme is bound to be entertaining, and both Brett and Hardwicke are, as ever, outstanding. Freddie Jones gives a bizarrely mannered performance as this episode's inspector- are we supposed to admire his skill, as per the short story, or patronise him? It's an odd way to portray Inspector Baynes, the only police detective to have ever matched Holmes. Yet the Victorian locations are superbly shot and done, as ever, with plenty of period detail.

There's also a piece of period dialogue that jars ("negroid features, mulatto-like"). Otherwise, this is hardly an episode that stands out. Still, we shouldn't expect that, and the episode is decent enough.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 8- The Power of Adamcos

 "I am doomed!"

"Here, have some more brandy."

Now that's much better. This whole episode is pretty much just a farce about Caweazle losing his dagger, Adamcos, and the hilarious goings-on in retrieving it, but it's amusing enough, and Geoffrey Bayldon carries the whole thing as ever.

The comedy has some nicely done moments too- Catweazle trying to use the "telling bone" from last episode, and Mr Milton fainting as a figure rises from the sarcophagus. And of course it's fun to see Catweazle running from "Normans", however contrived the explanation.

What really stands out, though, and reminds you that this is 1970, is the fact that George is so casually unbothered about Carrot being off somewhere and not panicking as a parent would today. Also there's the casually unbothered attitude towards knives (they're for whittling, not stabbing!) and the incredibly camp, very Julian and Sandy antiques dealer played by Aubrey Morris at a time where being camp was fine but actual gay sex had been illegal just three years previously. As ever with Catweazle, what really fascinates is the social mores of fifty years ago.

And yes, I am offended by the fact that 1970 was fifty-one years ago...

Diary of a Madman (1963)

 "Considering your endless studies of the criminal mind..."

You know when you start watching a film expecting a B movie, despite the literary basis of the script, and end up with a phiolosophical, literate and genuinely creepy little horror film? This is one of those nights. I don't care that the critics don't care for this film: they're wrong.

Obviously, Vincent Price, with that voice, is charismatic, extraordinary, and carries the film through sheer presence. But that's a given. Plus, the film and, indeed, the director, are fairly obscure. Perhaps what I'm truly blown away by is the original story (or two stories) by Guy de Maupassant- I've never read his short stories and, unlike other French authors, he isn't widely read in the English-speaking world. Yet I read that considerable liberties were taken with the source material beyond just conflating the two stories.

Nancy Kovack is excellent, of course, as a woman we are made to see as evil for her love of money and pleasure, but what options did a woman have in the France of 1886 beyond gold-digging? There's quite a feminist critique to be made of this fim, methinks.

Neverthleless, it's a thoughtful and deeply psychological approach to horroe which not only focuses on well-rounded characters but roots the horror in those very character traits. The nature of the "Horla" (why that name?) may be vague, but its effects are not.

All this, and we get a milieu of the (very) Hollywood version of the Paris of the artistic era of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and so forth. I recommend this film really rather highly indeed.

Hulk (2003)

 “Puny human!”

This is, incredibly, the first ever Hulk film... and it’s utterly, irredeemably awful. It’s a shame: the film is well-directed by Ang Lee with some nice visual touches. But it’s essentially a very, very, well-polished turd.

Part of why it's awful is the poor performance of Eric Bana as Bruce and Jennifer Connelly as Betty. Neither of them are exactly favourite actors of mine; they bring a touch of plywood to this as they do to most of what they do. Admittedly Sam Elliott does a good job with a badly written Thunderbolt Ross, while Nick Nolte is genuinely excellent as Bruce's dad, who also doubles as the Abomination.

But what truly dooms this film is the script, which completely fails to get what makes the Hulk interesting, as well as failing to give the characters and humanity or to give us decent dialogue; some of the lines are cringeworthy indeed. The whole concept is misconceived, drawing on the retconning of Bruce's childhood in the comics of the '80s and '90s under John Byrne and (much better) Peter David, beginning with his father's experiments with gamma radiation in the '60s and dealing with repressed childhood memories. Yet there's a reason this was a retcon; you need to start by just doing the gamma ray explosion and the fun Jekyll and Hyde "Hulk smash" stuff that the Hulk is about. All this childhood stuff needs us to know Bruce/Hulk first so we can start to explore the psyche behind those repressed memories- and make a link between the Hulk's rage and childhood abuse that the film doesn't really make.

Bruce and Betty have no real chemistry or, indeed, personalities, and Betty seems to be there mainly to act as the Faye Wray to the Hulk's King Kong. This may be a film with lots of genuinely cool action set pieces but it has no charm, no characters and is just dull, dull, dull.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 4

 "Everything was all right until you arrived!"

Now that's better; things are happening. Admittedly the cliffhanger resolution is pretty much a mirror of the last one, this time with Steel doing the resciog by, er, walking into the sub and slowly dragging out Sapphire and Tully. But at this point the plot actually starts moving forward again, which is always good.

So Steel talks to the soldier, who hints at a plan. Tully is getting REALLY pissed off with Steel's rudeness. And Sapphire makes a chillingly cold reference, again, to Tully's life expectancy. She interacts with him while calmly knowing he has just under five years to live. Brr.

Then we get the seance, and we learn things- the young men who died so horribly in the submarine were civilian contractors, not sailors- they weren't paid to die. There's a lot of resentment here, just like the soldier, as well as hints that they have "help". Incidentally, Joanna Lumley is excellent here.

The cliffhanger, again, is unclear and in an odd place- but this is getting intriguing again. Let's hope the next episode has some plot in it too.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: Silver Blaze

 “That was the curious incident..”

This episode, and the short story upon which it is based, is in fact quite atypical, yet paradoxically very much the popular impression of a typical Sherlock Holmes story. There is a purity in how what we get is a pure murder mystery, told methodically with no cheating, with all the clues laid before us.

It is an excellent whodunit, of course- the short story is a standout classic- but difficult to adapt well for a series that depends far more on Victorian colour and idiosyncratic acting for its success. Indeed, while Jeremy Brett is superlative as ever, there is little here in the way of windows into Holmes’ soul for him to latch on to. 

Nevertheless, the tale is told well, with gorgeous Devon location filming and a nicely nuanced guest performance from Peter Barkworth. There’s nothing really to fault the episode. It’s simply a very straight whodunit with very little else happening.

It must be said, though, that this is a fine whodunit, and the final summing up is most satisfying. That this episode does not really stand out is simply a matter of the story not translating well to the visual medium.

Hole- Celebrity Skin (1998)

 

This might seem like an odd choice of Hole album to start with, as it's their last real one and in many ways a bit of an outlier, a very different style (more "mainstream" and more "mature", many say).

It's a curate's egg but, like the egg behind that phrase, parts of it are truly excellent. "Celebrity Skin" itself is a superb little rock belter, while "Reasons to Be Beautiful" and especially "Northern Star" are both achingly beautiful songs that manage to be defiant and uplifting on the one hand but ery real on the other. These are two of my favourite songs of all time, with the result that I don't really care that much of the rest of the album is filler: these two songs are worth it.

The overall sound is odd, I suppose. There's certainly little obvious sign of Billy Corgan's supposed influence. But the song structures are in many ways quite mainstream, even AOR on the surface, but there's something about the "realness" of it all that stops me from seeing this album as any kind of sellout- perhaps charitably. Those two songs really are that good.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 3

 "Well, you should know about obsolescence, Mr Tully..."

This is, I think, the episode where things properly start to drag a bit. The cliffhanger resolution, though played out slowly, is nothing we haven't seen before, and the plot before the next cliffhanger basically consists of Steel loghting a load of lamps, with the help of a very tolerant Tully, while loudly singing "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your old Kit Bag" just to annoy the ghost. He really is a right proper git.

We don't learn a lot, really. There's a hint that there may be more to the soldiers' resentment than the mere fact that they died horribly in war, but before long we're on to a similar sort of cliffhanger, this time with Sapphire and Tully in the submarine- as Steel come across the ghost of some kind of party and, er, waves an old jumper around.

I hope this is going somewhere, I really do.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Foot

 "John!"

This is a very interesting way to begin a new season, to say the least. I suppose this episode is known for two things. One, of course, is the glorious Cornish location filming, which truly sells the austere, ship-wrecking beauty of the peninsula which is not quite, really, a part of England. The other is the unexpected trippy sequence where Holmes and Watson get high on some bad acid, man.

The thing is, though, it works. It has a plot-related reason and, indeed, is part of the original Conan Doyle short story- this is yet another faithful adaptation. Yet we see some rather well done trippy direction as well as flashbacks including the Reichenbach Falls and, rather randomly and interestingly, some William Blake woodcuts. Jeremy Brett is extraordinary here, as he is always. He is also good at presenting us with hins of the psyche of a Holmes who is close to breakdown and recuperating for the good of his mental health. There are some excellent scenes, in particular, of Holmes alternately taking cocaine and trying to get rid of it, and Watson's reaction. None of this, in a nice subtle touch, is referred to at all either in the dialogue or Watson's narration, which is thus given the air of euphemism.

As for the mystery itself, it is executed very well indeed, with a strong cast. But this episode lingers in the mind for the ancient wildness of the land beyond the Tamar, as well as the land behind the doors of perception.