Stargate SG-1: Brief Candle

 "It's a paradise."

"Yeah, sure, have an apple. What could happen?" 

From the blurb this looks as though it's going to be a standard bit of high concept '90s telly sci-fi. But it's so much more than that, genuinely deep and psychological, and utterly superb telly. Yes, sometimes an episode of television which takes its title from a well-known Shakespeare quote can be extraordinary rather than pretentious...!

The concept is deeply horrific. The Gou'auld once kidnapped a population from pre-Homeric Greece (the actual Argos?) and modified them by means of nanotechnology to have shortened lifespans of just one hundred days just to experiment with speeding up human evolution over the very long term. Cruelly, the people have no idea that longer lives can happen, and worship their alien exploiter as a god.

And yet, they love and cherish every day of their short lives. And so, as Jack ends up sleeping with a local lady (always unwise...) and having his own lifespan shortened, he learns the value of existence. These people do far more with one hundred days than either Napoleon or FDR.

Yes, it's a cop out at the end to have Jack's aging reversed, but this is '90s episodic sci-fi telly. And we do rather gloss over how these people learn to speak, cook, and exist in such a short span. But there are so many ideas in this clever little episode.

Monetising My Blog

This hasn't been an easy decision. I've had this blog for sixteen years plus, and until now I hadn't monetised it. I was worried about selling out, I suppose, or turning a fun, relaxing hobby into "work". But times have changed. There's a wedding to pay for, a cost of living situation, and it would be nice to put some money away for my daughter. There's a real person and a real life beneath this blog, and I'm giving it a try.

That said, I've no idea whether it'll make any real difference. If it doesn't, I'll change my mind. Either way, I'll still treat this blog as I've always done- as a hobby. Whatever happens, it won't have any effect on the content. 

I hope my readers understand. Well, bots aside!

Batman: The Animated Series- The Demon's Quest, Part 1

 "The master gave you no permission to leave."

"I didn't ask for any."

At long last the Animated Series, having already teased us with Talia, finally gives us its Ra's Al Ghul, and what a Ra's Al Ghul. This episode, adapted by Denny O'Neil himself from his 1971 original in Batman #232, is a tour de force. It matters not that we know from the beginning that Al Ghul is behind everything, the whole thing is just so compelling. And David Warner... what a performance.

I love how Al Ghul works out Batman's identity, an obvious method to one with his resources, and the whole treasure hunt through India, Malaysia and the Himalayas on which he leads Batman. Batman, of course, knows exactly what's going on, but is surprised to see himself being offered the chance to be a dying Al Ghul's successor... yet he rudely refuses, causing great offence. Unsurprisingly, as the offer includes a declaration of Talia's love for him.

But it seems that Al Ghul is dying... but Talia insists on getting him to the Lazarus Pit, which revitalises him. Yet, if this exists, why did he say he was dying and make the offer to Batman? And why does he seem to have gone bonkers and lifted Talia above himself?

I'm sure we'll find out. But wow. What an episode. 

ParaNorman (2012)

 "What do you think you're doing firing at civilians? That's for the police to do!"

I don't recall having even heard of this nice little animated film before this weekend, so I assume it doesn't loom all that large in popular culture. If so, that's a shame as I rather liked it. 

I'll confess I haven't seen Coraline, and this film (and its animation) is very much in the same vein. I'm hugely impressed by the fact that this, a twenty-first century animated film, is stop motion rather than CGI. That's a huge point in its favour. So is the fact that the cast is comprised of a mix of unknowns and character actors rather than huge stars.

This is a nice little spooky tale based on the curse of a girl wrongly hanged as a witch three centuries ago (although I'm not sure Puritans in Massachusetts would still be wearing clothes like that as late as 1712, even with the rather sensible American disdain for wigs?), and yes, there is a certain amount of sentiment and moralising, about parenting and how we ought to be more accepting of people who are "weird".

But the film is genuinely funny, both in terms of verbal wit and having fun playing with the tropes, and there are some gleeful little satirical one liners in there. It's only a fairly short film at ninety minutes, and an underappreciated little gem.

Legends: This Is Liverpool

 "That's called importing drugs. It's sort of the opposite of what we do."

Things get even more dramatic and dangerous this week for our underpaid Customs officers working on a shoestring and risking our lives, showing the real costs. Yet we also see why they're doing it. A young Tommy, ironically the son of one of the kingpins himself, finds himself hooked on heroin through a perfectly ordinary and natural set of circumstances, and we slowly see his decline and death. it's harrowing, and it happens to the very father who... orchestrates the shocking ending.

Guy is getting deeper and deeper into his "legend"... and thereby connecting well with Don, who well knows the appeal and the costs. And he's under pressure to show what he can do by actually importing large quantities of heroin which, well, he can't do. But, in a delightful sequence, Don solves the problem in arranging a deliberately botched raid by armed police in Felixtowe. I also love the sequence in which he desperately gets some customs officers to back off. Steve Coogan absolutely steals every scene he's in.

Kate and Bailey also have some excitement, getting locked in while sneaking around but getting away with it through sheer desperate cleverness. But the moment of sheer drama is Shaun's cover being blown, and he and his family subsequently escaping a fiery death by the skin of their teeth. It's utterly gripping, and really sells the risks of undercover work... yet, earlier in the episode, Shaun confesses just how much he's loving it.

Still utterly gripping, even if much of the episode is necessarily setting things up. 

Dexter: Our Father

 "God created pudding. Then He rested."

New season, and it's fascinating to see how they handle it. Because, well, from Dexter's perspective, there are no dangling plot threads or problems. Life is fine. In fact, the opening episode even leans into that, making it very clear that Rita is really, really into him, and the kids are starting to see him as a real father figure. Even Deb has given up "men, booze and cigarettes", although she soon quite sensibly changes her mind about the middle option. One can go too far, after all.

But then something happens... things get chaotic, and Dexter accidentally kills someone he hadn't intended to, someone who is perhaps no angel, as we soon find, but being a junkie wouldn't make him deserving of death according to Dexter's code. And yet Dexter seems not too bothered by this, and is pondering changes to the code. He seems to be distancing himself from the memory of Harry...? It'll be interesting to see where this goes.

Oh, and said accidental victim has ties to a very influential local family, one of whom is Bail Organa. And Princess Leia's dad seems to have real "permanent new character" energy.

What else? Angel is getting promoted, but is also drinking a lot. This is clearly a character arc. There's that internal affairs lady, too, and her suspicions around a new character that have Deb very curious. And, yeah, we have a dentist's surgery that's shot very interestingly, with lots of glaring white and not going for realism. It'll be interesting to see where that sort of thing goes, too.

A promising start. 

The Whisper Man (2026)

 "If you're lonely, sad and blue, the Whisper Man will come for you...

This film is, I suppose, a harbinger of the future- no big screen release, straight on to Netflix. Yet we no longer live in a world where I could differentiate on this blog between films and feature length one-off TV dramas. Yes, this had no cinema release, but the cast, the production values... I can't say that this isn't a film. It's something I'll have to let go. Just like people pronouncing "h" as "haitch", as I was taught never to do. Language changes, and so does the way we consume culture.

This is bloody good, though. A well-executed thriller based on an apparent copycat killer taking the same methodology of an old serial killer from the '80s, with a clever plot and lots of excitement. It reminds me a little of Se7en, Zodiac, even Saw,  but thankfully more in the sense of story than gore, which is quite rightly not dwelt upon here.

The characterisation is very much worthy of the impressive cast, who most certainly do not disappoint, with Michael Keaton particularly impressive. And, importantly, this film is about something, at its heart being about family, the importance of relationships, and indeed of kindness and forgiveness between the generations, accepting that we are all fallible human beings.

Highly recommended. This film fulfils all the requirements of a good serial killer crime thriller yet it works on more than a surface level.

SPECTRE (2015)

"Information is all, is it not?"" 

Ok, perhaps this isn't quite as good as its predecessor, but that's a very high bar, and this is nevertheless a fine Bond film. And a highly satisfying payoff to all the long-running plot threads that have been playing out since Casino Royale. Needless to say... spoilers!

It's a huge thrill to see Bond, gone just rogue enough, chasing all the pre-existing clues to an organisation that was always going to be SPECTRE, and an end of level boss, played superbly as always by Christoph Waltz, who was always going to be Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The backstory is nice, though, with "Blofeld" being Bond;s childhood stepbrother who regards him as a "cuckoo". The fact that his mother's maiden name happens to be Blofeld does, admittedly, feel a little forced... but, dammit, rule of cool.

The set pieces are awesome, right from the start with the Day of the Dead in Mexico City, right through Bond's infiltration of the mysterious organisation's headquarters in Rome through to the final showdown with "Blofeld". Andrew Scott's secondary, bureaucratic baddie ("C"... yes, I get the allusion!) is fun. And there is, of course, a very real subtext to it all with us all merrily handing over our personal data to those evil, MAGA-loving tech bros. In the real world, sadly, there's no 007 to save us from our fate.

The ending is, with the very obvious difference that Madeleine gets to live, somewhat redolent of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with Bond falling in love and choosing love over the job. But, of course, there's one more film of this era to go. If it's anywhere near as good as this, I can't wait.

Game of Thrones: The Mad King (Dominic Cooke, 2026)

The play is still (just!) on at the RSC in Stratford, and playgoers are being asked to keep schtum about the plot, the staging and all things potentially spoilerific, albeit not for very much longer. This, of course, presents an interesting challenge when writing a blog post about it, but it's the sort of challenge that I'm minded to accept, so here goes...

My very lovely fiancee and I, courtesy of her very generous dad, found ourselves in the best seats imaginable when watching the play last night. Whilst I'll say nothing of the details, the staging is creative and brilliant. The script and story, too, are superb, very Game of Thrones. The story, as one might guess, deals with the late reign of Aerys II Targaryen, but more than that I won't say, except that both the plot and the characterisation are deeply satisfying. The worldbuilding is, of course, also satisfying, but at its core this is a very human play that is absolutely about human emotions, relationships, choices and free will. 

One spoiler-free way to praise the play is to say that, yes, the cast is large, but it doesn't feel that way at all.