Grimm: Dyin' on a Prayer

"You married a monster, that's all."

This is an interesting broadening of the kinds of stories Grimm can tell; the legend of the Golem that protects the Jews of Prague has nothing to do with Wesen; the Wesen baddies, a pair of domestically violent brothers, are fairly perfunctory. Still, this is interesting; will the loss of Nick's powers expand the narrative possibilities?

It's all very well handled, although admittedly its a coincidence that the only known Golem remains should end up in Portland. And Nick gets to play the hero by just being a good cop with, admittedly, supernatural knowledge.

In other season plot threads, Rosalie and Monroe are beginning to face prosecution from the Wesen KKK for their mixed marriage. Trubel tells Nick about her offer from Chavez, the FBI woman, and Woo continues to have suspicions about Trubel and Nick. It's all bubbling away nicely in this superb season. And if this is the level of stories of the week we're getting now then I for one have no complaints.

Cucumber: Episode 6

"You've taken a wrong turn, but you can turn back."

I hate to simply echo what's being said all over the Internet, but this is one of the finest pieces of television in recent years. It's extraordinary.

We're shown from the framing device at the start that this episode will be different; this time it is Lance, not Henry, in the supermarket. And Russell T Davies gives the game away from the start with a caption: "Lance Edward Armstrong, 1966-2015".

Davies, in a recent interview with the Radio Times, has likened the structure of this episode to Lance's life flashing before his eyes in those last few seconds after the golf club connects. More than half the episode takes place before the start of the series, including Lance's getting together with Henry and the early part of their relationship, from his perspective. But the heart of these early scenes are in Lance's early scenes, his discovery of his sexuality, the difficult coming out and the slow acceptance, Christmas by Christmas, of his father. There is tragedy, too, with the childhood loss of Lance's mother and the loss of a partner to AIDS. All of this rounds Kance as a character and, of course, gets us to emphasise with him so that his death will hurt more. You're a right bastard of a genius, RTD. This episode feels like a punch in the face to a Eurythmics soundtrack.

It's a huge relief that Henry gets to see Lance before he dies, and to finally tell him that he loves him. Lance doesn't take the proffered olive branch, though, and coldly rebuffs him. Instead he goes off on one final, terrible night out.

Daniel gives out warning signs at every moment, as he always has. His behaviour in Canal Street is extremely disturbing yet, as Lance explains to the strange, unreal ghost of Hazel from Queer as Folk, he's handsome enough to be worth it.

These scenes with Hazel, written as a kind of fairy godmother, are the emotional heart of the episode. The fact that she is a ghost adds a note of unreality; RTD has  postulated that, if the whole episode is Lance's life flashing before his eyes, this could be a bit his subconscious has changed. But it's nicely ambiguous, and a nice choice. And dramatically, of course, it's the point of no return.

The final, fateful scenes are in real time, and are masterfully scripted and acted, with Daniel finally acting fully on his suppressed desires, but then lashing out in a fury of denial and gay panic, snuffing out this sweet man whom we have come to know and love. It is sudden, devastating and crafted to hit hard.

And then we have a masterful visual sequence from director Alice Troughton, and tears, and no more Lance. And this is going to leave a huge hole in the world.

Cucumber: Episode 5

"We built cages to keep ourselves civilised."

This is the first thing I've blogged with a little person sitting there sleeping in a bouncer next to us as she watched it. So, technically, the first programme my baby daughter watched was Cucumber. Appropriate or what? Anyway, this is still the best thing on telly right now.

We are alerted to the fact that things are entering a new phase by the difference in the framing device at the start: Henry's monologue takes place not in the civilised, safe, artificial environment of the supermarket, but in the wild and dangerous environment of the primeval forest. 

Henry's life has lost its moorings since that fateful night out; he has lost his relationship, his job, his money and his place in society, and has found himself making some questionable decisions as a result. This is the episode where the consequences of those decisions come home to roost.

Cleo is an extraordinary creation of a character, nuanced and real in a way that fictional characters rarely are. Her reaction to what Henry has been doing on YouTube is perfection in terms both in terms of script and performance. And this is a devastating revelation of the damage done by casually misogynist pornography, done just for fun, on the sexuality of adolescent girls. It's an extraordinary scene.

Elsewhere, Cliff is great as usual, and Henry's relationship with new boyfriend Leigh is quickly unravelling. Not only is Leigh alarmingly right wing, he also wants (gasp!) sex. Henry, being Henry, doesn't so much dump him but takes the easy way out by standing him up, choosing instead to get pissed with Freddie. He still has absolutely no chance with the young Adonis, of course, but the two of them have struck up a moving little friendship of sorts. But Freddie's parents have a few home truths for him, home truth for which he has no real answer. Structurally, this is clearly the episode where we are being invited to examine Henry's recent actions in the light of something big is about to happen. And I'm not just saying that because I've already seen the masterpiece that is Episide Six.

Lance is continuing to pursue the disturbingly laddish Daniel, whose denial about his sexuality is suffused with menace and the simmering threat of violence. Lance's chat in the office with Veronica, who thinks Daniel is weird, is a great big sign that things are going to go very badly wrong.

We end with a conversation between Hebry and Lance, a conversation which Henry badly mishandled. They part on bad terms, and things look ominous...

Fatherhood

I have a daughter, and she's perfect!

Mrs Llamastrangler gave birth to our little angel at 3.15pm on Wednesday 18th February, 2015 after four days (!) of labour. Mother and baby came home from hospital today. 

I can't believe what a good little girl she is so far. She hardly cries and she didn't wake her mother up at all the last two nights. Surely this can't last...?

She's so beautiful. And it's frightening, in the best possible way, how I can't stop thinking of my little girl and wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh, and the blogging goes on. The frequency will go down a bit, or a lot, depending!

Marvel's Agent Carter: Time and Tide

"If you wish to clear Mr. Stark's name, you must do so from the shadows!"

The third episode, then, and things are moving into place for some serious alteration of the status quo. It's suddenly clear that Peggy can't keep getting away with her supposedly treasonous activities for much longer. I predict an upcoming episode will consist of her getting caught, swiftly to be followed by a massive reversal of fortune. After all, we know she founds SHIELD, and this series looks suspiciously like a "Secret Origin".

Oops. Sorry. Wrong comics company.

Anyway, we get more espionage, more sexism, more awful '40s clothes and cool '40s cars, and the overall movie serial feel continues. Jarvis acquires a bit more depth, with the unearthing of a minor scandal from his past, but I hope he doesn't acquire too much depth; it doesn't suit him. And I hope we never actually meet his wife; that would ruin a running joke.

We end with a significant death (which Peggy, once more, blames on herself) and a redoubling effort against Stark. Big things are going to happen now...

Cucumber: Episode 4

"You're actually patting my vagina..."

Wow. What a masterful piece of television. Such a triumph of structure and characterisation from Russell T Davies and such an extraordinary revelation of a performance from Vincent Franklin. Where to begin?

The episode is framed around a number of dates, all of them different, leading to sex, or not, and using these things to examine the human condition. Some are quite straightforward: Lance doesn't end up having sex, firstly because he's with a bottom and secondly because he's with a rather I likeable, laddish closet dweller. Freddie is pursued by a girl with a fetish for men who sleep with other men, something not uncommon. And Dean, being Dean, has a very kinky time, thereby wrecking someone else's relationship.

Most movingly, though, this is about Cleo and, of course, Henry. Cleo is tentatively trying to explore sex with an old friend for the first time since having her vagina reconstructed. She gets a moving monologue about how the births of two children have made her vagina fall apart, and how for years the medical profession has not cared; there's a quietly and rightly angry point here about how little society cares about women's sexual pleasure. Henry, meanwhile, has a nice date with a top but pulls all sorts of tricks to avoid sex. Finally, following a chance meeting with Leigh (AJ from EastEnders) in a fast food place in the small hours, he finally gets to confess his neuroses about sex; it's implied here that his fear of sex is bound up, him being the age he is, with the fear of AIDS which must have so affected his youth. There's a real gap here between Henry's generation and the young people with whom he lives. Rather sweetly, though, it looks as though he's got himself a new boyfriend.

This is an extraordinary episode which really pays off the groundwork leading up to this. I hope the four remaining episodes can somehow match this.

Grimm: The Last Fight

 "It's cheating, right, if he's Wesen?"

"There are probably Wesen in all sports."

Boxing usually bores me, but this is a fantastic concept for Grimm; a bull Wesen as a boxer who is made to fight and win by showing him the metaphorical red rag by beating him with sticks before a fight. There's a vague bullfighting metaphor in here, although I suspect Clay is supposed to stand for all boxers and Sam for all boxing promoters. The script is not big on approval of boxing promoters; I rather suspect Hank's views are those of the author.

It's brilliant, even before the big reveal about Clay's mother, and that's just the story of the week bit. The arc stuff is really fizzing this season, and so far it knocks all previous seasons into a cocked hat.

It looks as though Nick and Adalind did indeed swap places between Portland and that cell in Vienna, but only for the duration of their strange mutual collapse. Oh, and FBI lady only kidnapped Trubel in order to confirm she's a Grimm and offer her a job on behalf of her mysterious employers. This one will run. And it looks as though Sean's mum will find a cure for Nick's "disability". And interestingly there a dilemma about Trubel- Nick needs someone to do the Grimming, but can he keep putting a teenage girl in danger?

Oh, and Adalind has escaped with the aid of her mysterious neighbour. There are a proper number of arc threads going on, and yet all this is nicely intertwined with a solid story of the week. Grimm is just so much better written these days. Can they keep it up?

Black Mirror: Be Right Back

"Are you sitting down? This might sound a bit creepy.."

It's been a while since I did the first season of Black Mirror, but now I can gradually catch up through the wonder that is Netflix.

This is a typically well-executed piece of Twilight Zone weirdness from the great Cjarlie Brooker, as usually extrapolating from current trends to give us a disturbing yet plausible near-future. It's hard science fiction with wit and weirdness.

Here we have Martha, grieving her suddenly gone partner Ash, a social media addict. This being the near future, there's a program to mimic his online persona from his social media footprint, expanding in believable increments to a simulacrum of even his body. Yet this can never be enough, culminating in the sex; the simulated Ash has no record of his sexual response, just a "set routine, based on pornographic videos". It all plays out naturally, believably and very weirdly. I can understand why the critics loved this.

Hayley Atwell is superb in a part very different from Agent Carter, but Domhnall Hleeson is extraordinary as the still, awkward android Ash. Also worthy of praise is the stark, Scandinavian use of light throughout. 

Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914)

I have some time to kill but don't want to wake up the lovely Mrs Llamastrangler, who is now several days past her due date and fast asleep. So I watched a short Charlie Chaplin film to fill in some of my time during the interminable wait for fatherhood. I was hoping that it would cheer me up a bit as today has been spent digesting some very sad news.

Anyway... this is the first ever film to feature Chaplin's "Tramp" character. I'm vaguely familiar with Chaplin, but mainly because of Paul Merton's splendid television evangelising. I'm well aware of how the humour hasn't dated, but the racing cars certainly have- they look so flimsy, like old-fashioned prams. And the whole set-up looks incredibly dangerous for both participants and spectators. It's Health and Safety gone mad. 

What really surprised was, well, is that it? I've enjoyed Charlie Chaplin films in the past, but this one consists of not a lot more than the Tramp annoying people by getting in the way. That's it. I'd expected a lot more. I know it's a short, but I've seen plenty of funny ones. I suspect the problem lies in the fact that this is an early short from the Keystone Cops crowd.

Still, there are plenty of other silent comedies out there...

Angel: Billy

"No woman should ever have to go through that."

About a week ago there was a lot of talk amongst the commentariat concerning a "manifesto" by a group of burqa-clad female recruits to the so-called Islamic State. Amongst stupidities too numerous to account was the insistence, shared by misogynists and social conservatives of all faiths and none, that women should dress "modestly" (in this case very "modestly") because, well, men can't help themselves. The burqa is, in effect, slut-shaming to the nth degree.

If I could be a bit more feminist than that for a moment (which wouldn't be difficult), there's the risk of something like this with fictional portrayals of domestic violence; if all men are just misogynistic, violent monsters who will inevitably be that way, with no agency or free will to do otherwise, you are half way to endorsing the burqa. Not to mention gender essentialism. The older I get, the more sceptical I get about "innate" gender characteristics. I've been a feminist with a Y chromosome for some times, and the fact that I'm going to be father to a daughter very, very soon only concentrates my thoughts. My daughter is not growing up to think that doctors are men and nurses are women, to pick an obvious stereotype. She can be whatever she wants to be.

Anyway, this episode of Angel. Let's talk about it, shall we? Because this episode is not only excellent, its most definitely about something.

Well, we see Fred established as a proper part of the gang for the first time, and she's a fantastic addition to the team. And she really shows her character when comforting a devastated Wesley at the end. That's about it for the main season arc. 

The eponymous Billy, of course, is the bloke whom Angel rescued from Hell, at Lilah's bidding. He's untouchable, from one of America's senatorial aristocratic families, and has the demonic superpower to awaken the latent misogynistic violence in other men, including Gavin, Gunn and (terrifyingly, shockingly, and with an extraordinary performance from Alexis Denisof) Wesley. Ironically, Lilah is the first to be horribly beaten up and, fittingly, it is the chat between her and Cordy that is the thematic heart of the episode. Equally appropriate is that Wes is defeated by a resourceful Fred, while it is Lilah who finally kils Billy. Women are the ones, ultimately, with agency here.

And yet... I love the fact that Billy's powers don't work on Angel. And this isn't because he has any superpowers, but because he has a choice. Like all other men, Angel can choose not to be a misogynistic prick. 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: All the Way

"I'm gonna marry that girl."

I really can't put my finger on why this episode underwhelmed me. The misdirection with the old man was clever, and it's nice to have a low stakes episode with nothing more than two ordinary vampires as the main adversary. And it's especially nice to have the old "monsters as metaphors for teenage stuff" back in Buffy; here the vampires stand for that terrifying thing that is the sexuality of teenage boys. And yet... the episode failed to sparkle. As you probably noticed, I couldn't find a particularly good quote.

This is where Xander and Anya finally announce their engagement, and Xander is, again, terrified and really not ready, as Nicholas Brendon's superb performance shows. Talk about buying houses, babies and a full-on grown-up life terrifies him... but then he's only 20, and only proposed because the world was about to end.  I may be excited about fatherhood now (my wife is 40 weeks and four days and I can't stand waiting!!!), but then I'm 37. At 20 I wasn't particularly mature. Few young men are. 

Maturity and the responsibilities of young adulthood are, of course, the themes of the season, also popping up in how Buffy (also 20) is trying to be guardian to Dawn, and not managing very well. Most obviously, she leaves the disciplining to Giles.

Dawn, too, is getting older, and the "a" plot of the episode concerns her cliched first kiss and burgeoning sexuality, but fortunately she learns her lesson: boys are monsters.

Most importantly though, arc-wise, is that Willow is increasingly using magic for trivial things, and that she and Tara fall out about it. Badly. So Willow crosses a line, casting a spell to make Tara forget the quarrel. That puts her beyond the pale. We know there will be consequences, which I await with bated breath...

(We see the Bronze! How long has it been?)

Angel: Fredless

"You haven't run far enough!"

There's nothing like a good bit of misdirection. This episode pretty much consists of spending a lot of time making Fred's parents look like sinister, intolerant, nasty and authoritarian hicks with the twist being that they're actually quite nice. It's an old trick, but it's very well done here. Sometimes the old tricks work well; this episode is both a triumph of structure and the most enjoyable of the season so far.

We also see a significant retooling of Fred; having accepted her past, she is now able to start assuming an active role as part of Angel Investigations, what with the plot setting her up to save the day. Even better, her parents turn out to be rather good fun once we're no longer supposed to be suspicious of them.

All that, and we get Cordy and Wes doing an impression of Buffy and Angel. This is the most fun episode for a while, which probably means a little darkness will be along soon...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Life Serial

"Stop touching my magic bone!"

Last night we were introduced to our three, er, suoervillains; this time we get to know a bit better and discover which one of them has the righteous opinion on the best James Bond- no love for George Lazenby?

We learn absolutely nothing about how Buffy and Angel's reunion went, and this vagueness is turned into a joke; not a bad way of handling the fact that Buffy is now airing on the WB while Angel is still on Fox, presumably necessitating a bit of the old arm's length treatment. 

A big theme of this episode is what, besides slaying, Buffy is going to do with her life. She tries returning to uni, working on a construction site and working in the Magic Box, but none of these quite works, and not entirely because of the machinations of our dastardly trio. All three situations are, however, hugely amusing. Jane Espenson can do that to a script.

This script sparkles, and I'm not just saying that because of the kittens, or Buffy's description of Spike as a "neutered vampire that cheats at kitten poker". I'm enjoying this season, despite my reservations about the way geeks are presented. I can even forgive Giles suddenly solving Buffy's money worries with a deus ex machina cheque. 

Angel: Carpe Noctem

"I'm not a eunuch!!!"

This episode may be a story-of-the-week, but the central conceit is fantastically dark; a feeble, dying old man using magic to swap bodies with fit young men and shagging his way through their bodies until the body collapses and returns him to his old body. The most horrible part of this is that these men all live out their last few hours in an old man's body, patronised and tyrannised by the staff of the retirement home in what looks awfully like a bit of actual social commentary. Although, I suppose, there's also a certain amount of "aren't old people scary?"

There's not much to say about this episode, really; I think it's a case of a brilliant concept being strong enough to survive a flawed execution. But the ending is, perhaps, a little rushed, and the climactic scene in which the bodies are switched back is both shot and acted so as to indicate that the spell failed. Still, I enjoyed the episode, even if it will never be a favourite.

Arc-wise, rivalry compels Lilah to help Angel thwart Gavin Park's somewhat dull legalistic plotting, and it's interesting how she responds to "Angel's" advances. Oh, and Fred's crush on Angel seems to be nipped in the bud. Poor Fred.

We end in a similar way to the last episode of Buffy; the eponymous slayer is alive, and Angel has to see her...

Marvel's Agent Carter: Bridge and Tunnel

"What's your first name?"

"Agent."

"That has a ring to it..."

Two episodes in and I'm rather enjoying this. Hayley Atwell is great, and I'm loving the mockery of 1940s social attitudes, objects and fashions, although 1940s suits looked awful. Really awful. '70s awful. Still, the fetishisation of 1940s is a delight, as are the constant reminders that this is the Atomic Age. And the framing device of the Captain America radio drama is the icing on the cake. The constant juxtaposition of the simpering Peggy from the radio show to the kick-ass reality is a delight. Plus it reminds me of going to see that Round the Horne thing in Leicester Square several years ago. And I bet very few of my readers will get that reference.

It's a delicious contrast; Peggy is so very kickass yet again, going undercover with aplomb and fighting a baddie on the top of a van, yet at work she's expected to do the filing and answer the phone, and if she gets caught working for Stark she's in deep doo doo. 

There are lots of other nice touches; I loved the literal carrot and stick. And the '40s fashions and radiation aspect- in fact, the plot itself and the heroine put in frequent peril- make this feel very much like a '40s movie serial. I suspect that's intended.

Only at the end do we find a chink in Carter's stiff upper lip armour; Jarvis, who admires her and sees her for who she is, sees that she's afraid of letting people get too close to her unless they get killed- like her last flatmate. So we end (after a jaw-dropping interview with the landlady) with Peggy agreeing to live next door to her friend Angie. Let's hope Angie lives...

Loving this. Can't believe there are just six episodes to go.

Cucumber: Episode 3

"You're a prostitute!"

"Yes. How much money do you make?"

Three episodes in, and the clever little tropes and writerly tricks are coming more and more into focus. There's the repeated use of Henry perving at blokes in the supermarket as a framing device, for one. And there's the way Freddie gets written here; up until now, and even early in this episode, he's this beautiful, arrogant, unattainable Wildean aesthete without any of the money, but we get the truth here; he was abused regularly as a schoolboy by his teacher, Gregory, now a father of two. There are scenes dancing around blackmail, and at the centre is a pop art style wall decoration relating this abuse as an erotic comic strip so that, literally as well as metaphorically, the past of abuse hangs over the narrative.

It is Henry who urges Freddie to expose Gregory, disgusted at the abuse of a schoolboy the age of his fifteen year old nephew. Yet Henry is directing this very same nephew in pornographic "vlogs" in a clear parallel. It's complicated.

Elsewhere, Lance continues in his chase of semi-closeted gay homophobe Daniel, an interesting character, and the swimming pool scene is superbly written. Lance is an interesting character: in control when it comes to Henry but definitely not in the driving seat when it comes to Daniel.

I still think he and Henry will get back together. But there's a long way to go...

Grimm: Octopus Head

"I just saw Burkhart. He's not the Grimm."

The first season of Grimm was, in hindsight, a bit blah, all story of the week episodes. The second series was better, with more continuing season arc stuff, but after a brilliant opening triptych it settled down into a largely story-of-the-week format. Here's hoping this third season, as with Buffy, breaks that habit and ends up a classic.

This episode is awesome, mainly because it's packed with status quo changing events; no reset button here. Good. I'm not going to list all of the big things that happen, partly because a blog like this shouldn't be a synopsis but mainly because it would be rather tiresome to do.

Instead I shall just opine at random things.

I love the Captain's resurrection at the hands of his mother (Louise Lombard from The House of Elliot...!) and a giant CGI dissolving snake. It's clear she's to be an important character; Sean goes to the trouble of summarising the first two seasons for her. And any passing casual viewers. See what they did there?

Viktor has never been quite as much as a bastard as he is to Adalind here. That partly makes up for the moustache and beard, I suppose. But it makes my wife fancy him all the more, the bastard.

Interesting that Juliette is in no hurry for Nick to become a Grimm again for the sake of their relationship; I think this is genuinely going to be at least a medium term thing. Trubel is clearly Portland's Grimm-in-training, with this two parter being both a baptism of fire for her and a dry run for the new format of her as a Grimm helping detectives Nick and Hank with Wesen-related crime. Good. She's a much more interesting character than Nick. And she gets quite the cliffhanger, being kidnapped by that mysterious Wesen FBI woman. What's she up to?

Woo at last seems about to discover the truth. About time. We've reached the point, at the start of the third season, beyond which the character can no longer be credible if he doesn't find out soon. And yet... the whole thing is delayed again at the end with that weirdness between Nick and Adalind. Have they swapped bodies? Is Nick in a female body in a rat-filled cell in Vienna? Who was that bloke in the next cell with the Frank Gorshin laugh? We must be told!

The big question, though, is why does the "Octopus Head" have only six tentacles?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Flooded

"So... You guys wanna team up and take over Sunnydale?"

Never has a flooded basement been more redolent with obvious metaphor; Buffy has returned to the Hell of life and adult responsibilities from a stress-free afterlife, and all the pressures of adulthood- especially her overwhelming money troubles- are drowning her. Meanwhile, our three baddies for the season, introduced here, are intended as a contrast. 

I have a bone to pick with the use of Jonathan, Andrew and Warren; they are geeks, and this is clearly intended to symbolise that they are unable to put away childish things. I'm a bit offended by that. I'm a geek (I mean, I do this blog), and I have responsible job, a mortgage and a wife. Oh, and any day now I'm due to become a father, something which is rather tending to dominate my every waking moment. I'm a fully functioning adult who happens to like geeky things. I'm a bit offended by the implied insult here and so, I would imagine, are many of the viewers. Buffy fans, after all, tend to be geeks.

Anyway...

There are a lot of things to note here. I note that Buffy is partly broke because her mother's medical bills are up her inheritance, for example. Thank Bevan we have the NHS in this country. We also have an interesting argument between Xander and Anya about whether they should announce their engagement, and he clearly has cold feet, nervous about the adult responsibilities it symbolises. Once again the theme rears its head.

Most dramatically Giles is back, and giving Willow a real bollocking for what she's done, which takes her aback somewhat. Worse, she implicitly threatens him for doing this before realising what she's done. We're getting plenty of hints that Willow is heading to a very dark place this season.

It's lovely to see Giles with Buffy, though; there's no doubt that he's her real dad, blood relative or not. Still, Buffy is not quite able to confide in him as she can with Spike. And she's still very emotionally dulled, although that could just be Sarah Michelle Gellar's acting.

We get quite a cliffhanger, though; Angel wants to see Buffy in an intra-network crossover...

Angel: That Old Gang of Mine

"Don't go reading me!"

"I wouldn't, but, sweetie, you're a billboard!"

Interesting, this one. It's a Gunn episode, of course, finally resolving the dangling thread of his divided loyalties between Angel Investigations and his old gang, and a chance for J. August Richards to shine. And yet, arc-wise, I think the moments to remember are Wesley's steely warning to Gunn at the end, even after showing he emphasises- he's getting gradually more badass- and Fred's not only venturing outside but actually being rather brave. She is, I think, in a quiet way the character who develops the most in these 43 minutes. 

Still, Gunn... we get lots of flashbacks to his late sister Alonna and a lot of references to her; it's obvious that this episode sees Gunn's past being firmly put to bed so that the character can move forward. His alienation from Wesley and co is out of character, and supposed to be; the character gets done good development here. 

This is the first time we're invited to disapprove of Gunn's old gang, who are now indiscriminately hunting down all demons, harmful or not, out of sheer racism. They have, as Gunn says, "lost the mission". And, while the new thug from Miami, Dio, is the obvious psycho, it can't all be blamed on him. The behaviour of the gang in Caritas puts them beyond the pale and gives Gunn a chance to pick his side.

There's a happy ending, with Angel saving the day and a demon killing Dio with CGI. It's not a great episode, this, but a necessary one, and with an anti-bigotry message.

Except... is it me, or is there a bit of a subtext here that casts suspicion on working class political activity...?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: After Life

"That's the thing about magic. There's always consequences. Always!"

After the opening two parter, the aftermath. Buffy is back; it's now time for everyone to stop, breathe, and digest this. Partly this is about letting Buffy progress from stunned to functioning, if a little Prozac-y, and partly it's about letting people speculate about her possibly having been in some sort of Hell dissension before the final brutal bombshell.

Life has gone on. Willow and Tara have kindly invited themselves to live in the Summers family house, and we are briefly invited to speculate over some dull but important things. Who owns the house? Is there a mortgage to pay? What money is coming in? Such questions have been tacitly raised; they will have to answer them soon. 

Buffy spends the episode in an awkward slight estrangement from everyone who helped to raise her, all of whom are greedy for something from her, an affirmation that they did the right thing. Only Spike connects with her, immediately noticing the blood on her hands from clawing her way out of her coffin. He knows these things. And, as the only person who a) isn't seeking self-affirmation from her and b) isn't her younger sister, he's the only person she can really talk to, which is a good use of the character. He's no fool, either; Spike is the only character at this point who begins to understand the real darkness into which Willow is slipping.

Giles has been told ("I think I actually heard him clean his glasses"), but for now the younger generation aredealing with all this on their own. There is, as ever, a monster in the form of a poltergeist-like spectral being which was created by the resurrection spell. Dawn, being the teenage girl, is inevitably one of those possessed. Still, it's rather less clear than it used to be what the metaphor is supposed to be here. We're moving well away, as has often been said, from the days when Buffy used monsters as clear metaphors for various aspects of teen life. The show must now deal with the challenges and responsibilities of young adulthood.

Buffy slays the monster, but her own demons remain. And it's only at the end, as Buffy confides in Spike- the only person she can confide in- that the true horror of her situation becomes apparent; she has been woken from a state of happiness and peace. She was in Heaven, and is now in Hell. Thanks a bunch, Willow. 

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?