“You’re not going to serve. You’re going to die.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Blimey, it’s all go this season isn’t it? Only four episodes in, and the plot of Game of Thrones continues to advance at a frenetic pace this week. Benioff and Weiss, who seem to be writing almost every ep this year, continued to knock characters down like ninepins while finally showing us some of the show’s long-running plans coming to fruition. Continue reading “Game of Thrones: Season 6, Episode 4 – Book of the Stranger”
“I wish you good fortune in the wars to come. Now it begins.”
(SPOILER WARNING)
Amid the sprawling cast and multifarious plotlines of Game of Thrones, it’s actually rather easy to forget some of the characters exist (or at least, haven’ been killed yet). But as this week’s ep showed, that gives the showrunners the chance to use their newfound freedom, and show us what happened to them. Continue reading “Game of Thrones: Season 6, Episode 3 – Oathbreaker”
“Fuck prophecy. Fuck fate. Fuck everyone who isn’t us.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
So, we stride boldly into uncharted territory as Game of Thrones returns for its first season premiere Since The Books Ran Out. As if to show the training wheels were off, showrunners Benioff and Weiss immediately started running with radically new plotlines (though to be fair it might be based on what George RR Martin told them). This involved interspersing the usual collection of short establishing vignettes in the season premiere with some massive plot twists, and some seismic shifts in Westeros’ balance of power. Continue reading “Game of Thrones: Season 6, Episode 1 – The Red Woman”
“ ‘They are not all successes, Watson,’ said he. ‘But there are some pretty little problems among them. Here’s the record of the Tarleton murders, and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair of the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of Ricoletti of the club-foot, and his abominable wife….’ “ – From the journals of Dr John H Watson MD, The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual
(SPOILER WARNING!)
It’s not quite a festive tradition as entrenched as the Doctor Who Christmas special, but it’s becoming a pattern that, every couple of years or so, Steven Moffat will deign to present us with a new episode of the sporadic Sherlock on New Year’s Day. Last time this happened, it felt for me like the series’ first major misstep, as Moffat tried to have his cake and eat it by spending half the episode playing with the fans’ anticipated explanations for Sherlock’s survival then never actually explaining it. As if to smirkingly revel further in that sleight of hand, a glancing reference to it here seemed to give a true explanation, but who knows? Continue reading “Sherlock: The Abominable Bride”
“Are you acquainted with the criminal River Song?”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
So, she’s back. After a period in the middle of the Matt Smith era where Doctor Who appeared to be becoming The River Song Show, I’d thought I’d be annoyed to see her again, despite Alex Kingston’s scenery chewing antics. But actually it turns out a break can be good, and it was genuinely nice to see River back. Continue reading “Doctor Who: Series 9, Episode 13 – The Husbands of River Song”
“It doesn’t matter how you die. You come back. We all come back.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
This week saw Fear the Walking Dead reach its first season finale, and (finally) show some action. And some zombies. You know, more than one at a time. Continue reading “Fear the Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 6 – The Good Man”
“So, we are fighting an unknown homicidal force that’s taken the form of your commanding officer and a cowardly alien, underwater, in a nuclear reactor. Anything else I ought to know, someone got a peanut allergy or something?”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
With ratings juggernaut and offence to human culture Strictly Come Dancing once again dominating Saturday evening (to the tune of two bloody hours), this week Doctor Who found itself ignominiously shoved away from its traditional teatime slot to the graveyard depths of 8.25, by which time many of us would normally have gone out. Cue the usual ill-informed bunch of Moffat-haters claiming that drastic drops in the overnight ratings heralded that The End is Nigh? Continue reading “Doctor Who: Series 9, Episode 3 – Under the Lake”
“She’s not sick. She’s dead.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Fear the Walking Dead continues to get pacier in this third instalment, though there’s still a fair bit of the soap opera that pretty much dominated the pilot episode to the exclusion of most everything else. Like the second episode, this one follows the quasi-real time approach (with a significant gap in the middle) which is apparently going to be the show’s style – a nice way to extend a narrative that logically would be over pretty quickly otherwise. Continue reading “Fear the Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 3 – The Dog”
Me getting cosy with the Silurian known as Mette
Regular readers of this blog (I know there’s one or two of you out there) may have noticed something of a drop off in the rate of posts of late. If you’re waiting for my thoughts on True Blood, perhaps, you might be wondering why I’ve not said anything about the last two weeks’ episodes.
There’s a reason for this. I’ve got a full time job now, and in the exciting world of education, this is the busiest time of year – not even counting the continual ‘reform’ demands of the masterminds at the Department for Education. As a result, I’m spending more and more time at the office making sure the summer exams get marked, and finding less and less time to write. Something has to give. And – for a while, anyway – it’s going to be the writing.
Stress takes its toll on your dress sense…
Not all of it, mind. But it’s getting impossible to keep up with doing weekly episode reviews of all my favourite shows – particularly given that virtually all of them are broadcast on Sunday evenings. It takes an hour or so to watch the show, half an hour maybe to do some screencaps, perhaps a bit of time for background research on shows like Mad Men or The Newsroom, and maybe two hours to write the lengthy essays that I laughingly term ‘reviews’.
Factor in working late and commuting, and each post effectively takes up one entire evening. Sometimes I’m so knackered from work that I guiltily procrastinate, and before you know it, I’ve missed several weeks’ worth of things. Longtime readers (yes, I’m egotistically hoping I have some) may have already noticed the abrupt disappearance of my weekly Dallas reviews following a couple of weeks out of the country.
Here I am, in another country.
So I’m going to take a break. At the mo, the only show I had started to review weekly was True Blood, and to be honest, that’s been stuck for the last couple of seasons in a “not great but not terrible” kind of state. There’s nothing more boring than reviewing something you can neither praise nor snidely mock, so I’m going to knock those on the head. I may come back to weekly reviews for the return of The Newsroom in a couple of weeks – it depends on my workload at that job thing I do.
Reviewing so many shows on a weekly basis was never my intention. I actually started this blog primarily because my brief forum comments on each week’s Doctor Who were turning into epic essays. I used to do brief snippets on lots of things, including my other interests of politics and cars.
I also like cars…
But when I was unemployed, I found a lot of writing time, so the weekly TV reviews ballooned at the expense of everything else. I’d like to think a lot of you enjoyed them; but I miss writing other things, too.
So here’s what – I’m stopping weekly episode reviews at least for a little while. I may come back to them for The Newsroom; I definitely will for Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Mad Men and Game of Thrones. For now, though, I’m going to try writing other things, like I used to. Things that aren’t all about what was broadcast the same night of the week. Have a try – hopefully you’ll enjoy them.
“I’m back honey. And I’m gonna be bigger than ever.” – JR to Sue Ellen
Previously, on Dallas: Last week the Ewings all pulled together to help John Ross, who was in a spot of bother in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
This week, with Vicente presumably on his way back to Venezuela a happy Bond villain, you’d think the Ewings could relax for a bit, and take stock. After all, Tommy’s not much of a threat, is he? But other problems are lurking in the wings, and not all of them are people. The Ewings, however, seem blissfully unaware of this, and decide to relax for a bit, and take stock.
Yessir, it looks like a nice peaceful time on the old Ewing ranch. Sure, there’s still the problem that JR actually owns the place, but he’s been AWOL for so long it doesn’t seem that urgent. Bobby was working on how to rectify that. Christopher took the time to rebond with Rebecca over a shopping trip, coming back with some twin cuddly monkeys for his twin babies. What could possibly spoil such an idyll?
Well, Tommy for a start. Yes, he’s not much of a villain compared to Vicente or JR, but he wasn’t nice to Rebecca, threatening to twist off the cuddly monkeys’ heads if she doesn’t get him Christopher’s lab keycard pronto. But she’s still got that whole conscience thing going on, and even when presented with an opportunity to filch it out of Christopher’s fancy sportscar she couldn’t go through with it. Makes you wonder how she ever made a living as a con artist.
Bobby, bless his optimistic soul, was still trying to reconcile the family – something of a doomed operation, but he’s not giving up even after 33 years. Unfortunately, just as he was metaphorically banging John Ross’ and Christopher’s head together, something finally gave way in his own head and he had a crippling aneurysm. That’s the lesson of Dallas; not only do nice guys finish last, they keep suffering lethal infirmities for their troubles.
It might be a blessing in disguise though, as it provoked yet another round of revelations about the various secrets everyone was keeping. John Ross finally found out about Bobby’s cancer (though that’s cleared up apparently), and was racked with guilt for behaving like a bastard (or JR, anyway) when he found that Bobby had been prepared to drill to save his ass. This led to a round of soul searching on John Ross’ part, including an ill-advised attempt at emoting: “I love my father. But he’s so lost in his own anger and bitterness that there’s no room for anybody else.”
Bobby apparently needs yet another operation, but first the doctor needs to get his blood pressure down. Good luck with that; have you seen what goes on in the Ewing household? As if to make it even worse for poor old Bobby (but better for us) JR was finally back. Having learned of his brother’s various ailments, he was full of contrition. Well, a bit anyway: “OK I admit, I have lapses when I do wrong now and then.”
Ann was less than pleased to see him (would you be, after he’s caused all the plots of this season) and chased him away with threats of shooting in a “vital area, since you have no heart”. Having correctly diagnosed him as a sociopath, she then unwisely left the ranch with him still there.
He wasn’t alone for long though; when Sue Ellen found out he was there she went absolutely ballistic, and we were treated to a classic JR/Sue Ellen showdown just like in the good old days. She slapped him, they shouted at each other, she stormed out, leaving him looking oddly satisfied. That’s probably as close as their relationship ever gets to sex.
Sue Ellen’s got more to worry about than just JR though, as Harris Ryland popped up in a creepy cameo to leer at her political corruptibility. “What sets you apart is your malleability to my needs,” was the line Mitch Pileggi delivered with enough slime to make anyone shudder.
He also taunted her with what looked like the largest glass of wine you can get, but she’s not falling off the wagon – yet. Unfortunately, Ryland’s knowledge of her attempts to bribe/blackmail the coroner, together with his attempt to use her campaign to launder dirty money, have finally persuaded her to give up the gubernatorial race she previously seemed so confident about. Just as well really; after George W Bush and Rick Perry, I doubt any Texan would believe in her “honesty” anyway.
Still taking stock, John Ross and Christopher found a quiet moment to reflect on their fathers’ feud. “Jock, he set ‘em against each other,” opined John Ross; leading both to the idea that they could do better. This involved a wary alliance as “Ewing Energies”, with room enough for John Ross’ love of oil and Christopher’s love of… well, whatever that methane thing is all about.
And JR too was struck with a sudden unexpected bout of decency. Faced with the prospect of his brother’s death, he signed the deed for Southfork back over to Bobby free of charge. “If you die, I get that back,” was his halfhearted attempt to still be a bastard about it.
So now, we’re right back where we started, plotwise – with the added benefit of John Ross turning away from the Dark Side. But there’s still an episode to go. What more can there be to do?
Who’s double crossing who this week?
Well, there’s still Tommy. Ryland might have had his villainy thwarted by Sue Ellen preemptively pulling out of politics, but Tommy was still very keen on getting that methane process. Apparently, he had “one of the richest guys in the world on the hook”. And his contact turned out to be none other than Cliff’s scary “driver” Frank Ashkani. Looks like there might have been a point to JR’s anti-Cliff scheming after all..
This week’s big cliffhanger
Three for the price of one this week, in a montage dramatically soundtracked by Johnny Cash’s apocalyptic When the Man Comes Around. Lou the Lawyer got onto Bobby with the news that fake Marta had a Cloud account full of data that just might incriminate JR in the fraud to buy Southfork. Is Bobby prepared to risk his brother being sent to jail after he’s just been given Southfork back? “Let me know what you find.”
If he can, anyway. After hearing that, and the good news that John Ross and Christopher were burying the hatchet (not in each other’s heads for once), Bobby’s poor overheated brain could take no more of the intense drama and he keeled over with another aneurysm.
Rebecca, for her part, had had enough of Tommy being ineffectually nasty, and popped to the bank to withdraw her gun. As you do. Inevitably, Tommy turned up for a bit more threatening, there was a struggle, and the twin cuddly monkeys were spattered with blood. But whose?
With only one more episode to go, this triumvirate of gasp-making cliffhangers is enough to ensure you’ll be rushing back for next week, to catch the season finale…
Simon’s Incoherent Blog 