New British TV Show Reviews
December 10, 2010
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The Accused (12/10)
Jimmy McGovern's (The Lakes)
new anthology series is about ordinary Britons on trial. But it's no
law-and-order type series, virtually none of it takes place in the
courtroom except for the verdict. Instead, using flashbacks that lead
up to the case, The Accused
comes across more like "Lost" than "Perry Mason." In the first story,
Christopher Eccleston plays Willy Houlihan, a freelance plumber who
plans to leave his wife and family and go off with his girlfriend. But
things get complicated. Really complicated. As he's about to announce
the bombshell to his wife, his daughter suddenly announces her
engagement. Willy offers to pay for the entire wedding but then
discovers a £22,000 payment for a job has bounced and he's broke.
Willy is all mouth and refuses to consider letting his future rich
in-laws pick up the tab. He's between a rock and a hard place and
adding to his indignity, his truck breaks down next to a church. He
goes in looking for a miracle and the very perceptive priest tells him
he'll have to leave his mistress. And would you believe it, Willy's
luck changes when he finds £20,000 in the back of a mini-cab. His
problems are solved, right? He even manages to double it in a bet so he
can return the original amount before gangsters get involved. Willy
can pay for the wedding, still dump his wife and leave town with his
lover. But, oh, it turns out the money was forged, and the police come
calling for Willy on the day of his daughter's wedding. Is this God's
vengeance for Willy breaking his promise or justice? The audience is
left to decide for themselves. As usual, Eccleston is note perfect, a
part he was born to play, the angry working class bloke overwhelmed by
the drama in his life. Jimmy McGovern delivers his trademark show,
short concise stories that introduce us to the characters and then put
them through the emotion wringer. Other stars who showed up in later
stories include Mackenzie Crook, Marc Warren, Andy Serkis, Juliet
Stephenson and Peter Capaldi.
Any Human Heart (12/10)
This
sprawling four part mini-series for Channel 4 is based on the book by
William Boyd who also wrote the script. Jim Broadbent ostensibly is
the star, he plays Logan Mountstuaart, a man near the end of the his
life who looks back at his career and loves throughout the 20th Century. Three other actors play
Logan at different stages of his life, as a boy, a young man in his 20s
and then middle aged. His name may sound posh but Logan comes from
humble stock, his dad was in the meat business and his mother was from
Uruguay. Dad wants Logan to join the family business after university
but Logan has different ideas, especially once he manages to lose his
virginity. He meets Land, a politically active young woman who tells
him to grow up and write something that will make people think and
change the world. He does write a successful novel and soon finds
himself hobnobbing with Hemingway and Fleming in the years between the
wars. He even manages to marry into the aristocracy but then begins an
affair with a beautiful BBC journalist. I really like Matthew
Macfadyen, who plays Logan in middle age. He looks a bit like Brendan
Frasier but with a British accent. In the present day, we see Broadbent
as a lonely figure, remembering past glories and putting mementos from
each different relationship into separate piles. William Boyd, the
writer, also wrote the screenplay for "Chaplin" and knows his way
around biopic that takes us through the life of a person and their
encounters with celebrities. Here, Boyd uses the device of the
fictional life of Mountstuaart to comment on life and Britons, particularly the Duke and Duchess of
Windsor (Tom Hollander and a nearly unrecognizable Gillian Anderson),
that is, Edward and Mrs. Simpson. Though Logan's life is filled with
tragic moments, he is a flawed hero whose personal choices
(particularly when it comes to women) are what undo him.
Chekhov: Comedy Shorts (12/10)
Digital channel Sky Arts 2 in conjunction with Steve Coogan's
Baby Cow productions filmed a number of one-act plays written around
1889 by Anton Chekhov. These are all one-set productions, in fact if
you watch them back-to-back like I did, you will notice it's all shot
on the same set just dressed differently for each production. But the
main reason for watching Chehov: Comedy Shorts
is the very familiar actors from British TV performing each part. "A
Reluctant Tragic Hero" stars Mackenzie Crook and Johnny Vegas, "The
Bear" has Julia Davis (Nighty Night),
Julian Barratt, and Reece Shearsmith; "The Dangers of Tobacco," a
monologue with Steve Coogan; and "The Proposal" with Mathew Horne,
Sheridan Smith and Philip Jackson. If none of those names mean
anything to you, then Chekhov: Comedy Shorts
is not for you. Johnny Vegas in particular is very good, his rant
about how terrible his life is practically becomes a monologue and means
Mackenzie Crook just sits and reacts. The Bear is the name given by
Julia Davis's recently widowed character to a bill collector played by
her real-life boyfriend Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh.
Coogan's monologue about the dangers of tobacco drifts more into a
description of his overbearing wife. And in "The Proposal," Gavin & Stacey's
Mathew Horne attempts to ask the hand of his beautiful neighbor (Smith)
but gets easily sidetracked along the way. You can see the appeal this
material had for the producers at Baby Cow with somewhat exaggerated
comic characters each living their own personal part of hell. Whether
a 21st Century audience is ready to laugh out loud at 19th Century
comedy might be beside the point, it's nice to dust off old plays and
make them accessible to modern audiences using actors we are already
comfortable watching. Sky is increasing the amount of money they are
pouring into original productions, both dramas, comedies and arts fare
like Chekhov Comedy Shorts
that in the past would have been on BBC2 or these days BBC4. For
viewers, it's good to see the digital TV landscape isn't completely
littered with repeats, reality shows, and cheap imports, but some
honest-to-god homegrown drama. Even if it was originally Russian.
DOA (12/10)
Kris Marshall (My Family) plays Tom Lassiter, a surgeon who's lost his medical license because a
patient died. Now he's a paramedic working for a surreal ambulance
company in this BBC3 comedy pilot. Karen Taylor plays Julie, his
co-worker who also sells marital aids when they aren't out on calls.
Meanwhile Tom's Doctor girlfriend Lucy takes his loss of status, and
possible impending legal problems, to reconsider their relationship.
All in all, things aren't going too well. This certainly isn't the
first comedy to try to mine laughs from ambulance drivers, and if Tom's
choice in lawyers is any sign, perhaps many of the choices that have
lead him to this point are his fault. Julie's ongoing battles with
their dispatcher over the radio, and the other ambulance crews absurd
down-time activities add to the craziness. British TV commissioners
are forever searching for the magic bullet work place comedy that will
be as successful as The Office was.
The First Men In The Moon (12/10)
Mark Gatiss, a busy fellow these days (Sherlock, Doctor Who)
found the time to adapt and star this BBC4 version of HG Well's 1901
novel of the same name. Gatiss uses a framing device with the story
starting out on July 20, 1969 as a young British boy visiting a
carnival is excited about the impending moon landing. He discovers an
old man in a tent with films he has shot who proceeds to tell how he in fact was the first man in
the moon. Gatiss plays Professor Cavor, a scientist who had recently
discovered the gravity repealing Cavorite. Along with Bedford (Rory
Kinnear) they build a spacecraft and travel to the moon. Once they
land they discover both an atmosphere and intelligent life. Cavor
calls the creatures Selenites and they are achieved with passable but
not quite cinema-grade computer animation. Held prisoner by the
Selenites and unable to communicate with them, Bedford and Cavor are
separated and Bedford is forced to use their spaceship to escape alone
before the lunar night freezes everything. After many days he manages
to land back on earth and encounters Lee Ingleby playing a helpful
passerby with a ridiculous moustache who helps himself to the spaceship
and flies off. Penniless and with movies nobody believes are
authentic, Bedford receives a radio message from Cavor that explains
what ultimately happened to the moon's atmosphere. The framing device
of the real moon landing really hit home for me, I was about the same
age as the boy in the movie and I recall that day 41 years ago like it
was yesterday. Gatiss however would only have been two years old, far
too young to remember the Apollo 11 mission first-hand. But it creates
a nice old-timey feel that movies used to have starting in a more
familiar setting and then taking us back via narration to the
incredible events on screen. For the most part, The First Men in the Moon
is a two-hander, with Gatiss and Kinnear in nearly every scene opposite
each other. Gatiss's Professor Cavor is very much in the mold of
stereotypical eccentric British scientists who don't always see the
real-world application of the discoveries they make. Wells, like
Gatiss, use the rather fantastical plot to make some rather pointed
commentary on the human condition right here. It seems a shame after
mounting this entire 88 minute production that it was put out on BBC4.
In the multi-channel universe, it's easy to overlook a unique project
like this.
Giles and Sue Live The Good Life (12/10)
Giles Coren and Sue Perkins have teamed up previously for The Supersizers
wherein they would recreate a period in history for an entire week by
living the lives and eating the food, however disgusting, from the
time. They're back in this new series that attempts to recreate the
self-sufficiency movement of the 1970s that was epitomized by the
sitcom The Good Life. I
thought they would just make an off-hand reference to the old series
and move on, but no, this show is filled with clips--badly cropped for
widescreen--and Giles and Sue dress up as characters in the show, even
the haughty neighbors. Of course it also shows the practical reality
of turning a suburban backyard into a self-sustaining farm including
building a chicken coop, getting some goats and even a pig.
The Indian Doctor (12/10)
Sandjeev Bhaskar (Goodness Gracious Me, The Kumars At No. 42)
stars this this mini-series as an immigrant doctor in a small Welsh village in
1963 that was serialized over five days one week in the afternoon on
BBC1. I still don't quite understand the BBC's logic in hiding under a
rock quality dramas like The Indian Doctor (and Moving On
in previous weeks) when most viewers are still at work. Perhaps
iPlayer has so changed the TV environment that it doesn't really matter
when a series goes out figuring most people can catch it On Demand
afterwards. In any event, I enjoyed The Indian Doctor
whose premise might sound a bit like "Northern Exposure": a big city
doctor stuck in a town of eccentrics in the middle of nowhere. But
Prem Sharma, the eponymous character played by Bhaskar, is married to
Kamini, an intelligent but ambitious woman who doesn't take too well to
their posting to south Wales. But Prem takes to his new job and more
or less makes a good impression on the villagers of Trefelin (not to
mock the Welsh but it sounds a bit like a Doctor Who monster). Some of
the dramas include Prem's cute receptionist and her budding romance
with a local boy who wants to be a singer, and the English couple who
run the colliery who think they run the village and have a secret they
hope Doctor Sharma won't uncover. Kamini, played by Ayesha Dharker, is
the most interesting character. Used to a life of luxury back in India
(they had 10 servants and hobnobbed with the Mountbattens), wants the
best for her husband and herself, which to her means living in London.
But at the same time, she is a perceptive woman who forms a bond with a
local truant boy and tries to teach him to read. Aside from the Asian
immigrant angle, The Indian Doctor will remind you of other similar period dramas like Heartbeat and Born and Bred
but the good cast, beautiful Welsh countryside and gentle humor
make it an entertaining series despite its crummy timeslot.
Luther (12/10)
John
Luther (Idris Elba), a London police detective, is first seen in
pursuit of a pedophile whom he allows to fall from a platform and end
up in a coma. Luther suffers a mental breakdown for several months but
then resumes work back at the Met. On the job, he is a combination of Cracker
and Columbo and his first case back pits him against Alice Morgan (Ruth
Wilson), a woman who may have killed her parents in cold blood. Alice,
a seductive redhead, plays mindgames with Luther because she knows he
can't prove her guilt. But Luther is no superman, his personal life is
marred by his estrangement with his wife who has a new lover (Paul
McGann). Though I'm getting tired of the "maverick-who-goes-it-alone"
style police procedural, it's the interplay between Luther and Alice
that makes this series stand out.
Misfits (12/10)
This E4
superhero series has become a cult show in Britain (and to fans
in-the-know in the USA). It is a very gritty, urban series with
challenging characters...in other words, about 180 degrees from
anything that would get made in the United States. The premise sounds a
bit like "Heroes": a group of ordinary people who suddenly
discover they have superpowers and how they cope with them. (Old TV
addicts such as myself might also recall a Courtney Cox series called
"Misfits of Science" about another set of teens with extraordinary
abilities.) None of them are like Misfits.
At first look, it appears like it was shot on a housing estate with a
budget of about £10. It is neither glossy nor slick, in fact it takes
place in an environment I'm sure we'd all prefer not to live in. The
five main characters are all young offenders, that is, criminals who've
been sentenced to doing community service in hideous orange jumpsuits.
A strange storm strikes one day out of the blue and suddenly they
realize they've all each gained a new ability (mind reading,
invisibility, time turning). Except for Nathan (Robert Sheehan, who is
hilarious) who during most of the first season doesn't seem to have any
powers, but eventually discovers he's immortal. But they aren't the
only ones with powers and each episode they encounter someone who also
does, not usually for the better. For the most part, despite their
lack of opportunities, the misfits gang are fairly smart. In one
episode a shape shifter wreaks havoc by impersonating each of them and
they are clever enough to realize what is going on fairly quickly.
However, a bit later they're in pursuit of the shapeshifter when the
lazy scriptwriter's friend "Split up!" crops up, which means another
whole round of not trusting one another. If only they'd stuck
together. That aside, Misfits is a compelling show if you are prepared for something a bit different.
Moving On (12/10)
The BBC
has been experimenting with original programming in the middle of
weekday afternoons--anything to get "Diagnosis Murder" repeats off the
air. Moving On, Jimmy McGovern's (The Lakes)
latest anthology series, had 10 episodes total shown over a two week
period. Each one had a separate cast and story and takes us into the
world of ordinary British people who are usually at a crossroads in
their life--hence the title of the series. In one, a woman (Susannah
Harker) takes care of her mother (Anna Massey) with Alzheimers while
her son is off backpacking across South America. She'd like to have a
normal life, go on dates, be able to leave the house, but she's trapped
by her mother though she's loath to put her in a home. In another
episode, John Simm plays Moose, whose just gotten out of prison after
serving eight years for armed robbery. He wants to get back together
with his wife and the daughter he hasn't seen since she was a baby, but
his wife has a new partner whom the daughter considers as her dad. Simm
is a clever bit of casting because we keep expecting him to explode or
otherwise act out. It would be simple for everyone if he just went
back to prison for a parole violation, but Moving On
isn't about easy answers. Each episode puts its protagonists--and the
audience--through emotional wringers but nearly always with an upbeat
resolution at the end, a reward of sorts for all the suffering. I love
these kind of shows because they are nice, compact first-rate dramas
with familiar TV actors. But I can see how they can be a hard sell to
casual audiences more used to the familiarity an ongoing series with
recurring characters TV typically provides.
Thorne: Sleepyhead (12/10)
In this three-part Sky1 thriller based on the novels by Mark
Billingham, David Morrissey plays (what else?) an intense but haunted
police detective chasing a serial killer. Someone is murdering
young women but it turns out his real aim is to put them in comas
unable to move their bodies. It all has to do with a case Thorne
had solved years earlier, although it turns out the killer's convenient
suicide hides a secret Thorne wants to keep buried. His only confident
is the gay forensics expert played by "The Wire's" Aidan Gillen.
David Morrissey is without a doubt one of the most watchable actors
working on television today. From Holding On to State of Play, even pretending to be the Next Doctor in a Doctor Who
Christmas special, he radiates utter believability when playing
characters on the edge of breaking down. That great baritone voice
just dominates every scene he's in, you never want to take your eyes
off him. And yet, the most compelling character in Sleepyhead
is the woman in the coma who can only communicate by blinking. We
the audience only can hear her thoughts and because of that, she
becomes the most well-rounded and sympathetic person in the
drama. If you are picking up a negative vibe it's because I've
gotten to the point where I want to just stick every police drama into
Room 101 and never see another. Enough, already.
The Trip (12/10)
Steve Coogan
and Rob Brydon play exaggerated versions of themselves in this
mockumentary directed by the man who also gave us much the same in
"Tristam Shandy," Michael Winterbottom. Steve's been commissioned to
travel to restaurants across the north and with his fictional
girlfriend back in the United States, reluctantly asks Rob to accompany
him. Most of the series is a two-hander of the two of them talking,
bickering, and eating fine food. A lot of their time is spent arguing
which of them does better celebrity impressions. "The Trip" is
all-talk and how much you can tolerate cartoon versions of Steve and
Rob--in my case, quite a lot, I think they are hilarious. Or just turn
off the sound and look at all the delicious food that is being
exquisitely prepared. You'll want to go out to a two-star restaurant
immediately, unless you happen to be a great chef. The series was
re-edited as a feature for international release.
Whitechapel (12/10)
An ITV police drama starring Rupert Penry-Jones (Spooks) as a police detective
trying to solve a series of murders. Even the presence of comedy
actors like Steve Pemberton and Peter Serafinowicz weren't enough to
stop me crying out, "Enough of these police procedurals!" There's
just too much murder on TV (Thorne, Luther),
far more than is justified by real life, and it's lazy TV making them
just because they are popular and easily marketed. I think TV
would be much improved with all of them put into Room 101 along with
all the glossy-floor reality shows like Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor.
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Written and maintained by Ryan K. Johnson (rkj@eskimo.com).
December 10, 2010