Andor: Harvest

 "I wish you were drunk."

Wow. Three episodes in and we get a truly great episode. All three subplots here deepen the series' theme- the grim reality of negotiating life under totalitarian tyranny. And it's done superbly, with script, acting and some particularly creative direction.

So we have Dedra meeting Syril's overbearing mother for the first time, petty tyrant that she is. One one level it's satisfying to see Dedra laying down the law against the abuse of her partner... but she does this by using her position in the Imperial state, with veiled threats. Still, given the initial inequality between them, Dedra clearly sees her new partner as highly capable, a kindred spirit, and worthy of respect. Interesting, too, to hear about her background, raised coldly by the state following her parents' arrest.

There's the tension of the imperial audit, as the net closes in on the fugitives... and the awfulness of that creep from last episode first insisting on sexual favours from Bix in exchange for not arresting her, a promise he may not even keep, and then trying to rape her, leading to her defending herself and ending up arrested. This horrible scene has no doubt played out many times over history, an appalling thought. Cassian may come to the rescue- although not without casualty- but the sheer horror of this lingers.

Then there are the multiple horrors facing Mon Mothma. There's the looming and imminent threat of blackmail, of course, but that can wait a few days. Even worse, as shown by the early scene between her and Leida, as Mon is forced to confront what she's done. She's doing what she's doing to help the rebellion, but at the cost of a forced marriage of her daughter to some oaf. No wonder she gets drunk, like her own mother at her own wedding... and the trippy camerawork is exquisite. Just like Andor as a whole.

Andor: One Year Later

"If I die tonight, was it worth it?"

Before I praise this episode, a bit of a whinge: yet again, a streaming service has debuted a much-anticipated new season by dropping THREE episodes at once. Can we not do that, please? Many of us do have lives, and there's a certain pressure to watch the episodes quickly to avoid spoilers. it's a genuinely inconsifderate thing to do. So don't do it again, Disney Plus. Oh, and Amazon, I'm looking at you too. For this, in relation to The Boys, and also Jeff Bezos' recent behaviour in inserting his tongue up Trump's malodorous derriere. Because how one chooses to respond to the jackboot of fascism is very much Andor's threme, is it not? (The Boys too, come to think of it...).

Anyway, we begin right on theme, with Cassian on a mission to steal a new model of TIE fighter- or perhaps TIE fighters themselves are new? Either way, we first see Cassian through the eyes of his accomplice, already a legend of the Rebellion after just a year. She's in awe of him, but some wonderful, world-building dialogue shows us, as ever, the scrifice of resistance. She can never go back after this, even if she survives, and her sacrifice will never be rewarded.

Elsewhere, an imperial census promises trouble for Bix and the others. Mon Mothma's daughter's arranged marriage proceeds as there is much intrigue. Tay Korma- now separated from his wife- wants to discuss matters with Mon, which seems ominous. Luthen is there, waiting anxiously for news from Cassian but clearly up to something. So much going on... as we see, in a long scene that seems to be a single shot. The costumes and decor, too, very much seem to evoke the late Roman Republic, which is a very obvious historical paralle.

And then there's the top secret Imperial plot, known only to a small group convened by the Emperor himself, to undermine the planet Ghorman and claim it for the empire. Not for its spider farms producing fine twirl, no: for its minerals. And they care not that it seems very likely to destabilise the planrt itself. Such is totalitarian. Indeed, our gimpse into the methods of the "Ministry of Enlightenment" is chilling.

And this is where Dedra is now ensconced.

Much of the episode, nevertheless, concerns Cassian, and best laid plans gone agley. Yet it's not the action and excitement that makes this such bloody good telly. It's the themes. Fascism and resistance. For those the other side of the Atlantic- and also many this side- this is a timely thing.

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 4

 "I'm an avenging angel of dearth, from Newsnight. And you're Prince Andrew."

Wow. This episode is a tour de force of television scriptwriting and performance, and surely the extraordinary highlight of Karen Gillan's career so far. She truly is superb as Madeline here, as she finally and cleverly takes down Douglas, an unstoppable righteous force in an episode that brilliantly examines all of the issues arising from #MeToo. Wow.

So many elements here compliment the core message personally. We have the hapless, thick, casually misogynisic "comedian", tasked with coming up with "family friendly misogyny from a happier time". We have Douglas's increasing panic, followed by misplaced confidence. We have the slow destruction of Claudia's faith in her father. We have that gloeious confrontation between Madeline and Sheila in the ladies'.

And yes, we have Douglas cancelled, hot unfairly, because of a joke that truly was awful. There's nothing really unjust about that, despite the twist that his career ends because of an entirely separate joke for which he bears no real blame: the joke he did tell was inexcusable. And yet... Toby gets away with far worse, because Madeline, in a world of double standards, woukd bring herself down with him. And perhaps the point, the real point, as Madeline says, is that we men who are not like Toby really do need to step up.

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 3

 "You do want the job, don't you...?"

Wow. This is a sudden, effective and blatantly deliberate shift of tone from the previous two epidsodes. And it's incredible.

The whole episode is a flashback to Madeleine's past, her first meeting with Douglas... and how she got the job. By the end, we pretty much know what Douglas said at the wedding, and how utterly unforgiveable it was.. And that isn't even the point.

The vast majority of the episode is a two hander between Madeline and Toby. Ben Miles is excellent but Karen Gillan is utterly sublime, playing the discomfort, fear and resignation of a woman who, despite her poise, despite being wise to the gaslighting, The script is outstanding here, showing us the horrible reality of #MeToo as experienced in reality by so many women. So many nuances are there in the script. The gaslighting, the power imbalance, the sheer horror.

And, in the end, Douglas opens the door, sees what Madeline is going through... and advises her, in those words we've heard before, that whatever she has to wade through, it's worth it.

Wow. This isn't the type of first class television I was expecting after the first two episodes. But it's certainly first class television.

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 2

 "They execute gay people and it won't stop raining!"

Two episodrs in... and this is wonderful. Rain in Dubai, the crap comedy writer, the awkwardness between Toby and the taxi driver. But mostly, it's the wit, and the characters. Oh, the characters.

Madeline is much more centtre stage this time. We get to see first hand how she manipulates Douglas. On this occasion he's gone in there all cross and about to demand she remove the tweet... and she gets him to retweet it. But the whole thing is a kind of fight over Douglas between Madeline and Sheila, both of whom want to prep him for the interview he's going to have to endure soon... and then we end with Madeline dropping that bombshell. She's an utterly fascinating character, with far more depth to her than initially meets the eye, and so much cleverer than everyone else.

This is masterful storytelling, and halfway through the series we still don't know what Douglas' joke actually was. But the whole thing is engrossing. The entire cast shines, but Karen Gillan, Alex Kingston and Ben Miles are utterly superb. The real star, though, is the script. Steven Moffat can sooo do comedy thst makes you think.#

Is it me, or is Douglas inexorably headed towards absolute doom?

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 1

 "That's not ambiguity.That's plausible deniability."

Yes, I know, I've sort of had to temporarily pause my ongoing series that I'm blogging in order to frantically catch up with The Boys after three episodes bloody landed at once. Now ITV have gone and released a new comedy drama by Steven Moffat, so my schedule lies even more in tatters. Grr.

I must say, though, this first episode is bloody brilliant. The premise seems very ho-hum and meh: a news presenter is overheard telling a sexist joke at a wedding and suddenly his career is in the balance. At first glance it looks as though we're in for a tiresome, heavy-handed rant about "cancel culture"... but of course, not.This is Steven Moffat, and he's much cleverer than that.

What's particularly clever is the actual joke itself is held back. It's "Schrodinger's joke". We end the episode on tenterhooks not kmnowing how bad it is or how bad things are.

Hugh Bonneville is excellent as the eponymous Douglas, and so is Karen Gillan as his subtly clever co-host Madeline. But utterly standout performances from Ben Miles as the most cynical producer, and Alex Kingston as the gloriously weary Sheila, utterly steal the show. This is clever, witty, topical (we get lines like "I work with people who hack your phone") and very thoughtful comedy drama. I'm hooked.

Andor: Narkina 5

 "You think the Empire stops to catch its breath?"

The episode begins like the Space Fall episode of Blake's 7 as a pseudonymous Andor and others are transported to a  prison planet, but soon takesa darker turn as we are forced to see the shher awful grind of life in an Imperial factory prison.

Yet the prison works also as metaphor for totalitarianism under Empire, with all civil liberties and natural justces eroding into utter tyranny. Yet, like a boiled frog, much of the populace, particularly privileged senators on Coruscant who, unlike a Mon Mothma desperately trying to hide her illicit funds, come out with statements like "If you're doing Nothing wrong, what is there to fear?" 

Yet all prison sentences are doubled. Arrests and imprisonment are, as we've seen, arbitrary. One is reminded of the vile, disgusting, tyrannical leaders of Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, Belarus, Saudi Arabia and others. Palpatine is no different, but there is hope despite the oppression. As Luthen says, tyranny begets rebellion. And I suspect we're seeing that in the person of Kassian. Even Bix is arrested...

Absolutely first class.

Andor: Announcement

 "Watch your back..."

And so we have the aftermath. Luthen got what he wanted: the Empire has been rattled. On the one hand, some are inspired to resistance, such as Maarva. She refuses to leave with Kassian, inspired to work with the Resistance against the Empire.On the other hand, we have a crackdown. Hence Andor returns home briefly home to find Stormtroopers everywhere. And then, as an anonymous rich tourist, he is arrestedand sentenced to six years on trumped up charges.

Such is totalitarianism. And that's the side of the Empire that Andor shows so well. No Jedis. No magical thinking, just the hard moral choices one must face while living under tyranny. Some, like Mon Mothma, try and undermine it from within, but take enormous risks. The stakes are high. 

I see many parallels with Iran today- death to the dictator. Women, life, freedom! And with Russia- may Putin die horribly. Living under tyranny, it iseasy to conform, as Maarva kindly admits to Kassian; she makes no mora judgement. Why rebel if it means your kids will suffer? Such is the harsh reality. Yet brutality begets resistance. And glorious revolution.

I love the secret service intrigue on Coruscant, too, with Dedra this time getting the upper hand. But this is all very much Gestapo on Trantor. And I'm loving this very political approach to the Star Wars universe.

The Crown: Season 1, Episode 10- Gloriana

"You have more freedom than any consort in history. And you repay it by scowling and sulking like an adolescent."

As ever, the title of the episode is clever. It's interesting to consider it alongside the final scene, with Elizabeth dressed up all regal and told to be Elizabeth Regina, most definitely not Elizabeth Windsor. This is both the theme and the tragedy of both the episode and the series.

Elizabeth Windsor has her interests- keeping her husband happy with the man she loves and maintaining a happy marriage with her increasingly petulant husband (Phil ends the series being increasingly unlikeable, beastly to both Elizabeth and Charles without sufficient motivation). But it's in the interests of Elizabeth Regina to ruin all this in the name of a glorious yet powerless monarchy and an uncaring Church which seems to exist only to cruelly police people's sex lives. What happens to Margaret and Peter is unspeakably cruel and I can see how Margaret sees the chance to renounce her titles as a liberation- the chains may be made of gold but to be royal is to be enslaved, with no agency, privacy, dignity or power.

And it stays with you. In a powerful scene a desperate Elizabeth asks for advice from her uncle David, the only person alive who knows how she feels- and for once he drops the cynical mask and speaks honestly; there is no escape from these conflicts between person and monarch, not even abdication. These are complex, abstract themes, handled well in a strong finale.

There's another strand to the episode, though. The new PM, Sir Anthony Eden, at first seems much younger and more vigorous than his predecessor, but we gradually see the pills he's taking, the pain he's in and, in the final scene, the recreational drugs he's injecting; is he any more fit for the job than his predecessor was? The trippy final scene makes it clear that Suez is coming.  This veteran foreign secretary has been reduced to a drug-addicted shadow of a man just when it's all about to kick off.

The Crown: Season 1, Episode 8- Pride & Joy

"The banger is falling apart!"

This episode was, perhaps, inevitable given the way this series is structured; a long and demanding Commonwealth tour between Liz and Phil serves as a nice contrast with her less dutiful sister Margaret, who duly makes a hash of standing in for Elizabeth during her absence. Just as interesting, though, are the deepening cracks appearing between Elizabeth and a husband who sees the farcical side of using pomp and circumstance to hide the fact that the once-mighty British Empire is slowly dying with a whimper.

We also get a nice bit of character development for the Queen Mother, too, as she disappears away to the Highlands to get away from it all, be anonymous and endear herself to us viewers in a way she hasn't so far.

This is, I think, presented as a pivotal moment for Elizabeth as Queen as she literally follows Churchill's advice to "never let the cameras see the real Elizabeth Windsor". Just as symbolic, I think, is how she charmingly intimidates a group of photographers into destroying the evidence of her row with a somewhat mardy Phil. The tour is deeply punishing, as shown by some nice directorial tricks, but Elizabeth endures it all for duty.

The ending, where the Queen bollocks Margaret and they proceed to get philosophical, is perhaps a microcosm of the whole show; it's well-made, well-acted and watchable, but it is lacking in the profundity that would make it truly great, and I suspect that is in no small part down to the subject matter.

The Crown: Season 1, Episode 6: Gelignite

"There's no such thing as a blameless party in a divorce!"

So this is the one where Margaret isn't allowed to marry the man she wants because he's divorced (his wife left him) and, frankly, because he's a commoner. And all because the Queen is allowed, through the Royal Marriages Act 1772, to veto any of her relatives.' marriages before they're 25. It's hardly fair although, of course, the same could be said of hereditary succession. Being in the Royal Family is a (very) gilded cage. To be royal is not to be free. We end with the two sisters very much estranged.

That takes up most of the episode, but we also get some foreshadowing of Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal courtesy of Ed Stoppard, who played Brian Epstein in Cilla; Stalin dying in the background; and Princess Margaret delivering a speech in Rhodesia at the end which is staggering in its casual racism. And it seems that Philip is spending less and less time with Elizabeth.

Dramatic and unusually self-contained as the episode is, it feels very much like foreshadowing...

The Crown: Season 1, Episode 5: Smoke and Mirrors

"Borrow it, Ma'am? From whom? If it's not yours, whose is it?"

And so we come to the coronation, that watershed in British television history where a ceremony both elitist and inclusive (Phil let the TV cameras in) finally made telly a true mass medium. It was also, as we see here, a battle of wills between, inevitably, tradition- the Dukes of Norfolk have arranged all coronations since James II- and the radical modernising zeal of, er, Prince Philip. In 1953 he was very much the outsider, and has the fear of revolution of a continental royal..

It;s nice, then, that we begin with a flashback to 1937, as George VI lets little Lilibet help him with practising for his big day. It's also a brilliant showcase for David as a character- forbidden from the event, he may host a small party in Paris, mocking the ceremony as it is screened, but he is not so cynical as he seems; he is wounded that he never lasted long enough to have a coronation of his own.

This is also the point where Queen Mary dies, a very present link with the Victorian past. The same could be said of Churchill, who now sits during his audiences with the Queen. But the centrepiece is the ceremony itself, much of which is simply shown as was, complete with the Archbishop of Canterbury (Ronald Pickup) fluffing his lines. It's a deeply moving and powerful piece of mumbo-jumbo. But we end with Elizabeth and Philip's marriage in an awkward place.

More very good drama, as we can expect from Netflix. The Crown is, perhaps, in the "very good" caegory rather than being one of the all-time greats, but at the halfway point I'm very much enjoying it.

The Crown: Season 1, Episode 4- Act of God

"Be careful out there. It's a real pea-souper!"

This episode is interesting in that it deals with the great smog crisis of 1952, where a mixture of weather and pollution caused 10,000 deaths and the elderly Churchill, interested only in foreign policy, showed no more ntetest until his job was seen to be in peril; this isn't widely know today, much like Churchill's second ministry as a whole.

In other news Phil takes flying lessons with the man who's shagging his sister-in-law- Elizabeth manages to get Churchill to agree to this as a quid pro quo- and Queen Mary is dying. This shouldn't be surprising; after all, she was born in 1867, the year of the Great Reform Act and the Ausgleich, but for Elizabeth it's a race against time to speak as much as she can with the person who seems to have formed her ideological view of monarchy.

We get to know Clem Attlee a little in this episode, no longer prime minister yet, next to Churchill, seeming to be relatively young. And, most heartbreakingly, Venetia develops her hero-worshipping crush on Churchill to a peak, only to be killed by a traffic accident in the smog. So that's why the character has been so heavily emphasised.

Interesting that Elizabeth's view of monarchy is extremely conservative, an updating of the Divine Right of Kings to the context of parliamentary democracy, whereas Philip is much more modern, believing in such radical concepts as the separation of church and state. It's inter sting, too, that the constitutional question of whether she is able to sack Churchill on grounds of age and irrelevanc is never really resolved in theory; even Tommy Lascelles leaves the question open. Only Queen Mary is there to give a firm answer, and she won't be there for long.

More fascinating, cerebral stuff that avoids Daily Mail-style fawning in favour of ideas and characters. This is good telly.

The Crown: Season 1, Episode 3- Windsor

"I know he's Winston Churchill and all that, but remember who you are!"

This episode plays a clever trick in constantly juxtaposing Elizabeth's first baby steps as monarch with the abdication, in flashback, and present day waspish emptiness of David, the former Edward VIII, with the now dying Queen Mary standing in judgement over everything. Alex Jennings is perfectly cast.

Elizabeth is now faced with the full weight of being Queen, dealing with her first red box still marked for "the King" and feeling nervous about her first audience with Churchill, who soon puts her right about how such things are done. But she's under pressure to ensure that the kids keep Phil's surname, and to stay in Clarence House rather than Buckingham Palace, both to please Phil and smooth her marriage, and both doomed, as we see.

It's interesting to see the character of Ernst Von Hannover, a reminder of the family's German roots who happily chats in German with Queen Mary. And it's ominous to see that Townsend's wife has left him; the affair between Margaret and himself, in the 1950s, is another thing that can only be doomed.

The unpopular David manages to do a little deal with his old friend Churchill, breaking the bad news about the surname and palace to the Queen in exchange for no cut in his allowance. Phil is not happy, feeling emasculated; these are days long before feminism. But most interesting is the chat between Elizabeth and David. He may have apologised to Albert for denying him an "ordinary" life, but Elizabeth has been denied one too. Although her definition of "ordinary" is not how most of us would use the word.

Good, well-constructed drama, and still gripping.

The Crown: Season 1, Episode 2- Hyde Park Corner

"I thought we'd have longer."

This second episode is a superbly crafted piece of drama, significantly better than the last one, entirely concerned with the slow but inexorable demise of George VI, the race to tell Lilibet and Phil- stuck in Kenya many decades before mobile phones- what has happened, and give us our first glimpse of the changes that must happen now that she is Queen Elizabeth II. Earlier this episode Lilibet curtseyed to her grandmother, Queen Mary; now, Mary curtseys to her.

Oh, and I've just realised why I recognise Pip Torrens, who plays Tommy Lascelles; he was Mr Cholmondely-Warner in Harry Enfield and Sons. It was the scene where he speaks sternly to Townsend about what he's up to with Margaret that made me realise. Blimey.

We also get the first of no doubt many scenes of Phil being vaguely racist as the royal couple touch down in Kenya, we get introduced to Churchill's new secretary Venetia, who will no doubt play an important role later on, and we begin to see both how Churchill is slowly losing it (except for big set-piece speeches, of course) and how frustrating this is, despite royal rebukes, for Anthony Eden, perpetual heir to the premiership and the Prince Charles of the 1950s Tory party.

But the episode centres around the urgent yet calm, uneasy yet rehearsed flurry of activity that follows the King's sudden death one morning; we see as the news slowly circulates and plans spring into action. Amongst all that are small character moments, though, with Phil facing down an elephant and Elizabeth showing her war mechanic skills. And there are hats everywhere. Lots of hats.

But there's no denying that this is a very impressive piece of telly. More please.

The Crown: Season 1, Episode 1- Wolverton Splash

"I've signed myself away."

"Or won the greatest prize on Earth."

Yes, I know: yet another TV series on the go and so very many plates spinning. I eventually finish them all, you know me! Everything will be followed to its conclusion at some point. Well, perhaps not Detectorists...

Anyway, let's turn to The Crown, a new-ish (I'm slightly behind the curve, as usual) Netflix drama which has gleaned quite a lot of critical acclaim and stars Claire Foy as a young Queen Elizabeth II from the time when a pubescent Paul McCartney used to perv over her and Matt Smith as everybody's favourite casual racist, Phil. Both are rather good. The script takes an interesting tack, though: the era depicted is staid, with rationing, pre-'60s stultifying puritanism and a truly crap popular culture, but the script plays against this. King George VI in his first scene- which shows just how mollycoddled by servants monarchs are,-drops the C bomb quite casually. That's an interesting choice and drops a hint that this programme may be a little interesting to someone like me who isn't exactly an ardent royalist.

(There. I've said it; not really a royalist. That isn't to say that I want a republic right now- I don't think our age has the appropriate regard for constitutional propriety or civil liberties for such major constitutional surgery and I think we should carry on, ideally with some Scandinavian-style reform, with some kind of constitutional monarchy. But if you were making a new country from scratch then of course you'd have some kind of republic and it's silly to pretend otherwise.)

But perhaps the most interesting piece of casting is John Lithgow (the baddie from Santa Claus: The Movie!!!) as Winston Churchill. He's far from obvious until you see his extraordinary performance which strikes that difficult yet perfect balance between impression and performance. Ben Miles is good too as  royal equerry Peter Townsend, so very proper as he secretly shags Princess Margaret.

Anyway, Phil and Lilibet are getting married. It's all very grand, especially for the austere 1947. She says "obey", which raises eyebrows. The Tories "win" the 1951 election, and Churchill gets to recycle his famous line about Attlee and the empty taxi. But this episode is essentially about the warm relationship between Lilibet and Phil, his difficulty- '50s gender roles being what they are- in adjusting from naval life to the life of a royal "wife", and how the  news of the King's cancer is so slowly kept from him but how, in spite of the denial and the stiff upper lips, it's killing him.

This is actually rather good.

Henry VI, Part 1 (Dominic Cooke, 2016)

"A day will come when York shall claim his own..."

It's been four years, but the BBC have finally got around to doing Shakespeare's Wars of the Roses plays under their The Hollow Crown imprint. Strictly speaking this isn't Henry VI, Part 1: we end the much-truncated production about halfway through Part 2. But it's a welcome attempt at some rarely-filmed plays and the cast, including those listed below, includes Philip Glenister, David Troughton and Michael Gambon.

Like its Hollow Crown predecessors, this is a straightforward retelling with 15th century costume and no directorial flourishes. That means it's all reliant on the acting, and the acting is superb. This is a play from a very young Shakespeare- one of his early hits- and isn't well known, also being somewhat lacking in famous lines, much as Shakespeare's dialogue is never less than sublime, even in his youth. There aren't, as far as I'm aware, any film versions to compare this to, so in spite of being good rather than great it's sort of the best by default.

We begin with huge vistas of Dover's white cliffs; this tries to be as visual as possible, in the Hollow Crown house style. But it's all about the performances. I haven't seen this play before, truncated or not, but I much enjoyed it, raising perhaps an eyebrow at just how wet the King is, how women are just chattels in this world, the very derogatory portrayal of Joan of Arc, but most of all, as ever with Shakespeare, getting drunk in the language.

The production is merely good; the play (or play and a half) is sublime.