An Alien Heat by Michael Moorcock

My first novel of 2022 is, predictably enough, by Michael Moorcock. Apologies for the fixation of late; I tend to go through phases with fiction, and it seems to be Moorcock at the moment. So, after a few weeks' detour into non-fiction, which I don't tend to blog, it's time for another Moorcock, this time the first instalment of his Dancers at the End of Time sequence, the rest of which I'm going to have to acquire.

This is an odd, surreal read, set amonst the decadent few inhabitants of the last few millennia of the univderse, who live lives of unchallenging ease and hence of empty decadence, where science has been perfected in order to become, as Atrthur C. Clarke so famously put it, "indistinguishable from magic", where the only kind of suffering is boredom, yet pleasure is shallow and empty, where culture is diluted through the endless gulf of time since it was last produced, where achievement is impossible. Moorcock, somehow, finds prose to understand such a world, and the minds of those who inhabit it.

And into this world he places a woman from Victorian Bromley, whose prim decorum is not mocked but certainly contrasted with the world in which she finds herself.

The experimental and wild ideas reminded me, to an extent, of The Final Programme. Yet there is a fascinating seriousness and coherence here, a maturity which points towards the later novels I have read. This is a novel that will stay in my mind for some time.

Breaking Bad: One Minute

 "Stop a bullet like a soft wang against a Quaker girl..."

Ok, that was bloody clever, bloody good, and I suspect once the shape of the season is all known this episode will end up looking pretty damn pivotal. It begins with a rash act from Hank and ends with, well, the events that give rise to the title. But it's so very much more.

Both Hank and Jesse reach rock bottom here. Hank's momentary act of anger seems about to costy him his career and perhaps even his liberty. The alpha male has gone; instead we have a Hank- played sublimely by Dean Norris, who shows us sides of Hank never previously seen but believably so-who finally admits in an extraordinary momologue that he's not been the same since his brush with mortality in El Paso. In parallel, Jesse gets two angry and despairing monologues of his own. The common thread is that both these men have potentoially had their lives utterly ruined by Walt.

We see Walt showing a certain superficial conscience here, yet it's Heisenberg who resolves the situation. Jesse, despite the advice of an alarmed Saul, plans to Sue Hank and use him as a "get out of jail free" card, selling out Jesse if he's caught. Heusenberg cannot allow this, yet his solution is cold, calculating and utterly ruthless- he throws his talented new lab mate overboard to be replaced with Jesse, something which makes absolutely no sense except, of course, to remove this danger. Jesse eventually accepts, but the relationshop between them has surely changed.

There's so much else, from the flashback opening scene with the twins and their uncle to the notormouth gunseller, but it's all about Jesse and Hank, all superbly scripted, shot and performed. And those last few minutes of tension as Hank is attacked by the brothers are simply amazing. This is a standout episode of a standout series. Extraordinary.

Seven (1995)

 "This guy's methodical, exacting and, worst of all, patient."

I'm not going to call it Se7en. That would be silly.

Anyway, wow. David Fincher has given us a deep, profound and truly great film that isn't widely appreciated enough because of the style, the (mainly conceptual rather than visual) gore, and the industrial aesthetic bookended by opening titles from the great Trent Reznor and closing titles from the even greater David Bowie, in his sublime '90s industrial phase which you probably haven't listened to but must do so, now, immediately. The style may be out of sync with the mainstream, but it's superb.

Furthermore, the performances are exquisite. Morgan Freeman is sublime as William Somerset, a Philip Marlowe figure- a grizzled and cynical cop who has seen it all, yet a man of culture, decency and humanity, a nuanced, real and decent man. He oozes charisma. Brad Pitt plays a character less obviously deep and interesting on the surface, being an unintellectual and naively impetuous everyman, yet his performance is no less sublime. And Kevin Spacey, whatever his deep moral failings in real life, is the perfect villain here.

This is overtly the gory tale of a killer who commits highly sadistic murders in the theme of the seven sins, as investigated with much cleverness by two contrasting detectives. Yet it's about much more than that. It's about the extreme danger of inflexibly religious "morality" and the obscenity of puritan obsession over the whole concept of "sin" to the point of blaming the housebound victims of extreme obesity or women made obsessed by society with body image for their nature while ignoring the fact that something- misogyny, abuse, whatever- made them what they are. Justice cannot exist withoiut sympathy and understanding. This is what Somerset has, for all his cynicism. Mills and John Doe do not.

This is sublime, and a defining film of the decade.

As an aside, it's very xennial of me to note that I saw this, at the pictures, in 1995, when I was eighteen and therefore an adult. Yet this is a world where police detectives have typewriters at their desks instead of PC's and research means libraries rather than Google. I am, nevertheless, young. Yes.

Inspector Morse: Last Bus to Woodstock

 "Is sex more trouble than it's worth?"

This is another solid episode, with a fairly impressive cast, with a couple of twists at the end> John Thaw, as ever, is superb. But this- based, I believe, on what was Colin Dexter's very first novel in 1975, although updated to not use the phrase "swinging set" or, indeed, the distasteful subplot of John's perviness- doesn't really stand out as an episode.

It's much toned down from the rather edgy novel. Neither of the Crowthers die, and Mary doesn't deliberately murder Sylvia. It leads to a far more sedate experience which shows, more than most episodes, how much has been changed from the rather dark and sexually sleazy early novels. Instead, we have an innocent female student of English Literature who gets #MeToo'd, in a very 1988 way, by a creepd don who faces no consequences, and blames herself, and also gets to talk to Morse about Spenser and the naughty Earl of Rochester.

It's good. I enjoyed it. But this is not, I think, an episode that will linger in the memory.

Incidentally, I'm 44 and don't instinctively think of 1988 as being particularly long ago. I have memories from 1988. It feels modern and contemporary. Yet this is a world of office desks without PC's, of men routinely wearing suits in offices, of calling colleagues "Mr" and "Miss" at work, and of typists. When I started in the Civil Service in 2003, it was literally the Monday after typists had ceased to be a thing...

Mad Men: The Hobo Code

 "There is no system. The universe is indifferent."

This episode is, at once, a deep character study of Don Draper and a fascinating exploration of ideas and ideals. It's the finest episode yet and a magnificent piece of television.

We see flashbacks, for the first time, of Don's loveless childhood, raised by adults who are not his parents and connecting to a free-spiriterd hobo (Father Phil from The Sopranos!) who is invited in for the night, but screwed out of money by Don's dishonest uncle. This shows us, perhaps, the origins of his broodiness and inability to get close to people. It's also fascinating to see him exposed to conttrasting belief systems. Cooper invites him to his inner sanctum for an unexpected bonus, as Bert extols the "virtues" of that simple-minded cretin Ayn Rand with her morally and intellectually vacuous drivel, Atlas Shrugged. Don, not being a gullible aristocrat like Cooper, politely demurs.

And yet he ends the episode unexxpectedly getting stoned(!) with his lover and her Beatnik mates from right out of a Kerouac novel. Again he is criticised for his profession by Bohemian wasters who are doing nothing constructive whatsoever to advance the causes they claim to bdelieve in, but instead just smoking weed and listening gto jazz all day. Don has the last word; he is no Beatnik but no Ayn Rand either. Wisely, he understands that the world is a chaotic and indifferent place. Echoing Existentialism and carving out his own meaning in a world whefre one is not provided, he is less shallow than either extreme. And, able to walk out stoned right past the police by virtue of his sharp suit, he is paradoxically exhibiting the freedom of the hobo.

There's more; Pete and Peggy shag, but he begins to exhibit troublingly controlling behaviour over her as his marriage may already be falling apart, essentially because Pete is an over-privileged man-child. Salvatore has a female admirer and also a male one, but is as yet unable to express his gay sexuality. And Peggy's copy, with assistance from a bravura performance from Don, goes across omne. Is she destined, as society starts to change, for bigger things?

Daredevil: Guilty as Sin

 "This is who I am."

I think it's probably fair to say that this is an eventful episode. Matt and Karen breaking up and Matt and Elektra ending up together in more ways than one; Matt and Foggy ending up on bad terms; and the trial suddenly ending in disaster as Frank Castle pleads guilty out of the blue.

Oh, and Stick's back. With some semi-mythological exposition about the baddies- the Hand- in which he himself may have a starring role. And Frank, in prison, meets none other than a certain Mr Fisk...

It's a massive change to the status quo, but it works. The characters ring true, from the unddrdog Foggy- more competent than he knows- to the conflicted Matt, the severely damaged Frank and, most of all, the truly amazing Karen. And there are set pieces which showcase superb acting, from Jon Bermnthal's exceptional final speech as the Punisher to a standout guest appearance from Clancy Brown.

Yet the plot is also deeply intricate and engaging, with cool Hand ninjas threatening New York and police corruption seemingly manipulating the trial in ways that seem to be connected with Wilson Fisk. And Matt's realisation that he loves Elektra after all, after nearly seeing her die, is believable.

The season is really shaping up into a coherent whole know, with the Punisher, Elektra, Matt's complex personal life, the Hand and the Kingpin. This episode is an incredible bit of telly.

Mad Men: Red in the Face

 "He doesn't even wear a hat!"

This extraordinary drama of bygone manners here turns its attention, in an oblique manner, to politics, as Sterling Cooper is set to handle Nixon's presidential campaign. Nixon va Kennedy is seen partly, as in the original meeting, as a clash of the generations. But it's also about social class: Betty is upset to see Helen Bishop in the supermarket and be accused of being a pervert after what happened with little Glen. You can nsymathise with her... but she slaps Helen and then proceeds to close ranks against the working single mother with her snooty friends, and to note that "I hate Kennedy" just to spite her. Wow.

There's still gender in the mix, though. Don gets a report from his pet Freudian quack on Betty and is told, with extraordinary masculine condescension towards Betty, that she has "the emotions of a child". Women are infantilised, yet the men drink enormous amounts on a weeknight, drive away while bladdered and behatted, and make inappropriate passes at their friends' wives- and Don blames Betty, over whom he has some power by dint of his gender, wen Roger, his boss and thus untouchable, makes a move on her. Ouch. Meanwhile, Pete's marriage is showing some very real cracks and he and Peggy are certainly attracted to each other.

This is a pre-Sixties world of hats, hard drinking and sexual harrassment. It all feels very secure. Yet, with Kennedy in the background and Peggy in the foreground, there may be the green shoots of something new. This is such perfectly observed telly.

Breaking Bad: Sunset

 "This is my own private domicile and I will not be harrassed. Bitch!"

Wow. Breaking Bad is consistently bloody good, but this is easily the best single episode yet. It's simply extraordinary in how it inexorably builds up to that scene where Hank has Jesse and (although Hank doesn't know) and Walt at his apparent mercy in the RV. The script seems to drive events into a corner, with Hank certain to discover Walt… and then cleverly, plausibly, and with much wit, manages to withdraw from that corner. It’s a magnificent scene.

There’s so much to love in this episode, right from the first, tinted, suspense-filled and quietly terrifying scene reminding us what inexorable killers the brothers are to the final scene where Gus- an extraordinarily controlled performance from Giancarlo Esposito- solves the Walt problem by allowing the brothers to go after Hank, in a nice twist.

There’s also Walt’s first day as a salaried employee as he really bonds with his assistant over how the chemistry is “magic”; the two of them come across as alchemists in the almost mystical reverence they have for their art. There’s the interesting commingling of Walt and Heisenberg throughout this episode in a way that hasn’t quite been seen before. There’s Jesse answering the phone with a still-deferential “Mr White”? Amongst all the twists and turns there are so many exquisite little character moments.

Most of all, though, there’s Walt’s cleverness with that scene. Which is only as clever as the writer…

Ladyhawke (1985)

"Oh God, is it Lent again already?"

I expected this film to be one of those Sword and Sorcery or Tolkien-esque fantasies that abounded in the '80s. Instead I got a rather fun swashbuckler clearly inspired by Abelard and Eloise, bizarre concept though that is.

Here, though, our Abelard is not literally castrated. Instead, we have a family-friendly metaphor. Navarre is cursed, by a jealous, evil, devil-worshipping bishop in mediaeval France, to be a wolf by night, whereas his lover Isabeau is a hawk by day. It's tragic, it's romantic, it's as '80s, somehow, as the ever-present music in this film.

Yet the lovers are not the stars; that would be a very young and very impressive Matthew Broderick, with a sly comic timing and an ability to find chemistry with all ofbthe established stars- Michelle Pfeiffer, Rutger Hauer, Leo McKern- with whom he stars.

It's odd that a film I'd expected to be set on a generic fantasy world should instead prove to be set in a mediaeval France (albeit filmed in Italy) where the inevitable mythology turns out to be Christian and the villain a wayward bishop. This link to real history adds a certain weight, heft and realism, with Philippe introduced as a thief who escapes judicial murder. This helps us to get to know him, via his ever-present monologues with God about his very naughty thievery. Rutger Hauer is also superb, however, as is Rutger Hauer.

A superb film. I'm glad I've seen it at last.

Alice in Chains- Facelift (1990)

I didn't buy, this, Alice in Chains' first full album, until surprisingly late, around 2006 or so. I used to play it a lot while playing Civilization III, which shows you how long ago that was, but I nevertheless hadn't heard more than the two big singles during the years when "Grunge" was a thing.

This album has always, therefore, been a bit of an artifact from the past for me. It may be from the beginning of theband's career, but I heard it four years after Layne Staley's horrble, squalid, lonely death after a period of years where his life had gradulally narrowed into nothing but video games, filth, and heroin. It's unnerving how "Sea of Sorrow", in its lyrics "You live tomorrow/I will not follow..." foreshadows Staley's death less than twelve years after the album's release.

In 1990, though, this is at one fresh and similar to the later albums we all perhaps know better. It's heavier, more obviously showing their early pigeonholing as a metal band, but otherwise pretty much what you's expect. "Man in a Box" and "Sea of Sorrow" are standout tracks but, while their later albums would improve on this, it stands up bloody well, and preserves an ineffable Seattle-ness in its sound that later albums would not quite be able to catch.

Daredevil: Semper Fidelis

 "Elektra is not the problem, Matt. You are."

Ouch. This is a hard-hitting episode which hits at the core problems with Matt/DD as her attempts to serve two masters, the law and vigilatism. This is an interesting dichotomy ideologically- as is shown by Matt's awkward response to Karen's question about what he thinks to the activities of "the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

It's Frank's trial, Reyes is prosecuting, it's David vs Goliath and their chances are slim. So it really doesn't help that Matt is moonlighting with this Yakuza lead and neglecting the case. Foggy is right, when Matt admits it all to him, to feel furious, and that Matt is not reliable. And yes, he's right to accuse Frank of lying, not only to him but to Karen, who has a right to know that he's off doing stuff at night with his ex... especially with all that sexual tension between Daredevil and Elektra, and her confession that she took so long to return because she thought he was too good for her. And her unasked for attempt to help the trial ends up going very wrong indeed.

Karen is really blossoming, and proving to be awesome at research and the legal stuff. Matt suggests she might want to go to law school; I hope she ends up doing someything awesome... but she deserves something better than a man like Matt, who could never share everything and put her first.

There's a lot going on. Then we see the Yakuza are digging that massive hole. What...?

This is gripping telly, a real step up from what was already an impressive programme.

Breaking Bad: Mas

 "The chemistry must be respected!"

Another fadcinating and superbly crafted episode this time, but it's clear that something ominous is going to happen. This is the calm before the storm, with the parallel obsessivenesses of Heisenberg and Hank seeming about to collide with each other.

We begin, though, with a flashback that shows how far we've come. The early part of this is the only scene to feature Walt as opposed to Heisenberg, and to show us the irresponsible Jesse of the recent past, wasting money on bad alcoholic beverages and awkward sexual stuff with strippers.

The present day is quite the contrast, as Gus pits Walt and Jesse against each other and offers Walt a state-of-the-art lab which persuades him to accept what is essentially a post as a salaried employee, a middle manager in criminal big business as Jesse, unably assisted by Saul, fails to run rings around him. Meanwhile, an increasingly obsessed Hank continues to be in denial about his feelings as he closes in onWalt and Jesse, getting very close by the end.

We also see Skyler having possible second thoughts about leaving Walt until her divorce lawyer gives some home truths; a very cute baby; and the fascinating dynamics between Walt (and Heisenberg) and Gus- two extremely intelliogent men having a verbal chess game in ten dimensions. Gus thinks he's the alpha male here, albeit subtly, and psychologically he knows how to push Walt's buttons. But will this always be the case?

This is superlative telly. Both the writing of these very three dimensional characters and indeed the acting are absolutely of the very first rank.

Breaking Bad: Green Light

 "I caught my second wife screwing my stepdad, ok?"

This is another superb episode (aren't they all?) with particularly excellent acting on display all around. It's also an episode where Walt- or, as he for pretty much the whole episode, Heisenberg- pushes away literally everybody in his life.

We begin with Jesse being competent, assured and very much in the image of his mentor as he cooks meth, does it well, and holds his nerve as a cop approaches during a deal. We then hear, via the bug planted a couple of episodes ago, Walt's furious reaction to learning that Skyler is sleeping with Ted, and his not-exactly-dignified response.

But it gets worse. He suddenly loses his job, after we haven't seen him teaching for ages, in an act of blatant self-sabotage. He furiously washes his hands of Saul and Mike and then, in a rather interesting scene, with Jesse, whose impressive mastery of meth making makes him quite transparently jealous. 

He's at rock bottom. Yet the calm and clever, safety-first, Volvo driving Gus (you can keep the credit for that, Dave!) spots an opportunity with Jesse apparently cooking while Walt, at rock bottom, is refusing to have anything to do with meth. 

The only way for Walt, I suspect, is up. The same is not necessarily true for Hank, who is becoming increasingly and disturbingly obsessed in his search for Heisenberg as displacement activity for either going to El Paso or admitting that he's afraid to go. His detective work is impressive- Hank, for all his laddishness, is far from stupid- but he's slowly alienating everyone in a way that mirrors Walt. This is intense stuff, and I fear it may be leading somewhere very dark indeed.

Mad Men: Babylon

 "Mourning is just extendsed self-pity."

The title is clever. It relates to the ad campaign for Israel and Don's half-flirty, half vaguely racist decision to pursue lunch with Rachel because, well, she's Jewish, so she must know about Israel, right? But no; she's happily exiled in Babylon. Yet another kind of Babyon is on show, one of sin and adultery. Roger is having an affair with Joan. Don is avoiding sex with his actual wife and sleeping instead with his Bohemian girlfriend.

A lot is going on, as usual. Peggy hints that there may be substance to her, and gets a chance to write some copy, much to the disgust of Joan, who randomly alludes to Marshall McLuhan, of all people. Rachel may well acrually like Don, in spite of him being married. We get a flashback to Don's Depression childhood as Dick Whitman. Don ends up out of place in a Beatnik poetry place, where his profession is treated as a sell-out by pretentious jobless types.

There are lots of subtle moments about the characters and about the place and time in which they find themselves living. Not a lot actually happens, but that's not the point. And both the acting and the directing are utterly sumptuous.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

 "Um, did your traffic jam have something to do with the Russian mob?"

Ouch. This is a rubbish film, isn't it? I mean, Andrew Garfield is great. Emma Stone, too. Jamie Foxx is superb in a very different take on Electro, although Dane DeHaan misses the mark as Harry Osborn. Still, the cast is pretty good, although Paul Giamatti is absolutely slumming it in a part like this. So why is the film such utter pants? After all, nobody wants to make a bad film.

For a fair chunk of the running time I was expecting to be expressing the opinion that this was a good script ruined by bad direction. Marc Webb was ok in the film's predecessor but this instalment is shot much more obviously like a music video, and is frankly annoying with all that jiggery pokery with the POV of the camera. I don't mind creative camerawork, in fact I admire it. But when it draws attention to the artifice, as it does here, it fails.

But it's not just the camerawork. This film has Electro, a half-hearted Green Goblin with a rushed backstory, and an even more half-hearted Rhino. Electro is sidelined tooo much to be effective as a villain,whereas the whole attempt to replicate Gerry Conway's classic 1970s comics tale of the Green Goblin and the tragic death of Gwen Stacy is frankly an insult in how rushed it is. The entire conceit of Gwen's graduation speech, and how it seems to impart extra maning after her death, is the ultimate in faux profundity. It really is a pathetic waste of a storyline that could have been devastatingly good. 

I seem to be on a run of bad Marvel films. Can we have a good one, please?

The Book of Boba Fett, Chapter 2: The Tribes of Tattoine

 "I am not a bounty hunter!"

Here we have another fascinating episode, yet again light on dialogue and heavy on well-directed and compelling montage sequences, in which the two contyrasting narratives play out. In the present, the esteemed Mr Fett and the redoubtable Fennec Shand, played by the ever-youthful kick-as Ming-Na Wen, 58, battle to seize full control of Jabba's former criminal empire on Tattoine, complete with loads of fun cameos from Return of the Jedi. Meanwhile, in the past, Boba continues to gradually earn the trust of his Tusken captors.

The first narrative is more straightforward, as Boba pursues the recalcitrant mayor only to discover that his true foe is "the twins", cousins of Jabba who are carried on a litter truly creaking in the middle, in a nice little bunch of scenes involving a nice bit of sleight of hand re the Rancor monster. But the meat of the episode is a fascinatingly cpurageous sequence where Boba earns the trust of his sand people captors by masterminding a raid on a train (shades of the Firefly episode Train Job, and a reminder that, like The Mandalorian, this is very much a Western) amnd adopts their customs, including an extraordinary druggy sequence where he swallows a lizard up his nostrils and things go well trippy. This is not your standard mainstream Disney Plus strreaming, and it's bleeding superb. And the mention of "spice" has to be a Dune reference.

Oh, and the train is being driven by a cool-looking droid. And it crawls off like a bloody spider when Boba chucks it out of the train. I have no idea where this is going, but I love it.

Daredevil: Regrets Only

 "Well, you can't mask that ass. I'd know it anywhere."

This is probably the episode where the season starts to click into place: we have a high profile trial for the Punisher, which is part of a series of complex power games by DA Reyes, while ol' Hornhead and Elekra have their own arc, separate at this point, involving the Yakuza, or whoever these Japanese criminals connected to Roxxon may be. The extended martial arts fight scene before the credits is awesome, as it the use of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Date with the Night" as the Yakuza travel through the city on their cool motorbikes.

Matt is not exactly being unfaithful to Karen, with whom he has an increasingly heartwarming relationship: he makes it clear to Elektra that he's taken. Yet he's hiding from her the fact that he's doing stuff with his ex and, much as he makes it clear at the start of the episode that he wants Elektra gone, by the end the two of them are planning another mission for the following night... which, unless I'm very much mistaken, clashes with Matt's date with Karen. Awkward, and rather masterfully plotted.

Meanwhile, Nelson & Murdoch are representing Frank Castle at his upcoming trial as it's the right thing, on balance, to do, even if Reyes is going to absolutely crucify their firm for it. The scene between Frank and Karen, as they discuss his family and build a real connection, is incredible.

As is the season so far. This is a real step up from what was an impressive first season.

The Cure- Pornography (1982)

This is an early Cure album, from the days when their sound was more of a general soundscape per album than would later be the case. This is, perhaps, not as good as some earlier albums in that there are fewer stand-out tracks; nor does it reach for the fresh new types of sound the band would go on to create straight afterwards. Yet this album is curiously a bit of a grower to the point where, although I wouldn't describe it as a particular favourite, I tend to listen to it quite often. Sometimes you can have a compelling soundscape without particularly stand-out songs, but this is a strangely anonymous Cure album.

And yet the reality behind this album is arguably somewhat more dramatic than any of their other work.

This album is probably the end of an era, the last hurrah of this sort of sound. It's also an aural record of a particular low point, where Robert Smith himself was deeply depressed and the band as a whole were both struggling to stay together and taking lots of drugs. It's an odd listen for me, born in 1977 and therefore far more familiar with the band in their post-Wish incarnation, where they were known to have lots of ironic fun with their gloomy reputation. It can be a shock to hear their early records, this one in particular, and realise that the gloominess is very real indeed.

Mad Men: 5G

 "I like being your medicine..."

It's an arresting title for a programme made in 2007, but even more arresting is the programme itself. Centred around the idea of a man's "executive" bank account is an examination of 1960 American man, his independence and his secrets. Done has plenty here. Peggy may discover that he's having an affair, but it's Joan who controls such infrmation and what's done with it- and her job as secretary is actually to help him cover it up.

Don has bigger secrets than that, though- or should I say Dick Whitman? His brother Adam is a simple but decent fellow, but Don is believed dead by his family and has reasons to be so desperate to cover up his own past that he bribes his own brother to say away... with money he can spend without Betty knowing. Wow.

Meanwhile, Ken is a published author... and all the other ad execs, fancying themselves as writers, are predictably jealous, saying a lot about the cultural cringe of advertising. And Pete is most jealous of all, so much so that he gets his wife to push for a story to be published... and is upset that she won't sleep with an old friend to do it. Again, wow. Men rule the world here, and it's tyranny.

I suspect neither Don's secrets nor Pete's marriage will last massively long. But this is bloody good stuff.

Daredevil: Kinbaku

 "German beer. Tastes like piss..."

This is a fascinating change of pace. The Punisher is gone, for now, but not forgotten: Karen is chasing up the mystery of why the circumstances of his family's deaths are being hushed up, possibly because of the DA's political ambitions- and she's gunning for all vigilantes, with Jessica Jones being named as well as Ol' Hornhead. This is big stuff.

But that's not what the episode is about; it's abut Matt, his demons, and his complex relationships with two women who know him very well in very different ways. There's Elektra, rich, spoiled and a fighter, the tempting, sexy bad girl. The girl you want to shag. But then there's Karen. Kind, decent, of modest means, clever without arrogance. The girl you want to marry. A girl you could really feel in love with, as opposed to just wanting her body.

The plot structure deliberately contrasts Elektra, whom we get to know a bit via flashback. Both are perceptive and extremely clever, but Elektra is amoral and her love is scary, with her big romantic gesture being to deliver your father's killer to you so you can kill him. You can't survive that sort of love for too long. The Karens of this world may seem less interesting at first, but we know Karen is far more three dimensional and real than Elektra and her ilk. This is all really good characterisation. It is also, in an episode both written and directed by women, interestingly flipping the genders in the old trope of a woman  being torn between the cliche of the bad boy and the Mr Darcy. Sometimes it happens to us blokes too. 

I was expecting, withn the Punisher seemingly gone, that this episode would disappoint. Far from it. The season continues to dazzle.

Breaking Bad: I.F.T.

 "This spice feels like it's been through a couple of guys already..."

This episode, for the first time, feels a little transitional, not so much an event in its own right but setting up all the pieces for future moves to be played. It's all brilliantly shot, and remains quality drama, but for the first time in an episode of Breaking Bad you can perhaps see the artifice of the plotting a little more.

It's an episode where Walt and Skyler dance around each other in a battle of wills, as Walt/Heisenberg pushes again Skyler's edict that he's to leave the house and have no contact with the kids, both using the baby as weapon disgracefully but with Walt/Heisenberg essentially calling Skyler's bluff and gaining what seems to be the upper hand, for now. And poor, innocent, Walt Jr is an important catalyst here. These scenes are full of extraordinary subtlety from the script and, espdcially, both Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn.

Meanwhile a depressed Jesse, living in his unfurnished house, rings Jane's phone again and agaknjust to hear her voice on the answerphone... until he no longer can. This a rather nice little microcosm for going through the stages of grief so, with Saul acting as the devil on his shoulder, it's back to cooking for him.

We also have Hank being sent back to El Paso which, much as he tries to pretend otherwise, terrifies him utterly. The events of the episode have me fearing for him; it's a brutal world out there, as we see in the opening film, shot like a Western and tinted in yellow to appear like a different world as Danny Trejo's Tortuga meets his comeuppance in scenes full of tension and reminiscent of something by Tarantino and Rodriguez. It's in this context that the plot to kill Walt is paused for a while as Gus vetoes any revenge while he and Heisenberg have "business"... but this pause has its limits, and is dependent on more cooking...

You can see the joins a bit here. But there's also real excellence here, as always in Breaking Bad.

The Battle of the River Plate (1956)

 "The captain must have a hat!"

I suppose I've slightly neglected war films. I've seen and blogged a few, like Wesrerns, but I suspect, given the sheer number of films I've blogged (789, I think), they're underrepresented.

The Book of Boba Fett, Chapter 1: Stranger in a Strange Land

 "Jabba ruled by fear. I intend to rule with respect."

This is, in the end, a programme in a very similar format to The Mandalorian, although it unexpectedly acts not as a direct sequel but the story of a side character, albeit a major character in the mythos. Jon Favreau is still showrunner; the directorial house style (helmed this time by Robert Rodriguez) is similar, as are the closing credits. Oh, and we're still very firmly within the Western genre.

Temuera Morrison is excellent, as is the ever stoic and ever ageless Ming-Na Wen, whose room wust surely contain a much older-looking portrait of herself. But even more excellent is the writing. On one level there's lots of fan service, perhaps, with Boba's refusal to torture those Gammorrean Guards who escaped the Rancor and hire them instead being a nicely observed character point: he's not a Hutt, he won't travel by litter and he's ruthless but not sadistic. Boba is a much  more expressive character than the Mandalorian, but equally fascinating.

Structurally, the episode is clever. We have two time zones, both of which reflect the Heinlein-evoking title. In one, a flashback, Boba escapes the Sarlacc just after the events of Return of the Jedi only to have his stuff nicked by Jawas and to have to endure harsh captivity by a tribe of Sand People.  The other, in the show's present, shows the beginnings of his attempt to gain full control of Jabba's empire. It's a first episode, with lots of necessary exposition to get out of the way, but so far it's utterly gripping. More please.

Mad Men: New Amsterdam

 "No job for a white man...!

I wouldn't have expected it, but Mad Men, that glacially and elegantly unfolding little visual serialised novel of life and manners of New York in 1960 turns out to devote an early chapter to that most un-American of subjects: social class. Well I never.

There's always been an undercurrent of class conflict to the talented and moody Don, a man with depth and soul yet a mysterious and deeply suppressed past, and Pete Campbell, a younger man who oozes the arrogance of entitlement. Here we have a nicely observed culmination of that conflict as Pete breaks the rules and steps on Don's toes, getting himself fired... only for it to be revealed that there is a deeper level of rules, and that certain aristocrats are needed to oil the wheels of posh New York society. The Pete Campbells of this world are unsackable, and the episode concludes with a tale of Pete's family connectrions to the Roosevelts.

We also find Betty connecting more to Helen, discovering the reason for her divorce and becoming the object of a rather cute crush from her young son. There's a class difference here, too, the camera (and nosy Betty) lingering on the notably less well-kept interiors of the house, and with Helen volunteering for the Kennedy campaign while it's implied that the Drapers are Republicans- this being 1960, when said party supported democracy and the rule of law.

This is slow yet fascinating telly.

Daredevil: Penny and Dime

 No killing."

"Altar boy!"

Yep, this is a superlative bit of telly, just like the last episode. Beautifully acted- Jon Bernthal's monologue as Punisher in the graveyard is extraordinary- and artily directed throughout, it's a triuph of script, theme and characterisation.

It's surprrising in where it takes the arc, though. The Punisher meets his match as a psychopathic Irish godfather from over the ocean (a menacing Tony Curran) shows Frank that he is, after all, mortal, and vulnerable. And so Frank shows his vulnerability in more ways than one, nearly suffering an agonising death in the name of yet another revolution of that stupid cycle of revenge. Unexpectedly, it's Daredevil who saves him and the two of them find a mutual respect, if not agreement. Neatly enough, Daredevil lets Frank's arrest be attributable to the sergeant who blamed him for all this last episode, saying that "Vigilante days are done in this time. "Hah". It is, perhaps, a little too neat for Brett to respond by reassuring him that "You ain't him", but it works.

So, I wonder, is this- complete with Frank's touching backstory- the end of his part of the season, overshadowed by the shock cliffhanger just after we've come to know him a little? I somehow suspect not.

The episode is also, of course, about the touching little budding romance between Karen and Matt, again superbly acted and shot, and a very real and touching thing between characters we like, with Foggy amusingly making it quite clear that he knows exactly what's going on.

But that ending... her?

Mad Men: Marriage of Figaro

 "He could be Batman for all we know..."

This is, of course, an episode about marriage, the monogamy that it represents. Hence Pete's return from honeymoon. Hence the varied conversations about temptation from both sexes. Hence Peggy accepting stoically that Pete is now forbidden goods. Hence the sudden awkwardness once Don sheepishly admits his marriage mere seconds after kissing Rachel like a proper Hollywood alpha male.Hence, indeed the downright evil whisperings aimed at poor, divorced Helen Bishop by the smug wives at the birthday party- and the arrogant assumption by a representative man that this makes her susceptible to transparent advances.

And yet this is also, I think, about how being part of a couple gives us an identity. It's 1960, so this is automatically the case for women, of course, not that we in 2022 are even close to shaking off the misogyny inherent in the tropes of marriage, which we still see as an "institution". There are variations, of course: Helen, in suburbia, is all but an outcast, laughed at for her habit of walking by lazy, car-addicted bitches. Yet Rachel, as a business woman, is defined by her work. Of course, she is also defined by other things, as a despicable anti-semitic comment at the party reminds us.

But it's also seen as central to a man's identity and dignity to be able to show himself to be married. Don has this, and so he can exist in a world where his past seems a bit murky and he is seen as just a little bit mysterious, the one with the camera looking at the party guests rather than truly being seen by others. And yet... an apparent stranger recognises hm as Dick Whitman. Who IS Don Draper?

This is bloody good.

Daredevil: New York's Finest.

 "You're just one bad day away from being me."

What a piece of television here.

Obviously the focus is the foregrounded debate between Daredevil and the Punisher- handled badly, in my view, by Matt, with his very Catholic focus on redemption and good vs evil. But the debate implicitly extends, too, to Foggy and Karen, the real heroes of this episode, without a hint of violence. 

The debate is, of course, superb, as is Charlie Cox. But Jon Bernthal's performance is simply a revelation. He absolutely owns this episode. Yes, he has a cracker of a part, a superlative script to work with, and, frankly, all the best lines, but this is acting of the very first rank. And the whole thing is, of course, very revealing for both characters. Both grew up Catholic. Both are native New Yorkers in a city inhabited mainly by incomers. And both are, of course, vigilantes. But Frank angrily denounces Matt for his "half-measures", only to be weakly opposed by vague and dogmatic arguments about rehabilitation, which are easily and powerfully batted aside by Frank.

Frank is, of course, wrong. You can't just appoint yourself judge and jury, and executioners are always in the wrong, vigilantes or not. But Matt is entirely wrong about why this is. I don't deny the possibility of redemption; it's just that it's not the reason that Frank is wrong. No; the reason is that Frank is an angry man with a massive arsenal who has acquired the habit of killing. Yes, so far he seems to be killing only the guilty. But what if Frank, an unaccountable lone wolf, gets it wrong and perpetrates a private miscarriage of justice? And what if, short fused killer that he is, he kills an innocent who happens to piss him off or get in the way, as he seems tempted to do with the old veteran? It's only the matter of time.

Justice must be accountable to the people. It belongs in the public sector, always. I suppose the Punisher, in a roundabout way, can be seen as an argument against the private sector involving itself in the justice system. The justice system can be unfair, ineffective, maddening, stupid, choodse your adjective. But the alternative is the abyss of anarchy and the hell of a failed state.

Matt is on stronger ground, I suppose, when he alludes to the never-ending cycle of revenge, which led Aeschylus to explain why we need a justice system some twenty-four centuries ago. It's a pity he never pursues this. But then again, it's appropriate that Matt can't out-argue the Punisher. Because the argument is one against vigilantism, which is wrong anyway. It's brave of Daredevil to lean into this, and shine that harsh glare on its hero.

Because the real heroes of this episode are Foggy, preventing bloodhed in a hospital by words alone. Karen, doing awesome research and playing ten dimensional chess with Blake Tower by sowing doubts about his boss, and most of all Claire, a nurse, the biggest hero in this whole damn episode.

Yep. This is good telly.

Black Sabbath- Black Sabbath (1970)

This may be an old favourite of mine, and hardly exploring new ground, but sod it; I've driven from North Tyneside to southern Leicestershire today, and I'm knackered.

But there's value in going back to thois very revealing debut album after several years, and finding new stuff in it. It's still at once a sounscape and a collection of distint and extraordinary structured songs all at once. Sabbath have always been known for marrying complex transitions between different sections of the sond with an overall coherence, and that's present from the very first, eponymous track, along with the whole damn album. There's the horror, uneasy feel, with the devil's chord and the whiff, as the band have themselves said, of Hammer Horror, very much contemporary.

And yet it's not heavy metal, not that such a thing truly existed in 1969-70. There's a psychedelia feel, and although it's clealy not an album made by hippies it certainly belongs in that context. Except, of course, this is not made by fey middle class aesthetes from Cambridge or California but four very working class lads from Birmingham, a much grimmer place in 1970 than it is now.

This is also clearly an album from before the awful racial segregation of today's mucic indusstry. There's no while "rock and pop" or black "urban". Here we have a rock band which has an extraordinary jazz drummer in Bill Ward who would not be out of place on a soul record, and frequent occasions where the music has, shock horror, a groove. This is an extraordinary album, yes, but very much one of its time.

Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks

 "Daleks do not store stuff?"

What would Moffat do? This is the question that Chris Chibnall will presumably have been asking himself while writing this distinctly Moffat-esque episode. It's extremely timey-wimey. It has a prominent romantic sub-plot which is integrated with the timey-wimeyness. There's even a lot of witty dialogue, something Chibnall has been improving at, but this time really nails. Most of the funniest lines go to either the Dalek or Sarah, in an outstanding guest performance by Aisling Bea.

This is not, of course, as good as a Moffat episode, as Chibnall is not in the same league as a writer. The timey-wimey plot is pretty simple in concept and only complex in terms of the complex amount of stuff that happens. It feels more Sapphire & Steel than Blink, which was simultaneously both more complicated and easier to follow than this. But it reminded me of nothing more than that old Monty Python deja vu sketch, which you need to watch immediately if you've never seen it.

And it's fun. It's good. It's simultaneously amusing and exciting. It's all nicely themed to New Year, with a whopping fireworks display at the end. The two guest characters work well, and the romance is believable. There's nothing much wrong with it. Even the humorous use of the Daleks doesn't cross a line and make the pepperpots lose their menace or sense of evil- and it's nice that they're after the Doctor for her genocidal extrerminaltion of untold Daleks at the end of Flux. It's just that the episode lacks that extra spark of quality that a Moffat would have given it.

There's some interesting arc stuff, too. The TARDIS control room gets a regeneration after its problems during Flux, which are nicely integrated into the plot. And there's some interesting character stuff where Dan gets to explicitly tell both Yaz and the Doctor that he's very much noticing the compelling necessity for them to just get a bloody room. It's an interesting arc, and not a bad idea, It's just that the execution is going to be carried out by Chibnall, not the likes of a Moffat.

Still, a solidly entertaining romp for all the family, with some witty lines to boot. This is one of Chibnall's better episodes. It's just that it doesn't quite reach the level of his predecessor... or, indeed, his successor.