Island of significant return

Well Here's a doozy of a conundrum wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a puzzle, that came in the same box as a mystery: no, not the plot of LOST - but rather why on earth I have seen every episode of a show which, truth be told, annoys the living piss out of me.

Okay, for those of you who've been trapped on an island (ho ho) for the past 5 years, the show is about a bunch of annoying people whose plane crashed on a mysteriously hard to find island filled with unlikely and spooky dangers, including but not limited to polar bears, mindreading smoke monsters, and the remnants of other castaway groups, all inhabiting/contolling bizaree sets of experimental science stations left behind by a new age utopian initiative that at one point tried to "harness" the wierdness of the island for everything from medical research to time travel.

The show follows a strict format, each episode providing about 20% "now" plot, combined with a character-specific flashback. Through these we learn that no only does hokey coincidence tie all the main characters together, but so does the island, the people from the island, and some kind of struggle for control of the island. More recently we begin to realise that parallel timelines and an amount of time travel is central to not just these coincidences, but the Island itself, and perhaps even the fractured back-and-forth narrative, as we begin to get flash-forwards, and a definite sense of two or three parallel timelines.

I mean okay I'm a big classic SF fan, so it's obvious why I keep watching: for every 8 bloody years of hokey exposition, there is always a tantalising  microglimpse of something cool: mostly the simply gorgeous, sinister 60s retro apparatus hidden all over the island. It is cool looking, and it is very nicely devised so as to suggest any number of possible explanations as to the main theme of the show: what the FUCK is going on? Also the time distortion - tied to the more interesting characters - is very cool indeed.

And indeed you'll have the occasional (as in, there's been all of what? ONE of them) simply great classic episode that really puts it out there. I'm talking about season 4 episode 5 here... he said, embarassing himself. 

See, I didn't even need to look that up. Why do I know this shit? And I mean, that's not even a cool thing in itself, cos I don't get to run across a tropical island with a funky 70s rifle and point it at some sinister dude's head and go "How do I know this???" because I'm not a character in the show... I'm just a wanker on the internet.

(haha - or am I??? Ooooooeeeeooooo...)

But in order to get these teensy weensy glimpses, you have to wade through awful, awful, mawkish, unlikely crap establishing the labyrinthine intersecting lives and motivations of the characters, 99% of whom I honestly want to stab to death with a broken soup bowl. I mean, these people are Fuckers. Every time their annoying eyes fill with tears and their slappable little ballbag faces screw up... ohh, god. 

I'm obviously way off FOX's demographic here, cos it would appear that I hate them in direct inverse proportion to their popularity. Jack and Kate (look up the actors' names yourself if your so curious) are just seriously the most annoying people in the world, with their full range of 3 facial expressions and their repeditive, go-nowhere love triangle crap. How come the almost equally annoying Sawyer hasn't given them more appropriate nicknames like Arsecandle and Fuckface?

One thing that is NOT interesting about this series is who-snogs-who.

And sure, I could get LOST (ho, ho) in an itemised list of these bumheads, but I won't. Suffice to say I have one major objection to everyone in the series... sorry, everyone in the curious clique that actually *does* anything - there are after all another 40 nobodies who only show up when the word "everyone" used - and that is this: they are all superpeople.

Even Hurley - the token slob - is a superslob who won the lottery. Sayed is Iraqi national guard. Jack's a supersurgeon, kate's a superfugitive, locke is a superloser... can we have some mediocrity please? The whole thing rests on this kind of commodified drama, this 21st century notion that in order to be real you gots to have real drama in *spades*. Sun and Jin are the supertroubled couple... meh. Even hobbit boy is a supermusician. And implicit in this is the notion that more dramatic people get to lead... because everyone else is just in the background to get shot or worried about.

And okay I do like one of two of them: specifically Hurley is kinda likeable, while Sayed and Desmond are kinda cool (okay, Desmond's regiment is the regiment my Da was in, sorta sentimental, sorry) yet very selective in how they're allowed to be cool... the writing *is* inconsistent and many characters flick from ultra competent to ultra useless as it requires.

But the one truly great character who just keeps me coming back? Ben, leader (or perhaps ex leader) of the island's "hostiles". Not only is he just an epic character actor, enjoying the shit out of his role and getting *all* the good lines, but he also kinda hates everyone and that'll do me. Shame about his ridiculously hot daughter buying it, but ah well...

Look, anyways, enough rambling. I guess if you lived in a time warp (oho!) and you don't know the show, you'll have guessed that in many ways it's kinda sorta rewarding watching... sorta...

Suffice to say that with season 4 halfway through (and this whole half-series thing? Deserves a whole other rant actually...) the show does seem to finally be working, finally actually going somewhere, and making a twisted amount of sense. The only thing that rivals last-man-on-earth SF for me is time travel SF, so I'm no longer embarassed to like the show. It finally has SF meat on its bones, thanks to S04E05.

The production design, as already said, is genuinely tasty (those training videos? Great stuff) the direction is reasonable, and the script finally getting there. The concept, all told (thouigh I hate to admit it) is genuinely clever and I only feel like half a loser for knowing the show inside out like some big fat dorito munching internet turd (lose the "big fat" and substitute "tall skinny" and I guess that's me anyways).

But yeah... I'm conflicted. I reach for an episode with the guilt of a junkie breaking open his daughter's piggybank for a fix. I know I want it, I know it's no good for me... but that piggy's getting broken open and that's that.

My verdict?

An even, undecided five lost little piggies.

A funny thing happened on the way to class...

Well if it isn't just rare comic genius. Now, before you get upset and start thinking "Does the hooligan have no middle setting? Does he either hate or love everything?" Well let me answer this for you: I sorta kinda like/dislike a hell of a lot of things... but am I gonna write about them? Not unless someone pays me. 

Breaking Bad is ridiculously good. 

Now, it won't change your life; but really, if you're looking to a 7 part TV series to do that, you're probably in as much trouble as the central character. It's not unprecedented in television, either - it's perhaps a Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin for the 21st century nowhere american. In fact, it's among a short but incredible list of TV coming out of the US that is so darkly comic, and so much about people *not* understanding and *not* getting along... that 20 years ago you would have sworn that americans couldn't make this stuff.

But boy, they can. This is just so watchable. Stunning overstated yet truly believeable performances from Brian Cranston and Anna Gunn. Great family chemistry (ho, ho) between them and their son, played by RJ Mitte. Comedy that positively reeks of despair, and literally has cancer at its heart... well, it's tricky to pull off. Breaking Bad manages all this plus some really stunning camera. You cannot imagine the glee with which I ate up the first series. The pilot had me jumping up and down.

As I say, it's Reginald Perrin. Emasculated, frustrated chemistry genius Walter White, working as a grade school chemistry teacher, decides to start cooking Methamphetamine with former student Jesse Pinkman (played like an angry fuckup chandler bing by Aaron Paul) - for a number of desperate reasons, the unfolding of which form a major part of the plot.

There is a palpable stink of anxiety, balls and mustard gas from this series. There is absolutely no point in my delving into the plot twists or ideosynchrasies (and boy, there are quite a few of them) - because they are effortlessly conveyed with dark hilarity by the crappy, claustrophobic atmosphere of the series.

Just watch it: no, really. If you cannot see my point, then it's possible you should not be watching television. You certainly shouldn't be listening to my opinion on *anything*. I mean, really, get the fuck out of my house.

Nine and a half panicked schoolteachers

Mister President!!!!

Sure, sure: I know what you're thinking: it's 2008 and the hooligan is reviewing 24: how up to date is this? Well, the *idea* is that eventually this stuff gets pushed right down the page, ya know. Before I can get up-to-date with broadcasting my unsolicited halfassed opinions, I have to be out-of-date first. A canon of work, you know.

And to be fair, the show fascinates me. Yes I'm going to use the word Zeitgeist; not that I feel that this series - which before you ask I honestly think is fifth rate trash - reflects anything more than the usual pandering to morons, but because it seems to sum up *all* of the moron-pandering in american TV. 

Keifer Sutherland is actually a very good actor with real screen presence, and that's the last of the non-derisive comments I have to make. When this show started, I kind of watched in a distracted way, marvelling at the high camp garbola, and the lameness of it all. And then, as the series progressed and became - no mean feat - actually *less* believable, I came to love it as pure unadulterated rubbish: it makes me laugh a lot, which is more than can be said for most comedies, so it's worth a mention.

Jack Bauer, however, is a fool of comic proportions. And like all of his incompetent workmates, he is probably the most amusing security risk on two legs: so perhaps in that sense (overpaid, overdressed idiots shagging each other in server rooms that look like nightclub toilets) it does in fact dish the real dirt on america's war on terror, and why it costs so damn much and achieves so damn little.

And it's a handy series, too. What passes for "labyrinthine plot twists" is actually a story that repeats itself every four hours: whoever is great in hour one, will be revealed as evil by hour 5,  be the lesser of two evils by hour ten, be a saint by hour 15, will give their life for america by hour 20, and then will turn out to be still alive and *behind everything* by hour 24. This is not climactic, this is like watching your clothes dry in a tumble dryer: "oh look! My socks are on top! Oh wait, now they're on the bottom! Oh look! They're off again...." ad nauseam.

So you can tune in any time you want, and with the most basic of character knowledge, you'll know exactly what's going on. It is *not* surprising when Jack pulls his gun on his best mate, cos that happens every 11 minutes. It is *not* intense when it turns out someone in CTU is a double agent, cos they seem to just employ psychotics off the street who will commit high treason willy-nilly if "jack says so" - mostly when he's just pulled his gun on *everyone*.

"pass the sugar, jack" *draws gun* "I'm sorry but I have to do this" 

"can I have a cigarette, jack?" *draws gun* "I'm sorry but I have to do this"

"Oh look! Two for one offers on biscuits!" *draws gun* "I'm sorry but I have to do this"

"Loose Cannon" just doesn't cut it with jack. CTU seem content to continue to employ a complete lunatic, who instinctively trusts the worst kinds of double agents and traitors, actively encourages constant sedition, shoots *heroin* ffs, and can actually raise himself from the dead. Does that strike you as a "combat asset"?

Also, the main way to tell how "tense" the show is by measuring Jacks Campness on a Gayometer. Nobody seems to notice that Jack's "hard but sensitive" smouldering, 4x4 driving, mobile phone hogging, president calling (would you not - in fairness - block that number?) is actually camper than Graham Norton...

"Mister President! I have a big, big secret and you have to promise not to tell *anyone*, okay? Now, I've told Stephen and Ken, so they know, okay? But like, I totally haven't told John, Adam, or Richard because like, they are *such* bitches. Will you promise, mister president? It is like, *so* important... is your wife there? Oh my god you just *have* to leave her mister president. You like, *so* can't trust her. I'm your real friend mister president. I would like, totally *die* for you and stuff. You are like, the *best* president. This is like, such an *honour*"

And then he'll have to "go dark"... ahem. Okay Jack, you've beaten up and threatened a random selection of friends and foes, a few nukes have gone missing here and there, viruses, you fucking *name* it... and you're turning your phone off?

You shouldn't be shot on sight *at all* - we should send your similarly useless best mate out to whack you on the back of the head so that in the middle of some office gossip about who;s fucking who, you can pull the old *pulls gun* "I'm sorry but I have to do this"

Okay, we'll just wait for you to show up somewhere. You're not worrying us at all, you crack smoking lunatic. Next time you accidentally shoot the chinese ambassador or Nuke LA... we'll cover for you. And that selection of fistfuckers that work for you? Hell, what's procedure between friends? The words "top secret" and "restricted highly expensive government resources"... ah, that's just stuff we like to say. Call 'em on their mobiles which we *don't even monitor*. Ask them to divert a batallion of navy seals to pick up your shopping. 

We love you, Jack. 

And as a final note... CTU. No fucking *wonder* the war on terror is so damned expensive, with everyone using macs with 57 90" monitors, on glass desks, in a discotheque. No wonder it's so damn unproductive, too, when you can walk in off the street and say "err... my name is steve not-a-terrorist, I am here to deliver something that is not a bomb" and immediately gain access to a server room that seems capable of remote controlling every satellite in US airspace. You have about 45 minutes before the screen splits into 4, and someone goes "wait a minute... Steve Not-A-Terrorist? Isn't he... a terrorist?"

Beep... Beep... Beep... Beep...

Oh and last off all... why does everyone in CTU dress like some kind of corporate sex addict?

I actually have to give this two ratings: 

two and a half closetcases for drama

seven and a half carry on films for sheer camp hilarity

I can't believe it's not fracking butter

Well, I have a lot to say about this beauty. And the Irony is that whrn the miniseries pilot appeared back in 2003 for the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, I have to admit I fucking hated it.

I mean, come on: it's easy to look back now and say "but hooligan, such texture! Such vision!" etc... but at the time all that I saw was a space opera with some awful sexploitation, a couple of good ideas, but more than anything a *distinct* lack of robots and violence. And given that - up until then - robots and violence was the best one could hope for from Battlestar Galactica, the frankly daft-but-great space opera of my youth... well, can you blame me?

I mean, they still haven't explained the whole Cylons-spines-light-up-when-they're-fucking thing. What is that? I mean, has nobody ever taken a Cylon from behind? Gaius Baltar, missionary only? A man who jerks off in public mere hours after his entire cviliasation hyas been destroyed (mostly by him, admittedly)...?

Ahem, anyways: I like it a hell of a lot now. To say the least.

Matter of fact, given that I have *long* insisted that lengthy television series are the only way to make decent SF - otherwise characerisation and plot just lose out to SFX - I could go so far as to say it's the best thing done in the genre, ever.... but I won't. Too hard to give up on golden age classics. But hey: I thought of saying it, didn't I? That's a lot.

From the first episode - 33 - this entire series took on a whole new, robust and tangible form, devoid of the - frankly shit - trappings of US SF series. No aliens at all (especially not the kind who all wear the same clothing, the same jewellery, and have lame rubber crap stuck on their faces so we can marvel at how "different" they are). No lasers either - nasty bullets, missiles and nuclear weapons.

And the enemy are Religious Fundamentalist Robots. 

This really is tremendous stuff. To say my jaw dropped at the first indication that a US SF TV series would deal with ideas of resource usage, social change, religion, class, identity and culture on a level that's above that of a twelve year old anal retentive closetcase is an understatement. Imagine how far my jaw dropped when I realised they were going to do it *well*.

So just watch it: really, just go get that pilot and check it out. 

When you get that feeling that hey, Crockett and Tubbs' section chief from Miami Vice might just be the most magnetic character ever to hit the TV screen you're correct. Okay you may sense that some characters (cough, cough, Starbuck) are going to be very annoying... and you're right there too but really, this show has had me rivetted for every episode and release. 

Is "escapist social realism" a new genre?

I could spend all day listing the great performances and amazing twists in the writing of this show: suffice to say when you reach the point where you see the *heroes* engage in suicide bombings as part of an insurgency, *fully discussing* the rights and wrongs of it, and you check your schedules and see that this was live during the early stages of the second gulf conflict... I don't think you'll regret the 60-odd hours of TV involved thus far.

And one last note: the galactica herself. Nuff said.

A full Ten scary robot fundamentalists

Oh no, it's the irish.

(NB - this review was written about two years back after an IFTA screening of the movies, and it's pretty vitriolic. Funnily enough, my mate who saw it with me was so angry he posted his review on the film's IMDB page - which then *erupted* with defensive posts from er, you know - fans of the movie in australia who err, certainly weren't involved in the film *at all* claiming the bad review was from a "dsigruntled crew member" - well it wasn't. Your film STINKS and pressing some poor IMDB mod to remove the review won't make it stink any less. If you think I'm a disgruntled crew member then do please email me, and I can hurl abuse at you directly, you awful, awful people)

I have seen the future, and it's called 'ghost wood'.

I say the future, because I notice a certain lack of consciousness among a growing number of film makers these days: it's all about throwing homages left right and centre to movies that have been bludgeoned to death by the popular word. It's all about securing trips to new york to associate with the establishments and people who have already made these much lauded and referenced motion pictures. It's all about securing grants, and roping your friends in to whatever production is currently milking the overworked subsidy involved... but what it seems not to be about is anything like creative vision, originality - - or even the sense to realise that if you can't do it well, make a comedy for god's sake.

Now creative vision isn't quite so necessary when making a movie: sometime it's purely exploitation and you allow your accountant to shape the vision. And this is not a bad thing: some great cinema comes from soulless exploitation of box office and even funding criteria. But when it disappears for too long you get productions that are raised without even the concept of being guided by a vision, let alone a script, dialogue, plot.... practically all you can hear over the (miserably overscored) soundtrack is the sound of check stubs ripping and car doors slamming. Likewise all you can discern in terms of why anyone would want to make such a stunted, criminally stupid script into anything more than a 15 minute piece is cheque stubs and fast accelerating car engine noises. This film stinks like few ever manage, and that is its only accomplishmemt, believe me.

And I'm writing it up because I feel no bad turn should go unrewarded. I sat through this thing, so I'm ceremonially and ritually cleansing myself of it's poison: no need to read on if you're not the type that doesn't stop for a good car crash, I assure you.

So lets' work on this thing. 

In terms of aforementioned lack of plot we are introduced via a competently shot, good looking yet absolutely nonsensical new york segment at the beginning of the film to Ed Hunter, a psychologist working with the new york police - who have CCTV, we are to assume. This, I'd imagine, would be a job that makes a man hard bitten, cynical, and harsh: yet in his first scene he baulks at the rage of a satanic teen with a... pencil. What the hell though, why should it make sense: the teen, in detention, wears a studded belt, is not restrained, and the interview is unrecorded and attended only by the worst police impersonator I've ever seen. Faced with inconsistency like that, any hardened shrink would shrivel, surely?

Or maybe it's the intermittent shots on edgy surveillance footage: is there a hidden dimension here? Absolutely not - these shots are never explained, nor does the kid have any relevance, nor does his job or his life in new york have any relevance... doesn't stop it munching up minutes though.

We are basically treated to an overlong montage of the film makers' shots of new york city 101: as our main man broods through the boulevards of yellow cabs, statues watch him. He slows down and goes grainy. He wears a moody gabriel byrne coat... damn it, he *is* moody. We are introduced to his parish priest, who he seems on good terms with for a new york atheist, who has - naturally, as a priest does - to inform him that his father has died. 

He must return to Ireland, in the way of many, many characters who need money from both the irish and american film trusts, for his father's funeral. Are you getting a picture yet? The old country. I have no faith father. Tired yet?

Then, after skipping glibly through some of the least intimate scenes of intimacy with his wife I have ever seen (no really: YOU watch it - all I can think is maybe this is more establishing scenes: we know people have sex in new york. So let's see some sex, people) in some kind of a spastic, drooling nod to 'don't look now', except in an obvious hotel room. After the nudity montage, our hero reaches ireland, where we see that despite being obviously shot by a completely different crew - to the extent that it feels like a different feature - the same laws of logic exist. In new york, psychiatrists are scared of satan and consult with priests even though they profess no faith. In Ireland, one takes a taxi from dublin airport to galway: just so the taxi can be driven by the director for some "enough money" jokes. Amazing. 

And while I'm mentioning the director: thanks a lot, pal. No, really. Thanks. Good one. Top one. Cheers.

After this point the rather hokey script and extremely hokey production values just rip loose. It goes from corny to just plain poor. We meet american satanic tourists, presumably comic relief for a script that plays like porridge on a wall. We meet an andrea corr lookalike in the woods, a mad priest who's locked in his chapel, warnings about faeries from the locals... and no, no NO this is not a comedy: or at least, not in any way I could discern. Three simple plot twists are stretched out for almost an hour as our wooden hero munches unlikely scenery and the movie becomes a quest for buried treasure, a quest for family redemption (yes there's even an old garrett covered in pages from the bible, an innkeeper who warns about the little people, and evil dead style voices and camera tracking. It's all here... did I mention the crime from the past buried in the ground? They even repeatedly call it a "souterrain", explaining the term when it's first used... yes, the andrea corr ghost says "it's a type of cellar". Nice.) and eventually we're watching some kind of monster movie, with entrails and stunt wires and reasonably well accomplished special effects.... credit where credit is due. 

On the way every tired, formulaic device is used to keep us awake. Cameras linger on corpses for 30 seconds until their eyes open. People turn around while walking to see they are being followed by... nothing. Dan dan daaaaan! (and there's a lot of that, too - the score is ridiculously overworked and often brings guffaws - not enough guffaws but some... precious few....) Whole minutes are spent searching boring sets or shouting at doors: oh yes, our hero doesn't like doors and keeps having to hammer on them, demanding, questioning, in the style of the worst english essay you ever wrote. The new york segment starts to look like real genius as thee entire piece dissolves into Doctor Who style running about asking daft questions about rubbish that would put gauche TV drama of any decade to shame.

And eventually, all of these plot threads *fail* to tie up in any way shape or form, and we realise we have been watching at least 45 minutes to cover 10 minutes of development. The feeble melange of characters actually has no purpose. They don't push the plot, the plot is just sitting there, and obediently falls over when pushed at the end. Really, I am close to expert on terrible cinema, and grew up in the 1980s when a hell of a lot of it was made... and this film still shocked me. 80s exploitation films come to mind that look like art next to this: Rawhead Rex. Leprechaun. You have no idea.

Yet we are watching an expensively produced film. We are watching the fruit of funding plus Irish talent: and this is why I'm bothering to write this insult of a film up: not because I believe people should be warned, or indeed that I feel the film so much as deserves more than a two word, unprintable review. I am reviewing this film on behalf of people with talent, in the irish film industry, who would put such a budget and such facilities to so much better use. Watching this film made me angry: sure, angry that I have to sit through it. Of course, angry that the best irish cinema seems to be able to do in this area is collage darby o'gill with the past 30 years of straight to video horror cinema, with a sprinkling of pretension on top. Naturally angry that such a joke of a script should be made into a film, seemingly with no amendment to dialogue or delivery or timing.

But more than that: angry because if this was my industry, if these were my roles being so poorly performed or my technical skills being so glibly wasted, I would want to kill, plain and simple. I have read many poor scripts in the past 5 years that beat this: imagine how many mediocre or even excellent scripts I may have read. And this gets made? I feel arrests are warranted. I feel a sad and shameful crime has been committed. I feel the perpetrators are still at large. I think the word "injustice" is appropriate.

And if the reader really wants to guage how bad this film is: it was closely followed by "johnny was" - a sad attempt to make a 2nd rate Guy richie movie using such poor talent as vinnie jones, lennox lewis and samantha mumba, folded into a cake of a script loaded with poor stereotypes and cliches. A film which assumes our notions of being black and/or irish stopped in 1979. A really, truly sad effort with "yardies" and "dreads" and irish terrorists working for the "IPLA" cutting drugs in squatted laboratories while shiny guns are drawn and people get tortured and say "respec'" and "mos' dread" and "jaysus" a hell of a lot. 

But next to ghost wood, it seemed like a breath of fresh air: indeed, it was a full half an hour before I realised what I was watching was under par, let alone terrible.

Got 'Wood?

Now, I generally tend to miss good television when it’s on: and the reason for this is the strange duality at the heart of good television, which makes it so different from other visual arts such as cinema or theatre. 

Ooh - he said "strange duality" - the puff.

And don’t think I’m positioning myself here as some tweed clad authority on “good television” – mostly I watch garbage. I’m just saying I miss the good stuff, usually cos I’m catching up on the antics of some garbage like LOST. Which is a staple of mine, don’t get me wrong – I just don’t think it's truly good television like what Deadwood is.

It’s simple, really. When good television is actually on television, it’s presented in such a way as to basically ruin a decent viewing experience. Regardless of how hard a creative team works to establish dramatic atmosphere, it’s only a pick away from being shattered by a series of advertisements, bracketed between some principal sponsor interstitial, and generally wrecked. The better the television, the bigger the audience, the longer and more frequent the ad breaks. So good TV shoots itself in the foot, to draw on an appropriately cowboyish analogy.

Not only that but - with ad breask as milestones - you'll spot a formula quicker than anything. You *know* that the crew of the Enterprise will solve the lame problem after the last ad break. You *know* that that the CSI witness interviewed in the second segment will be the one who misdirects the investigation, and will have to be returned to at the end of the third. It's boring.

Can you imagine any other medium ruining itself like that? Pringles ads at the ballet? Breaks in movies about 16th century nuns to advertise Star Trek? All hail the TiVO, seriously.

And so it was with Deadwood: when it was on UK television, try as I might to make the leap in logic that would make antique dealing Lovejoy (Ian McShane) into a late 19th century bon vivant with a ruthless streak, I was never more than 10 minutes away from an ad for deep space nine.

And that’s the thing - deadwood is full of character actors, too. These are faces we know well from many places – you could say that lovejoy, on a daily basis interacts with the JP monroe from bladerunner and the headmaster from Ferris Bueller’s day off. And yes, sure, I know Jack from LOST was in party of five, yes yes, but this is different. It takes a lot to believe that people are in the 1880s, it’s not an easy task to accomplish.

Don’t get me wrong, they do it in spades and I have grown to love the show – but it is a delicate piece and needs your full attention. Now that I’ve seen it I really don’t think it would ever suffer ad breaks gladly. 

But enough preamble: Deadwood is truly great.

Not as great as many TV critics would have you believe, however: but that’s because many TV critics seem to have been buried under Big Brother and so think anything of any value at all is genius. Unfortunately as the english language shrinks and people refuse to curb hyperbolic tendencies, we have only three superlatives left to describe good TV:

i) better than the simpsons

ii) better than the sopranos

iii) shakespearian

And that, for me, does not work. Yes, the dialogue in Deadwood is awe inspiring. Yes the entire idea is worked as a character piece with its own strict rules, and so narrative is provided by soliloquies In the style of older drama. And yes, the subject matter is machhiavelian and the setting is some time ago. But this does NOT make shakespeare, nor should it: the comparison makes no real sense as well as being obviously a daft, easily pleased, over exuberant way of saying “good lord the dialogue is tremendously good”

But it is great. And foul. But welcome to deadwood: a gold rush town, resettled illegally in violation with the dakota sioux in 1888. Great and Foul are the adjectives of the day, as there is no law, because it is not inside the united states. There is no real civilisation except a parody of the social sensibilities of the time, no real medicine, and no respect for what would be referred to as human life today.

We are introduced to the town by the arrival of two of the main characters, Sol Starr and Seth Bullock, who plan to open a hardware store in what is presented to us as a pretty squalid encampment: in turn, their arrival introduces us to Al Schweringen, vicious rogue and proprietor of the town saloon and brothel, and the principal stakeholders in the encampment.

And what is basically set up is a keenly devised history of the inclusion of the settlement into the united states, largely due to a gold find among the prospectors of the town. 

And it’s all beautifully drawn in stories and sub stories. Indeed, the arrival and inclusion of new business interests to the illegal settlement strongly parallels the settlement itself within the larger context of the United States: simple, but clever. 

Driven largely by the interaction and interpredation of the stakeholders, the infighting and blackmail, murder and extortion come to shape both the town and the drama over the 36 episodes of the three series. Prospectors are murdered. Their widows seek advice from noble members of the community. The less noble members seek to steal her claim. Everyone seeks to maneuver to profit from the imminent development of the town. It’s the most basic of the cliches of the wild west, told so richly that the stories cook in their own juices. 

In otherwords, a lot of cowboy stuff happens. But this is the admirable feat that is Deadwood: working in a very terse fashion (each series covers just a couple of days) the script gives you a feeling of having cliches not just repositioned but also investigated and explained.

While Deadwood tells a story, it also seems to be making a comment on how stories develop. Because you see, Deadwood was a real town, and characters such as Wild Bill Hickock and Wyatt Earp did spend time there. Not only that but Sol Starr and Seth Bullock are real characters, as are Al Schweringen and indeed every character in the drama. This is not a true story; the times have been altered and events bent to suit the progression of the plot – but largely we are seeing an attempt to investigate how the legends of the wild west worked, and how they came about.

And there is something else Deadwood has for us, too: the english language. Yes, there’s a lot of swearing in Deadwood, and that’s a whole other reason why I enjoy the show. But it’s the grammar, the sheer colour of everyone’s speech that reminds us that even the most poorly educated once spoke with great flair, and used so much more allegory and scriptural reference just to explain what they were saying.

And this is where my unreserved praise for McShane comes in: such a role, in fairness, has probably never been on TV. We’re not talking about say, the realism of Tony Soprano, all ambiguity and suggestion. And we’re not talking about the theatre of say, the camp glory of a hannibal lecter style villiain, all flourish and moustache: we are talking both, in miraculously perfect measure. Al is unbelievably macabre and yet strangely three dimensional. High camp yet real cool. Completely and irrevocably fictitious yet highly believable: even when he speaks alone, in the aforementioned pseudo-shakespearian soliloquies, he is a real person to us.

And this alone is no mean feat: but stringing 36 episodes around it, as a character drama, is evern more stupendous. So I say get the fuck out from your computer and watch the fucking thing, as Al himself would say: what are you, cuntstruck?

Moving swiftly onwards

Well, it's very obvious of me to f0llow up an easy peasy review of something that sucked balls with a review of something I liked: but what about something that both contains actors I hate and is kind of like one of those flicks I really, really didn't want to like at all?

Well, Clive Owen is a Ballbag, and Jullianne Moore is just irritating for some reason (but okay, I have seen more than one movie I like her in) - plus any synopsis I read of children of men just made me want to Gag.

Yet I genuinely thought this was a good movie: even rarer, a good science fiction movie. As a big big SF fan I am more than willing to acknowledge that most every time SF lays its hands on a grownup plot it just fumbles and dies like a dungeon master at an FTV party. Nope, not this time.

On a tight budget and with a plot that - let's face it - could have been so ropy, Children Of Men actually manages to be involving and affecting: and it has one of the best one-minute intros in years, immediately making you want to know more as a crowd of bleak londoners observe the rolling news announcements of the death of "the youngest person in the world" in a dirty, nasty, rickshaw-filled oxford street. 

The rock solid rules of SF dystopia are not flouted in this movie. Yes we have the quirky crackpot pal (nice wig, Michael Caine... or is it?) and the 'resistance' and a raft of things that could just be ballsed up so badly... but the film keeps moving fast enough, has no problems with shooting major characters in the neck, and most importantly does not attempt to make anyone feel better at any point or at the end.

Good work, people.

Britain hasn't been this scary since The Quatermass Conclusion (okay I was secen years old at the time) and the main thing that the excellently realised dystopia makes you think is "hey - shouldn't there be more movies like this lying about the place, seeing as peak oil, the supposed clash of cultures, all of that are so current?" 

Fans of dystopia shouldn't miss. Okay, it likes its hokey visual setups, and it likes its strongly underlined political messages but jesus... iRobot it is *not*. 

More of this, please. Eight and a half armed immigration policemen.