Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

“This family is clearly in desperate need of a nanny."

I'm almost glad the winds and the rain were so angry and threatening today: Mrs Llamastrangler, Little Miss Llamastrangler and I don't often all watch films together but we watched this today. And it was wonderful.

The casting is spot-on, and not only the nice little cameo for nonagenarian Dick Van Dyke at the end, complete with tap dancing. Emily Blunt is absolutely superb as Mary Poppins. She approaches the part in exactly the right way- echoing Julie Andrews without being a slavish copy, giving what is very much her own performance which is nothing short of a triumph- charismatic, assured, compulsively watchable. Lin-Manuel Miranda is only passable as Bert's replacement Jack, with a mostly ok Cockney accent in flagrant disregard of tradition. And one of the children is, of course, the precociously talented Pixie Davies from Humans.

It's the '30s now, and Michael and Jane have grown up. But Michael is now widowed with three kings, which makes him tense and vulnerable as well as providing a good excuse for Jane to be living with them. But there's trouble afoot as plot necessity demands that the family home be threatened with repossession unless a miracle is to somehow happen. This plot looks awfully similar to that of Nanny McPhee but, of course, it would be the mother of all pot/kettle situations to accuse a Mary Poppins film of ripping off that particular, er, homage. It's especially amusing to see Colin Firth as the baddie here.

The film is splendidly entertaining throughout, with the fantasy sequences being splendidly child-friendly and visually exciting. The songs, if nowhere near as memorable as those of the original, are good. For such a belated sequel this is really very good indeed.

Humans: Season 3, Episode 7

“It’s genocide!”

It’s the penultimate episode, full of foreboding for the finale, expertly constructed as ever, and the pieces are in place for what doesn’t look like a happy ending. On the other hand, though, there seems to be a theme of faith which may offer a little hope. Or not.

Leo, with daddy issues of his own, doesn’t react well to news of his impending fatherhood, and we also see him denouncing his own father to Anatole as far from a god. There are also serious questions s about what kind of future such a baby can have, as Mattie has a 24 hour ultimatum to be outed by that slimy journalist. At least this leads to a reconciliatory father/daughter hug between her and Joe, which makes me even more sure that Joe, who hasn’t generally handled himself well, is going to sacrifice himself for the greater good next episode. All the tropes point that way.

We get the surprisingly quick downfall of Anatole, at the hands of Max, his last words being that Max should have been open from the start. The threat from bad synths seems to be over before the finale; it’s human bigotry that always was the big bad. The most horrible moment is how Ne reveals to Laura the full horrific details of the oncoming synth genocide, a genocide that has already started.

Potential hope comes with Niska’s lonely and increasingly weird sub-plot, which is mystical and seems to present a more positive ideal of faith than that presented by Anatole, the religious terrorist fanatic who denies the facts in front of him. This sub-or is looking more and more like a potential source of a miracle, which I hope is handled carefully.

That ending, though- Odi? Apparently not quite. But things are set up for a very revelatory final episode. Humans is still the best thing on telly.

Humans: Season 3, Episode 5

“He was talking to the ground, Joe!”

Another brilliant episode, obviously- this is, after all, Humans- but I get the sense that the sense optimism that we get here is doomed to be brutally punctured, and the outline of how it will happen is very, very visible.

We needed a less depressing episode, of course, after Karen’s death by mob at the end of last week’s, and most of the run time is taken up with Joe returning to the family home with poor orphaned Sam, who has nowhere else to go. We gradually see, as he interacts with the family, now Sam is learning about the emotions of grief he feels (“I don’t want my Mum to be dead. I don’t like it.”), and it’s heartbreaking. We also see Joe reconnecting a little with the family, except of course Mattie.

Elsewhere there is optimism. Laura succeeds in getting the Dryden Commission to ban violence against synths, although the script seems to behave as though it’s suddenly law already, before going through Parliament, but artistic licence and all that. Mia discovers that she has a lot of supporters online, many of whom are hiding synth loved ones, and dares to hope a little. Yet danger lurks; racism has not gone away, and as Max’s optimism runs ahead of him he alienated Anatole, who ends up freeing Agnes. Equally bad, Mattie is “befriended” by a journalist who is on to her. I suspect next episode will be much less cheery, especially as Mattie’s public excoriation will utterly undermine Laura and her cause. Why do I get the impression that Joe will somehow sacrifice himself to save Mattie?

That cliffhanger, though... Stanley has never been creepier. This series has bed. Consistently excellent, but I always await the next instalment with trepidation.

Humans: Season 3, Episode 2

"Life cannot simply be preserved. It must be lived."

A less intense episode this time; slower paced, more focused on progressing the plot than world building, and not quite as interested in emphasising the sheer awfulness of the poor synths' oppression. This is probably a good thing for the viewer's blood pressure, but makes for quite a contrast to the opening episode.

The twin are resolved in ho-hum fashion, but Max is forced to be somewhat aggressive in making some of his group yield to human authority, something which will have consequences. But there is an underlying horror to the entire sequence, not least the utterly dehumanising sexual molestation of a dead synth.

Laura's participation in the Dryden Commission leads to a depressingly prejudiced meeting in which her comments are mostly ignored- but does introduce her to a potential scientist ally, Neil, who clearly has secrets. It also means she is forced to have a creepy orange eyed synth, Stanley, which she resents- although Sophie certainly seems happy having an ersatz Mia back. But Laura is getting more and more hate from racist thugs as a synth lover, hence an incident at a pub and, even worse, her children being bullied.

Mia is deeply unhappy, even in relation to the circumstances; she resents Max risking Leo's life, even though he is miraculously brought back to health. She quarrels with Max and has an interesting exchange with Niska, contrasting her romantic betrayal last season with Niska's ongoing happiness with Astrid. Niska, the harder edged of the siblings, is the one who ironically believes in inter-species love. Mia has other reasons to be down, though; no orange synths have become conscious and "green eyes" cannot reproduce and are mortal. Will they all be extinct within fifty years?

Other synths have more poetry in their souls; one, Anatole, even has religious faith. Karen is still trying to raise her boy in a synth-free environment, but now has to keep Joe onside as he has found her out. But their is also trouble brewing; Max's leadership is under threat from synth hardliners, and Mattie and Leo must be sent away for their own safety.

There's a lot going on. This episode is perhaps a little less compelling than last week's, but gripping nonetheless.

Humans: Season 3, Episode 1

“In time, the humans will accept us.”

We’ve waited a long, long time for this third series. It's already worth it, though, although it looks as though this season stands to be somewhat harrowing.

A year has passed, the exposition of which is cleverly left to news reports with the opportunity for various real newsreader cameos. 110,000 humans died immediately after the singularity, which cannot but weigh on Mattie's conscience, and the conscious "green-eyed"synths are all kept in ghettos where, with power cuts  and lack of parts,  they are essentially starved. It's hard not so see refugee camps here or even Nazi ghettos. New "orange eyed" synths without consciousness have been brought on to the market, while racism directer against "defective" green-eyed synths is both rife and horrifying, with very few seeing them as truly sentient and Laura getting hate phone calls for acting as a synth rights lawyer. Most appalling in depicting this racism is seeing what Sophie's class are taught, a highly effective scene.

Joe is now working as a greengrocer in a synth-free town, hiding from the world, and of the three children only Toby seems to have much to do with him; Mattie certainly doesn't. Things are falling apart, both for the family and society, especially after a terrorist bomb as a human/synth bar- narrowly escaped by Niska and Astrid- for which a group of extremist synths claim responsibility. Naturally this increases levels of racist violence to intolerable levels and highlights what looks to be a major theme, redolent of X-Men; under extreme oppression, do you take the path of a Malcolm X or a Martin Luther King?

Christ-like Max is truly struggling to reconcile his responsibilities as ghetto leader with his utopian views, and harbours another secret; the comatose body of Leo. It's a highly charged mix, an unstable situation, a toxic division between human and synth within which even Mia falls out with Laura over whether she is doing enough.

Into this comes a fraught cliffhanger, as a raid by highly racist police officers on the ghetto is juxtaposed with Max's risky decision to wake Leo being effected by Mattie. Even this is a philosophical point; if synths and humans are truly equal, then it is possibly right to risk Leo's possible death to prevent a synth's certain demise- although Kant may disagree.

This is superb telly, although not easy viewing. Intelligent,philosophical, honest, merciless and deeply political.