The Sandman: The Sound of Her Wings

 "That's all there is, little one. That's all you get."

Yes, that scene... I'm a parent and it shook me deeply. I'm so glad they cut away before the mother's discovery of what had happened. But that's the point; death is taboo, and this episode faces it. The first half, covering the comic book issue of the same name, is actually almost entirely faithful to an original which can't really be improved upon. Kirby Howell-Baptiste, while not a goth, is perfect as Neil Gaiman's death: a lovely, caring person who finds meaning in easaing people's transition to the "Sunless Lands".

And that's the point; the Endless exist to fulfil their function. They are not gods, however aloof and arrogant they may seem. They are our servants, not our masters. And Dream, depressed after his recent triumph, gets a much-needed lesson from his very lovely older sister.

And then, after twenty minutes, we get to a faithful retelling of the tale of Hob Gedling, a man who is, essentially, seen to be cheerfully indisting, in a pub, that he will never die. As a resident of small town Leicestershire I could mardily point out that only in London, in pubs frequented by the likes of Chaucer, Marlowe and Shakespeare, do passing gods happen to grant immortality to ordinary blokes out of mere philosphical curiosity. But chips belong on plates, not on shoulders. And chips here in the provinces are both better and cheaper than in that London, of which I'm actually rather fond. Plus, I suppose, there are benefits to living in a part of the country where you can have an ordinary profession and yet own your own home. 

And perhaps two passing gods will do this for me sometime. I'm with Hob: life has its ups and downs; the downs are crushing. But life will always be rich and beautiful, and I will always want it.

So see you at the pub in 2122?

The Sandman: Dream a Little Dream of Me

 "What's the point of you...?"

This is a pivotal episode and, as far as I recall, faithful to the comic. Much of it is set-up. Hence we're introduced to the splendid Patton Oswalt as Matthew the Raven, and we have those incredible scenes between Ethel and John, which are textbook examples of how to do exposition well, culminating in her sacrificing her life (aged 116!) so her son may have the Amulet of Protection, presumably an extended lifespan, and all sorts of powers... so naturally he kills a guard and escapes. He won't do anything bad, right?

We also have Mad Hettie (yay!), a princess marrying a demon footballer, and Meera Syal as a delightfully human vicar.

But, yeah, this is all about Jenna Coleman as a gender-swapped John/Johanna Constantine who, nevertheless, is the character. And yes; Coleman is significantly better than Keanu Reeves in the part. But this is a nice little chacter piece, with a nice and surprising little bond between Constantine and Morpheus. This is good telly.

So, off to Hell. Should be fun...

Victoria: The Luxury of Conscience

"You have been a great prime minister!"

And so we reach the rather gripping season finale, full of incident and excitement as we knew it would be, and an impressive piece of writing in drawing all the threads together.

We start with family. Leopold is at court to make amends to a cold reception, but Vicky becoming deathly ill, although at first leading to clashes between Victoria and Albert, brings the whole family together. Except that Victoria finishes up by letting Lezhen go. Not because Albert says so, but because Victoria has outgrown her, It's an emotional parting.

We also have romance between Mrs Skerrett and Mr Francatelli, and a heartbreaking moment where Ernest has to dump Harriet rather than propose to her because his syphilis symptoms have recurred. Never mind that none of this happened in real history; it's damn good telly.

But ultimately the focus is on Sir Robert Peel and his repeal of the Corn Laws, egged on (not always helpfully) by all the characters we like and opposed rather rudely by those we don't. It's a final triumph for Peel and, indeed, for Nigel Lindsay. You'd never guess from his excellent performances on Victoria that he was Barry in Four Lions.

But there's a final shock, the killing of Edward Drummond which somewhat ruins the already doomed relationship between him and Lord Alfred; sadly, this is narratively the only way of concluding a same sex budding romance set in this era without it taking up a lot of narrative time and focus, but I have to say that it isn't very brave writing. Still, it's a lovely touch seeing the Duchess of Buccleuch being so sympathetic to poor Lord Alfred. And at least Drummond gets to live three years longer than he did in real life.

Victoria may be somewhat easy telly and shy away, perhaps, from doing things other than predictably, but I'm glad a series like this exists and I'll bev watching at Christmas.

Victoria: The King Over the Water

"You know, erm, I have some socks for you to darn..."

It's the quiet episode before the season finale, so time for slowness, lots of Highlands scenery and some ordinary life for Victoria and Albert for just one night. It's a chance for them to have fun as the loving, easy couple they are again after the problems of the recent past. Never mind the stress they cause to everyone else but, I suppose, it reminds us that all royalty lives in a goldfish bowl. And those poetry recitals don't look like much fun.

We also finally have Drummond and Lord Alfred realising the feelings they have for one another, while Harriet reconciles with Duke Ernest, who we know now probably has syphilis. It's not the most eventful episodes- that's not the point. Unfortunately it drags a bit but I suppose it's nice to see Victoria and Albert having so much fun. It's all very ominous for the finale though.

Beyond that, there's not much to say. I suppose, for filler, the episode is nicely done.

Victoria: Faith, Hope and Charity

"If I follow my conscience, I will destroy my party."

We knew it was coming; Victoria does the Irish Potato Famine, and it’s as devastating as you’d expect. This is not a normal episode, exactly; an unusual amount of time is devoted to the famine, and the character of Dr. Traill, a good man through whom we see both the unimaginable suffering and the equally unimaginable Malthusian bigotry that blames the “feckless” Irish poor for their own fate. It’s an outstanding piece of television, ending unusually with a caption telling us of Dr. Traill’s unfortunate fate.

Victoria herself cannot, of course,  be seen to be anything other than deeply horrified, and much of the episode consists of her trying to persuade Sir Robert Peel to do something, which she finally seems to do- I suspect there’s a sprinkling of artistic licence here, but in opening the Pandora’s Box that is trade and tariffs, Peel will be scratching at the persistent itch that is the Corn Laws. I suspect they will loom large in the remaining episodes.

Elsewhere, we discover that Ernest has syphilis, and may have aff Fred his sexual partners, including the newly widowed Duchess of Sutherland. And kindly Albert makes a loo for the servants. But Ireland, of course, overshadows everything in what is an extraordinary episode.

Victoria: Entente Cordiale

"It is a place of artifice and deceit!"

So Victoria and her entourage are off to Paris and its predictably more fashionable court under a diplomatic pretext, and we meet the wily and somewhat precarious Louis Philippe, King of the French, a self-made monarch who has actually, heaven forbid, once had to work for a living. He's a fascinating character with a unique background and hidden depths- and, of course, after the 1848 revolution he would end his life once again teaching in the UK. But that's the future.

The narrative point of this is, of course, for the characters to react to the French court. So Victoria feels a little self-conscious of her style, while the Duchess of Buccleuch is the xenophobic comic relief. But Albert, especially with the sight of his brother's cavorting, is still affected by last episode's revelations and has gone quite alarmingly puritanical. This is, of course, the precursor to his telling Victoria everything; he never could keep a secret. And her reaction is, of course, wonderful. Albert is a very lucky man to have a wife like her; this is superb writing of character.

We see the eating of ortalan, something which may please the late President Mitterand but is not exactly ethical treatment of birds. Miss Coke begins to see that Ernest is that into her, and is not exactly monogamous. But we end on a bit of a cliffhanger: Victoria is pregnant again...

Victoria: The Sins of the Father

"At least Ernst knows who his father is!"

So Victoria gives birth, rather painfully, and his father announces that "we have a Prince of Wales" in a rather excellent episode which is all about fatherhood and paternity. This is made immediately obvious not far in, as Albert's father pops his clogs and he has to be off to Coburg.

But the episode is also, of course, all about what no one in the 1840s would call post-natal depression; Victoria struggles to bond with little Prince Bertie, and is clearly profoundly depressed, something which no one- certainly not the men- seems to even acknowledge as a thing. It's only towards the end that formidable old battleaxe the Duchess of Buccleuch finally reveals that she also suffered from it in her past, unexpectedly bonding a little with Victoria.

But the big bombshell is when Albert learns that Leopold slept with his mother, meaning he may be Albert's father, something which disgusts him. This terrible secret sends him into despair to the point that he even gets drunk for the first time. His entire identity, it seems, and the very legitimacy of his children with Victoria, may be a lie. Still, this turns out to be good news for Mrs Skerrit, who in a neat bit of plotting manages to avoid being dismissed because of this. It's another impressively written episode.

Victoria: Warp and Weft

"They don't need balls. They need bread."

A much better and more substantial episode this week. Victoria is back on track. The conceit of Victoria holding an opulent ball in the middle of the Hungry Forties is a superb fulcrum from which we can explore all kinds of historical and character development. And I don't care about such deliberate inaccuracies such as the fact that Lord Melbourne lived fpr a good seven or so years after the birth of Victoria's second child...

Lord M is clearly dying, getting worse as the episode progresses after his apparent stroke, and this leads to an emotional yet restrained parting with Victoria. His death, interestingly, is juxtaposed with that of Dash; indeed, we deliberately hear Victoria give a funeral speech which seems to be for Lord M until we learn otherwise.. Victoria's old intimates are dying; she has only Albert now.

We learn of the Corn Laws; tariffs to protect the interests of the aristocracy as the poor suffer foreign competition. This is clearly going to be a defining issue for the season, as are the Parliamentary sparring matches between John Bright and Sir Robert Peel. I think the defining issues of the season may have been set. I look forward to it all.

Victoria: The Green-Eyed Monster

"Am I just an ignoramus who has to have things summarised by my husband?"

A somewhat awkward and directionless episode this time, it must be said, despite the clever use of Othello to examine the idea of jealousy between the royal couple. It doesn't really go anywhere or develop Vicky and Albert's relationship notably more than we saw last time.

Vicky suspects Albert of a somewhat unconvincing infatuation with Ada Lovelace, daughter of the notorious Lord Byron, when it’s clear that the nerdy prince is only interested in her and Charles Babbage’s difference engine. This contrived jealousy subplot isn’t really adding anything, and nor is the rehashing of the old debates about the impropriety of Vicky’s friendship with Lord M. Still, Melbourne doesn’t seem to be as well as he lets on.

Elsewhere we get hints of an upcoming affair between Ernest and Miss Cook, and the Coburgs continue to be annoying snobs. Sir Robert Peel continues to impress with his progressive attitude, a contrast to Lord M, while Vicky is pregnant with a second child so soon after the first.

Much though the A plot may be a damp squib, then, the long-term characterisation and plotting continues to impress, as do the performances and direction. I’m sure things will be back to the usual quality next week.

Victoria: A Soldier's Daughter

"It may be your regiment, Albert. But it is my army."

Victoria is back on ITV. I'm afraid I'm late to the party; I assure you I'll catch up quickly.

We pick up as we left off, with Vicky having just given birth to the future mother of Kaiser Bill. And the subject of patriarchy, always foregrounded when it comes to the hereditary principle, is uppermost not only in the incredibly sexist assumptions by the mean surrounding Vicky that she should retire to the nursery and leave affairs of state to the manly hands of Albert- and, indeed, that the scarcely born princess should one day marry the King of Prussia!

There's slow-burning stuff; Vicky struggles to connect with her daughter, both her relationship with Sir Robert peel and his premiership is soon to develop, and the imperious Duchess of Buccleuch arrives in the formidable form of Diana Rigg playing an old battleaxe, for Mrs Peel, incredibly, is now 79. Below stairs, the newly minted Mrs Skerrit is promoted, and Mr Francatelli is eventually persuaded to return.

But the episode, set as London awaits the awful news from Kabul of 4,000 troops being massacred, is about how Victoria always has to fight the patriarchal attitudes of the men who surround her, including her husband. It'll be interesting to see how all this develops, but for now this is a splendidly written, performed and shot bit of telly.

Victoria: Young England

"She is not a queen. And I am not a cow!"

The final episode of this excellent series, then and... yes, it's an ex use for me to start yet another new series now that this has finished, but that's for later. For now all eyes are on the Queen, who is visited by her uncles, the kings of Belgium and (the sinister heir apparent should she do a Charlotte) Hanover. Meanwhile, Albert's brother Ernest (not to be confused with the Duke of Cumberland) arrives back in England and proves not to be quite as much of a bounder and a cad as we had thought.

Vicky may be the most powerful woman who has ever lived but she nevertheless chafes under the many little tyrannies of pregnancy, something portrayed quite brilliantly by Jenna Coleman. But it's quite a sweet episode, with a happy ending to our downstairs romance, Vicky and Albert clearly being in love, and ending with the birth of little Princess Victoria, who will later beget Kaiser Wilhelm II. It's a low-key, gentle but nevertheless well written ending to a series I've rather enjoyed.

Victoria: Engine of Change

"The Queen has requested a dish of bacon and peas."

Vicky is the Queen, and thus has privileges; personal performances by no less a personage than Georg Friedrich Handel, for example. But she has no exemptions from the experiences of pregnancy, and the first part of this episode charts the general realisation that pregnant she certainly is. Albert is lovingly overjoyed, but she is justifiably afraid; the precedent of Princess Charlotte is not an encouraging one.

Lord M may still be PM, just about, but the focus now moves to Sir Robert Peel, for he is the future; Albert likes him. The Queen is still unconvinced. This difference of views is echoed by their respective views of the railways, also the future, and a trip to a staunchly anti-progress Tory household in Staffordshire sees all this play out. Peel and the railways are, of course, aligned, with Albert being tempted from a lonely Vicky's bedside to play trains.

Annoyingly, Vicky must appoint a regent in case she should suffer Charlotte's fate; her choice of Albert is not popular with the many anti-Europeans in Parliament (they're just as uncaring of the country's true interests today), but supporting her allows Peel to curry her favour, and perhaps we can see the beginnings of a thaw.

Meanwhile there's a rather sweet romance going on downstairs involving decadent helpings of chocolate, and Vicky gets her own invigorating train ride. As ever this is history brilliantly sculpted into the shape of drama, and Coleman is deeply likeable as always.

Victoria: The Queen's Husband

"Ten times?"

Vicky is married, very much enjoying the bedtime activities that come with that, but rather concerned to avoid children for the time being. Abstinence is, of course, not an option, but the only options for contraception that she's made aware of are somewhat, er, Victorian.

Meanwhile, continuing Tory wariness towards Vicky manifests itself at dinner; it is not Albert but one of Vicky's uncles who must escort her every evening. Yet Vicky soon deploys her Machiavellian wiles to engineer a victory here, while Albert begins to find a role in supporting those causes that the Sovereign cannot, making a well-received speech against slavery. The history is very logically turned into a narrative structure that works, but leaves us in no doubt that the problem of Albert's role is only partially solved. He is an intelligent man, not an ornament.

Meanwhile, Miss Skerrit discovers that Francatelli's liking for her may be less creepy than she'd assumed; he risks his life to help her relatives and all he want in return is her first name this, I begin to suspect, may be a budding romance "downstairs" to balance out the events "upstairs"; ordinary people matter too.

Victoria: An Ordinary Woman

"We've been replaced, Lord Melbourne."

"That's as it should be."

Getting hitched is, sadly, always a political act for a monarch, especially if one's spouse is a German prince. What should his title be? Certainly not "King Consort" says the House of Commons. What should his allowance be? Not as much as the amount King Leopold I of Belgium is getting, says Sir Robert Peel. And what, in fact, should he do as opposed to be? All of this is gendered, of course; none of these issues would be so vexed for a female consort to a king with her uncomplicated title of "queen". Here, in Victoria and Albert, we have a situation where the male appears to be oppressed somewhat by the patriarchy.

Albert is, of course, a clever and principled man; he needs to define a role beyond shagging the queen. He needs an income of his own. Vicky, meanwhile, is anxious lest he find himself a mistress as her uncles tend to do. And the Duke of Wellington makes mischievous Tory noises asking how we can be sure that Albert isn't (shock horror) a Catholic.

Still, it's cute that Albert makes use of a prostitute before the wedding, but only to ask her for sex tips.   The couple are, in the end, married, and we end with a discreet sex scene, although not before Vicky says goodbye to her faithful Lord M. Another well-produced if stylistically conventional episode of period drama.

Victoria: The Clockwork Prince

"I do not need you to tell me what to think, Albert."

"No, Lord Melbourne does."

This is the one in which Albert woos Vicky and then, being queen, she proposes to him, patriarchy or no patriarchy. He's a bit stiff but decent, kind and sympathetic to the viewer, being shown to be very progressive, more so than Lord Melbourne; he appreciates the social commentary of that young Dickens chap.

It's nice to see the penny post being introduced, and Vicky's observation that anyone wanting to send any post must lick her face! We get allusions to the First Afghan War, too, and hints of parliamentary stuff, but it all takes a back seat to Albert.

Miss Skerritt, meanwhile, comes through a test of her honesty that introduces us to her impecunious sister and niece and hints yet more at a very tough background, far from Victoria's. This sort of thing is necessary to provide a context, of course; ordinary people matter a damn sight more than royalty.

This episode may be relatively light on theme, being about a wooing and such forth, but the series continues to be superbly written, shot and acted.

Victoria: Brocket Hall

"I am plagued by uncles!"

We begin with Chartist demonstrations juxtaposed with Vicky's upbeat speech; all is not well in our Vicky's kingdom. And worse, Uncle Leopold, on holiday from being King of the Belgians, has arrived to nag Vicky to marry her first cousin- yes, first cousin, uuurgh- Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. And, in commoner news, Mrs Jenkins' nephew is to be hung, drawn and quartered for demonstrating with the Chartists, which seems a bit harsh. Still, at least Vicky has got Conroy to bugger off by simply taking advantage of his greed.

The episode asks the question of whether Vicky should marry or not; the shadow of Elizabeth hangs over the episode, with the subtext very much losing the "sub" when Vicky and Lord Melbourne dress up as Elizabeth and Leicester. But she is slowly persuaded that she must marry to perpetuate the Royal bloodline. It sounds trite but is well-written and acted to give the impression of substance.

As well as finally acknowledging the sexual tension between Vicky and Lord Melbourne, the episode tacitly acknowledges the trivialities of Vicky's vicissitudes in comparison to the lives of those among the Chartists. Importantly, it still lets her be likeable as she commutes those horrible traitors' deaths to transportation to Australia; Mrs Jenkins will be relieved. Throughout it all Coleman successfully walks that fine line between naivety and sheer ignorance sufficient for Vicky to retain our sympathies.

We end, however, with Albert's arrival...

Victoria: Ladies in Waiting

"Spreading through the palace like a miasma of corruption..."

This episode Victoria learns the hard way that she has constitutional duties, Lord M will not be prime minister forever and that her ministers must sometimes be Tories as well as Whigs, and she must show no bias towards the man who may be moving from father figure to something else. All while still in her teens. And in the background lurks Conroy, plotting to impose a regency.

Sir Robert Peel's Tories don't come across here- they come close to bringing the Whig government down on the issue of slavery- but they are a fact, as they are today in our increasingly scary future, adrift, friendless and alone in a sea of tariffs and contempt. But I digress.

Below stairs, meanwhile, a metaphor for reform is played out as the attempt to introduce gas lighting uncovers a rat problem which in turn threatens to assist those who wish to label our eat-phobic queen as mad, like her famous America-mislay img grandfather, and this undercurrent provides a great deal of tension throughout. Elsewhere, Miss Skerritt's past in the "nunnery" is uncovered.

All is well in the end; there is no serious doubt as to Victoria's sanity, and a piece of parliamentary skulduggery (in real life Peel, an ambitious man, was reluctant to become PM without a solid majority) keeps Melbourne in post, for now. But has young Vicky learned her lesson?

Victoria: Doll 123

"I know that I am young..."

So begins ITV's big prime time eight part biopic of Queen Victoria, and it's gorgeously shot, designed and costumed, surely deliberately, to look like a contemporary painting from the 1830s. It certainly looks gorgeous and evokes the period well. I'm impressed, too, with the casting, performances and script. The juxtaposition of Victoria's coronation with Lady Flora's humiliating examination is a particular high point. But it all hangs on the performance of Jenna Coleman is a very different part to that of Clara in Doctor Who.

This is not the Victoria of the popular imagination but a young, guileless, well-meaning but perhaps naive young girl of 18, still under the thumb of her mother and self-serving stepfather, and Coleman evokes the innocence and the steel, striking the right balance between regal and naive. Rufus Sewell, too, impresses as the initially jaded Lord Melbourne in spite of being somewhat young for the part at first glance.

I also like the way events downstairs are used as a metaphor for what is happening; initially there are all sorts of "perks" and corrupt practices which are stopped, but Victoria eventually holds back from going too far. And it's nice, as a Doctor Who fan, to see Eve Myles and Tommy Knight; there's even a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance from Tom Price.

The history is, give or take a bit of artistic licence, accurate, strongly evoking an age which was no longer of the regency but not yet "Victorian", with a political undercurrent to everything, Victoria being opposed by the Tory supporters of her Uncle Ernest and supported by the Whig prime minister. It'll be interesting to see if this is followed through.

The ending is superb, as Lord Melbourne gives courage D to a Victoria chastened by her wronging of Lady Flora, saying that she has given him a reason to live after the death of his young son, and she is able to carry on and do her duty in that very strange job of constitutional monarch. This is a good and promising start.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2012)

"I finally got everything I wanted- and I'm wearing tights."

Yes, I'm finally starting to go back to the Marvel films that I've seen but never blogged. Captain America: The First Avenger may not be among the very best of Marvel's recent efforts but it's a damn fine film, with a proper and well-thought through usage of Cap's origin to tell a good story while remaining faithful to the spirit of Simon and Kirby's original. It's usually a bad idea for superhero films to begin with the origin story but this is an exception.

Oh, and there are also a couple of fun cameos from Jenna Coleman and Natalie Dormer.

We begin, after a brief establishing scene of something found in the ice in the present day, in Nazi occupied Norway, with a nice scene involving David Bradley, the Red Skull and some dialogue that firmly ties the Cosmic Cube (as it isn't called here) to Norse mythology as a nod to the recent Thor. We then move on to establishing the personality and, importantly, the heroic character, there already, of the 90 pound weakling version of Steve Rogers, rattling through the origin and the super soldier serum stuff while also establishing the excellent Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, here shown as a sexy ice maiden frustrated by the glass ceiling. She really ought to get her own series.

We also, interestingly, get the origin of HYDRA: a faction of Nazi scientists led by the Red Skull that, in an interesting twist, "declares independence" from Nazi Germany. That's a departure from the source material which shores up HYDRA much better as a long-term antagonist.

It's a nice touch to have Cap initially reduced to a performing monkey selling war bonds, giving a credible reason for the costume and also allowing us to see the actual original costume from Captain America Comics #1, a copy of which is actually seen in-universe!

It's nice that the Red Skull's, er, red skull only gets revealed halfway through, to dramatic effect. And interesting that Cap's shield is pure vibranium here: it seems that adamantium belongs to Fox.

This is a brilliant film: it has the script, the characters, the action sequences and the pathos to be, if anything, a slightly underappreciated gem. Cheeky of them to give Samuel L Jackson such billing for such a tiny cameo, mind.

Doctor Who: Heaven Sent

"I've finally run out of corridors..."

Wow. One one level this is a cross between Cube and Blink, but it's a fascinating thing to do with the penultimate episode. Structurally this is just treading water until the finale but the reality is much more interesting than that. This is Moffat, forever doing the big story arc stuff and the donkey work, getting to do a quirky and unusual episode on his fourth year as showrunner: his Midnight or Turn Left. It's also a tour de force of a performance from Capaldi. Whichever way you look at it, it's bloody good.

What elevates it to the sublime, though, is the twist at the end with the teleporter- although what happened to their being called "transmats" in Doctor Who? Proving my theory that, if you're teleported, you die and are replaced with a copy, untold different Doctors have repeated the same day for billions of years, burning themselves at the end of the day so another Doctor can repeat the cycle. It's a kind of Prometheus myth, and it's genius on all sorts of levels.

At the beginning I was wondering if we were looking at the return of the Vashta Nerada, but there is so much cool stuff here, from the Doctor's nightmare to the shifting rooms of the castle- reminded me of both Cube and Castrovalva- to the revelation that the Doctor left Gallifrey not because he was bored but because he was scared. Best of all is the respect shown to the late Clara: the Doctor spends eons mourning, literally, and her presence is everywhere. Her death matters.

At the end, though, we get a revelation: the infamous Hybrid isn't half-Dalek... it's the Doctor!  Is he half-human after all? What's going on? Whatever, we're in for a showdown under Gallifrey's burnt orange skies...