Friday 31 December 2010

TV of 2010

2010 has been a rubbish year for just about everything except TV, and it's been a pretty damn great year (for once) for British TV! Here's my top 10 of 2010, the only criteria being that these are all shows that screened for the first time this year in the UK, so I might be a little bit behind the US shows.

(Incidently, if I was including all the programmes I saw for the first time this year number one would be The Wire, since I finally got the box set this year. People aren't exaggerating when they say it's the best show ever. Go watch it.)

10. Being Human - Series 2

Series 2 showed a drop in quality from the first series, but it was still must-see TV, and Russel Tovey is never less than heart-breaking as the werewolf trying desperately to lead a normal life and just getting werewolf Tourettes for his efforts. This series also introduced the wonderful Ivan (yay!) then killed him off (no!). If they'd let him live, this might have been higher on my list.

9. Nurse Jackie

This strange little beast - half-hour episodes but not a sitcom - has been overlooked a lot but is one of my hits of 2010. Edie Falco makes Jackie a real, flawed person, both hero and villain at the same time and the supporting characters were all fantastic. Jackie saying "fuck you" into the severed ear of a rapist before flushing it down a toilet was one of my TV moments of the year.

8. Ashes to Ashes - Series 3

A2A may be Life on Mars' jealous cousin but it finally hit its stride in its last series with the addition of the devilish Jim Keats and boosted roles for the supporting cast. But it only really makes this list for an ending that beat Lost to it - and did it better too. Although it did take me two viewings to get over my anger that - SPOILER - everyone was dead and to realise that it was actually the best ending they could have done.

7. Downton Abbey

This was a hell of a surprise - an ITV costume drama that was actually good. It was great fun, a soap for posh people, treading just the right line between class politics, romance and back-stabbing. Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton and Hugh Bonneville flew the flag for classy acting but the real stars were a scheming gay footman and his bitter ladies maid sidekick.

6. Mad Men - Series 3 & 4

British viewers got two series' of Mad Men this year thanks to the BBC rushing out series 4 before the rights switch to Sky in 2011 (boo!). Series 3, in particular, was sublime, shaking up the entire format of the show, finally giving Don and Betty their big confrontation (and a divorce) then dodging expectations to pull a light-hearted heist caper out of the bag for the finale. I found series 4 slightly weaker, but Don's arc was fascinating and The Suitcase, a near two-hander between Don and Peggy, was beautiful television.

5. True Blood - Series 2

Some say it was better than series 1. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it was damn good, mainly for the following reasons: Jason's adventures with the Fellowship of the Sun, the line "smite me, motherfucker!", Godric, Bon Temps unlikely A-Team, the adorable romance between Jessica and Hoyt, and of course, Eric. Lovely, bastard, naked Eric. Yum.

4. Glee

Had the quality not dipped in the second half of the first series, Glee would have been higher on my list. It's an absolute phenomenon and deservedly so. The mix of near-the-knuckle jokes, weird adults, high school cliches, soap opera plotting, song and dance and Sue Sylvester is spot on - when they get it right. I worry that it's getting too kiddie-friendly for its own good, but at the top of its game it's the best and most original US show of the year.

3. Misfits - Series 2

While Being Human's second series was a slight disappointment, Misfits managed to actually be a step up from its first. As filthy and funny as ever, it became darker and delved deeper into its own mythology without sacrificing tone or losing what we love about it. Simon became an unlikely sex symbol, Alisha became a good character and Robert Sheehan continues to be the best youg actor on TV. It also pulled off one hell of a game-changing cliffhanger. Nice work guys.

2. Sherlock

This makes the list almost on the strength of its first episode alone, which was the most perfect hour I saw on TV all year. Benedict Cumberbatch was magnetic as Sherlock and Martin Freeman surprised everyone. The two of them have been the best bit of casting all year - up there with Matt Smith as The Doctor - and the programme lives and dies on their chemistry. Mark Gatiss also somehow got away with giving himself the plum role of Mycroft. Luckily for him, he was good.

1. Doctor Who - Series 5

We all expected great things from Steven Moffat and he delivered on all fronts with a great series arc, wonderfully written episodes of his own (The Eleventh Hour and A Christmas Carol stand out), a great choice of guest writers (Richard Curtis and Simon Nye surprised with their episodes), and guest actors (especially Sophie Okonedo and Tony Curran). But the one thing we weren't expecting was for Matt Smith to be that damn good. Karen Gillan let the team down a little, but Alex Kingston is wonderful.

Monday 27 December 2010

What Women Want (from comics)

I'm as feminist as the next girl. As a reader/viewer of fiction I get annoyed by the lack of decent female characters and as a writer I make sure to write them. But what does slightly annoy me is the idea producers/writers seem to have that girls only identify with or enjoy female characters. That idea often ends up creating tokenism, a feeling of "right, better throw a woman into this film or no girl is going to want to watch it. We'll make her hot but relatable". Die Hard has one woman in it - one who is really little more than motivation for the male lead - but it doesn't stop it from being one of my favourite movies.

Comics are consistantly guilty of believing that women are only interested in female characters. They have their 'girl friendly' titles. You can tell that Supergirl is aimed at women because the logo is (oh dear God) pink. Still, at least DC are making a vague effort to accept that girls read comics. Marvel, with the exception of the X-titles, have been ignoring half the population.

The issue of women reading comics has risen its head with a vengenace since Paul Levitz pissed off thousands of fangirls by saying "The fundamental dynamic of the superhero story has historically been more appealing to boys than girls". Maybe that's true, maybe "historically" comics were more appealing to boys than girls. Historically comics were only drawn with three colours and were considered only suitable for kids to read. The comic book medium is new, it's still evolving. It took decades for novels to be considered art. In the last 30 years comics have been coming into their own. It's not all about heroes clad in the colours of the American flag lifting tanks over their heads. The stories are more complex now, more a blend of action, drama and soap. The characters have become more than just costumes and superpowers. They're fleshed out and far more interesting. And that, in my opinion, is what women are interested in.

We don't need a pink logo on a cover to pick up a comic, we just want good stories and interesting characters. Don't get me wrong, I love DC women. I came to comics through the New Teen Titans run from the early 80s, so I was lucky in that I was given good female characters from the get-go, and since then I've become a fan of all the Birds of Prey, Scandal Savage, Power Girl, Catwoman, Zatanna, Renee Montoya (as The Question and as a cop), Amanda Waller, even Wonder Woman, sometimes. But the characters I've always been most fond of are the Batfamily, especially Batman and his Robins. Boys. Not because they're the coolest or most heroic, but because they are some of the most developed characters in the DCU. I've seen Dick Grayson go from Robin to Nightwing to Batman, just as I've seen Barbara Gordon go from Batgirl to 'cripple' to Oracle. Most characters remain static over decades of comics, but the Batfamily grow, age, develop, change, becoming ever more complex, layered and interesting. That is what I'm drawn too, regardless of the gender of a character.

Comics aren't just about explosions and well-drawn fight scenes anymore. They're changing organically, just like their best characters are, and it's time the Big Bosses accept (and start promoting) the fact that their product isn't just for 10 year old boys anymore. Without realising it, they've created something that, when it's written well, is positively girl-friendly. But hey, maybe I'm not a great sample of the female population. The cover that caught my eye this year was Bane riding a dinosaur. But who says women have to be into cute puppy dogs and make-up?

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Those Glorious Freaks

So, another series of Misfis has been and gone, neatly sidestepping the Difficult Second Season Syndrome which beat Heroes into submission.


I've ranted before on this blog about how superior American TV (especially sci-fi) is to British TV. But Misfits is the one thing giving me hope at the moment. Not only is it great sci-fi, but it could only have been made in Britain. Torchwood's glossy visuals and sexy stars suggest that it wishes it was American (they must have blown all their candles out at once because that wish has come true), but Misfits wears its nationality with pride in every reference to Eastenders, every use of the word "wanker", every explicit sex scene that would never get past the US censors, every evil Jesus.

Misfits is set in a world miles away from the tea-drinking cricket-playing pleasant green countryside of England Through American Lenses. But anyone who lives in this fine ASBO-ridden country will tell you that Misfits is far closer to the truth than the too-grim Eastenders, or the too-cool Skins, or the too-twee interpretation offered in Ugly Betty's ill-advised 'London' jaunt. It just also happens to contain superheroes.

Misfits simply couldn't have been made in the US. Well, I guess it was made in the US. They called it Heroes. But I have a feeling Misfits will be the one I remember the longest. Where Heroes grew poe-faced, crawled up its own backside and introduced a new Nightmare Future every series, Misfits has kept its sense of humour and, most importantly, its sense of the ridiculous. In one episode, time-traveller Curtis received a glimpse into the future in which they are all costumed superheroes. Later in the series Curtis caught up with his own future, and learnt that they were actually just at a costume party. Misfits is forever sneaking up on superhero cliches, then giving them a wedgie and running away.

Howard Overman is a brilliant writer, one who snuck out of virtually nowhere and clobbered us over the head with a work close to genius. I think it's now safe to call him the New Steven Moffat (although Moffat never had an obsession with people fucking melons). It also helps that Misfits has landed one of the best young casts ever collected. Each of the main characters are potentially unlikable. Curits has thrown away his whole future and still not gained much humility, Alisha is a shamelessly manipulative slut, Kelly is a violent chav, Simon is an actual psychopath and Nathan is, in Curtis' oft-repeated description, a prick. And yet we love them all, even when Nathan is trying to get a sweet and innocent healer to touch his infected penis.

Lauren Socha and Iwan Rheon are great as Kelly and Simon - she manages to dig beneath the scraped-back hair and Argos jewellery to find real heart and strength while Rheon makes the creepily unpredictable Simon the show's best wild card. But the real star is Robert Sheehan, stealing the show every week as the frankly vile but always hilarious Nathan, while giving the character a depth not even Nathan himself is aware of.

My only worry going into series 3 after that brilliantly game-changing cliffhanger is that it might be their final series. After all, how long is Channel 4 going to keep hold of that cast and that writer? We may have to say goodbye to such gems as "Save me, Barry!" and "I tripled myself", and British TV will become a cold, dark place again.

Friday 10 December 2010

10 Female Characters Who Kick Ass (Without Actually Kicking Ass)

I saw a list of 100 greatest film characters not long ago and was fairly appalled by the lack of female characters on the list. And the few girls who did appear were in the iconic action heroine mold - the likes of Ripley, The Bride, Pussy Galore and any number of Angelina Jolie ass-kickers. Sure, there were plenty of male action heroes on the list too, but the top 10 also included characters like Atticus Finch, Vito Corleone and Charles Foster Kane. There seemed to be few comparable women. Worst of all, while listing the Scarlett O'Hara's 'defining moment', they picked Rhett Butler kissing her - a moment in which she was utterly passive.

So, on goes my feminist hat, and here's my list, in no particular order, of the top 10 strong female characters in TV, literature and film who aren't action heroines. They're just women who know their own mind and whose lives do not revolve around their men. Sorry Bella Swan fans - you're going to be disappointed.

Peggy Olson (Mad Men)

Joan gets the best outfits, but Peggy is the thinking woman's idol. She's clawed her way up the male-dominated ladder of the 1960s without ever compromising her principals. Writer Matthew Weiner and actress Elisabeth Moss have created a believably complex woman, torn between her passion for her work and her desire to conform (on some level) with what is expected of women.


Hildy Johnson (His Girl Friday)

Hildy is the newspaper reporter about to quit to get married, until her editor ex-husband pulls out all the stops to get her to stay. But it's not his manipulations that change her mind - the scent of a good story and her own passion for the job is what causes her to ditch the fiance. It's slightly depressing to compare this (from 1940) and any Katharine Hepburn roles to female characters in modern romantic comedy.

Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice)
Long before women could vote, Jane Austen created the wonderfully independent Elizabeth Bennet, a woman who only entertained the idea of marriage when she met a man who was her equal. You even get the impression that had Mr Darcy not been interested, she'd have gotten over it. Two centuries later, we got Bridget Jones - a woman obsessed with her weight and her love life. Hmm.

Lyra Silvertongue (His Dark Materials)

I refuse to use a picture of Dakota Blue Richards for this since the Lyra of the shoddy adaptation bears no resemblance to the loveable, three-dimensional character in Philip Pullman's brilliant books. Over three books she grows seamlessly from a naive, showboating child to a sensitive, mature young woman, and in a novel famous for it's religious viewpoints it's a shame that no-one ever points out that it's also a beautiful allegory for puberty.

Marion Ravenwood (Raiders of the Lost Arc)

Action movie producers take note - here's how you do a love interest. Marion isn't just tagging along because she fancies Indy, or because someone got her into this mess. She has her own motivation throughout and even when she's imperilled she's never weak. Just don't ever engage her in a drinking contest.


Lynette Scavo (Desperate Housewives)

She's a wife, a mother and so much more. In its early days the show bravely tackled the topic of a stay-at-home-Mum losing her identity and her marbles while stuck in the house looking after the kids, and as played by the brilliant Felicity Huffman, Lynette remains the only rounded character in a show increasingly populated by caricatures.


Rose Tyler (Doctor Who)
Rose is the ultimate everywoman, an ordinary girl who meets an amazing man and gets caught up in a crazy, magical life. But she stands out from the dozens of other companions because the Doctor needed her as much as she needed him. Alone, they were miserable and unfulfilled, but together - thanks to great writing and even better chemistry between the leads - they were, in the words of the Ninth Doctor, brilliant.

President Laura Roslin (Battlestar Galactica)

In a show populated by women who could literally kick your ass, President Roslin was the strongest, battling her own personal uncertainty, genocide, rebellion and eventually cancer with one of the strongest wills seen on screen. She's not perfect (she did try to rig an election) but perfect isn't believable. Laura Roslin is.

Lois Lane (DC comics)
Lois Lane is the comic book equivalent of a Katharine Hepburn character. Ostensibly, she's Superman's girlfriend/wife, and yes, occassionally she does need her big strapping man to fly over and save her, but we can forgive her that. Because the rest of the time she's a tenacious Pulitzer-winner with more balls than her famous hubby, and all the various screen and print versions of the character have had the sense to make her Clark Kent's equal in every way. Except, y'know, all the superpowers.

Juno (Juno)
I wanted a modern film heroine to round out this list (and to prove to myself that the last decent comedy role for a woman wasn't in the 1940s), and Ellen Page's Juno seemed to be the best choice. Juno is that rare thing, a teenage girl who's treated like a real, layered person and not a cliche. She's intelligent and she knows her own mind, the fact that she's 16 doesn't enter into it.


Have I missed any other strong female characters who don't have a gun in their hand or a black belt in kick boxing? Women who aren't just there as love interests or victims. Suggestions welcome!

Friday 3 December 2010

Coming Out

Okay, deep breath, confession time. I've always known I was different to other girls, but I did my best to fit in. I'd talk about boys and shoes and hope no-one noticed that my heart wasn't in it. But now, finally, I feel like I can embrace the real me, the person I've always been under all the social conventions.

I'm a comic book geek.

There, I said it. Wow. I've talked a lot on this blog about film and TV, but that's more acceptible in some way. They are to comic books what marijuana is to heroin. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my gateway drug. Now I'm hooked on all things geeky (except gaming - I'm still a joypad-mashing hopeless case when it comes to games).

But comics have actually been an important part of my life since I was a child. My Dad was a comic collector before he had to sell all his comics to pay for nappies and baby food and other frivolities. So my destiny as a geek was sealed from birth (my brother has taken a different but similar path - he's into Manga and World of Warcraft). All of Dad's comics were gone by the time I was born, so he'd tell me the stories from memory instead. My bedtime tales were "once upon a time there was a Caped Crusader, and his name was Batman..." Dad was a DC buff, so I was too. We would stand in the kitchen for hours on end as he smoked out the back door, telling me the stories of Watchmen, of the Talia Al Ghul/Silver St Cloud/Batman love triangle, of Starfire arriving on Earth and snogging Robin to learn English.

Then there were the cartoons. Every day on one of my summer holidays I got up at 7am to watch X-Men and Batman: The Animated Series. Then, when I was old enough to know better, I was hooked on X-Men: Evolution, Batman of the Future, Teen Titans and Justice League (which, for my money, is the best of the bunch). Then there were Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Smallville, although, ever my father's daughter, I was never a Supes fan.

The first graphic novel I ever read was The Dark Knight Returns, the one comic Dad had managed to hold onto. Not a bad introduction to comics, but maybe a little heavy for a newbie. But it all really kicked off when I spotted a Watchmen graphic novel, long before the film made it cool again. I remembered Dad's stories, and decided to buy it for his birthday. I think I read it even before he did. It became a tradition. Every birthday and Christmas I buy Dad a graphic novel. Initially, I just got him ones that he reminisced fondly about. Then I nicked it and read it. V for Vendetta, Frank Miller's Daredevil run... Then I started developing my own tastes, and soon I'd even overtaken my father. The day I bought him a comic and handed it to him with the words "I read this the other day, I thought you'd like it" was probably the most proud of me he's ever been. That moment kicked my graduation day into the dirt.

Why is now the time for me to come clean about all of this? Because I've just booked tickets to my first ever Comic Con. In April, I'm off to Kapow!, the brand new British answer to the San Diego Comic Con (thanks Mark Millar!). I'm already excited and most of the line-up hasn't even been announced yet. For the first time I'll be in the company of my nerdy peers, and I'll probably realise how little I actually know about comics, compared to most other people who call themselves fanboys (and girls).

No-one is just one person. I'm about six or seven. The other mes get regular excursions: Professional Me goes to work four days a week, Writer Me never shuts up, Party Girl Me gets glammed up and dances crazily every weekend (ish), Intellectual Me loves the theatre and carries a book everywhere she goes, Lazy Me has her very own sofa arse-print, Friends and Family Me reminds me what's really important. But Geek Me has to sit quietly at the back of the class. It'll never be the loudest or most prominant aspect of me, not unless I achieve my secret secondary dream of being a comic book writer (I really want to write TV), but it's about time I stopped hiding it.

Besides, it makes me quirky and interesting, right?

Friday 24 September 2010

Back on the Literary Horse

The title's probably a dead giveaway, but in the past I've only used this blog for my latest geek ramblings. Now, I'm not saying that those days are over. I love a good ramble as much as the next tragically nerdy person and I may yet post a lengthy hypothesis on who is hotter: Arthur or Merlin, but for now I'm getting a bit more serious.

Wait, not serious. What's the word I'm looking for? Ah, that's it: self-indulgent.

I may have mentioned this, at length, but I'm a writer. Have been for 20 years or so. Fairly impressive for someone who's still only quarter of a century old. I used to staple together sheets of sugar paper covered in felt-tip scrawls and God-awful illustrations (art was never my calling). Then I graduated to ringbinders and finally computers, and along the way I also shifted from a prose writer to a script writer. I love film and TV (again, a cursory glance at the blog will have told you that much), and, while reading an interview with Joss Whedon as a teenager, I had a revelation: I want his job. I still do (although with fewer cancellations) and I am still chiefly a script writer. But recently an idea has been playing on my mind. It began life as a script, but I couldn't help but think: damn this would make a good book.

So here I am, dipping my rusty toes into the pool of novel writing. I used to be good at it. I recently re-read something I wrote when I was younger and it contained the line "Three sales were dipping and rising on the waves, torn, yellowing sales, dragging the remainder of the vessel into sight above the horizon". Not bad for a 17-year-old going through a pirate phase. But the problem is that since then I have been writing scripts that cut out all the fancy descriptive stuff and get straight to what interests me: dialogue, character and story. I'm out of practice with prose.

Hence, this blog. I'm going to use it to get back into the habit of describing tension-laden silences in more literary detail than "(Pause)". I may also use it to muse on the nature of being a writer, which isn't so much a career choice as a life sentence. It has more in common with a religious belief than a job: you know it's irrational and it doesn't quite add up, but that faith you have in it is utterly unshakable. If a bloke broke my heart half as often as writing has I'd have chucked him long ago. But here I am, coming back for more. Glutton for punishment that I am.

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Same story, shiny new time period!

The national excitement over Sherlock is finally dying down now. Were we all so thrilled because it's the best programme the BBC have put out since Being Human? Because Benedict Cumberbatch is curiously sexy? Or because its success was such a surprise after all the nay-saying that had been going on from the hardcore fans who did not want a single inflection changed from Arthur Conan Doyle's original, let alone a entire era? And why is it that these days people seem to rank an adaptation by how faithful it was to the source material? Any attempts to change original are met with outcry (in the case of The Golden Compass the complaints were justified, but others actually improved on the source material, as with Watchmen’s ending). But why the resistance to change, especially since in recent years modernised classics have actually been better than their stodgy, faithful counterparts?

People have been putting Shakespeare into the modern day on stage and screen for years without anyone complaining. Back in 2005 the BBC screened its Shakespeare Retold season, a series of modern day updates of his plays, which turned Macbeth into an angry chef (played by James McAvoy, no less) and Much Ado About nothing was transplanted into a news studio. These were inspired by the success of the BBC’s Canterbury Tales two years earlier, which put Chaucer’s 14th century stories into settings including a karaoke bar and touched upon such modern hot topics as illegal immigration. But perhaps Shakespeare and Chaucer are far enough in the past now for audiences to see them as fairy tales and parables, classic story structures ripe for updating.

More recent are Jane Austen’s novels. It feels like every year we get a new Austen adaptation and every one of them involves bonnets and breeches. It’s a shame since Clueless is possibly the best screen adaptation of Emma that I’ve ever seen and ITV’s Lost in Austen was an absolute joy, treading the fine line between honouring the subject matter but still having fun with it. And of course Pride and Prejudice is still the template for just about every modern romantic comedy made, with Bridget Jones and Bride and Prejudice being the two that most readily admit to it.

Steven Moffat, one of the writers behind Sherlock has priors in this field. Back in 2007 he brought us Jekyll, a modern day twist on the classic story. A sequel more than an adaptation perhaps, and one that had mixed results, but its innovation was never in question and the modern setting worked to its advantage. In the same year ITV brought out a modern day Frankenstein, written by Jed Mercurio and turning Dr Frankenstein into a female geneticist.

Why do people insist on revering these old stories to such an extent that we set them in stone? These novels and plays are classics for a reason, and a dodgy adaptation here and there, faithful or otherwise, will hardly dent their reputation. So why not have a little fun with them? I'd love to see a modern day Oliver Twist addressing the problem of homeless children. Or Dr Faustus as a politician selling his soul to the devil to become Prime Minister. Or maybe even Tess of the D’Urbervilles re-imagined as a Kill Bill-style bloody revenge thriller...

Saturday 1 May 2010

Sickness is Weakness

I'm not one to suffer in silence. When I'm ill, I want people to know it and freely offer up pity and phrases like "go home early, I'll cover for you". Then I want them to leave me alone to wallow in my pit of used tissues. Because when I'm under the weather, I lose half my IQ and regress instantly.

It all started when, as an academically ambitious 17 year old, I insisted on trying to drag myself into college even though I could barely stand. I fainted on the bus and had to get a mates mum to pick me up and take me home. My concerned mother rushed home from work to find me sitting quite happily at the coffee table, having discoved my old Aladdin colouring-in book in a drawer and Spy Kids on Sky Movies.

Aside from discovering that Spy Kids is the natural successor of The Goonies and is possibly Robert Rodriguez's best film, I learnt that kids TV is clearly the best thing for getting over a cold. Unchallenging, cheerful escapism, brain optional. I've been watching The Wire for the last few weeks, but have I put a single episode on since I stopped being able to breathe through my nose? No. I've been watching The Sarah-Jane Adventures and MI High. I even spent 10 minutes in front of Basil Brush's Swap Shop this morning, sniggering at every "boom boom!".

Yesterday I went in search of a DVD that fitted the following criteria: mindless fun, must have a handsome man in it. For some reason I then rented Adventureland (far inferior to 2009's other Jesse Eisenberg-starring '-land' film). I regretted it instantly. It's just not an ill film. If I was going with comedy, I'd have been better off with Anchorman or Zoolander, gloriously stupid films, or anything from the 80's. The Princess Bride perhaps. Ghostbusters. Mannequin (which I was inexplicably obsessed with as a child. That and The Mighty Ducks - another great ill film). TV-wise, we're looking at early-era Ugly Betty or of course Glee, which we all know is basically Lemsip on screen. Pushing Daisies is perhaps too rich a confectionary, a kill-or-cure situation.

Anyone got any advice on the best ill films out there? Surely there's a miracle cure somewhere.

Friday 16 April 2010

The Art of the Season Finale

With the endorphins still flowing from Mad Men’s fantastic and unexpectedly upbeat series three finale, I've got to thinking: just what makes a great season closer?

The concept of a grand finale at the end of each series was introduced largely via American television as a last-ditch-pitch to the networks to pick up their show for another year, and by now it’s an institution. We tune into the last episode of a series expecting it to top everything that has gone before, hoping to be left OMGing in shock or buying out Tesco’s stock of Kleenex.

But, essentially, season finales can be broken down into seven camps:

The Triumphant Hurrah
This is what Mad Men pulled off so impressively. It’s the moment when, no matter what else has gone on in the series or how miserable everyone’s lives are, everything falls into place. The moment of victory, where everyone gets what they deserve, even if only for a little while. The classic feel-good ending.
Examples: Queer As Folk, Only Fools and Horses’ “This time next year we’ll be billionaires!” sunset ending (and I’m sure I’m not alone in choosing to remember that as the last ever episode…)

The Cliffhanger
The beloved ending of choice for most American shows. Twin Peaks set the standard way back when its series one finale left no fewer than five characters in mortal peril.
Examples: Battlestar Galactica (especially the glorious season one shocker), Desperate Housewives, in which you can actually place bets on which housewife will end up in danger, and of course Lost, which is turning the ridiculous cliffhanger into something of an art form.

The Weepy
The one that leaves you inconsolable for at least ten minutes after the credits roll, and yet strangely satisfied. Six Feet Under managed the impressive feat of making the viewer weep openly for the last three hours of season five.
Examples: Grey’s Anatomy loves a good weepy.

The Surreal
This one is usually a bit of a divider, with message boards being split right down the middle between fans who loved it and fans who think it’s the worst. Ending. Ever. So: where did you stand on Sam Tyler leaping from the roof at the end of Life on Mars?
Examples: The Sopranos, Skins (they’re getting quite adept and not ending where you expect them to).

The Show Must Go On
This is where things end on a (usually upbeat) Life Goes On ending. Doctor Who is of course the king of this ending. Lose one guy, get another. And the fans, fickle as we are, move on with the show.
Examples: So-called ‘precinct’ shows – ones set in hospitals, police stations, etc – necessarily end on this note. A copper might be killed on duty, but the police force carries on as normal. Of course, The Wire puts its own spin on this…

The Happily Ever After
Most commonly seen in period dramas, as the hero and heroine ride off in a carriage to start their married life, sharing a chaste kiss. This is also where you can expect a romantic comedy to wind up.
Examples: Any Jane Austen adaptation ever committed to the small screen, which, yes, includes the underrated Lost in Austen.

The Sitcom Finale
This is a beast all of its own, which somehow has to tick all of the above boxes without actually changing anything. All the characters need to wind up exactly where they started. The Simpsons has been managing it for 20 years.
Examples: Friends, Gavin and Stacey, Peep Show.

Of course, some manage to subvert your expectations. Mad Men delivered a light-hearted caper when you were expecting a domestic drama. ER’s last ever episode came dangerously close to a self-indulgent weepy before veering off at the last second into Show Must Go On territory. And where the hell does Misfits’ oddball ending fit?

So what are your favourite endings? Any categories I’ve forgotten? What about the Crushing Disappointment? Of the Should Have Been the Finale?

Friday 2 April 2010

The Doctor is dead... Long live the Doctor!

The new series of Doctor Who is almost upon us, and I am embarrassingly excited. Almost as excited as I was on the day that I was told, as a lowly TV runner, that I would have to pay a visit to Millenium FX. I ended up being given a tour by none other then Neill Gorton, Doctor Who prosthetics guru extraordinaire, when he caught me gawping at the Girl in the Fireplace clockwork droid masks. To this day, it remains the highlight of my geek life.

Anyway, as so many Whovians are saying at the moment: In Moff We Trust. Yes, we're all pretty sure Steven Moffat will be brilliant. But, before a new Doctor comes bounding into our lives, let's take a quick pause to remember Russel T Davies.

I'm an RTD apologist. In fact, I don't think he needs apologising for. I think he's great. Who can read (the excellent) The Writer's Tale without completely loving the guy? Who can watch Queer As Folk and doubt that he's one of the biggest Doctor Who fans around? In the last four series', Moffat had the easy job of swanning in and writing some undeniable brilliant episodes, while Davies had about five a year to trot out on top of editing and Executive Producer duties. Inevitably, some of his episodes weren't great. The Aliens of London and Rise of the Cybermen two-parters were pretty much awful. But he also gave us Midnight, Tooth and Claw, The Christmas Invasion, The Parting of the Ways and Journey's End, which, for my money, are up there with Moffat's output (okay, maybe Blink and The Empty Child stand above them).

It's a shame that his and David Tennant's tenures on the show came to an end with last year's Specials, which never really worked. The development of the Tenth Doctor into a walking ego with a God complex was fascinating but poorly executed (far too rushed), and their final episode was extremely mawkish. Nonetheless, I sobbed like a baby for the last fifteen minutes. Was I mourning the loss of the Tenth Doctor (my Doctor, at the age of 24)? All his supporting cast? RTD? Of Tennant looking positively shaggable in that suit? All of the above, I suppose.

Doctor Who took me from 19 to 24, through uni and into working life. It even spilled over into my real life. I remember phoning my Dad in floods of tears after Father's Day. I remember rushing through BBC TV Centre in Birmingham with my eyes averted while Journey's End played on the big screens, on my way to a date and desperate to avoid spoilers. I was blown away by Christopher Eccleston's performance (he never gets anywhere near as much credit as he deserves - he was better in the role than Tennant, if not quite so appropriate for the family audience) and I thought his regeneration was surely the best ever, with a sign-off line to go down in history. I only wish Tennant could have had such a glorious send-off.

Odd - the Ninth Doctor got a triumphant regeneration for a lonely Doctor, the Tenth got a lonely regeneration for a triumphant Doctor. Look at me getting all analytical.

But we Doctor Who fans are fickle. Mere days after crying my eyes out over the loss of Tennant and Davies, I was already excited about Moffat and Smith. That's the genius thing about Doctor Who - it can start again with a completely fresh slate without anyone having to step out of a shower, and the fans still happily accept it, especially when it's in such safe hands (we hope).

Quick predictions for what we can expect from series five:
  1. A properly mad Doctor
  2. A companion who is only slightly less barmy (Moffat does like his oddballs)
  3. Wonderful female characters (from the man who gave us Sally Sparrow and River Song)
  4. Scares a-plenty (Moffat never pussy-footed around kids in the way RTD did)
  5. Lots of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff
  6. More of a fairy tale feel than a sci-fi one
  7. Sex ever-present, but never explicit (Oh, you mean they weren't talking about dancing?)

Come tomorrow evening, I'll finally know if my predictions were right. Ooh, there's that excitement again!

Friday 26 March 2010

Nerdy-Come-Lately

The dark secret of many a geek. In terms of nerd ettiquette, it's up there with bestiality and liking Grey's Anatomy. And what is this shameful secret? Coming late to a TV show. On the face of it it sounds innoculous - okay, so you want to wait for the reviews to come out before you invest in watching a series, or maybe it just passes you by and you don't even notice it until it starts to gain a following. But no, it isn't innoculous. It is bandwagon geekery. And, I am ashamed to admit, I have been guilty of it on a number of occassions.

There's nothing like the smugness of being ahead of the curve. To this day I am proud that I am one of the very few people who actually saw the brilliant Carnivale and Arrested Development, who was there right from the start when Heroes was genius, who knew X-Men inside out before the films were released. Sometimes, a lack of Sky TV gets in my way - it's not my fault I had to wait for the terrestrial showing of Dollhouse, and as someone who works in the TV industry I can't bring myself to illegally download anything. All this is acceptable in geek culture.

What is far less acceptable is the following: I missed the first three and a half series of Battlestar Galactica, didn't join the Buffy wagon until series two, dismissed Supernatural for a full three years before realising it was actually damn enjoyable, have never seen an old episode of Doctor Who (pre-Christopher Ecclestone), missed The Wire altogether and - most shameful of all - I saw the first episode of Firefly and then decided not to watch it.

I have since caught up with all of these shows and list them all as some of my favourites of all time. Maybe four or five years ago I just wasn't the dedicated geek I have blossomed into now. I was at uni at the time - who wants to sit in front of the goggle box when there's drinking to be done? But now I am kicking myself, particularly on the BSG and Firefly front. Maybe if I moved in more geeky circles someone would have told me what I was missing. Thank God for DVD boxsets. But my nerdy-come-lately status (I refuse to see myself as a mere bandwagon geek) has seriously dented my credibility. Perhaps you look at me differently now. Can I claim to be a true Firefly fan when I didn't watch it until after Serenity? (And, dammit, how much better is that film when you already know and love those characters?) I can't share the pain of BSG fans who had to wait a whole summer to find out if Adama survived being shot - I just gasped and changed the DVD over as quickly as I could.

I'm making up for it now, giving every show a fair chance. I was there with the rest of the True Blood crowd waiting to see if Lafeyette survived into series two, which meant I could hold my head high when buying a bottle of Tru Blood in Forbidden Planet for my Dad's birthday. I saw the pilot of Being Human when it was on BBC3, not You Tube, and was there from the first minute of Misfits. But I have a lot of bad geek practice to make up for.

Friday 26 February 2010

Well, we did invent the damn thing...

Some time ago, shocked by the realisation that all my favourite shows seemed to be American, I promised a blog in honour of quality British TV. And us Brits do make good TV. Cheaper and shorter than the Yanks, yes, and we have the noteable disadvantage of Tamzin Outhwaite, but good nonetheless. Especially at comedy. For those who lament the diminishing quality of post-Monty Python/Fawlty Towers/Only Fools and Horses/Blackadder British comedy, I draw your attention to the following: Gavin and Stacey, Pulling, Peep Show and The Inbetweeners. Yep, we still know our funny.

But the one thing I did moan about with British TV was the lack of decent sci-fi and fantasy. If I wanted to see someone battle the forces of evil, America was my only port of call. Which was frustrating, because we should do great sci-fi (or lo-fi, at least. Budgets aren't up to much these days). When Doctor Who returned to our screens, the UK was pretty much a fantasy-free zone. It was a huge hit, of course, but it still took a while for the success to be picked up by adult shows.

Torchwood obviously came out shortly after Doctor Who, but I reckon the faith in grown-up sci-fi actually came from the brilliant Life on Mars. It wasn't showily sci-fi/fantasy, and was more Sweeney than X-Files, but it showed commissioners that so long as the series is good, viewers will not be scared off by a sci-fi concept. Thank you, Matthew Graham et al.

After that, British sci-fi/fantasy began to enter something of a golden age. There were plenty of mis-steps (Demons, Survivors, Paradox), but the fun and under-rated Merlin continued Doctor Who's good work in the family market. Torchwood, after two series of being entertaining, occassionally promising but mostly one giant missed opportunity, got Russel T Davies back at the helm and did the shockingly brilliant Children of Earth, posing devestating moral dilemmas alongside aardvark slime monsters and showing us and the Americans what modern, adult sci-fi should be all about.

Then, of course, we have the frankly sublime Being Human and Misfits. Two shows that took "why hasn't this been done before?" concepts and created the two best programmes of 2009. Toby Whithouse's brilliant vampire-werewolf-ghost houseshare comedy-drama nearly didn't make it, but its ace pilot created such an online fanbase that the BBC were forced to back-track and commission it for a series. They lost two cast members in the process, but managed to cling onto Russel Tovey - who was probably the only one the show couldn't have managed without - and pick up Aiden Turner in the process, whose sexy Mitchell is probably responsible for about quarter of the viewing figures. Series two experienced some problems, with many fans complaining that it had lost much of its comedy and charm, but the fact is that series two is just in a different genre to series one. Whithouse pulled a James Cameron on his series. The knock-about, occassionally dark comedy drama of the first series has morphed into a grown-up drama and thriller, which was necessary if the show was going to evolve.

Howard Overman's Misfits was a revelation. Everyone was expecting Skins-meets-Heroes, and that's exactly what it was. Only better. Funny and witty, with humour derived from character rather than wacky situations, as well as horifically dark. Come the finale, one character is having lunch with a dead body in a freezer, for God's sake. I'd like to see Heroes try that. The cast were magnificent, with at least three surely destined for stardom. Nathan, Simon and Kelly are spot-on marriages of writing and acting, creating three rounded people, all charismatic, irritating, loveable, scary and unpredictable all at once. The show even tackled that most tricky sci-fi subject, time travel, and pulled it off with aplomb, even adding a great, unexpected consequence on right at the end.

Being Human is now plowing towards its grand finale (will Mitchell survive? It's looking a wee bit unlikely, isn't it?) and Misfits is returning later in the year. But Torchwood, despite it's first-class series three, is showing no sign of getting a series four. The BBC doesn't have the money, especially with Stephen Moffat apparently going wildly over-budget on his new Doctor Who. In fact, RTD has left these shores for LA, and it is now being reported that if Torchwood does continue it will be as an American show. Damn, just as the UK was looking to be getting a hang on this sci-fi malarkey the recession comes along and wrecks it all. But then, if the Americans are starting to pick up our shows (a US remake of Being Human is on the cards), then maybe we finally are showing them how it's done.

Sunday 31 January 2010

Cheque, please!

After some recent rejections and failures on the writer front (I'm an aspiring script writer) I've decided to cut loose and live a little by way of shaking off that pesky writer's block. So last night I put on my glad rags and hit the town for a mate's birthday. And, as everyone knows, a birthday party is second only to a houseparty when it comes to copping off with friends-of-friends.

I got chatting to a lovely guy, who of course was already endorsed as not-a-psycho by our mutual friend, and inevitably as the drinks and compliments flowed I did my usual trick of launching myself at him under the pretense of "can you help me carry the drinks back from the bar?" My friends cheered and pointed (although thankfully left their cameras in their bags this time) and gave me their seal of approval. Until one of them uttered the fateful words: "Doesn't he look like you ex?"

Is there are a faster way of turning a girl off than being told that you have just pulled the doppelganger of the bloke you were pretty sure you were over? It's fair to say I lost interest after that. But that's not the worst turn-off I've ever had:

There was the guy who spilt his drink - and then licked it up off the table.

One guy told me I reminded him of his sister shortly before making a pass at me.

One time, mid-snog, the bloke said "I knew I was going to have you as soon as I saw you" - suffice to say, he 'had' nothing more after that.

There was the bloke who had a poster of Beaches on his bedroom wall.

And, worst of all, anyone who says that their favourite programme is 'I'm a Celebrity'.


Best turn-on? The guy who, when I asked him what he liked to read, squirmingly admitted "Batman." A man after my own heart.

Sunday 24 January 2010

Musical TV Moments

Raise your hand if you thought Glee would be a twee High School Musical cash-in. Yep, me too. Raise your hand if you watched it anyway. So did I. Now finally, how happy were you when they threw in their first filthy joke? Who would have thought that what the viewing population was crying out for was an all-singing-all-dancing feel-good teen show with blow job gags?

But it got me thinking about all the great musical moments in television over the years that prove that, maybe, someone should really have thought of doing Glee a long time ago.

So here’s my count down of my top 10 musical moments on TV. The only criteria is that the music must have featured within the action, not just on the soundtrack.

10. Skins – Wild World
Skins series one ended in a classic cliffhanger, with everything coming to a head in the last five minutes and Tony getting hit by a truck for good measure. Then, as you’re preparing for the credits to roll, the actors instead turn to camera and start singing along to Cat Steven’s Wild World – including Tony, bleeding on the curb. A classic example of Skins doing what it does best: steering clear of convention.

9. Six Feet Under – Claire hates office work
In series five of Six Feet Under, artist Claire found herself trapped in a creatively-sapping admin job that, worst of all, required her to wear tights. She dealt with it by climbing onto her desk and lamenting panty hose via song: ‘You Ride Up My Thighs’ to the tune of ‘You Light Up My Life’. It’s a fantasy sequence, of course. But who hasn’t wished they could liven up the office with some song and dance?

8. Scrubs – Guy Love
Scrubs has always loved a good musical interlude so it was inevitable that they would do a musical episode. And it was surprisingly good, with showstoppers including the poo song (explaining why doctors always ask for a stool sample), but the highlight was JD and Turk putting their enduring bromance to music.

7. Gavin and Stacey – American Boy
James Cordon and Ruth Jones obviously love a singsong, and they put some sort of musical moment into every episode, but the most impressive has to be Smithy and sister Rudy performing the rap from American Boy, complete with dance moves and harmonising.

6. Friends – Copacabana
As series two draws to a close, Rachel realises that there isn’t a single thing she can do to make Barry’s wedding even more humiliating for her. So she gets on stage and sings Barry Manilow’s Copacabana. There’s something gloriously triumphant about it.

5. Glee – Push It
This was the moment that you realised that Glee was not what you thought it was. The goodie-two-shoes of the glee club decides that sex sells, so she gets the club to perform Salt ‘n Pepper’s Push It at the school assembly. Jaw-droppingly inappropriate and absolutely hilarious. Altogether now: “Holla!”

4. Buffy – It Got the Mustard Out!
Once More With Feeling was the Buffy episode that began the fad for musical episodes in TV, and Glee has even acknowledged its debt to Joss Whedon by handing him the director reins for an upcoming episode. The best bit about Buffy’s extravaganza was the everyday things being put into song – like a man celebrating the good work of his dry cleaners, and a woman arguing with a traffic warden (“This isn’t right, it isn’t fair/There was no parking anywhere”).

3. The Simpsons – See My Vest
Far and away the greatest of The Simpsons’ songs, as Monty Burns indulges his love of all things fur: “Like my loafers/Former gofers/Either that, or skin my chauffeurs.” All to the cheerful tune of Be My Guest. Even Bart is left nodding his head and humming along afterwards.

2. This Life – ‘Love is in the Air’
What a way to end a series. The gang are all at Miles’ wedding reception, and in great TV fashion it’s all going horribly wrong. Rachel has revealed Milly’s affair, Egg is sobbing in a toilet and as Love is in the Air reaches its chorus Milly storms across the dance floor and punches the scheming Rachel in the face. In the words of late-arrival Warren: “Outstanding”.

1. Queer As Folk – It’s Raining Men
What began as a series about gay men having a laugh gradually became an affecting tale of unrequited love between best friends. Vince and Stuart loved each other, bickered, tried to stay apart for their own good, but in the end they couldn’t resist. So instead they made a run for the podium and danced joyously to It’s Raining Men. Who wasn’t grinning for a full 24 hours after seeing that?

Thursday 7 January 2010

TV: Keeping Me Sane Since 1999

I like TV. Some might say too much. But depending on my mood, TV has various functions in my life. There's the social function, where I will watch The X Factor at a mates house, gossip all the way through it and only pay attention to heckle talentless pretty boys. There's the bonding function, as seen in the whole separate language my Dad and I have, derived from the world of our favourite TV. There's the time-filling function, valuable for staving off boredom or being temped to do something useful, like housework. And, of course, it's an addiction. I just have to tune in and find out what happens next, even with something like Heroes, which, let's face it, is basically pants these days.

But for me TV fulfills another function - it keeps me sane. When I have a problem that just can't be fixed no matter how much I think about it, I turn to box sets. Classic escapism. Okay, this probably isn't to be recommended when you have a problem that actually can be fixed. I once spent two weeks watching Battlestar Galactica in a Scarlett O'Hara-esque attempt to think about my problems at a later date, only to solve them all in five minutes flat when I turned my attention to them. Still, time spent following the fleet is never time wasted.

But whenever things are getting on top of me, there's nothing like TV to switch my brain to calm mode. When my cat was run over the day before my GCSEs started (oh, many years ago), Numfar's Dance of Shame on Angel cleared my head and let me focus on revision again. And this week, with my Grandma in hospital and 20 foot of snow and a broken trainline between me and her, I resorted to Doctor Who. Gran is now on the mend, and I felt much better for a week of being lulled to sleep with dreams of the lovely David Tennant rather than nightmares about death and mortality.

So, have I found a savvy way of coping with life, or am I just avoiding the issue? Maybe I'm just a cold fish and other people can't forget family illnesses with one buzz of a sonic screwdriver. Am I alone in utilising this coping method? It's cheaper than therapy, if nothing else. Although at uni, repressed exam fears and an overdose of Carnivale led to nightmares of being chased by Clancy Brown. Maybe I need to be limited to two doses of escapism a day.