Cucumber: Episode 2

"Uncle Lance says you never take it up the bum!"

This episode is perhaps a little shorter on the flashes of brilliance than the last one, but it is again a joy to experience Russell T Davies' writing again. The theme of the week is clear, and stated at the start with the "Henry test" of looking at your partner's last twenty texts- what are the boundaries of faithfulness? At what point does lust for another person, or flirting, make you unfaithful to your partner? Are Henry and Lance still together? This is awkwardly ambiguous. Yet for the younger crowd of Dean and Freddie such ambiguity is happily accepted.

There is a gap between Henry's young hosts in terms of both age and social class- but perhaps we should not separate the two, in our age of austerity which is aimed at the young. It isHenry's  generation which has the property and the good jobs. Perhaps this explains Freddue's more-or-less open contempt.

Oh, and I was wrong about Danny, Lance's friend with the casual homophobia; he's clearly gay and repressed, and Lance clearly likes him.

This episode is just as funny as the last one, and most of the best humour revolves around Henry's sister Cleo,who is fantastic and behaves like a real person. Her reactions to Henry's plight are nuanced and not as one would expect from a character in a drama.

RTD is brilliant at how he shows characterisation- the dialogue, the use of modern social media in TV drama and, of course, people not communicating properly with each other- the main theme of this series. It's all very Marshall McLuhan; the medium is the message.

Grimm: Thanks for the Memories

"Let's give them some Trubel."

First things first. I'm calling it: Sean Renard isn't dead, especially with that ending. There's far too much melodrama over the whole thing. If they really wanted to kill him off they wouldn't have dragged it out like this. My wife said from the start that he wasn't going to die and that became more and more likely as the episode continued.

Second thing: subtitles! Yay!

There's a story of the week involving a squid-headed, memory stealing dementia beast, but let's save that for part two; this a new season, after all, and the episode after the season finale. There's plenty else to talk about.

Trubel is able to talk her way out of trouble for killing the FBI-related assassin, but there's a twist; the FBI woman investigating this is herself a Wesen, in this case a "coyotl". We shall, doubtless, be hearing more of her.

There's a cameo for Prince Victor which shows us the rather alarming fact that Alexis Denisof has a beard. This is rather alarming, especially as the moustache makes the skin between his top lip and his nostril look enormous. If things carry on like this then my wife may stop fancying him. Oh dear. 

Rosalie and Monroe aren't in this very much, but they're both lovely for giving up their honeymoon for their friends. It's unclear, at the moment, how this season is likely to pan out for them.

Nick and Juliette are still a bit awkward following his accidental adultery, but they are both determined not to repeat last season's plotlines, which bodes well forthwith relationship. What is more pressing is the loss of Nick's Grimm abilities; suddenly he's very reliant on Trubel. It suddenly becomes clear why the character was introduced. I've a feeling this may be the new status quo, at least for a while. 

Perhaps this otherwise rather good show will soon get rid of Nick, what with him being by far the least interesting character. We can only hope.

Cucumber: Episode 1

"It's not my fault they went and invented it."

I'm conscious that the only Russell T Davies scripts I've ever blogged have been Doctor Who. So I should say, for the sake of balance, that I've seen (and enjoyed) Casanova and The Second Coming and, indeed, Dark Season. I haven't, however, seen Queer as Folk which, I suspects, puts me at a slight disadvantage in that I cannot discuss Cucumber in relation to it.

Meh. Anyway, this is RTD's much-heralded "More Gay Men" project, a return to a style of drama grounded in relationships and human miscommunication rather than the science fiction he's written in the recent past. And it is, of course, brilliant. I'd forgotten how much I love his style; the lightness of touch as a means to approach heavy themes, and his signature brilliant dialogue. RTD once explained to Charlie Brooker that his characters, like real people, never quite listen to what the other person is saying; dialogue should not get "ping pong". He practises what he preaches to brilliant effect here as Sunil gets a distracted Henry to let him copy that fateful essay.

But let's step back a bit. Henry is 46, comically grumpy and in a more or less sexless relationship with Lance. He represents the older generation of gay men, who have had to struggle with AIDS and a more overt homophobia, and to whom recent advances like equal marriage are somewhat bewildering. In contrast we have the much younger Dean, who has things much easier in terms of both social attitudes and easy sex.

This is the story, more or less, of how Henry's life fall apart so in the space of twenty-four hours. It looks as though he's lost his relationship and his career, in both cases through an awkward failure to communicate clearly. This basic plot plays out with plenty of wit and hilarity to distract us, as always, from the pessimism about the human condition that always lies beneath RTD's work. 

Vincent Franklin deserves praise for making the prickly and waspish Henry likeable enough to work as a protagonist yet believable for us to despair at his attitudes. Perhaps his attitude has been shaped by his life, though; he's clearly not comfortable with the idea that he can now get married, he's only half joking in his ambivalence to other gay men, and he's never gone all out and had full penetrative sex. He still has one foot in the more repressive era of his youth, days of Section 28 and homophobic tabloids.

And yet we also get funny scenes like the neighbour politely asking him not to wank  where her children can see, and the man with yellow spunk. And yet both of these turn out to be tinged with tragedy.

I'm looking forward to next week. I don't pretend to be any more plugged into gay culture than the next Guardian reading heterosexual liberal, but I'm enjoying this as a drama that is both fun and has something to say. I've missed RTD.

Angel: That Vision Thing

"Time to go visit Daddy!"

Interesting cliffhanger, with pregnant Darla and the above quote, but this is, essentially, a story of the week designed as an arc story; we already know that Cordelia's visions are getting worse, so it's a surprise that this is actually the work of Lilah, using a bit of a dodgy and vaguely racist-ish Asian stereotype to manipulate her into having visions in order to manipulate Angel.

Angel really, really loves Cordy. He's a knight in shining armour to the extent that you just know that they're deliberately using that trope. He will save her, no matter what the cost- and we just know that the bloke he freed from Hell is going to do something which will bite him in the arse. The rules of drama so decree.

That, and Darla, and the establishment of the rivalry between Lilah and Gavin, are the major arc threads here, but it's nice to see Fred coming out of her shell. Slowly. And her crush on Angel is cute.

Oh, and we meet Skip. I love Skip.

This is a rather forgettable episode by Angel's standards, but the subplots are simmering nicely. On with the next.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Bargaining, Part 2

"Is... this Hell?"

This is the first episode of Buffy not to feature Anthony Stewart Head. It feels weird. But, quite rightly, we're given no time to dwell on that as Sunnydale, bereft  of a slayer, goes all post-apocalyptic.

Willow now realises that she's failed, her suffering was all for nothing, and there is now no way to bring Buffy back- so she begins, finally, to mourn her friend. The gang are desperate, though- the Buffybot is (symbolically) abandoned, Willow is too knackered to cast many spells, and Buffy is apparently dead. With Spike babysitting Dawn the Scoobies are suddenly lacking in superpowers but, as Willow says, they're "it". And the newly vulnerable Sunnydale, pillaged and wrecked by demon bikers, needs them.

Dawn and Spike make a great double act and are, once again, a heartwarming uncle and niece act as they escape to safety together; Spike would do anything for Dawn. It's a nice use of his character, much as it's becoming less and less plausible that he's supposed to be evil.

It's a nice character touch that Anya's main concern is for the Magic Box, which is now hers. And, although there's a large element of comic relief in her trying to get Xander to announce their engagement at the least appropriate moments, there still a sense that Xander may be dragging things somewhat. Cold feet?

A traumatised Buffy, meanwhile, has had to claw her way up from being buried alive. She spends much of the episode being, understandably, existentially traumatised, but inevitably saves the day by kicking her usual arse. We end, appropriately, with her and Dawn on the tower from which she jumped, with Dawn persuading her not to jump again. The resurrected Buffy is clearly very damaged. Appropriately, though, the tower collapses. This seems to signify hope.

This is a very odd beginning to a season. It's still Buffy, but what happened to the fun season openings? Let's see where they're going with this.

Marvel's Agent Carter: Now Is Not the End

"You're an agent. They treat you like a secretary."

First impressions count for a lot, which is fortunate, as first signs are great here. Like Mad Men, this miniseries hangs a lot of its charm on recreating the look and feel of the middle of the last century, and succeeds magnificently with the cars, the (awful) clothes and the social mores. There's also more than a little influence from Raymond Chandler, and many of the action sequences look like a film that could star the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

This isn't, despite the presence of Enver Gjokaj, a Mutant Enemy production, and Joss Whedon's involvement is even less than it is with Agents of SHIELD. The writing, though, is excellent, even if I haven't ever heard of the writers. It's fun seeing the Marvel Universe in 1946, with Howard Stark being just like his son (albeit on the run from a thinly veiled HUAC), and names like Roxxon and Abraham Erksine. We also have, of course, Jarvis, an engagingly Giles-like character.

Hayley Atwell, though, is magnificent as a kind of stiff-upper-lipped River Song for the 1940s, engaging in setting-do with the best of them and, in a nice little scene, giving a sexist, groping bastard in a diner a bit of a shock; this woman has balls. And yet she is, privately at least, devastated at the death of her flatmate, a death that happened because of her.

This is a splendid opener, much more so than the pilot for Agents of SHIELD. This series promises to be good. So let's have a UK screening please!

The Dam Busters (1955)

"Every time one of these Lancasters flies over, my chickens lay premature eggs!"

There's something about a British war film of this era, a decade or two after the war. There's the stuff-upper-lip mood; the straightforward, linear storytelling and the slow, steady pace. This is a typical example of the best of such films, I suppose.

It's a shame, of course, that the film has been somewhat overshadowed by the name of Guy Gibson's dog, a name that I have no intention of repeating. It isn't ok now and, with due acceptance of the different context of 1955 and, indeed, 1943, when the concept of racism was rarely thought of, it wasn't exactly ok then. But the past was what it was.

It's a pity, really; this is a bit of a barrier between us and the original context of the film, as the narrative point of the dog is to humanise Gibson, otherwise a rather flat, straightforward hero type, the kind of figure whom it's easy to admire but hard to empathise with. A shockingly young looking Richard Todd nevertheless does a good job playing a square-jawed hero, a man who, in reality, died for his country in 1944 aged 26. No wonder these men get so bladdered so often.

Michael Redgrave portrays Barnes Wallis with rather more depth, but then this is a part which allows him to do so. Wallis is humanised by his like ability, his long-suffering wife, his easy relationship with his children, and his easy categorisation as the traditional British boffin. The British boffin is an iconic figure, the lone, eccentric individual in his shed, fighting the narrow minds of bureaucrats. But that such a figure can, albeit with difficulty, find himself listened to (appropriately by an equally eccentric prime minister) shows that a muddle-through democracy is both superior to and more efficient than a totalitarian, goose-stepping tyranny.

Wallis, incidentally, lived to be 92. He seems to be the only male non-smoker in the film, something implied to be an eccentricity.

The film uses suspension and tension well, particularly in the final scenes as the squadron's sorties are juxtaposed with Wallis and co at Bomber Command, barely able to cope with the tension; the film is long, but doesn't feel so. The climax is satisfying, with some great model work and what I can only assume is stock footage of the damage done to the industry of the Ruhr. One has to raise an eyebrow here at the total indifference shown to any German civilians killed as a result, but that would not have been much of a consideration in 1955. But it's fitting that we end, not with scenes of triumph, but mourning for the fifty-six men who did not return. 

Best film I've seen in 2015 so far; a film that pointedly equates the inventor in his shed (in modern parlance, the geek) with the square-jawed pilot hero. Brilliant.

Nanny McPhee (2005)

"I did knock..."

I wasn't originally going to blog this, hence the fact that I'm wings big it without any notes. It isn't the sort of thing I'd usually blog; just one of many bit of Christmas telly that we're catching up on the Sky Plus, in this case recorded because Mrs Llamastrangler is rather fond of it.

But in hindsight it deserves a blogging, not least because I have nothing else to blog at the moment; it's been a busy few days. Besides, it's rather good, and Emma Thompson would be my ideal choice for the next Doctor Who donuts worth a look at her.

She is, of course, brilliant, both as star and as writer of this adapted screenplay. This may fit into an existing tradition of children's fantasy in a Victorian milieu (cough Mary Poppins cough), but that is no bad thing. Oh,of course you can criticise it for uncomplainingly showing us a socially stratified world, but that's implicit in the setting. To complain would be churlish. And yes, Colin Firth is the same in everything and only ever plays Mr. Darcy, but he fits in nicely here.

The fantasy conceit is brilliant. Emma Thompson is brilliant. Thomas Sangster is brilliant. Angela Lansbury is... interestingly miscast. We even get brief scenes of Derek Jacobi camping it up. As recent kids' films go, this is one of the best.

Biography of Anthony Ainley by Karen Louise Hollis

One of the perks of having a blog is that you can use it to plug books by friends of yours. This is an excellent biography, thoroughly researched with a lot of details not previously known...

http://www.fantomfilms.co.uk/books/karenlouisehollis_anthonyainley.htm

Angel: Heartthrob

"Don't say the "B" word."

My wife could go into labour any week now, and becoming a new father is unavoidably going to curtail my blogging time. What better time to start a new season of Angel?

Excellent opening episode, this. Time has passed, the team has bonded in the absence of the brooding, the bereaved Angel is in retreat in Sri Lanka, Fred still won't come out of her room, and Cordy's visions are even more painful. By the time of Angel's return (touchingly, he's missed his friends and they all hug) we have a happy and bonded team. It's all, for the moment, very lovey-dovey.

And that's appropriate, because this whole episode examines the phenomenon of love and grief in the wake of Buffy's, ahem, "death". Flashbacks remind us of Angel's kinky yet easy-going relationship with Darla, but contest them with the much more passionate love between their fellow vampires Elizabeth and James- introducing a certain Holtz while doing so. We will be hearing more of him.

Flash forward, and Elizabeth is at large in present day LA being evil. Her evil is thematically sound, though; she taunts a male student by forcing to choose whether she kills him or the girl he professes to love. He breaks down and begs her to kill her and spare himself... and then Angel saves them. That's one couple who will be having an awkward conversation.

However, after Angel kills Elizabeth, James is not happy about the death of his beloved, and by "not happy" I mean like something out of Romantic poetruunable to live without his beloved, he accepts death as the inevitable price of attempting to avenge her. He dies happy, having failed to kill Angel but done the right thing by his loved one. 

We learn at the end- via, of course, Cordy- that Angel is troubled; does the fact that he is able to live, albeit in mourning, after Buffy's death mean that their love was never real, as James tied believing?

A solid opener, although I bet we never hear of either Elizabeth or James again. Quite the cliffhanger, too, as we learn that Darla is impossibly pregnant...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Bargaining, Part 1

"Did your life pass before your eyes? Cup of tea, cup of tea, almost got shagged, cup of tea?"

Any day now my wife is going into labour and I'm going to become a dad. The blog, inevitably, will become much more of a part-time thing. So let's start a new season of Buffy, shall we? After all, it's not as though Season Five took aaaaages, is it?

Buffy's back, even though Buffy's dead (right?), although there's been a change of network ("channel" to us Limeys) to the WB, sort of the Channel 4 to Fox's ITV. So there are massive changes to the paratext. Still, this is the same old Buffy, and the traditional cracker of an opening episode.

Time has passed. The gang have learned to deal with vampires through use of the Buffybot, with occasional hilarity ensuing, but Willow has a mysterious and secretive plan. It's also clear that, while still being Willow, she is more assertive, adventurous with her magic, and definitely the boss. But when we learn she plans to resurrect Buffy it doesn't feel good. Giles is being kept in the dark, for one thing. And that necromantic spell she casts looks nasty. And she KILLS BAMBI, dammit. "Dark Willow" feels very close.

Oh, and Giles is suddenly off to Blighty, although he doesn't get the quiet send-off he wants, and rightly so. Still, he'lol be back.

The rest of the gang are the same characters we know and love but sub-plots are a-boiling already; Anya is now in charge of the Magic Box, and enjoying the power. Dawn and Spike still have this fantastic and touching uncle-niece relationship. Still, other vampires are starting to notice that Spike is starting to act a bit too much like a goodie for a soulless vampire.

I love the vampire bar; naturally, they're all rockers. Of course, as dramatic convention dictates, said vamps attack during the ceremony, interrupting the resurrection spell for which Willow has suffered so much, and indulged in no little darkness. Except... the last shot happens, and Buffy finds that things have gone a bit Edgar Allan Poe.

Brilliant. A fine start. Let's hope the high quality continues.

The Cat in the Hat (2003)

"Can't I have some rules?""

"No chewing tobacco!"

Lots of people don't like this film. This is mainly because they have fond childhood memories of the original work by Dr Seuss and don't like the more adult and naughty tone of this film. I can sort of see their point, and won't necessarily put this film at the top of the pile of films to show my little girl. However, I've never read any Dr Seuss and came to this with no preconceptions, just wanting to see a bit of comedy starring Mike Myers. And you know what? On those terms, this film is pretty good, and the naughty bits are among the best.

Mike Myers is great, naturally, and perfect for this version of the Cat, but the real revelation is the young Dakota Fanning as the strait-laced Sally in a perfectly judged deadpan comic performance for one so young. The direction and look of the film is perfectly stylised and coloured, with absolutely no concession to realism.

There may be no subtext other than the rather obvious one about properly balancing fun and responsibility, but there's nothing didactic in how the message is conveyed, and much naughty and mildly sweary fun is had in the meantime, with songs and all. Why, we even get a bizarre cover of the Beatles' "Getting Better", albeit without Paul McCartney's dodgy lyric about domestic abuse.

Don't be put off by the critics; this is an enjoyable comedy. Just don't necessarily assume it's for very young children!

Happy New Year!

Before I start drinking certain alcoholic beverages I'd like to wish all my readers a happy and prosperous 2015 as well, of course, as a suitably merry last few hours of 2014

Expect January to start with much blogging. It's a big year for me, though- we're expecting our first baby in early Feb, and it's likely that blog posts may be somewhat less frequent. Fear not, though- the blog will go on and on for as long as blogs are a thing!

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: What They Become

"I'm her father, not you!"

And they end it there?

Wow. What a half season. Trip is dead. Mack may not be. Whitehall is dead. Ward has been shot, by Skye. And that's just the start. It isn't just crammed full of incident because it's the end of the half-season, though; all episodes are like this at the moment.

Let's just say it: Cal (Skye's Dad) is Mr Hyde, and Skye ("Daisy") is Quake as well as an Inhuman. Exactly who Raina is, besides an Inhuman, is unclear, and the same is true of that mysterious bloke at the end, with another Obelisk and no eyeholes. A lot gets explained to Skye by her father, much of which we have already have worked out; it's hard to hide spoilers when there's a pre-existing Marvel mythos.

Regarding the regulars, it's clear that Slye has come on leaps and bounds as an agent, and Fitz continues to recover slowly from the brain damage. May is a genius pilot, while it seems Ward's whole agenda was to take Skye to her father and her destiny, for which she shoots him. The scenes where Skye receives much exposition from her father are the fulcrum of the episode and, indeed, the season so far. We've been waiting for this.

I'm still stunned from watching that. What will happen next? How long will we have to wait? Will any UK channel be showing Agent Carter? So many questions. Agents of SHIELD is on fire. I keep saying it because it's true.

Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (2000)

"Blast this Christmas music. It's joyful and triumphant!"

Ok, I'll admit I never encountered Dr Seuss as a kid (he's quite popular in the UK, but not as ubiquitous as he is in America), and I essentially watched this because my wife has fond memories of it. But I rather enjoyed it, much as it may not be a great film. I'm no fan of Jim Carrey but here's a film where he really works (and you can recognise his distinctive facial mannerisms through all the layers of make-up), and it's pleasingly random to see a young Taylor Momsen from the Pretty Reckless, a band I'm a little too old to appreciate. Give me Hole, L7, Bikini Kill and Daisy Chainsaw any day.

Apparently we get most of the original verse spoken aloud, which is a good thing, as is the dreamlike look of the film, overseen by the not-always-reliable Ron Howard. The weird hairstyles are great.  And yes, it's fluffy and kid-friendly, but the Grinch is funny, with Carrey getting some fantastic lines, with just enough cynicism to undercut the sentimentalism of the message.

I enjoyed this film. And that's a good thing; very imminent fatherhood means I will be seeing many more like it over the next few years!

Doctor Who: Last Christmas

"So that's 22 million children per hour. That's impossible! So, obviously, I've got a second sled?"

Could this be the best Christmas episode ever? It really could be, although I'm glad that an episode questioning the existence of Father Christmas happens before my daughter is born. We combine the real strengths of Moffat's storytelling- an imaginatively conceptual monster that revolves around our perception of it and intricate plotting- with real heart, wit and fun. Naysayers beware: this blog post will consist of 100% gushing.

I love the whole concept of dreams within dreams, and the dream crabs themselves, which look like face huggers from Alien (as we're told, by Michael Troughton's Albert!) and always attack you when you think about them (that is sooo Moffat), anaesthetising you with nice dreams as they melt your face off. Lovely.

Oh, and Santa is in it. With all the best lines. Nick Frost is perfect casting, and all the scenes with Santa and the elves are hilarious, leavening what could otherwise be the grimness of the base under siege format.

The plot is a marvel to behold and, wonderfully, any conceivable plot hole can be justified that the whole thing (including the very end of Death in Heaven) is a dream except the last few minutes. It's not a dream without dramatic consequences, though; the Doctor and Clara finally admit that they lied to each other and parted for absolutely no good reason. Oh, and we seem to get to know Shona suspiciously well for a one off character. Could we be seeing her again?

(Shona, incidentally, gets the best metatextual moment of the episode as she wakes up in her drab flat; her Christmas to-do list includes three DVDs- Alien, The Thing from Another World and Miracle on 34th Street- which are the clear influences for the episode. Nicely done.)

Obviously, Clara dreams about Danny (will he stay dead?) in a lovely character scene in which Danny, wonderfully, insists that he didn't die saving the world; he died saving Clara. The rest of us were just along for the ride. And Moffat cruelly wrong-foots is at the end, showing the Doctor returning to an elderly Clara (nice age make-up for once), having squandered the chance forever to travel with her again. But this is all a dream; the Doctor and Clara get a second chance, and we end with them travelling together again.

A really nice touch here, incidentally, is the fact that the Doctor can't tell the difference between old and new Clara. Another nice touch is the description we get of the Memory Crabs: "We're getting hacked. The visual input from your optic nerve is being streamed to their brains". I have to marvel at how Moffat, as he did in The Bells of St John, describes an alien threat perfectly in terms of very contemporary technology. The only death (Albert) is shown figuratively by having him pulled into a screen, some excellent nightmare logic. And the Doctor has a line in the sand: "Santa Claus does not do the scientific explanation."

Best Christmas episode ever!!!

Merry Christmas

In advance of tomorrow's festive episode of Doctor Who, I'd like to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas (to all of you at home...) from myself, Mrs Llamastrangler and the bump!!!

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Ye Who Enters Here

"One crisis at a time!"

Oh my God, they killed Mack! The bastards. On the one hand he's a minor character from the comics who, I believed, never got killed on that medium but, on the other hand, Henry Simmons happens to be black and, as the trope goes, the black guy dies first. Hmm. Is that a little uncomfortable? I suppose sometimes character deaths are racially neutral in intent, but it looks awkward.

Still, great episode, even if we spend ages on the edge of the newly-found alien city and never really see it. But there are still exciting revelations- Raina even uses the word "Kree" to Skye, revelling in how in-demand she's become for her knowledge. Skye is also told that she, like Raina (Inhumans both?) can touch the Obelisk without harm. Bet she does so at some point.

I love the jokes about how many Koenig brothers there are, and Coulson's quick statement that SHIELD found out all about the Bermuda Triangle back in the '80s. I also love the continued use by HYDRA of Agent 33 with May's face. And it's intriguing to see Mack (before he dies, obviously) referring to a secret that Bobbi is hiding from Hunter even though they're shagging again.

Before we go to the city, though, HYDRA arrive, led by Ward, seizing Raina and (against Whitehall's wishes) Skye. Ward also declined to blast the team out of the sky. What is his agenda?

Never have I been so impatient to see the next episode, even with Christmas Day (and Doctor Who!) coming before then!

Angel: There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb

"We all got our demons..."

On the surface this is a fun, fluffy little season finale in which the bad guys running Pylea get overthrown and everyone is happy ever after. But there are all sorts of little character moments suggesting problems ahead and, of course, the fluffy mood is instantly undercut at the end with the bad news from Sunnydale.

Even at the start, none of the gang want to be in Pylea any more, not even Cordy who begins to realise that, like today's European monarchs, she is nothing but a puppet in a gilded cage. Angel's initial enthusiasm for Pylea, with its straightforward black and white morals and disdain for all shades of grey has faded; he may be all white-hatted human hero, but his vampire side is all demon, whatever faith Fred may have in him. Meanwhile, Gunn and Wesley keep nearly dying in comical ways which neatly undermine Wesley's credentials as a leader.

In fact, Wesley's talents as a leader, or lack of them, are something of a subtext here. His revolutionary plans involve the sacrifice of the lives of some under him, and a particularly cynical usage of Angel. How very, well, Macchiavellian. This, along with hints to his kinkiness, seem to point to a deepening and darkening of his character to come.

But for now all is fluffy, Groo is in charge of Pylea and all the doubtless horrible stuff is still to come. But all that's for another season...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Gift

"How many apocalypses now?"

"Six, I think."

It's very clear from the start that this was originally supposed to be the last ever episode and not just a season finale; the "Previously On" is a tour through all five seasons, and the opening scene is a call back to the first ever episode- Buffy saves a boy from a vampire (how long since we saw one of those?) in the exact feminist statement that is the raison d'être for the whole show.

Still, this is also (and, as it turns out, only) a season finale, so we then turn straight to the plot. The plot involves some waiting around, however, so we also have time for a bit of character stuff first. Hence a bit of friction between Buffy and Giles about whether to kill Dawn (as though that's going to happen!) and Xandet suggesting, to his immediate shame, that they could just kill Ben (er...!). Hence Dawn being so very, very brave on what is to be the last day of her life. Hence Buffy and Giles getting a nice, quiet moment together. Hence Anya actually having some good and practical ideas about which McGuffins to use against Glory. But essentially the plan is just to keep Glory occupied so that the moment passes and the appointed time passes and it's too late to kill Dawn and unleash Hell. As plans go, it's rather desperate. And Buffy makes it clear that, if Dawn dies, she's quitting as Slayer. It's clear that there can be no simple return to the status quo.

Amongst all this, though, is a funny yet sweet scene of Xander proposing to Anya in an act of defiant faith in the future, just after they've had sex during which Anya, as she so kindly informs us, had "the pleasure moment".

After this, things seem to speed up. And, well, I've never much enjoyed action scenes or found them that easy to follow, but the second half of the episode seems to be too fast and too much action, robbing Buffy's death of its impact. Yes, the resolution at the end is obvious but that's not actually a problem as its a nice and neat way to end things, and the emotional impact should make up for the lack of surprise. Yet the emotional impact is strangely blunted.

Still, none of that takes away from the fact that this has been a fine season. The best, in fact, since Season Three. So let's see what happens in two more seasons on a different network...  

Angel: Through the Looking Glass

"Numfar! Do the Dance of Joy!"

Yes, that is indeed Joss Whedon playing Numfar. That alone is a good argument for this episode of Angel being the best ever. 

It looks as though Cordelia has been made Queen because of her prophetic powers, which connect her to the Powers That Be. There's a catch, however. She has to "Com-Shuk" with a creature called the "Groosalugg". I've never heard it called that before.

Here we continue the theme of Pylea allowing Angel to embrace his heroic nature fully, with Landok warmly welcoming him as part of the family while Lorne... er, Krevlornswath of the Deathwatch Clan... Is comically belittled by his bearded mother. All this is suddenly undercut, though, by his being invited to "swing the Crebbill" or behead Fred. Naturally, he rescues her, big old hero that he is, and makes himself an outsider.

The ensuing scenes with Angel and Fred serve both to emphasise how likeable and tragic Fred is and what an awesome actress Amy Acker is. 

It takes a while for Fred to accept that "the handsome man" did indeed save her from the monsters, LA is still real, she's not dead and there is indeed hope. She's having a very bad time in Pylea. Cordy seems to be ok, though, as it turns out that the Groosalugg is an even handsomer man who has fought an awful lot of monsters. He's a true, archetypal, uncomplicated hero and an obvious parallel of Angel, with all his doubts and shades of grey.

Doesn't he look a bit, er, wet in comparison? Still, that's something he has in common with Cordelia at the moment...

Angel: Over the Rainbow

"Who has handcuffs?"

"Well, I... wouldn't know..."

Oops. I thought I only has two episodes of Angel left and not three. I thought I'd alternated Buffy and Angel right through their respective seasons but I must have done two Buffys in a row at one point. Oh well. Here we go.

The last few episodes of this season are weird, bizarre, fluffy and delightful, a bit of fun after the heavy themes of the season so far and, indeed, of the closing episodes of the sister show. Plus, we now have Amy Acker as Fred. At last the gang's all here. This now properly feels like Angel.

It's a while before the non-Cordelia contingent gets to Pylea, and Cordy isn't having a nice time, what with her being enslaved and the apparent attentions of the Inquisition. A lot of this time is spent with comic relief about the Host's (or Lorne's, of Krevlornswath of the Deathwatch Clan's) reluctance to leave the dimension that once had Aretha Franklin in it.

There's one slight intrusion from the overall arc- Wolfram and Hart sniffing around the hotel, threatening to snap it up in six months after the lease ends- but it's all about Pylea. There's an interesting serious chat between Gunn and Ange, slightly diverting from the light mood; Ginn isn't coming to Pylea as he has responsibilities in LA. But so does Angel, and he's dropping everything for Cordy. It's obvious that he loves her. Oh, and the dialogue quoted at the top there is our first hint of Wesley's kinky tendencies. He's suddenly getting a lot of development.

We end with the whole gang (including Gunn) arriving in Pylea in Angel's car, like Marty McFly in Back to the Future III in an obvious visual reference. There are two suns, but Angel isn't set on fire, something which he may mention once or twice. This is a bit symbolic, of course; in this world of black and white Angel is free to unleash his inner unambiguous white hatted hero. Apparently.

We end with the finest cliffhanger ever- Cordelia enthroned as Queen of all she surveys. Looks as though I'll have to blog another episode of Angel next, then...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Weight of the World

"I'm willing to wager, when all's said and done, Buffy likes it rough..."

Just one more episode after this, and Buffy's all catatonic and flashbacky. There's a certain amount of treading water until the finale here, but it's well enough executed to make a passable episode, if not a great one.

The theme here is guilt; Buffy's guilt for subconsciously giving in and, worse, momentarily wishing her own sister dead so that all this will just go away. Meanwhile, even Glory gets a bit of guilt leaking through from Ben. Buffy's the important one, though; she's the one with the brains and, indeed, character traits.

So we get Willow going inside Buffy's head, and a bit of trippy symbolism passes the time. There are clues and, indeed, misdirection over the meaning of "Death is your gift", as the first slayer told Buffy. We will, of course, find out in the finale.

We end with Giles telling Buffy that there's only one way to beat Glory: kill Dawn. This is slightly undermined by our knowledge that you could also just kill Ben. But let's see what happens...

Angel: Belonging

"I remember when a few bob got you a good meal, a bottle and a tavern wench."

Yay! It's Fred! Er, for a few seconds. In a blurry flashback. Er... roll on next episode.

I love the end of this season. Most of the season arc stuff is all wrapped up, so we can spend the last three episodes doing something else. That's not to say that things aren't carried on; this episode is an extended example of how Wesley is entirely lacking in leadership skills, for example. And again we see Cordelia symbolically abasing herself for fame, humiliated by a slimy, woman-objectifying advert director who is himself nobody much. And Gunn experiences the most acute conflict of loyalties between his old and new friends, culminating in the pointless death of an old mate and, perhaps, a permanent estrangement.

But this is all about the Host. Or perhaps I should say Lorne. Or perhaps I should say (snigger) Krevlornswath of the Deathwatch clan. This revelation of his origins, in a plane of heroes and villains and nothing in between, is both an hilarious contrast with the splendidly camp Lorne and a perfect fit with Angel.

There are some nice moments here;  Alexis Denisof is superb during Wesley's phone chat with his censorious father, getting ever more deflated- and his father, while not exactly nice, is probably right about his lack of leadership chops.

And the looks on Angel's, Gunn's and Wesley's faces as they ponder a semi-naked Cordelia is priceless.

But we end with everything all wrapped up,the Drokken slain by Angel, and Lorne's cousin safely home. Except... Cordelia went through the portal too...

What an episode. And I'm sure the next two are going to be fun.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spiral

"Running away? Finally, a sensible plan..."

Ahem. Yes, I know. Blog-wise, this is the longest season of Buffy ever. It will get quicker, honest! Anyway, things are getting pretty bleak here.

Buffy's at the end of her tether. This season has been a constant stream of pressure put upon her young shoulders, both as a slayer and as a young woman. As she confides to Dawn, "It just keeps coming. Glory, Riley, Tara, Mom...". This season Whedon has decided to just throw hardship and responsibility at his eponymous protagonist and see how she responds. By simply shutting down, according to the end of the episode. Things are far beyond serious.

This is the episode where the Scoobies run away; there is no hope against Glory. And yet this is also the episode where, in the midst of a load of exposition about Glory from the captured general of those bizarre mediaeval clerics, still using swords, bows and chainmail in 2001, we learn that she has an Achilles heel; kill Ben, and Glory dies. That's a bit of a hint as to how the season ends.

This exposition also explains what the Key is- a device to mingle all the dimensions, freeing Glory and unleashing Hellish chaos- and Dawn hears it all. An adolescent girl, already with self-esteem issues, hearing that she's something unspeakably awful. Oh, and at one stage it almost feels as if Giles is going to die. And, at the end, Ben turns into Glory, and takes Dawn away. She's won. It's over. And through it all Tara is still heartbreakingly hobbled on the brain. How very bleak.

There's other stuff too, of course; Ben talks to the camper demon ever, and realises that his only hope is to kill Dawn- so what's that he injects her with at the generals insistence? The general, and the clerics, also want to kill this innocent teenage girl, in the name of God, for the greater good. Like Buffy, we're appalled. It's fitting that they dress and act like crusaders, standing for the very worst side of Christianity. 

Willow again goes all proto- Dark Willow (and is made to look very dark) in constructing an invisible force field. But that's next season. This season looks daunting enough. Just two episodes to go in what's shaping up to be the best season since the third...

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: The Things We Bury

"Paddington and Time Lord are closing in!"

Well then. It's all coming out now. Daniel Whitehall is a hundred year old Nazi war criminal who seized eternal youth from Skye's (Inhuman?) mother, a timeless Chinese peasant who looks uncannily like Sierra from Dollhouse. And, much more importantly, Hunter and Bobbie finally shag. As my wife said, there was far too much sexual tension.

Things are looking much bigger in terms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe- we have many flashbacks featuring Hayley Atwell, preparing the way for her imminent spin-off and references to the Red Skull. We are told of "blue angels" in the distant past who wish to erase humanity- and, incidentally, I may not have read the comics for years but I know my Marvel comics continuity up to 1994-ish. I'm certain that this is a reference to the Kree genetically engineering the Inhumans. It looks as though Skye may be an Inhuman through both parents, although her father's notices become ever more interesting. We almost get told Skye's real name, and there's a strong hint that her father's true hatred is for Whitehall.

On the characterisation front, Fitz is coming along nicely, entrusted by Coulson with an important task and acquitting himself well. It's clear that his brain damage won't be a permanent thing. Bakshi, well, dies. And there's a fascinating scene between Grant and Christian Ward in which Christian finally confesses that it was he who nearly killed the youngest brother. And yet, by the end, Christian and their parents are dead in an apparent "murder-suicide" and Ward is getting pally with Whitehall. That's another person with a rather opaque agenda.

There's a big cliffhanger at the end, though... has this mysterious city been found? Whatever. Agents of SHIELD. On fire at the moment. You know the drill.

The Quatermass Experiment: Part 1 ("Contact Has Been Established")

"It's one of them things. They dropped one."

This is, sadly, one of only two episodes of this six part serial that I will be blogging; the others don't exist. They will never be found, whatever Philip Morris has been up to, as they were never telerecorded in the first place, which is a shame. Television in 1953 was a very ephemeral medium, all of it live aside from a few pre-recorded film sequences. For repeats, the actors would simply repeat their performances. You saw it once and it was gone.

1953 was a long time ago and looks it; the picture quality, naturally, is rubbish and the long scenes are there because it simply wasn't possible to include more than two or three different scenes. Television was very much theatre with a camera pointed at it. There's a scene break here where the picture fades to black and stays black for what seems like ages.

Nevertheless, this is a superb piece of television scripting and production, dripping with atmosphere, however limited the live performers may be, and a reminder of the brilliance of both Rudolph Cartier and the great Nigel Kneale. This is a world in which science is admirable and scientists great men, but only because science is a desperate and fragile attempt to impose order on a terrifying world in which dark things lurk at the edges, not least human nature. It's refreshing, though, to see the scientific talk isn't being dumbed down in any way. And this is an era, what perhaps we can call the Dan Dare era, when it was possible to imagine Britain as a space pioneer. Sputnik lay four years ahead. To people in 1953 the achievements of the British Experimental Rocket Group were scarcely imaginable.

The plot is simple enough- a rocket has been sent into space, gone missing, but has now returned under mysterious circumstances. There is much tension in this scenario, later to be lovingly ripped off by Doctor Who in The Ambassadors of Death. Only in future episodes will it become apparent that something else has come back with Caroon.

And yet, the real unpleasantness is very much on Earth. A useless civil servant busybody is there to annoy and to serve the plot function of being exposited at, while newspaper columnist Jimmy Fullalove (a very young Paul Whitsun-Jones) exhibits all the cynicism of today's red top tabloids. (And this angle, that of the press,would also come to be lovingly ripped off by Doctor Who in The Web of Fear.)

We also have some comedy working class characters and a dear old lady played by Katie Johnson of The Ladykillers fame. She is truly from another age; IMDb tells me she was born in 1878 and made her stage debut in 1894!

Sadly, as but one more episode exists, we won't get to consider the whole thing. We can only judge the first two episodes, but this at least is a brilliant episode. One more to go, though...

Black Christmas (1974)

"That's the Mormon Tabernacle Choir doing their annual obscene phone call."

Er, merry Christmas, folks.

This film is so refreshing- one of the earliest slasher movies from before any of the tropes were truly established and so not weighted down by them. It also has that certain look that you find in the best films of the mid-'70s, all shot on proper film, brilliantly shot, naturalistically acted and with an emphasis on realism rather than glossiness of sound and picture. Oh, and Margot Kidder is in it.

The film is both very '70s and very Canadian, from the clothes to the sexual free-for-all to the ice hockey. At it's heart, though, its a well-rounded slasher which succeeds because of good characterisation, from the comical Mrs Mac with a bottle of whisky in every nook and cranny to the amusingly strait-laced Mr Harrison and from the realistically and terrifyingly misogynistic attitude of Peter towards Jess to the contrast between the virginal (and first to die) Clare to the deliciously naughty (and therefore doomed- tropes have to start somewhere) Barb, played by the brilliant Margot Kidder. The performances are as good as the characterisation, although perhaps Olivia Hussey is somewhat lacking in charisma. But even the police officers come across as individuals. It's a good slasher because it's a good film.

Best of all is the inconclusive ending; it isn't the red herring, but a semi- supernatural "Billy" in the attic, still reciting those creepy lines about "baby Agnes" and "what we did". That's how to do scary; undefined menace sitting there inexplicably in a world of realism.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: The Writing on the Wall

"I have to know!!!"

So, it seems that in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2014, it is still acceptable to name young boys "Graham". Oh dear...

On a more positive note, Agents of SHIELD continues to be on fire as we finally learn that the alien script is in face the skyline of an inhuman (or, indeed, Inhuman- I've seen the clues; that alien is probably a Kree, and we're told it's been dead for millennia) city. Oh, and Ward casually mentions that the boss of HYDRA is one "Von Strucker"- last seen, I believe, at the end of The Avengers.

We learn a lot about the Tahiti project, and the team finally learn what their Director has been up to. Coulson, it seems, is cured of his compulsion. Is the Tahiti stuff all wrapped up and replaced by a quest for this city? We shall see.

Meanwhile, Ward has indeed escaped and is being both good at what he does (he immediately spots Bobbi as an agent) and a bit dodgy (bordering suicide bombing). He shows he's not entirely bad by neatly delivering Bakshi to Coulson, but his last scene is nicely ambiguous. What's he up to?

Oh, and there's a good scene between Fitz and his new mate Mack, metaphorically indicating that Fitz may eventually recover. We will see. There's only so much story mileage that can be wrought from his condition. Personally, I think Whedon will have him start to recover and then kill him. It's what he does.

So, this season. On fire.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: A Fractured House

"I'm telling you I have your brother in a basement!"

Another gripping episode, in which SHIELD goes smoothly from Public Enemy Number One to seemingly in the clear. But a lot of other stuff happens too; both the season arc stuff and the character development are on fire this season. 

The big new character is Senator Christian Ward, a man whose apparent duplicity is shown to parallel that of his brother, especially given the juxtaposition of Christian Ward trying to convince Coulson while Grant Ward tries to convince Skye. The whole effect is undercut by the revelation that Coulson and Skye were both planning to sell out Grant to his brother anyway, but we're left not quite trusting Christian, a Machiavellian type if ever there was one.

(Oh,and is that Grant escaping at the end? We still don't know the truth about who exactly tortured the younger brother either.)

There's also a hint of sexual chemistry between formerly married couple Bobbi and Hunter. Are they going to get back together or is that too obvious? I like them both; Hunter has the best lines while Bobbi had the best moves. We end with Hunter about to leave, maybe. Somehow I doubt it.

May, it seems, has been married before. And she still doesn't like Hunter. After what he did, I'm not surprised. 

Meanwhile, there is much awkwardness between Fitz and the returned Simmons, culminating in a simple revelation during a chat between Simmons and Mack: she left because she knew she was "bad for him". She's right. 

I think our heroes learn at this point that HYDRA has the Obelisk, which is something of a problem. Oh, and Belgium is HYDRA territory. But who's surprised?

Oh, and that HYDRA assassin Scarlotti- is he Blacklash?

Monsters Inc (2001)

"Kids these days... They just don't get scared like they used to!"

I'm somewhat winging it with this one; I wasn't going to blog this film and so I didn't make any notes. But here I am, a week later, deciding to blog it after all. I haven't done that since Drop Dead Fred. So here's hoping for some semblance of structure.

This film is, let us lay it out at the start, amazing. The animation, the voice acting and the witty script raise this up to something special, but best of all is the concept; a city of great looking monsters who get all their powers from the screams of frightened children. Sully is the most celebrated of the scarers, who enter inter dimensional doors (a fantastic image) to scare kids. But all this comes crashing down once a little baby girl and a dastardly plot enter proceedings.

One has to raise an eyebrow, I suppose, at a fairly contemporary looking society with an energy crisis which is able to use doors as interdimensional portals, but the whole concept is so cool that I simply don't care. The dynamic between Sully and Mike is fantastic, as it has to be for the film to work, and Boo is so very, very cute.

There's not much more to say; I'm not going to dig too deep for subtext although there are probably things that could be said about corporate greed. Just go and watchful. It's great.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: A Hen in the Wolf House

"I prefer you blonde!"

Right. You know how last week I gushed about how brilliant last episode was? Well, this episode knocks it into a cocked hat. Awesome stuff keeps happening. We find out stuff about Skye's father. And Mockingbird!!! And she is Hunter's much discussed ex-wife is a well-earned reveal that had me laughing out loud.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. This is a big arc episode full of bombshells. We get a closer look at Skye's dad, an unstable, self-loathing "monster" with superhuman strength and a medical degree who ends up giving the Obelisk to HYDRA at the end, which is not good news. We get an end to the secrecy between Skye and Coulson and, interestingly, we get it confirmed that out of the three who were injected with the GH formula, only Skye has not been doing the weird writing. Could she be a bit alien to start with? The alien was blue-Kree? I seem to recall from my comics reading days that it was the Kree who genetically engineered the Inhumans...

It's startling to see Raina so desperate; who is she? It seems she was pretty much raised by Skye's father. It's cool to see the previously intimidating Bobbi Morse kicking arse while rescuing Simmons, and I can't wait to see the dynamic between her and ex-husband Hunter.

The heart of the episode, though, is Simmons' awkward reunion with Fitz, which made my lovely wife cry a bit with the understated and very British emotion. Bring on next week. I'm loving this series. It's a proper Joss Whedon show and no mistake.

I'm Going to Be a Dad!!!

I think it's about time I announced to all my adoring fans that my wife is 29 weeks into her pregnancy and our first baby, a little girl, is due in early Feb! We are very excited and wondering whether there's anything we still need to add to the pile of baby stuff we've been steadily acquiring. I can't wait to be a Daddy.

So what does this mean for the blog? Well, it's here to stay for as long as blogs are a thing. But I'd be surprised if I managed to keep up anything like the same level of output. Don't be surprised if large breaks between blog posts start appearing from Jan or Feb, but the blog goes on and on.

And yes, you can expect an excited post about the birth!!! :D

A Friend to Die For (1994 TV Film)

"I never really liked her..."

This is one of those things I would never have seen if not for my wife who, bizarrely, has fond childhood memories of this rather serious and weighty drama! It's a quality work, though- well scripted, shot and acted, and a serious treatment of some weighty themes without sensationalism. It's just s pity that the only available DVD lacks subtitles.

The names are changed, but this is based on a real murder from 1984 in which a popular and bitchy cheerleader- essentially Cordelia from early Buffy and a familiar trope of American high school drama- is murdered by a jealous classmate. The film questions the hierarchies in such places, where the popular ones always seem to come from money and popularity always has to involve bullying those who don't fit in.

I'm a foreigner, but I've always found cheerleading creepy, a disturbing cult and blatantly sexist. And don't get me started on sororities, fraternities and those stupid, awful-looking jackets that the popular boys wear. But here we have a principal who, true to Reaganomics, exhorts his teenage students to "be the best" and praises survival of the fittest and to Hell with the weak. The priest may may question the role of capitalist 1080s values in this murder, but he flat out refuses to consider it. This is a mitder that arises out of a complex interplay of class, gender and hierarchy. 

The whole thing is brilliantly structured, starting with the murder itself from an outsider's perspective, then turning to the perspective of Angie, the killer, up to and beyond the murder itself, and then towards the community itself and an unnecessary show trial which echoes The Scarlet Letter. It may be obscure, but this is worth seeing.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Face My Enemy

"It didn't work out because interspecies relationships are hard. I was a human, whereas she was a demonic hell beast."

Wow. What an episode. Agents of SHIELD is on fire this season. I hope they can keep this up.

Agents Coulson and May are on an undercover mission at a posh do in order to recover this week's MacGuffin, a 16th century painting with some of that alien writing on the back. Having those particular agents on the mission accomplishes several things. Firstly, the fact that Coulson is on a mission at all emphasises SHIELD's reduced circumstances; he's supposed to be Director. Secondly, we get to see the amazing chemistry between Ming-Na Wen and Clark Gregg which suggests, perhaps more so than the dialogue, that they may have been a couple in the past. This isn't something I'd ever assumed before, but I certainly assume it as a possibility now because of the acting choices made.

Thirdly, of course, there's the fact that Coulson tries to spend the whole episode trying to get May to agree to kill him if his episodes of alien writing lead him to go full-on Garret. She's reluctant, and has a contingency plan to avoid this; beneath the hard exterior she cares for him deeply. There's a lot still to come out about their history together.

On a funnier note, though, I love the team's reaction to May's attempt at laughter. And I love how she just walks through the laser grid.

In other news, Hunter seems to be slowly bonding with the team, although Skye seems impervious to his charms (they're definitely going to get together), while Fitz proves his usefulness by, well, saving the whole damn team. He's still far from recovered, though, and still very much the outsider.

Arc-wise... well, HYDRA have suddenly become masters of disguise. Coulson's interestingly nuanced relationship with General Talbot continues. And we end with Raina in deep trouble; she has 48 hours to recover the big bad MacGuffin fircthev disturbingly sadistic Dr Whitehall or he will torture her quite horribly...

My Girl (1991)

"Feel my aura!"

"I don't think I'm allowed to..."

Just to make it very clear; the wife cried. I didn't. Heart of stone. I deny everything.

This is a nice little coming-of-age story starring a very young and brilliant Anna Chlumsky (who I only know, much older, from In the Loop), a typically charismatic Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd playing against type as man whose approaching middle age seems set to be defined by his underlying sadness and mild neglect of his delightfully full-of-life daughter, and Macauley Culkin, that walking advertisement that being a child star doesn't always end well.

The whole thing hangs on Vada's unique personality- a hypochondriac, terrified of the dead bodies she sees all the time, what with being an undertaker's daughter, and bring rather brighter than her peers- and that in turn hangs on the young Anna Chlumsky, who really makes this film. As does, yes, the sad twist, which hits like a sledgehammer.

This is also a nice little glimpse into the middle America of 1972, with hippies at the creative writing class using phrases like "right on" without irony and phrases like "women's lib" being hurled around. This isn't a big film, but it's a pleasant way to spend ninety minutes.

Doctor Who- Death in Heaven

"Typical officer. Got to keep those hands clean."

Wow. That was quite possibly the best season finale ever. Looking over the season, in fact, it's possibly the best treatment of season-long plot threads in Doctor Who, in terms of both plot and themes. And yes, I'm calling it: this is the best season since Philip Hinchcliffe left, a time when Jim Callaghan was prime minister, I was just about to be born and Elvis was alive. Basically, expect a positive review. 

We begin with a clever feint- Clara trying to convince the Cybermen that "Clara Oswald" never existed and she's really the Doctor. This is clever; we've been primed, by a female Master, for a female Doctor, and there's been a season-long theme of Clara being Doctorish; think Flatline. Still... the Doctor is four times married, and has multiple children and grandchildren, all presumed dead. Interesting.

Still, back to the actual plot, UNIT appears, in the form of Kate Stewart, Osgood ("Bow ties are cool!") and a nice reference, via a version of Handles from the late '60s, to The Invasion, later to be echoed with the plane as HQ. It's good to see the Doctor, like Sulla, being appointed dictator of Earth; this is such a great bit of plot economy and is a great way of avoiding so much tiresomeness.

The scene with Clara in a graveyard about to erupt with zombie Cybermen is terrifying, but this is immediately eclipsed with an awesomely scripted and heartbreaking scene between Clara and a Cybernised Danny that brings home the true body horror of Cyber conversion in a way which, for me, eclipses all previous attempts. Wow. Again, wow.

I like the revelations- as expected, it was Missy who rang Clara in The Bells of Saint John and brought her and the Doctor together in Deep Breath. But Michelle Gomez is a brilliantly insane Master, and gets a fantastic showcase scene in which she, sob, kills Osgood! Moffat, YOU BASTARD! Yes, Kate lives, and yes, it's a touching scene with the Brig, but let's be honest, who really likes Kate, and Jemma Redgrave's utter lack of charisma? It's Ingrid Oliver's Osgood who makes UNIT cool, and she's dead!!!

Just as good is the debate between the Doctor and Danny, which pays off another theme of this season- is the Doctor like a military officer, getting others to kill and die for him? Here, he fails to see the humanity present in Danny, seeing him again as a pawn.

Then Missy arrives, all Mary Poppins with her flying umbrella, and reveals a plan which underlines the same theme; the Cyber army is to be put at the Doctor's disposal for him to put to universe-saving purposes. This is for him to realise that the two of them are not so different. And here we get the expected flashbacks to "Am I a good man?" and "You are a good Dalek!" And the Doctor's epiphany; he is not a good man, a bad man, a hero, a president or an officer- just a traveller who helps people out. And, with that, he steps back and let's Danny save the world like the hero he is. And then seems to actually kill Missy. Hmm. Not sure I like that. It's awfully close to endorsing capital punishment.

The story ends with the Doctor and Clara parting, each misunderstanding and lying to each other; she thinks he's found Gallifrey, but he hasn't, and he's devastated, while he thinks that she's found Danny when, in fact, he gave up his one shot at resurrection to the child he killed in Afghanistan, like a true hero. Wow.

And then, tragically, it ends there. The end credits start... and are interrupted. By Father Christmas. Played by Nick Frost.

What? What? WHAT???!!!

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Making Friends and Influencing People

"How is everyone?"

"Fitz is ok. He's hanging in there."

Three episodes in and we have loads of exciting season plot threads simmering nicely; it's going so much better than this time last season. It feels like a proper Joss Whedon show.

The plot is essentially that both SHIELD and HYDRA are after Donnie Gill (Blizzard) from last season, but so much is woven around this. The first big reveal is that Simmons is working for HYDRA; the second (rather less surprising) revelation is that she's a double agent, reporting directly to Coulson. But this is rather cleverly handled, having Simmons be HYDRA's negotiator with the proud Blizzard, in competition with SHIELD. Her cover is blown with her old mates, but not her supposed new ones; in fact, she ends up promoted. She's far from safe, though. As Skye says, she's a terrible liar.

We learn more about HYDRA's brainwashing techniques- the episode is bookended with a certain Agent 33 (a character we know from the comics?) starting her brainwashing and having completed it. HYDRA are certainly terrifying, and once again it's emphasised that the stand for fascism and oppose liberty.

Fitz is making progress; he shows self-awareness, realising that Simmons is just a figment of his imagination and that things are being hidden from him. His confrontation with Ward is both cathartic and a means for him to help the team. Coulson seems to show him greater respect afterwards.

No one trusts Hunter, unsurprisingly, although he seems to show early signs of incipient bonding with Skye, who still has no time for Ward. We end with a bombshell, though; Skye's father is alive, and Ward knows where he is. 

This was brilliant, and Agents of SHIELD is on fire with a first rate script and a superb cast. Long may this continue.

Beetlejuice (1988)

"You know what they say about people who commit suicide- in the afterlife, they become civil servants!"

Heaven forbid. What an awful fate.

I can't believe I've never seen this strange yet brilliant film before, a Tim Burton film from before he had quite settled on a particular style. It's delightfully quirky, and has the best stop motion effects I've ever seen in a film not involving Ray Harryhausen. Who needs CGI? Not the young Tim Burton.

It's also arresting to see Michael Keaton being brilliant in a comic role, and a very young Winona Ryder showing that she was the Dakota Fanning of her day. Best of all is the premise; a silly look at the haunted house genre from the perspective of those doing the haunting.

The whole things screams "late '80s", from the weird landscapes outside the house that look just like a contemporary music video to the fact that Lydia is an actual Goth who listens to Bauhaus rather than Evanescence. Along with the opera, that is.

There are some nice touches (I noticed the nod to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) to both the premise and the design, but probably the best thing is the bureaucracy after death. I'd better get used to it- I'm already a civil servant...

But the one thing I'll remember above all is the stop motion. It's glorious, and cartoonish, and, well, ripped off somewhat by Drop Dead Fred three years later. This movie rules!

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 8 (Grand Guignol)

"Why do you think I want to be saved?"

Well, that was eventful. Quite the season finale, with many threads coming to an end, but it's pleasing to see that the episode opens as many doors as it closes. We end with the prospect of Frankenstein using Brona's body to make a bride for Caliban (that'll go well), with Ethan shown to be some sort of werewolf, able to rip his pursuers to shreds (is this why he left America, leaving tears and "a whole mess of blood"?), and with Vanessa contemplating the long, hard road of exorcism. There's plenty to fuel a second series.

In the meantime, though, there's a first season to wrap up. Obviously, there's the climactic hunt for Mina, ending in the revelation that Mina is loyal towards "the master" and the shock of Sir Malcolm shooting his daughter. Still, the hints continue that he sees Vanessa as his daughter.

It's fun to see Vanessa dumping Dorian in the same arbour where he first properly seduced her. And yet, symbolically, the flower is no longer in bloom. We, like Vanessa, are amused Dorian Gray is made to feel rejection for the first time.

Brona's death is heartbreaking, although Frankenstein's smothering her is somewhat unexpected. He's complex; on the side of the goodies yet capable of being so callous. And yet this callousness is done out of a paternal affection for Caliban.

Calibans tale is the most tragic; once menacing, he is reduced to a pathetic figure. He misinterprets Maud's kindness in making up his face and visiting her room, and is stunned by her rejection, forcibly kissing her and burning his bridges with the theatre. Maud may have sympathised with him, but she also looked down on him. He can never be attractive to a woman... except perhaps one like himself?

This is a superb finale, but it's fantastic to see how much time is spent setting up the next season.

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 7 (Possession)

"Do you value cleanliness?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"That's why you're a virgin!"

This is a very claustrophobic episode, set entirely in Sir Malcolm's house as he, Victor and Ethan debate what to do with Vanessa's increasingly horrible possession. Above all, though, it's a tour de force of acting from Eva Green, who out-Exorcists The Exorcist. It seem that the Earth did indeed move for her after last episode.

This causes friction amongst the gang; Vanessa wants to die, but should they let her live? For Sir Malcolm there is but one answer; he needs her alive to find Mina, and that is all that matters. This claustrophobic episode is talky yet gripping, depending entirely on its subtle and brilliantly crafted characterisation.

Ethan is himself briefly possessed but, in being the one who quietly cures Vanesda in the end, he hints at yet more hidden depths. There's quite a cliffhanger too, pointing towards the imminent finale, from the cured Vanessa: "I know where Mina is..."

Doctor Who: Dark Water

"My heart is maintained by the Doctor!"

Wow. Just wow. This episode has two jaw-dropping moments. One of them (spoiler alert!) is the revelation that Missy is the Master, but my wife worked that out years ago. No, the big reveal is what the Cybermen are up to- the idea of the dark water showing only organic material and so hiding the Cybermen is clever. I only knew for certain when Murray Gold gave us that snippet of the Cyber theme and those doors closed, showing those Cybermen teardrop eyes. It's all cleverly done, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger as The Tomb of the Cybermen becomes The Invasion.

Moffat has a lot of fun with the afterlife as bureaucracy, and the casting of Chris Addison was a masterstroke. I enjoyed the Thick of It in-joke, too, with the line about all the swearing on the Doctor's psychic paper. But the ultimate revelation of the afterlife just being a bit of the Mayrix from Gallifrey is awfully, ingeniously clever. As is the idea of all Earth's dead being turned into Cybermen.

Just as important, though, is Clara's emotional devastation at Danny's death, enough to make her threaten the Doctor into helping her. He helps her, clearly, out of love, although he would never admit that. And the last conversation between Clara and Danny is both devastating and masterfully written.

At the back of my mind is the slight criticism that the Doctor would never have been present for any of this if not for the coincidence of Danny's death, but this is superb. And the parallel cliffhanger, with Danny about to sign away his emotions, is the perfect end to an extraordinary episode.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Heavy is the Head

"HYDRA has one thing on their minds; world domination, which is so 1945."

Hartley and Idaho are both dead, but this episode introduces us properly to Hunter as a full member of the team, a man with depths which are hinted at, mainly during a chat with Skye, and whose de facto initiation consists of actually betraying the whole te to General Talbot. This isn't exactly going to endear this wide boy to the team, and he has a lot to do, but this soldier-turned-mercenary seems to be an interesting character. 

There's also Coulson, whose responsibilities in building a fugitive SHIELD and leading the fight against HDDRA are leading him to become stressed, secretive, and not quite his usual affable self. On top of this, every fortnight or so he has "episodes", known only to May, in which he draws those bizarre diagrams that we have seen before, not least from the changed Garrett towards the end.

The revived SHIELD is slowly growing, with two Quinjets and those cool virtual screens as seen in all Marvel films featuring Tony Stark, but it is wounded by the absence of Simmons and the slow recovery of the tragic Fitz, who is still sidelined but, perhaps, a little less so. May and Skye are their usual selves, and Trip once again shows himself to be superbly confident, the consummate SHIELD agent.

Interestingly, Crusher Creel (the Absorbing Man!) may have a HYDRA handler, but it turns out that Raina, our old friend the girl in the flower dress, while interested in what's going on, is not working for HYDRA but has an unknown agenda, and not necessarily a hostile one. Interesting.

This is looking to be a very strong start to the new season which seems set, like many Whedon shows, to transcend it's somewhat rubbish first season.

Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric (Special Edition)

"Just because you've never been swimming..."

Yes, I know, I've done The Curse of Fenric. But that was during the Marathon, all those years ago. This is the movie format Special Edition from the DVD, and it's sufficiently different for me to do another blog post about it. It has, after all, been described by Andrew Cartmel as the definitive edition.

Ian Briggs is an extraordinary writer, and one with a great deal of thematic depth. He didn't come to Doctor Who with a genre background but, frankly, who cares? It's not much of a spoiler to say that I'm going to praise this to the skies.

The early scenes flow much better in their new order, and I'm reminded once again how the Seventh Doctor was too cool for psychic paper, calmly strolling into a top secret military base at the peak of the Second World War, casually forging the signatures of both Churchill and "C" with both hands just in time, like an uber-cool Leonardo da Vinci.

It's possible to tell the extended scenes, as the grading's a little off, but this version is so much better in terms of pacing, atmosphere and plot comprehension. This Doctor is extremely intellectual, quoting Nietzsche to the Reverend Wainwright. 

The story is full of metaphors. Maiden's Point is transparently about losing one'a virginity, and there's a clear subtext that Jean and Phyllis may have symbolically known each other in the Sapphic sense while swimming. Ace, of course, stays firmly on dry land at this point.

There is, perhaps, a more overt gay subtext for Judson and Millington but they are too bitter and ossified for such metaphors, which are broadly linked with adolescent sexuality and self-discovery.

I like the new CGI with the revelation of the inscription within the crypt. And, once again, I marvel at Millington's genocidal plans for post-war Moscow with his Fenric juice. But it all comes back to the water, with swimming a metaphor for arc; Jean and Phyllis are turned into vampires, a monster with obvious sexual connotations, and are sexually alluring in the same way as Dracula, tempting a man into the water.

The fight scenes around the church are much extended, but only provide a brief respite from the ever-present metaphor. Ace even seduces a guard to distract him, speaking entirely in the most oblique and impenetrable metaphors, discussing "undercurrents, bringing things to the surface". That's a fair description of what this story is about.

The Doctor being revealed to have trapped Fenric by means of a chess game just underlines how cerebral a story this is. We have the Ancient One as a fairly obvious ecological metaphor. We have the brilliantly handled revelations about Ace's past manipulation by Fenric. We have the equally ingenious twist of the Doctor's apparent betrayal of Ace. And always we have the subtext of the water, of the feelings beneath the surface, of sexuality, of the subconscious, of Ace's final, cleansing swim, symbolically entering adulthood.

Is this the best Doctor Who story ever?

Angel: Dead End

"Back in the '50s we all thought life would be like The Jetsons now..."

I'm rather enjoying this ongoing and deadly competition for corporate advancement between Lila and Lindsey. Pity it ends today, and Lindsey seems to have some kind of epiphany and buggers off just when it seems he's won, but it was fun while it lasted, this episode included.

The early scenes, using ready- tied ties to emphase Lindsey's reduced mobility with his hand gone, also emphasise both his alienation and the awfulness of fashion in 2001. But the stakes soon rise as we realise that one of either he or Lila will be confirmed on post and the other one "cut", which sounds ominous.

It's hinted that Lindsey is indeed the golden boy, however, getting a hand transplants, no less, and that poor Lila is utterly buggered. After all, Wolfram & Hart are investing a lot of money and dark magic into Lindsey. 

It's a bit of a plodder, this one, and yes, it's hard to take an evil hand seriously. It's also hard to emphatjose with Lindsey's rebellion, which is too little, too late and motivated by self- indulgence rather than conscience.

In other news, it's becoming increasingly clear that Cordelia, not being half demon, sinky can't handle the visions for much longer. But how can the gang help the helpless without her?

Curse of Chucky (2013)

"It's a doll. What's the worst that can happen, eh?"

This film is genuinely bewildering. After two comedy instalments the franchise returns to its roots with an absolutely first class straight-up horror film. So why on earth did this triumph of a film go straight to video? A pen pusher somewhere has some explaining to do.

We are first introduced to the characters trapped inside this particularly large house, none of whom are likeable aside from the wheelchair-using Nica who, according to the grammar of these sorts of horror films is fated to be the only survivor. The snobbish, grasping  and unpleasant Barb, we know from the start, is due a particularly nasty death. She's a bad sort, plotting to put Nica in a home so she gets the house. Still, she's really struggling financially; she and her odious partner Ian may have to send their daughter Alice to state school. Grr! Oh, and Barb is having an affair with Alice's nanny Jill. As the only sexually active couple in the film they obviously have to die. Nice bit of misdirection, though; we're initially led to think it's Ian.

The scene with the rat poison in the food sets the tone nicely; this is how to do Chucky, with humour, yes, but real menace. On top of this, like any good slasher this is grounded in solid characterisation of the potential victims

. 

The ending is excellent, too, with a flashback connecting things nicely to the first film, and if that's not enough we even get a particularly nice cameo at the end. This is one of the best slashers ever. Really.

Grimm: Blonde Ambition

"Not quite finished!"

Here's the dramatic season finale, then, and thus ends my frantic attempt to get up to date with Grimm before Season Four airs in the UK. Like all TV drama weddings it's dramatic, with Nick seeming to lose his Grimm powers, and Sean Renard, shockingly, presumed dead.

We begin with the intense preparations for Monroe's and Rosalie's wedding, but there's a cuckoo in the midst; Adalind has made herself look like Juliette and snagged Nick senseless, leading to all the discord between them that one might expect, and all this on the morning of the wedding. I have to give credit to Bitsie Tulloch, mind; she has to play Adalind playing Juluette, and nails it.

That's not all, though; "Juliette" also seduces Sean, kisses him and runs, after which Adalind rings up the real Juliette to further stir the pot, stating that Sean still carries a torch for her. All this is far more dramatic than Rosalie's sister getting pissed and ruining Rosalie's horrible wedding dress; the omens don't look good at this point, and as yet we've hardly mentioned the Grimm best man at a Wesen wedding. Bloodbath, anyone's?

On the plus side, Nick and Trubel bond a bit. But it all goes horribly wrong. Sean gets shot, but that's ok because Trubel beheads the FBI agent responsible. Juliette begins to wonder about her relationship with Nick. Woo has a flashback to the Aswang. The wedding vows are juxtaposed with Sean apparently dying. You can't say that the episode lacks drama.

In the end it's not Nick being a Grimm that causes chaos at the wedding, it's the panicked arrival of Trubel, also a Grimm. Nick isn't, though; his powers have gone. Is this permanent? Is this why Trubel was introduced?

It's been a very memorable wedding, and the season ends with Adalind flying away and Sean seemingly dead...

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Right. Let's get the story out of the way before we can talk about Lon Chaney Sr, shall we? Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel is the perfect basis for a Grand Guignol melodrama, which a silent horror film necessarily has to be.

The Phantom himself is, basically, the abusive and controlling boyfriend made into the basis of a horror tale with a gothic overlay (not a bad idea). Christine is a thick peril monkey from a time before feminism. Raoul is a thick aristocrat from central casting who is too stupid to save the day without a bid of deus ex machina from, er, a secret policeman. Yep. The secret police are apparently the goodies.

Anyway, Chaney is superb, and the make-up is everything it's made up to be. Of course, health and safety would never allow such things these days, and that's a good thing, but such things are part of the joys of silent cinema.

The whole thing is well paced and well shot, with good use of tinting; I like the use of red for the less glamorous underground locations, and the highly appropriate use of grey for that posh wet drip Raoul.

Incidentally, I'm pleased to have watched a DVD including the original live score. For a film based on an opera house, and with Christine's singling being integral to the plot, the soundtrack sort of matters, silent or not, 

This is truly superb, one of the finest horror films of all time. London After Midnight may now be lost to us, but it's brilliant that this example of Chaney's genius survives.