Simon’s Incoherent Blog

In the Flesh: Series 2, Episode 1

“Round here, folk like to pretend everything’s all right. But it’s not. Something’s got to be done about those… those THINGS.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

I was very impressed by the first, short series of BBC3’s In the Flesh, an interesting take on the zombie genre mixed with dour, subtle North of England drama. After that initial three episode run, it did seem very much as though the story was told, at least from the perspectives of the characters who were dealt with so intimately in the plot. But I thought the world created by writer Dominic Mitchell was so intriguing that there was definitely potential for a second run, with another set of characters in the same new world.

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Mad Men: Season 7, Episode 3–The Field Trip

“All I can say is that Don is a very talented man – but how does he fit into things right now?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

For all that it’s a subtle, nuanced drama dissecting a time and a society long vanished, Mad Men is still, at its heart, also a soap opera. Some episodes feel that way more than others, and this week’s was definitely one of them, with twin plots following the developing travails of Don and Betty. For Don, there was the challenge of rescuing his marriage and his career; for Betty, salving her remaining family life, now she’s averted the challenge of bringing up Sally by packing her off to boarding school. This being Mad Men, the results for both were not entirely happy.

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Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 4–Oathkeeper

“A man with no motive is a man no one suspects.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Well, that didn’t take long, did it? As I mentioned last week, the identity of the killer (or killers) of King Joffrey, in the novels, took several volumes to ascertain for sure. In part, I think that’s because George RR Martin cast it as a fairly slight part of the plot; everyone wanted Joffrey dead, and everyone’s better off with him that way. Does it matter that much who actually did it – as long as it wasn’t Tyrion?

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Mad Men: Season 7, Episode 2–A Day’s Work

“Sometimes I think maybe I died, and I’m in, I don’t know if it’s Heaven or Hell or Limbo, but I don’t seem to exist. No one feels my existence.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

This week, Mad Men took one of its occasional turns towards ironic humour, in an episode full of people telling each other transparently unconvincing lies which crumbled to the touch. Jonathan Igla and Matthew Weiner’s script was so full of comical misunderstandings that, had it been made in Britain in the 70s, it would have made a pretty good Whitehall farce. But this is Mad Men, and the humour on display was black in tone and undercut by the show’s usual bleak nihilism.

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Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 3–Breaker of Chains

“A wise king knows what he knows and what he doesn’t.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After original author George RR Martin’s stint on scripting duties last week, it was back to showrunners Benioff and Weiss to follow up that episode’s tumultuous events. Understandably, that meant the majority of this week’s episode was centred on King’s Landing, as various interested parties took on the roles of amateur detectives – their quest for the truth, as ever, taking second place to the quest for power. Or, in Tyrion’s case, self-preservation.

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Mad Men: Season 7, Episode 1–Time Zones

“There’s someone above you, and someone below you, and everyone’s buying everyone dinner.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It’s a long overdue welcome back for the ladies and gentlemen (mostly gentlemen) of Sterling Cooper & Partners, in the first half of the final season of Mad Men. Yes, while Matthew Weiner’s acclaimed drama may have one more episode than usual for this seventh, conclusive outing, the fourteen episodes are going to be split into two ‘half-seasons’, the first broadcast this April, the last next April. If you thought the ‘mid-season break’ was annoying in shows like Doctor Who or The Walking Dead, at least you don’t usually have to wait an entire year…

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Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 2–The Lion and the Rose

“There’s been too much amusement here today. A royal wedding is not a place for amusement.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Ah, weddings. I must say, personally I have rather a dread of them. I’ve never encountered one that hasn’t been an awkward occasion, as you gingerly tread the minefield of half-understood family politics and longstanding grudges. Inevitably (in my experience), at least some part of it ends in tears, as Aunt Maisie, tipsy on complimentary cava, finally confronts Cousin Jane over the long-disputed inheritance of that cherished family heirloom, followed by the equally inevitable punch-up between their dutifully defensive and equally tipsy husbands.

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Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 1 – Two Swords

“The war is over. The King is safe.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

If you thought Game of Thrones was getting popular last year, this year it’s a veritable cultural phenomenon. As the new season dawned, the papers were full of clickbait drawing fans in with the most tangential connections. There’s a certain amount of inevitability in pieces discussing the show’s representation of gender imbalance in its pseudo-historical setting, or instructions on how to make yourself look like Westeros’ most popular female characters. But what are we to make of it when former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard starts discussing how the show reminds her of her time in office? As if to prove how massive the show is, it actually broke HBO’s streaming service HBO Go with overwhelming demand for this fourth season premiere.

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The Walking Dead: Season 4, Episode 16 – A

“We gonna tell them? Everything that’s happened to us, everything we’ve done? We gonna tell them the truth?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Well that went… about as well as expected. Let’s face it, if you’ve ever seen any post-apocalyptic drama on TV, you probably could have told Our Heroes that Terminus was not going to be the refuge they were hoping for. If nothing else, Woodbury last season was a pretty good indicator of that. And nothing good has ever come of anything called “Terminus”. But then, maybe these guys aren’t too genre savvy – perhaps they preferred reality shows.

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The Walking Dead: Season 4, Episode 15 – Us

“There ain’t no ‘us’”.

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After the very dark territory of last week’s little side trip, this week’s penultimate ep of The Walking Dead’s fourth season gave us a much more conventional bit of storytelling. You couldn’t exactly say it was light relief, not in this show; but there were no shock twists, and nobody we cared about died. More importantly, after weeks and weeks of angst-ridden soul-baring, this ep suddenly seemed to (finally) get the plot moving again. Question is, where to?

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