Shoot To Thrill

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is crap that only works in thrillers.

It's generally accepted that the laws that govern the fictional worlds of film and TV are quite different from the pesky logic that we real folk have to contend with on a daily basis. But there are recurring techniques in thrillers that surely don't work in real life, which our on-screen heroes are programmed to do by lazy writers. Here are 3 examples:

3. Spying from cars: Our protagonist Mr Lovely is tailing Mr Nasty, waiting for him outside his house. So where does Mr Lovely hide? In the bushes? Up a tree? In a bin? No, in a car, parked right outside Mr Nasty's house. Last time I checked, windscreens are see-through, otherwise people would crash more. But not in thrillers, where being in a car seems to turn you invisible. It doesn't work in real life and you'd get a parking ticket.

2. CPR: Mr Lovely's girlfriend, Miss Pretty, has been killed. She got run over, set on fire, shot in the face, run over again and then died of cancer. But wait, Mr Lovely knows CPR, and shouts things like "don't give up on me now!" while pummelling her suspiciously exposed chest and shoving his tongue down her throat. And Miss Pretty comes back to life, spluttering water even though she hasn't swallowed any. In our boring world, the chances of CPR completely working is around 2%, according to some website I just found. It's likely that those who are revived will die within a month, which puts a real dampener on the end of most thrillers. Imagine that, everyone who's ever been revived on screen has actually just died a few weeks after the credits rolled.

1. Using guns on your buddies: While it's true that most gunshot wounds aren't actually fatal, I'd still be cautious about shooting someone I cared about. But characters such as Sherlock and James Bond are happy to lodge a bullet in their friends, their expert marksmanship guaranteeing the survival of their loved ones. There are surely too many variables in play to warrant such a casual attitude to gunplay. And the reason I say using guns rather than just shooting is down to Lost. On the craziest island outside of all those party islands, characters are constantly thwacking each other over the head with rifles to knock them out "for their own good." Once passed out, Charlie can be carried to safety by Locke or whoever, and we get a few gloriously peaceful moments of Charlie being unconscious. This seems like another massive risk, given the high probability of them never coming round or being concussed. I don't really know what that means, but it sounds bad. They could become seriously brain damaged, but in the case of Charlie I'm not sure anyone would notice.

That You Criticise

As you know, I love everything in the world, with the exception of three things. One of those things that I love is HBO's True Detective.

What I don't love is the stuff that's being written about it. Not since NBC's Hannibal have critics fallen over themselves in such a hyperbolic frenzy. Here are three things people need to stop saying about True Detective.

3. 

The oft-repeated un-opinion that True Detective is "like a movie" is, to use a technical term, donkey bollocks. The crime-drama is protracted and slow to an extent that no movie would ever get away with. If a film was paced like True Detective, you'd turn it off. When people compare it to cinema, all they mean is it looks nice and has film stars in it. As a piece of criticism it's superficial, hacky and lazy. You can't just say a TV show is like a film because it's good, TV has been better than film for ages now. With the amount of money and talent that's moved to TV over the last few years, TV has overtaken film to the point that we should really start saying that a good film is "like a TV show." Twin Peaks and Breaking Bad aren't like films. Films are crap. With it's drawn-out, unravelling mystery, True Detective is nothing like a film, it's very much like a TV show.

2. 

No, the real star of True Detective could not be Louisiana. Because it's a place. The real stars of True Detective are, get this, its stars. The clue is in the name. I see what The Guardian man is trying to say, but calling the show's setting its "star" seems to undermine the work of the director and cinematographer and everyone involved in putting it on screen. Louisiana contributes relatively little towards True Detective's success, because, and I can't stress this enough, it's a place. This is the sort of pretentious thing people say to sound clever, which is actually completely meaningless. It's the sort of thing I might say. 

1. 

I've written about these ridiculous claims made by critics, that make you question their motives. Clearly these nonsensical headlines are just hit-generators. Maybe True Detective will be the best show of the year. But it's fucking February. No opinion you currently hold on the subject has any worth at all. The level of disingenuous non-discussion by professional critics seems to be reaching staggering new heights, with reviewers mindlessly saying anything to get traffic or a retweet from Lena Dunham. You have the best job in the world, all I ask is that you think about what you say. 

Thanks for reading, here's Who Are You by the brilliant Skindred.

Boredom

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is boring main characters (in good TV shows).

A lot of television dramas start with a person going to a new place, an unusual place full of interesting people. The protagonist is therefore our point of entry into this strange new world; they're our "in". There seems to be this idea that they have to be as "normal" as possible, in order for us to relate to them, as they become our eyes and ears. This means we're lumbered with a boring main character, in an otherwise excellent show. This idea that protagonists have to be dull is nonsense, as we can see from the huge number of great shows whose lead characters are interesting, weird or downright insane. People like Walter White, Agent Dale Cooper or even Dexter, before it went crap. Here are 5 examples of boring main characters (in good TV shows):

5. Piper Chapman - Orange Is The New Black 

I've written about my love for this Netflix-produced prison drama and its diverse range of brilliant characters. So why do we have to spend all our time with the smug and unlikeable Piper? Why can't we spend it with Nicky, or Morello, or Alex? The answer is that it's based on Piper Kerman's memoirs, and it's the fish-out-of-water displacement of a New York middle-class woman into the nightmarish world of prison that drives the whole narrative. Still though, she is a dick.

4. Lana Winters - American Horror Story: Asylum

I've also written about my love for this joyously bonkers horror drama, and Asylum saw some of its most mental moments. There were Nazi doctors, killer nuns and even a psychotic Zachary Quinto. And who were we stuck with? Lana Winters: Lesbian Journalist. Spock should have killed her when he had the chance.

3. Will Graham - Hannibal

This one isn't even a good TV show. It's actually rubbish. But there's good stuff in there, most notably Lawrence Fishburne as Jack Crawford, and of course Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter. But not Hugh Dancy as Will Graham, who twitches his way through terrible dialogue with all the charisma of Nicky Campbell. Stupidly his deductive skills seem to amount to psychic ability, a bit like Sherlock but without any of the charm.

2. Buffy Summers - Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Obviously I'm in love with Buffy Summers, who isn't? But she is one of the show's most boring characters. She's annoying, whiny and has the worst taste in men since that German woman Nigel Farage is married to. In fact the only people more boring that Buffy are the men she falls in love with. But that Riley Finn sure is a dreamboat. 

1. Jack Shephard - Lost

I love Lost. But Jack is without a doubt the most boring main character in a good TV show. "Can I tell you about how I got my tattoos?" "Have I mentioned my dad lately?" "Would you like to watch me cry?" Shut up! We're on a magical island with characters as brilliant as Locke, Sawyer and Hurley, and you just go around feeling superior and/or sorry for yourself. But at least he's better than Charlie. 

Thanks for reading, here's Buzzcocks.

Ignition Sequence

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is bad title sequences (for great TV shows).

Two years ago I wrote about my top 5 opening title sequences, a list which remains unchanged since then. The American Horror Story titles change each season but remain the scariest thing about the show.

But what about great TV shows with crap opening titles? Here are my bottom three:

3. Firefly

I love Firefly as much as the next geek, but why does such a refreshing show need such a dreary title sequence? Joss Whedon wrote the theme song, so it's almost a relief to learn that there's something that man can't do. 

2. Breaking Bad

 

I love Breaking Bad, who doesn't? Seriously, is there anyone who doesn't? It is a rubbish name though, with a tacky opening sequence that belies the show's high production values. But at least it's short. 

1. Twin Peaks

I love Twin Peaks and today's news that David Lynch might be making more although probably not is as exciting and confusing as the show itself. But I always skip the title sequence, because one and a half minutes of nice scenery and boring music just doesn't entice in the way the show does. It's presumably that long because of the huge cast who need credits, but Lost has a brilliantly brief opening despite the size of the ensemble. Instead, their names appear across the bottom of the screen right up until the end of each episode.

Thanks for reading, here's Jurassic 5.

Travelling Without Moving II: The Heretic

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is when people insist on telling you all the details of their fucking boring holiday (again).

So, I just got back from the USA. Here are the edited highlights of the journal I kept. The word "highlights" here being used loosely, as in: "Here are some highlights from today's local elections."

Day 1

• Flew to New York, managed to avoid being cavity searched in the airport. Result!
• Watched The Look of Love on the plane, here's my review: Lots of naked people. 
• Looking forward to meeting this Fiscal Cliff I keep hearing about. Apparently he never pays for a round.
• Saw this stupid advert on the subway:

Day 2

• Watched the Yankees play a game of rounders.
• Went to 30 Rock!

Day 3

• Enjoyed The Dark Knight boat trip, the Cloverfield subway tour and a go in the pram from Rosemary's Baby.
• No sign of Louise Mensch.

Day 4

• Went to the Natural History Museum where Alex discovered the world's funniest machine:

Day 5

• Got the bus to Washington D.C.
• Saw this great advert:

Day 6

• No sign of President Romney.
• Saw that white house from The West Wing, the building from Midtown Madness 3 and the bloke from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Day 7

• Saw the PreCrime building from Minority Report! AKA the Ronald Reagan Building.
• From Reagan to Regan - went to the stairs from The Exorcist! My pilgrimage is complete.

Day 8

• Saw pandas at the zoo.
• Attempted a 1000 piece Beatles jigsaw.

So that was my brief trip to America, based mainly on locations from films and TV shows. I'll leave you with an American sign, an American cat and Tubular Bells.

Reality Show

As you know, I love everything in the world, with the exception of three things. One of those things that I love is TV shows about TV shows.

The Newsroom saw its UK debut this week, a show so unbelievably Aaron Sorkin that it would feel like a parody, were it not for the fact that it's obviously really good. Yes it's smug and over the top and shouty and there are inexplicable English people and the newsroom itself looks more like CTU from 24 than any real place on Earth - which is probably more a problem with 24 for making the Anti-Terrorist HQ look, in the genius words of Charlie Brooker, "more like the offices of a Hoxton-based fashion magazine than a top-secret quasi-military nerve centre." - but you can't help but get lost in Sorkin's world; a world in which people randomly make rousing speeches as a Thomas Newman score soars underneath; a world in which the unattractive and unwitty are kept in bunkers deep, deep underground; a world in which no one ever says "ermmm..."

But what's my point? Well, ermmm... The Newsroom is a TV show about a TV show, as are previous Sorkin works, the brilliantly clever Sports Night and the terribly titled Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. And this phenomenon doesn't end with Sorkin; a lot of TV shows are about the production of TV shows, and I don't mean documentaries about real TV shows, I mean dramas and comedies that revolve around the production of a fictional TV show. Perhaps it's a case of television writers taking heed of the advice, "write about what you know." As a result, we have the depressingly unfunny Home Improvement, the oddly interesting but seen-by-no-one Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive, and Ricky Gervais' second favourite show of all time, Extras. His favourite is Life's Too Short.

As a complete sucker for the postmodern, I love this kind of clever meta stuff, so here are my top 5 TV shows about TV shows:

5. Sports Night

Sorkin's first TV show is, in my humble and horrendously ill-informed opinion, his greatest work and subsequently he has just been trying to replicate it. Sports Night centres around the production of a sports show called Sports Night. Replace "sports" with "news" and you have The Newsroom. Literally; it centres around the production of a news show called News Night. There's no weak link in Sports Night, with actors including Peter Krause, Joshua Malina and Sabrina Lloyd bringing Sorkin's unfeasibly sharp script to life; they really can walk and talk at the same time. Because it wasn't massively popular and, as the tagline says, "it isn't about sports at all", Sorkin was able to recycle a lot of it later for his bigger shows. For me though, Sports NIght has more heart than any of them, and its rough edges make it feel warmer than the slick glossiness of The West Wing and The Newsroom.

4. Episodes

Because of this character.

3. The Larry Sanders Show

Proving yet again that HBO can do no wrong - even if they killed your grandmother they'd do it with such intelligence and class that you'd say "fair enough" - The Larry Sanders Show did it all first. I'm only on season 1 because no one grabbed me and shook me and shouted at me to FUCKING WATCH LARRY SANDERS, and as a result I'm angry at everyone. That's why I'm so aggressive when it comes to recommending brilliant TV shows; I want others to do the same for me. So FUCKING WATCH LARRY SANDERS. You can see it oozing out of every modern comedy, particularly in the case of 30 Rock and Extras, on which the influence of this classic cannot be understated. The Larry Sanders Show had celebrities appearing as parodies of themselves over 10 years before Ricky Gervais made it his gag. His one gag.

2. Dead Set

Charlie Brooker is a TV critic, and nothing criticises TV quite like his zom-com Dead Set. Famous for its zombie-Davina, Brooker's viciously scathing and articulate attack on reality television sees the zompocalypse strike during a Big Brother eviction night. Trapped in the Big Brother house, the contestants become the survivors. It's a genius premise, but it's more than that; it's a bitingly dark comedy, a genuinely scary piece of horror, and a poignant and ruthless satire. Plus of course, zombie-Davina.  

1. 30 Rock

I am nothing if not predictable. Unlike 30 Rock, which has run for six seasons and never ceases to be clever and funny in equal measure. It has created some of the best comedy characters of all time, with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin at the show's heart, trying desperately to run a live TV show and keep reins around the insanity of Jenna, Tracy and of course Kenneth. The next season of Fey's perfect creation will be its last, which is tragic, not least because I don't know where I'll find quotes to put at the top of my blog. But 30 Rock is so ingeniously written that it can be watched again and again; it's satirical, it's warm and it's hilarious, with some of the best guest stars in TV history. Talking of which... funny how these things all click into place.

So those are my top 5 TV shows about TV shows, thanks for reading. If there's two things I love it's television and Spanish ska, so I'll leave you with the Ska-P song that this blog is named after, enjoy!

Scenester

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them.

I know you don't watch a lot of TV shows, because you have "better" things to do, like "work" or "standing up". But as I've said before, it's your loss, because some TV shows are brilliant. Most of the time.

Even the best shows occasionally let themselves down. Well actually, the BEST shows don't; Six Feet Under and Community never do, for instance. But in a lot of great TV shows, there'll be scenes that stick out awkwardly, like they've left their flies undone. Here are three examples of bad scenes in good TV shows:

3. None of these adoption pens work! (Lost, #1.10: "Raised by Another.")

I could write entire blogs about stupid scenes in Lost, but this one struck me as particularly fascinating. If I was signing papers to confirm that I'd give my child up for adoption, and two pens in a row didn't work, I wouldn't take it as some sort of divine sign. I'd say, "Why don't any of your pens work? What's going on? Can you just give me a pen that works, please?" The best bit is at 2:16 when that woman goes, "What? No! No!" The entire production team of one of the biggest budget shows ever made all saw that and went, "Yep, sounds good to me."

2. Subtext is overrated. (Firefly, #1.2: "The Train Job.") Go to 8:30 - 8.47:

Don't get me wrong, I love Firefly as much as the next nerd. But there are 3 things wrong with it: The theme tune, most of the first episode, and this bit. Mal leaves the room, and River says, "Mal... bad... in the Latin." Thanks River. You're meant to be a genius and that's what you come up with. And you say it as if you've solved some ancient riddle that holds the key to life. You've barely said a word until now, then you deem it worth opening your mouth for that.

1. Bono ruins everything. (Scrubs, #2.19: "My Kingdom.")

 

Is that the worst plot device ever used? Yes, it is. Firstly, no one loves U2, so that's a gaping plot hole. At best, people tolerate U2. At worst, they dream of committing disturbingly specific acts of violence upon U2. Probably, I wouldn't know... But the joke here is that U2 sounds like "you too." Now that is genius, take note, River. U2 sounds like "you too", I'm laughing so hard I just choked up my own heart and stamped it to death.

You just wonder how some things make it onto TV. It's not like the internet, where anyone can put any old shit...

Thanks for reading, I'll leave you with the excellent Big D and the Kids Table song that this blog is named after, enjoy!

Mad Man

As you know, I love everything in the world, with the exception of three things. One of those things that I love is Mad Men.

During its 17-month hiatus, a ridiculous number of shows have come along which TV critics everywhere have lazily dubbed "the new Mad Men", because it's also set in the '60s, or also features people wearing suits, or also is a show that is on TV.

But finally, a show has come along that really is "the new Mad Men." What is this show? It's the AMC drama Mad Men.

It returned this week and it was as brilliant as ever. Apart from one scene, which provoked a feminist shake of the head from me.

Sorry Don Draper fans, and I am one of you, but that was rape. Well, it started as rape, but of course it turned out that she wanted it all along. And she didn't actually mean it when she said "No". And "Don't". And "I don't want it". The problem is one that feminist philosophers Rae Langton and Catharine MacKinnon raised about the silencing of women. This scene is a perfect example. It tells us that when women say "No" to sex, they don't mean it. This legitimises rape. She says "No", she says it clearly, she repeats the rejection again and again. But she doesn't mean it, she wants Don Draper because he's Jon Hamm and she's a woman. So when women say "No", they mean "Yes", the confused idiots. That is the silencing of women, and it's dangerous. It might be familiar to you from pornography, but this is Mad Men. That episode was watched by 3.5 million people in the US alone, and it's telling them that "No" doesn't mean "No". I expect sexism from the characters of Mad Men, but not from the show itself.

It's not just the US who are guilty of sexism in their TV shows; the BBC's own 1960's drama White Heat (the new Mad Men) recently caused another feminist shake of the head. Obviously you first have to get past the relentless lingering shots of people staring out of windows and into mirrors. It is a BBC drama after all. Because you're all too important to watch TV, I'll briefly explain the context.

This is Charlotte, played by Claire Foy, the Abi Morgan of acting. She's a feminist.

See? That's in her bedroom. She's a feminist. That's her thing.

This is Jack the uber-creep, played by Brian May, probably.

They are sort of together. But he treats her like shit; he tells everyone, over dinner, that she shaves under her arms; he sleeps with her for the first time, makes a remark about "a bit of uncomplicated sex", slaps her bum and fucks off; he sleeps with her best friend. I told you it was a BBC drama. This is what happens next.

So all it takes for Charlotte - did I mention she was a feminist? - to forgive charm-void Jack is a nibble on the hand and a lazy cliché? In the space of a minute, she goes all gooey about him. Because she's a woman, and as feminist as they claim to be, they still can't say "No" to a man, no matter how much of a dick they are. This show says that you can take the most strident feminist ever, give them a minute with a thing with a penis, and they'll melt like Silly Putty, the silly women.

We deserve better representations of women on our TV screens, not shows that patronise and silence women. The new Mad Men is really good though.

Thank you for reading, I'll leave you with the song by The Hives that this blog is named after, and a slap on the bum. Enjoy!