Simon Fernandes

The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 4 – Killer With a Long Arm

“What kind of gun is that?”

The one where…

Another top international assassin arrives in Britain with an unknown target – and a special gun.

It may seem a bit repetitive for The Professionals to have another plot featuring a top hitman after Ramos in Long Shot only two eps ago – but with the seemingly random order of the original broadcast, this one was actually shown seven weeks before that. Besides, top international hitmen were very much a formula in the show, and we’re seeing that established early on here.

The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 3 – Where the Jungle Ends

“It’s war out there! It’s bloody war!”

The one where…

A group of mercenaries with a grudge against Bodie come to England to ply their trade robbing banks.

The budget must have been amped up for this one, as the first quarter of the ep is a lengthy action sequence in which mercenary leader Krivas and his motley crew storm a bank with machine guns, then pile into a stolen RAF truck for a gunfire heavy car chase with the police, then steal a plane to escape. As Bodie and Doyle listen to the radio chatter in Cowley’s office, a squadron of RAF Harriers (in some quite decent stock footage) is scrambled to pursue the plane, which dodges into a nearby cloud while, unseen, the mercenaries parachute out leaving the stolen plane to crash into the ground (that last bit isn’t actually shown – the budget wasn’t that high).

The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 2 – Long Shot

“Cowley is as good as dead!”

The one where…

The world’s top hitman comes to England and his target is Cowley.

Not that our heroes realise the target at first, and with good reason – there’s a Very Important International Anti-terrorist Conference going on, so when the first bullets fly, it seems reasonable to assume that it’s one of the illustrious foreign dignitaries being aimed at.

The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 1 – Old Dog with New Tricks

“All right, so we may have half a dozen names, but only one job. To see that no one messes on our doorstep… by whatever means necessary. That’s our official brief – ‘ by any means necessary’. And that’s our loophole.”

OK, let’s get this out of the way first of all. This was not the first episode of The Professionals that was broadcast. It was, however, the first episode of four “production blocks” that I guess you could refer to as “seasons”. As was fairly common at the time, the show was purely episodic, with no kind of ongoing plot, so the episodes could be shown in any order.

The Professionals: Let’s talk about Bodie and Doyle

“Anarchy. Acts of terror. Crimes against the public. To combat it, I’ve got special men. Experts from the Army, the police, from every service. These are the Professionals.”

If you’re a reader of this blog, you might have noticed that the entries for the last few years have been a bit sporadic. This is because fundamentally, I’m a pretty lazy person. I like writing, but if I’m going to do it regularly, I need something to make me do it. In the past, that motivation has been provided by doing episode by episode reviews of weekly TV shows; after all, I originally started this blog to write lengthy essays about each new ep of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: Season 2/15/41, Episode 8 – The Reality War

“Mr Smith is gone. I am the Doctor!”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Well, that’s it for another season – and, it’s looking like, another era of Doctor Who. If you’re one of those unhappy at what has become known as the RTD2 era, there was really no need to be. In many ways, what we got here was a typical Russell T Davies season finale, with all the strengths and weaknesses he’s shown in writing the show since 2005 – great characterisation and dialogue, with plenty of spectacle, undermined by gaping plot holes that were seemingly papered over by fast-paced set pieces.

The Last of Us: Season 2, Episode 7 – Convergence

“It was easy. I just kept hurting her and hurting her.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

This week’s episode was an inevitably downbeat season finale for The Last of Us, a show that has never exactly traded in optimism. It also, at first, seemed surprisingly low-key for most of the time, retreading similar ground to earlier eps this season – I was expecting something more, well, not spectacular (the show rarely is), but dramatic. But in hindsight, I think there was a lot more going on in this ep than was immediately evident.

Doctor Who: Season 2/15/41, Episode 7 – Wish World

“Doubt is such a beautiful thing. If you question hard enough, then doubt can crack open the world!”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

“Is any of this making sense?”

Well… if I’m honest, not much, no. To be fair to Russell T Davies, this is the first half of a two-part story, so perhaps everything will click into place next week. For now, though, what we had here seemed like a bit of a jumble; there were some brilliant ideas, and some striking images, but it didn’t seem to cohere into any kind of logical story. Not yet, anyway.

The Last of Us: Season 2, Episode 6 – The Price

“If you love someone, you can always see their face.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

This week’s The Last of Us was one of the show’s occasional flashback episodes, filling us in on some vital backstory that, until now, has only been alluded to. I’ve said from the beginning of the season that we were bound to get one of these, as so much was made of Joel’s killing of Gail’s husband Eugene, a character we hadn’t even seen. I must admit, I was also too curious to avoid the spoiler that cult character actor Joe Pantoliano had been cast as Eugene, so it was just a question of time until he made his appearance.

Doctor Who: Season 2/15/41, Episode 6 – The Interstellar Song Contest

“Look, that’s a hundred thousand people, frozen and suspended in space. To reach them, and catch them, and revive every single one of them – you’d need to be some sort of insane genius.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It has been noted many times that one of the most significant groups among Doctor Who fans is gay men. It has also been noted many times that one of the most significant groups among Eurovision Song Contest fans is gay men. It was perhaps almost inevitable that at some point, we’d see a crossover between the two things – especially with renowned gay writer Russell T Davies, creator of Queer as Folk and lover of all things pop culture, running the show.