Of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a slow paced movie.

Not that I mean that in a bad way at all.

Of course, a film with a running time of two hours and seven minutes built upon moments of silence was never going to be as fast paced as any number of modern spy thrillers. But Tomas Alfredson (last seen directing the brilliant Let The Right One In back in 2008) has created a film that harkens back to the spy thrillers of yesteryear, and does away with the need for non-stop action.

Based on the 1974 novel John le Carré (as well as the 1979 BBC miniseries), Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is heavily influenced by 1970s conspiracy thrillers. Gary Oldman plays George Smiley, a retired M16 operative is called back in to the spy world, to investigate who within M16 is a Soviet mole. Playing the four suspects are Toby Jones as Percy Alleline (Tinker), Colin Firth as Bill Haydon (Tailor), Ciarán Hinds as Roy Bland (Soldier) and David Dencik as Toby Esterhase (Poorman). From there, the plot gets understandably more complex.

It is here, however, that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy runs into its biggest flaw. Whilst the plot may seem to drag at times (particularly during its first act), it would have been greatly improved if it had had more time to play-out its ideas. This is not to say that it should have been longer, more-so that maybe it should have been adapted as a miniseries, like the 1979 original. It would have given more time for actors such as Colin Firth and Toby Jones to make more of an impact, and to add weight to some suspects (such as Ciarán Hinds) who are sidelined for the majority of the film More time spent with the suspects would have allowed more chance to surprise the audience, rather than having it be one of two characters on whom the most time is spent.

But making it as a minseries would have probably acted as a double edged sword, in that whilst obvious improvements could have been made in terms of depth, the quality of actors would be almost sure to decline.

Whilst many of the film's actors are relegated to a single scene, these scenes are uniformly fantastic. Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) relating the events of his time to Russia to Smiley and Peter Guillam's (Bendict Cumberbatch) reactions as he is interrogated by the top members of Circus, being some of the best examples of the great acting work that is at hand in this film

This is of course probably Gary Oldman's strongest chance of winning an Oscar in years, and he is given ample opportunity to lay down his claim. This is particularly true in the scene where he recounts his sole encounter with the Russian spy, Karla, by re-enacting it to a distressed Bendict Cumberbatch. An utterly compelling scene that manages to shine in a film filled with so many of them.

Despite reservations at the films length, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a triumph. It's pacing may be a turn off to many but Tomas Alfredson has continued his sterling work from Let The Right One In and made another fantastic film. With the sheer strength of the acting talent on display, in particular the performances of Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch, and the sure to be award winning performance by Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy is simply put one of the best films released in 2011.

9/10

X-Men: First Class Review

It's been almost 5 months since I last posted a review, but that's not to say that there haven't been films that I've wanted to review. I loved Black Swan (someday I'll copy my review for the uni paper and stick it up here), Thor was great and Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger's Tides was as mediocre as the last two. But X-Men: First Class is the first film in a while that has exceeded my expectations. I have hated the last 2 X-Men films, with Last Stand being, quite possibly, my least favourite super-hero film ever and Origins: Wolverine just completely failed to bring the character of Wolverine to life. But X-Men: First Class is exactly what the franchise needed to resuscitate itself.

I don't think it can be understated just how much of the films strengths lie on Matthew Vaughan (director of last year's brilliant Kick-Ass) who brings so much to the franchise (after dropping out of directing Last Stand). Gone is the darker tone of the X-Men films of the last decade, instead settling on a far more fun tone that goes hand in hand with the 60s setting. The sets look brighter and more colourful, as do the costumes (including Emma Frost who seems to only wear lingerie....not that I'm complaining) and there are obvious James Bond parallels that can also be levelled, particularly at the early scenes featuring Michael Fassbender. Matthew Vaughan was exactly what the franchise needed two films ago, but now that he seems to have full reign of the franchise I couldn't be happier.

The anchor to this film is, of course, the relationship between Michael Fassbender's Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto and James McAvoy's Charles Xavier/Professor X. Luckily, both are absolutely fantastic. Quite easily they are able to live up to the performances given by Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen in the older X-Men films, whilst also appearing to having more fun in their roles than those veteran actors.

X-Men: First Class's Charles Xavier feels more human than before, actually spending his time drinking, womanising and just having a good time. Of course we still have to see his more serious side and driven nature, but at least we get to see a refreshing new side to the character. But the true revelation here is Michael Fassbender (also fantastic in 2009's Inglorious Basterds), his Magneto is utterly tormented by his childhood in a WW2 Concentration camp and yet is a completely relate-able character despite the audience knowing what Magneto will eventually become. It becomes clear from early scenes that Fassbender shoulders a large piece of this movie on his own (and would make for a fantastic James Bond) but it's the scenes between Charles and Erik that make 'X-Men: First Class' as great as it is.

Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) is the villain intrinsicly linked to Magneto's past and shown to be an instigator behind the Cuban Missile Crisis. His aims might seem oddly cartoonish, especially in context of the rest of the film, but the anguish that he has caused, make him a compelling force throughout. Particularly in any scene when he is paired with Fassbender. The chilly January Jones plays Emma Frost, carrying over almost the exact same performance from Mad Men, but it's good one so we ignore that. Sadly though, some of the other villains in the Hellfire Club just aren't serviced in the plot well enough at all, receiving maybe a half dozen words between them. And it's here that the main weakness within the film lies.

Whilst James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are clearly great as the leads, the other X-Men are left with minimal screen time, with only Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique and Nicholas Hoult's Beast getting any time to themselves. It helps that Hoult and Lawrence are good, but characters such as Lucas Till's Havok and Caleb Landry Jones' Banshee are short changed. The film does a great job at creating these characters and setting up their world, but it's the sequel that's going to be the one that is able to take full advantage of it.

Apart from some dodgy special effects and the obvious growing pains that come with having to introduce an entire universe within two hours, X-Men: First Class achieves what it sets out to. At times it might bite off a bit too much, but it all goes towards creating this new cinematic world. If you were left disappointed by the last two X-Men films, then this will almost certainly make you happy. In many ways it does a far better job at introducing the X-Men than 2000's own 'X-Men' film, and apart from those teething problems, this is a world that I want to spend a more time in. It's good to see that the franchise has once again found it's feet (although I am disappointed that Darren Aronofsky dropped out of The Wolverine*). 'X-Men: First Class' is a great first step to rejuvenating the X-Men franchise and I can't wait to see where Matthew Vaughan takes them next.

8/10

*speaking of Wolverine......

Of 127 Hours

127 Hours is the new Danny Boyle film and I think it's safe to say that it is pretty fantastic. The basic premise of the film should of course be well known to anyone familiar with the real life story. Aron Ralston goes hiking in Utah and ends being trapped underneath a rock for 127 Hours where he ultimately is forced to amputate his own arm in order to escape. Of course this film isn't for everyone, but if you think that it's just James Franco under a rock for 2 hours then you're wrong, what 127 Hours is far more interesting than that.

That isn't to say the vast majority of the films events don't occur in one very small section of a canyon, because it does, but this film is elevated by an absolutely fantastic performance from James Franco. 127 Hours is the sort of film that lives and dies on the performance of its lead actor and luckily James Franco is superb and really does elevate this film. The sheer range that James Franco is able to portray in this film is extraordinary and shows just how far he has come from his days of playing Harry Osborn in the Spider-man films. Over the course of 93 minutes, James Franco shows the audience sheer joy, sadness, intense anger, pain, hints of madness, exhaustion and a list nearly as long as my arm. Whilst the short run time might not be nearly as long as Ralston's real life ordeal, 127 Hours really places the audience into the canyon with Franco to the extent we feel his pain and every emotion he is going through. 127 Hours is a character piece of the highest order, James Franco's performance is near flawless and really does have to be seen to be believed.

Whilst James Franco's outstanding performance is of course the main reason to go see this film, we must not forget the works of Danny Boyle and the rest of the crew. Special mention must be made to cinematographers Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak who do an absolutely outstanding job of filming Utah in all of it's daunting glory and the small space that Franco inhabits throughout the film. Again, if you like your films to look good, they don't look much better than 127 Hours.

Then we have Danny Boyle who has done the amazing task of filming the un-filmable. One of the main reasons that people I know have been hesistant to see this film is because they don't know how on earth it is going to work as a film, but Danny Boyle and fellow screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (also from Slumdog Millionaire) achieve this in their script and Danny Boyle in his filming of events. Whilst the majority of the film does take place with that canyon, Danny Boyle portrays the toll that these events are playing on Aron Ralston through the use of such strange and out of place imagery that it feels like the audience is seeing what Ralston was seeing, as he slowly dehydrates and hallucinates.

Really though what I need to talk about is that scene, the scene where after 5 days at the bottom of this crevasse, Ralston amputates his own arm. I don't think it's any surprise that the scene is hard to watch. Films don't portray violence in a realistic light very often which makes a film like 127 Hours that much more stark when it actually does so. What it is about the amputation scene isn't the sight of the desecrated arm (although it kind of is) but the sound of what is happening. The sound of Ralston breaking the bone in his arm in two is one that I will not forget for a long time, nor will I forget the scene where he is forced to sever his own nerve endings.

127 Hours isn't a film for everyone, for sure, but those that do appreciate it will absolutely love it. Danny Boyle proves, once again, how he is one of the best working directors in the world and James Franco puts in a stunning performance as Aron Ralston which has already picked up a lot of buzz as we move into awards time. At it's heart 127 Hours is a very intimate story about a man who wasn't prepared for what happened to him, he isn't some kind of superhuman, but a man who knew what he needed to do to survive. And that makes 127 Hours that bit more outstanding. 9/10

Of The Way Back

Having just seen 'The Way Back' in the cinema (not sure exactly I'll be posting this review) I wanted to get a few thoughts down whilst they were still fresh in my mind from the experience.

'The Way Back' is a movie that tells the tale of a group of men in a Siberian gulag during World War 2 who escape and decide to make their way south, to escape from Communist rule. This journey spans 4,000 miles of harsh conditions ranging from blizzards to deserts and a general selection of not very nice conditions.

At one point in the movie, Irena (Saoirse Ronan), a young Polish girl they find on their journey, asks Mr. Smith (Ed Harris) why the men who escaped from the gulag do not discuss their personal lives and to this Mr. Smith replies along the lines of "in the gulag we learned to keep quiet unless necessary" and it is this exchange of dialogue for me which sums up what worked and what didn't work about 'The Way Back'.

What did work, astonishingly well, is the general tone, atmosphere and look of the entire film. Peter Weir clearly knows how to shoot a scene and Russell Boyd's cinematography is absolutely breathtaking. If there is one reason to go and see 'The Way Back' it is because of how amazing the cinematography is. The shots of the snow racked forests of Siberia, the enormity of Lake Baikal, the heat and vastness of the Gobi desert all look absolutely gorgeous. Many films don't make good enough use of on location scenery, but by the sheer nature of the story that is being within 'The Way Back', it would almost be impossible to not show how awe inspiring these locales are.

Then there was the use of silence, whilst the score to the film isn't exactly sparse, there are moments when there is no sound at all. All that is left on the screen is the image of this small group of people battling against nature so that they might live. Some of the most memorable moments in the film come when everything goes silent and all that can be seen is the silhouette of the haggard band of travels walking across a sand dune. The visuals in this film are some of the best I've seen from a film in a while and show that Peter Weir is a fantastic visual director.

Sadly what let's this film down is the fact that there is almost no characterisation of the people we are following on this epic journey. Beyond the lead character, Janusz (Jim Sturgess), none of the characters we spent the following two hours with are developed at all. In fact when the gulag is left behind, I didn't actually know who had been taken with them on this journey. Maybe it didn't help that I couldn't latch onto names or that because whilst in coats in Siberia, it was difficult to tell the characters apart, I found myself unable to give any personality traits to these characters. Of course it was easy to recognise who and what sort of character that Colin Farrell* was playing in Valka** but the actual attempts at making a fully formed three dimensional character weren't even attempted until half way through the film by which point it was far too late.

However by far the most telling moment of this complete lack of characterisation came a third of the way through the film where two characters are arguing, one of whom had been shown to be an artist (hence why he became known to me as 'The Artist'), the other has had zero screen time at all. During this exchange the character with almost no screen time (apparently named Zoran) proclaims "My job is to make everyone laugh". Up until this point in the film, 'Zoran' had done absolutely nothing funny, there was no scene of him telling an amusing anecdote, it felt like this line of dialogue was there to make us have something to identify him by, but how hard could it have been to have a scene where he tells a hilarious joke.

The main problem with not having compelling characters is that when stuff happens to them, you just don't care. Because this film focuses upon a gruelling 4,000 mile walk, of course some of the characters are going to die. However when there has been almost no attempt to make them fully formed characters, it almost becomes a nuisance. The characters were just there to service the plot in the end. Instead of coming to life as real breathing human beings, they just were. They did what they were supposed to do and died when they were supposed to. The character of Irena played absolutely no role in the film other than to act as a confident between Jim Sturgess and Ed Harris so that later they could have an intimate conversation.

'The Way Back' is a long way from being perfect, mostly due to the fact that none of the characters feel like actual characters. However luckily the rest of the movie is able to compensate for this. I've already stated how amazing it looks, but truly it does, watch the trailer above at the highest quality to get a taste of how good it looks. The characters might not be the most compelling in the world but the plot is interesting on almost a primal level, it might be a shade too long but it's hard not to be interested in the plight of the characters, even if you aren't particularly interested in the characters themselves.

It might have some large shortcomings but 'The Way Back' is still made enjoyable by stunning visuals and compelling narrative. 7/10

*Surprisingly, Colin Farrell isn't in the movie as much as the adverts and billing would have the audience believe.

**I've had to look up pretty much every character's name to do this review.

Of Supernatural Season 5

Hooray, another really late review that I should have got out of the way at the end months ago instead of waiting for the show to be half way through it's current season. But what the hell, I'm reviewing it now and it's the thought that counts...right? Anyway, the normal drill of spoilers ahead.

This was it for Supernatural, this was the big season, the one that the show had been leading up to for four years. This was the projected end point for the show and for a lot of the season it sure felt that way. Sam and Dean were up against the apocalypse, the end of days and all the rest of that shit. There's no coming back from that (although as Season 6 has shown, the writers are trying). This was the season they were going to deal with the religious tales of the end of the world. Hell, Satan himself is a major supporting character for the majority of the season.

Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles continued to be great as Dean and Sam Winchester, as did Jim Beaver as Bobby and Misha Collins as Castiel. Mark Pellegrino (Lost, Dexter) was also a great addition to the show playing Lucifer. But I think everyone knows that Jared and Jensen are exceedingly charismatic and great in every single scene they're in. I don't need to go on about that, but just reinforce the fact that these two put in a damn good performance every single week. It's not award worthy but they're just consistently great.

So what about the season as a whole? Coming off of the superb Season 4, my hopes were set extremely high for Season 5, to the extent it was almost impossible for the show to reach them. Which sadly the show didn't reach. That's not saying it was bad, and more often than not it was great even! Occasionally however (particularly in the early portion of the season) the show was putting out some really weak episodes, 'Fallen Idols' and 'Children Are Our Future' were definitely not all time great episodes. They weren't bad but when it's coming from a show that has delivered episodes like 'On the Head of a Pin' and 'In Our Time of Dying' they were definitely disappointments.

Most of my disappoint in Season 5 however didn't stem from the occasional weak episode but from the pacing of the season. The apocalypse was so huge that it just took over the whole show. The urgency that the Winchester's were facing the apocalypse just wasn't there in some episodes. It felt a lot like Season 3 which suffered from similar problems. Dean was supposed to die within a year but some episodes ignored this fact and went on like nothing was wrong. Of course I'd say Season 5 was probably a stronger season than that one, but it suffered from a lot of the same flaws (but luckily no Bella). When we go through entire episodes about Paris Hilton murdering people and not focusing upon the pressing matter that Dean and Sam are the vessels for Satan and Michael, then something is very wrong with the pacing.

Overall though the apocalypse story was exactly the kind of thing Supernatural does well. We got to meet the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with great performances from Titus Welliver as War and Julian Richings as Death who of course had the natural creepiness needed for that role. Then there was 'Hammer of the Gods' where the show branched out into other mythologies such as Norse and Roman, making the Supernatural universe that much larger (even if Lucifer did come in and decimate all of them). But for every 'Hammer of the Gods' or 'Abandon All Hope...' which featured the deaths of both Jo and Ellen, we got an episode like 'Children Are Our Future' which focused on the anti-christ and had absolutely no long standing consequences on the season.

But I'm not going to focus on the misgivings of the season, When everything was right, Supernatural did exactly what it does so well, a horror movie with a twist every week. Of course there were the occasional funny episodes such as the terrific 'Changing Channels' which wrapped up the Trickster trilogy with an episode riffing on TV shows that was not only hilarious but also tied wonderfully back into the main conflict of the season. Then there was more traditional fare such as the fantastic premiere, 'Sympathy for the Devil and two time travel episodes with 'The End' and 'The Song Remains the Same'. When Supernatural went for a story relating to the apocalypse it didn't hold back, it gave it's audience nearly every single trope relating to the biblical tales of the end of days even on it's very minimal budget, fuck, they even took Sam and Dean to heaven in 'The Dark Side of the Moon'.

All of this ambition though was for a reason, this was originally going to be the show's final season and it really shows. The 100th episode of the show 'Point of No Return' might not have had the world falling apart, but there was a pervading sense of doom and exhaustion that consumed the Winchesters. Kurt Fuller as Zachariah put in another great performance in this 100th episode trying to convince Dean to give his body to Michael which of course was never going to happen. 'Point of No Return' was where the season hit double speed and started the ball rolling for the epic final string of episodes and the finale, and boy, what a finale it was.

'Swan Song' was so obviously meant to be the show's final episode that in many ways the obvious changes made in light of the Season 6 pick-up weakened it (both Bobby and Castiel coming back to life, Sam appearing outside of the pit all of 5 minutes later) but it was still a superb cap to those first five seasons. Whilst the end of the apocalypse story wasn't as epic and crazy as many people expected it to be, it did stay true to the shows roots. It was emotional, with great acting from all involved and that sense of familial love that this show does so well. It was an utterly satisfying finale for the show and would have been a perfect series finale if the show had ended. I'm not upset that we have at least one more season of this show because I do love it, but I can't help but feel that any future series finale might not be able to top this one.

Overall, Supernatural 5 wasn't the perfect season of the show, but it did what the show does well. The pace might not have been spot on and it definitely wasn't as consistent as Season 4, but it still delivered more often than it failed. Supernatural was as ambitious as ever and more or less stuck the landing. Whilst this would have been a perfect point for the show to bow out, you can't really complain when you're getting essentially an extra season of a great and amazingly fun show. Hell where else could God be a white guy that orders hookers?

It might not have been the swan song for Dean, Sam and that Impala, but in the end it was just a great season of television and that's all we really ever wanted.

8/10

Of Doctor Who - A Christmas Carol

I don't think it would surprise anyone to find out that the Doctor Who Christmas Specials are not the episodes that people hold up as their favourites. Really they are meant to be set apart from the rest of the Doctor Who mythos and just be a little stand alone special. The best of these Christmas specials so far has been 'The Christmas Invasion' and that was mostly because it was David Tennant's first episode and had the added benefit of actually being an integral episode. Last year we had 4 specials, but two of those were pretty much normal episodes and the last 2 were saying goodbye to David Tennant. so this year's 'A Christmas Carol' was the first Doctor Who Christmas Special we've had since 'The Next Doctor'. Which leaves with the question as to whether 'A Christmas Carol' was any good.

Well I'm going to answer that very bluntly and say that yes it was, very good in fact. By far the most Christmassy Christmas Special that Doctor Who has done in a long time and also quite possibly the best one. Now I feel I should get it out of the way and point out that of course I may be slightly biased because of my love of Steven Moffat, but really he's just a talented writer and brought all of his skill to this episode.

'A Christmas Carol' focused upon a very loose retelling of the classic Charles Dickens tale, 'A Christmas Carol'. There are still three ghosts, still a Scrooge like character and of course a poor family whom he must go visit, but this being Doctor Who there must be a twist. For starters, the ghosts were all a product of time travel, with the Doctor literally going into the past to influence events back then or taking someone to the future to show them what they will be like when older. 'A Christmas Carol' is such a Christmas classic, that it's no wonder that this story was chosen as the frame work and with the added benefit of already having time involved, Steven Moffat was able to utilise his patented timey wimey manipulation to genius effect.

This was an episode that heavily relied on guest characters, mostly that of Kazran Sardick (Michael Gambon as the elder version) and Abigail Pettigrew (Katherine Jenkins). Katherine Jenkins didn't have to do much other than sing but Michael Gambon was great as the torn old man who had to suffer through life knowing he could only spend one more day with the person he loved. Amy and Rory* were involved in ancillary plot line about a spaceship they were honeymooning on crashing into a planet, it was the set-up for the main plot of the episode but they spent most of their time in a little exploding room.

The main plot of the episode focused on Kazran Sardick who had control over the planets weather and could quite easily save all 4,003 people on board the ship but because he's a Scrooge he doesn't want, so the Doctor is forced to go back in time to when he was a child and make him a better person as he grows older (yay timey wimey). Of course this inevitably leads to flying sharks and Kazran falling in love with a woman frozen in his fathers dungeon (not as kinky as it sounds). Kazran and Abigail spend every Christmas Eve together for several years, until eventually it is found out that every day she is let out leads her closer to death. So to save his love Kazran vows not to unfreeze her again as she will die.

Now I've skirted around what will probably be the most controversial element of the episode. The fact that fish on this planet fly around in the sky. Steven Moffat gives the Doctor a moment of incredulity to this but then he goes along with it in his normal enthusiastic sense. And really that's all I needed to go along with. It's Doctor Who, anything can happen so I was there from the beginning. Apart from the part when they went on Shark-led sleigh ride, but really that wasn't enough to pull me out. The fish float around in ice crystals in the sky which resonate at the frequency of singing which is why Abigail becomes so important.

Of course by the end of the episode, the ship has been saved and Amy and Rory are fine. But then we also had the show not shying away from the fact that Abigail will indeed die after this last Christmas Day. But she got that last perfect Christmas with the man that she loved which gave everything just the right tone to end the episode on.

This only scraping the surface of why the episode worked, Amy and Rory in those costumes (who knew they were into that?), The Doctor speaking to both the past and present version of Kazran over the video camera and the normal cornucopia of funny lines that Moffat is able to pen ("There isn't any lottery!"). All I can really say about this episode was that it was tremendously fun. It wasn't dark and heavy, it did exactly what it should have done and offered a light and enjoyable Christmas episode. Something feel-good to be enjoyed by the family. It didn't have to resort to childish humour or contrived plot developments, and that's what made it work. Overall an absolutely fantastic Christmas special. Now who can't wait for the main series in March?

9/10

*Nice to see Arthur Darvill being bumped up to regular now

Of Doctor Who Season 5

It's been a while since Doctor Who season 5 ended and since this years Christmas special airs tomorrow I thought I should get around to reviewing the season that preceded it before actually reviewing that tomorrow. So how was Matt Smith's first year as the Doctor and in turn, Steven Moffat's first year as the lead writer.

Well if you don't already know that Steven Moffat is one of the best writers in the world then really you should learn this little fact. Dude wrote 'Blink' which is proof enough. Overall the last year of Doctor Who continued to show how great a writer Moffat was, even if the episodes not penned by himself rarely held up to his normal brilliance.

But more importantly, how was Matt Smith? Well for starters he was different to David Tennant which was something the show definitely needed. They couldn't have found a guy to replace David Tennat because he was such a fine actor and played his incarnation of the Doctor with such relish and bravado that anyone hired to just replace him would have been awful. Matt Smith's Doctor has rarely had to play the moments of pure drama that David Tennant had to play. That probably came from the change in the writing though but Matt Smith was definitely not playing a carbon copy of David Tennant and for that I'm very thankful.

Of course you cannot speak about the Doctor Who without mentioning his companions. For Season 5 we had Amy Pond played by Karen Gillan. Of course she fulfilled the role of attractive female on the show by Gillan was also immensely likeable and of course added that human element that the Doctor lacks. Amy had to act as our gateway into the series and she did that tremendously well. Then there was the fact that she was the key to the biggest plotline of the season, which hadn't been done before on the show and was again handled very well by Moffat (but of course he is a master writer). Then there was Rory Williams played by Arthur Darvill who whilst not present as often as Amy Pond, was a nice addition to the team in the episodes that he featured in.

But of course the most important thing about Doctor Who is the episodes themselves and how they come together. Doctor Who shows probably the biggest flaw in the idea of having a team of freelance writers in that the writers will occasionally fluctuate so wildly in quality. Occasionally you will have a writer of Steven Moffat's calibre or Paul Cornell but then someone weaker will write the next episode and it'll be leagues worse than the episode that preceded it. So I'm going to separate the Steven Moffat episodes from the others and then say which episodes I enjoyed and which I didn't

The episode I enjoyed least this season was easily 'Victory of the Daleks', I mean this episode was pure wank. It went absolutely nowhere, it failed to have the Daleks as a remotely interesting villain (which honestly they haven't been since Season 1). Yes I enjoyed the look at World War Era Britain and the shows portrayal of Winston Churchill was fun but then was pure shite like the robot scientist who was a bomb but could switch himself off because the Daleks had given him real memories therefore meaning that he could be human as well. I mean fucking seriously? That's how they defuse the bomb, by making a robot believe he is a human. Not a noble sacrifice, not going dark but in the most convoluted and non-nonsensical ways possible. Easily one of the worst episodes the show has ever done.

Other episodes this season such as 'Vampires in Venice' and the Silurian two parter were both good but neither had anything special going on about them. Neither were really integral to the overall story of the season, neither were particularly memorable if I'm completely honest. What they did have going for them was that they were perfectly serviceable little episodes that didn't really anger anyone but didn't exactly do much to make them memorable. Really just average episodes for no fault of their own. What was memorable about the Silurian episodes though was the death of Rory, which was genuinely quite shocking as well as then having Amy forget that her fiancée had ever existed was a bold move on Moffat's part (even if it was undone by the finale, but it didn't feel like the slap in the face that RTD's death fake-outs used to be)

Now we move onto the really very good episodes of the season. 'Amy's Choice' was a very interesting foray into the dream world where things got really quite dark. The characters didn't know which was the dream world and which world was the real world and which was the dream world. Whilst I wasn't a big fan of the reveal of what the Dream Lord was (mostly due to lack of set-up) I enjoyed the sense of peril that the show put the characters and that the show was willing to put them in this place. 'Vincent and the Doctor' was a script written by Richard Curtis and he fit in wonderfully into the world of Doctor Who. It was a story that could only be told on this show featuring an historical figure and based around historical truths whilst mixing in the science fiction element of time travel. Of course it all got a bit weepy at the end, but Curtis does that so well and the episode had been fantastic that I can forgive that little pit of pathos. The episode was also held aloft by a fantastic performance by Tony Curan as Vincent van Gogh and awesome cameo by Bill Nighy. Then there was 'The Lodger', whilst normally these light-hearted episodes can be very hit and miss, 'The Lodger' worked in a very good way. It definitely wasn't one of the shows best episodes ever but for a light-hearted episode it worked very well and had a great James Corden performance.

But what I really want to talk about is Moffat. Moffat began this season by telling the story of the cracks in time, how silence would fall and this all tied into Amy. Whilst not every plot-line was wrapped up, Moffat actually used this season as well a way to tell to a longer narrative. Rather than a buzzword that was just dropped throughout the season, Moffat actually had a lot of the events play into a larger narrative, particularly in the opening of episode 12 'The Pandorica Opens'. Hell he's even spread out one plot line over two seasons showing he has bigger plan and really thinks ahead about the plots of the show.

But what about the episodes he wrote? Well 'The Eleventh Hour' acted as our introduction to the new Doctor and companion and was one of the best seasons openers that the new Doctor Who has had. Over the course of this first hour I got a really good picture of who this new Doctor was as well as the character of Amy. Plus it was fast paced and very fun. Sadly the second episode of the season, 'The Beast Below' was nowhere near as strong and is quite definitely the worst episode of Doctor Who that Moffat has ever written. Whilst it wasn't bad it just suffered from maybe being a little too ambitious and not coming together in a wholly satisfying way.

Now we get to the good parts however, with Moffat's two two-parters of the season, 'The Time of Angels'/'Flesh and Stone' and 'The Pandorica Opens'/'The Big Bang'. Holy fuck were these episodes amazing. The first of the two parters focused upon the return of the villains from the single best hour that the new Doctor Who has made, 'Blink'. Yup the Weeping Angels were back and they were just as creepy as ever. Just the idea of constantly having to look at something or it will devour is so creepy, like taking a fear of the dark to a whole other level. Not only that but River Song (Alex Kingston) returned to start paying off one of the most intriguing elements of Season 4. The Angels two-parter was so well done and is the only that the first two-parter of a Doctor Who season was in actually fact the better. So that left the finale and what Moffat would deliver there. Well he delivered and he delivered big. There was his trade mark time-wimey manipulation, shocking deaths, the return of pretty much every villain of the series (if only for a second), amazingly dark turns and hugely witty dialogue ("It's a fez, I wear a fez now"). If I'm honest I'm still finding it difficult to process just how good that finale was. If anything it cemented just how much of a genius Steven Moffat is, especially as he had begun seeding elements of the finale way back 'Flesh and Stone' in a small conversation between Amy and the Doctor.

Season 5 of Doctor Who suffered from many of the same things that Doctor Who had previously suffered from in that it is almost impossible to keep a sustained level of quality throughout an entire season because of the change in writers. Luckily the highs (particularly those written by the now ubiquitous Steven Moffat) looks so much better in hindsight. Yes 'Victor of the Daleks' was still utterly wank, and many of the other episodes were just average, but I look back on Steven Moffat's two-parters and am astounded by the level of creativity those episodes hold. If I were able to judge based on those episodes alone this season of Doctor Who would be my favourite yet but sadly I can't so the fifth season of Doctor Who has to settle for an:

8/10

Of Chuck Season 3

Now that we're heading towards the last week of the year, I've decided to go back and review a few seasons of television I didn't get around to earlier in the year, so those of you waiting for my thoughts on Chuck Season 3 and Supernatural Season 5 are in for a treat.

I'm going to open with the statement that Chuck Season 3 wasn't as good as Season 2. That's not in anyway a bad thing because Chuck Season 2 is an absolutely fantastic season of television. Season 3 mostly suffered from the fact that the show had had a reduced budget and some minor storytelling annoyances.

Chuck Season 2 finished with a fantastic twist in the form of the Intersect 2.0 and already a wealth of storytelling options were open for the show. Chuck was now able to claim that he was indeed a spy, he could perform kung-fu or even play an instrument without having any prior instruction. It's refreshing to see shows change up their formula slightly before the old status-quo became stale. We'd already had 2 seasons (although technically 1.5) of Chuck being a liability for a lot of missions with his natural abilities coming in handy throughout various missions such as the memorable Season 2 episode 'Chuck versus Tom Sawyer'. Now Chuck was actually able to go on missions on his own and handle them as seen in 'Chuck versus First Class' which had Chuck entirely alone on a plane to Paris where he had to arrest Stone Cold Steve Austin single-handedly. Whilst the changes made by the Intersect 2.0 it felt like there was a lot more mileage that could have been gotten from it. In the end the Intersect 2.0 became a little bit of a crutch for the writers to get Chuck out of bad situations. This wasn't the case in every episode, but it did become a regular occurrence for Chuck to just kung-fu his way out of problems in most episodes.

What Chuck did get very right this was dealing with the people who found out that Chuck was in fact a spy. Awesome had of course found out that Chuck was a spy at the end of Season 2 and the mini-arc that took place at the start of Season 3 was great with Awesome being roped into a number of spy missions and was one of the best uses of the supporting cast in a long time. Then there was 'Chuck versus the Beard' in which Morgan found out that Chuck was a spy. 'Chuck versus the Beard' was easily the stand-out episode of the season. The best episodes of Chuck will normally utilise the Buy-More in some way as well as the rest of the supporting cast and this episode used it fantastically. It was also just a purely fun episode which of course Chuck does fantastically. Then was Morgan actually finding out, whilst many people would have expected Morgan to be crushed his best friend never told him, Morgan turned out to be elated and over the course of the rest of the season became a more than welcome addition to Team Bartowski. Whilst he essentially filled the role that Chuck had filled pre-Intersect 2.0 it was still a feeling that had been missing through the early episodes of Season 3.

In Season 3 Chuck went for a darker tone than the preceding seasons and whilst some of that can be put down to the budget cuts in the wake of the near cancellation it did sacrifice the supporting cast in some episodes. Whilst this benefited certain episodes where having the Buy-More or the Awesomes would have made the show feel more cluttered, the show would go through long periods of not being as fun. Of course episodes like 'Chuck versus the Beard' showed the show could still be fun and the darker tone wasn't unwelcome it felt a little oppressive occasionally.

The biggest problems that Season 3 suffered from though were pacing issues. The biggest issue was in the "will they, won't they" of Chuck and Sarah. I wrote an entire post about the so called Chuck-pocalypse here earlier this year. This came from people who said that the show became awful purely because Chuck and Sarah hadn't gotten together yet and that characters such as Shaw (Brandon Routh) and Hannah (Kristen Kreuk) had been added to the show to purely act as a roadblock. In some ways those characters had been used in that way and a "will they, won't they" plotline does eventually become a little grating. But Chuck and Sarah did get together at the end of the 13th episode and created the memorable 'Chuck versus the Honeymooners' wherein Chuck and Sarah spent the entire episode having sex and fighting crime. The eventually hooking up was probably left a little too late and characters like Shaw were poorly implemented into this plotline, but the eventual hooking up was a well deserved pay-off.

Then there was the strangeness of the two mini seasons of Chuck. Both of which were satisfying but had their own issues. Such as The Ring was not nearly as well set up as Fulcrum in Seasons 1 and 2 but were then dispatched by the end of the season. The Ellie and Awesome trip to Africa didn't really go anywhere. But that can be laid at the feet of the network for adding the 6 extra episodes so late into production. Luckily only one episode of these extra was even slightly disappointing that was the Christopher Lloyd guest-starring episode 'Chuck verus the Tooth'. Mostly because the show didn't know whether it wanted to be dark or light in its tone.

But I'm being too harsh, Chuck Season 3 still succeeded on almost every level that Season 2 beyond those quibbles. I haven't even mentioned the rest of the cast yet with the normal great performances of Adam Baldwin and Yvonne Strahovski. Then there were the guests stars. Of course the most notable was Superman himself Brandon Routh. Whilst his involved in the romance portion of the show wasn't welcome, he became a fantastic Big Bad for the season and I was glad for the extended period of time that we spent with his character and his motivations. Then there were the single episode stars like Vinnie Jones, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kristen Kreuk, Robert Patrick, Mark Sheppard, Christopher Llyod and the return of Scott Bakula as Chuck and Sarah's father.

Chuck Season 3 wasn't the all out success that Season 2 mostly because of a few minor missteps with withholding the Chuck and Sarah pay-off and slight mishandling of tone. But everything was pure Chuck. Casey was still awesome, there were still pop-culture references, great music, fantastic use of guest-stars and JEFFSTER! Chuck is still one of the must and purely enjoyable shows on television and is still just a great all around show.

8.5/10

Of Dexter Season 5

Here we are, a little over a week after Dexter Season 5 finished. How did this fifth season compare to the preceding four and how much longer will I actually be sticking with this show, find out now!

Dexter's fifth season was like a solidification of every single problem the show has had in it's earlier seasons. Every single season of Dexter is a self contained story with almost all guest stars drafted for each season not making it into the next, and after five seasons of the same shit it's getting a little dull. Every promise that the show-runners have made that there would be a change in the formula in the show have proven to be false. This year, fans were promised that there would be no Big Bad, but a collection of them, and whilst in some ways this was true, the last episode still focused upon a single Big Bad. Dexter has now proven that it has a set formula and that the show is in many ways too scared to stray from its chosen path.

Dexter is not a show like Breaking Bad which takes risks and puts it's characters into compromising situations. In Breaking Bad, Walt's wife has now found out that he is a drug dealer, this happened 2.5 seasons into the show. In Dexter, Rita never found out, Deb still comes annoyingly close and any character that does find out has to be dealt with in some way by the seasons end. This year three new characters found out that Dexter was a serial killer. Lumen (Julia Stiles) the new love interest, Jordan Chase (Jonny Lee Miller) one of the years Big Bads and Liddy (Peter Weller) a corrupt cop hired by Quinn to spy on Dexter. By the end of the year, two of these people were killed and the other has left Miami. Whilst it's nice to have Lumen out there in the world knowing Dexter's secret, it would have been better to keep her close-by. The show avoided a chance to add a new wrinkle to their formula, Dexter could have had a partner in crime, someone who knew and cared for him even though he was a serial killer. Dexter needed something like this to shake up it's formula five years in. Sadly this didn't happen and so Dexter is once again alone and no one knows that he is a serial killer.

The other thing that the show needs to stop doing is teasing that Deb will find out that Dexter is a serial killer. Five seasons in and Deb is still coming increasingly close to finding her brother is a serial killer. This year she was less than 10 metres away from him with only a dirty plastic sheet in between the two of them. Progressively over the season she began to see that the murders of certain people (i.e. the people who raped and almost killed Lumen) were necessary and decided to let the pair of vigilantes (her brother and Lumen) go without even seeing them. What makes this so annoying is that a moment like this has happened in every single preceding season. It would be alright if it was only a recent occurrence or used sparingly, but it's not, the show continues to use this plot point. I'm beginning to lose my faith in the writers at this point, if I can't trust them to go through with this then there's not much I can trust them with. I know it probably won't happen until the end of the show, as the writers themselves said that once Deb finds out the show is over, but then they need to downplay her finding out so it stops being infuriating. It would be a big change to the formula of the show but it doesn't have to be the end, of course if done wrong the show could spiral out of control, but done right and the show enters a creative renaissance. Five years into the show something big has to happen and clearly Rita's death at the end of Season Four was not it. Season 6 needs to rectify this in some-way or I might be done with Dexter.

But Dexter Season 5 wasn't horrid, just infuriating and that was purely from the formula that every season of Dexter follows. The show is stale but there's enough there to like. Michael C. Hall is still one of the best actors on television and Jennifer Carpenter is still enjoyable as Deb. The police side of the show is never as interesting as Dexter's but I still like characters like Masuka and Quinn. Then the new elements of Season 5 were all very good, Julia Stiles and Jonny Lee Miller were both great and I wish that Julia Stiles could stick around or show up in future seasons, because I did like Lumen as a character. But standing head and shoulders above those two was Peter Weller (aka Robocop) as Liddy. Whilst Peter Weller is no John Lithgow, he was just hamming it up and having a hell of a time as the corrupt cop. He was a joy to watch in every scene he was in, and I'm slightly annoyed he didn't live out the season to become a thorn in Dexter's side, but again that's not how Dexter works as a show.

I'm beginning to waver on Dexter, I still enjoy the core of the show, particularly Michael C. Hall as Dexter and I always enjoy the guest stars they rope in for each season, but it's getting stale. Something big needs to happen in Season 6 of Dexter, be it a large twist or just announcing that Season 7 will be the last year so they can create a story that extends on for more than one season. Dexter has my attention for at least one more year but unless it's starts to show some degree of risk taking I might be out come the end of 2011.

7/10

Of Walking Dead Season 1

Now that Walking Dead has been over for about a week, of it's very long hiatus, it's time that we reviewed this inaugural season. In case you haven't heard The Walking Dead has become something of a phenomenon, mostly because it's zombies, and as well know, zombies are awesome. So without further ado, let's get reviewing.

The Walking Dead is based off of the similarly named The Walking Dead comic book written by Robert Kirkman (who also wrote episode 4 of the TV show). It's also masterminded by Frank Darabont, the guy behind Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, meaning that there is an undeniable pedigree to this show. When the man who directed and wrote one of the greatest films of all time decides to 'lower' himself to television you damn well pay attention. The pilot that Darabont both wrote and directed, still stands as the best single episode of the Walking Dead.

Over the course of a very solid first season, The Walking Dead was able to showcase what viewers would eventually have to look forward too, albeit with some stumbling blocks forming lessons for the shows writers. If anything, it's most similar to both the US Office and Parks and Recreation in their shortened first seasons. Both Parks and Office had average first seasons and then quickly bounced back in their second seasons to become two of the funniest shows on TV. If this is the trend that The Walking Dead will be following then great things are ahead for this show. The writers (or what's left of them) will hopefully be able to take away a lot from this first season, find what did and didn't work and then reform the show around the good parts.

First of all what did work, the cast are all uniformly very good in their portrayal of the characters from the comics. Whilst no one on the show is a Bryan Cranston or Jon Hamm level actor, the show works well as an ensemble, but no one at the moment is really coming forward as the stand-out actor. Andrew Lincoln is very good as Rick Grimes and is a spot on interpretation of the Rick Grimes from the comic series, but again it isn't a showy performance, it's just a good one, similar to the work Matthew Fox was doing on Lost. The other performances on the show are enjoyable to varying degrees with Laurie Holden as Andrea being the most noticeable, particularly during the scenes where she is dealing with the death of her sister Amy.

Gore, is something don't see done well on television very often by The Walking Dead is producing the graphic nature of a zombie apocalypse every week and I couldn't be happier. There have been decapitations, mutilation of corpses, gunshots to the head, zombies eating someones entrails and some absolutely brilliant zombie make-up. The Walking Dead isn't shying away from making this show very gory and bleak. Whilst the zombies aren't present in every episode, when they are used they are used to great effect, in particular the end of the fourth episode showing how the sparse use of the zombies adds to the overall effect of the show. The zombies are a constant threat, always out there but the group of survivors aren't battling hoards of them off in every episode.

When it comes to adapting a piece of work from another medium, the question is always how close should this new adaptation be to the original, Darabont and the other writers have found the right balance of original and new ideas. Whilst the broad strokes of the comic have been followed, such as Rick finding his family outside of Atlanta and leaving the camp after a zombie attack which dealt them heavy loses, the show isn't afraid of going off on it's own. Entire storylines have been made from scratch such as the siege story found in Episode 2 'Guts' or the gang story found in Episode 4 'Vatos' and they have been integrated into Kirkman's world of the comics without feeling like they were just shoehorned in to using the original material too quickly. The season's final episode 'TS-19' was entirely divergent to the comics and whilst it probably could have benefited from another episode of development to help it feel less rushed, it was still a great hour of television. In fact on of the biggest divergences from the comics comes from the Rick/Shane/Lori storyline which has featured a subtle tweak from the comics (if you've read the comics you'll know what the difference is actually quite large) and gives their storyline a sense of not actually knowing what is going to happen, which is an exciting prospect.

However not all of these changes have been great. For the most part the new characters introduced to the show who aren't present in the comics aren't particularly memorable. T-Dog is just a stupid name for a character. It also doesn't help that they are underdeveloped. When some of these non-comic characters were written out towards the end of Season 1, it was apparent I didn't care about any of them, with the only ones I liked were the ones we'd spent prolonged time with (T-Dog and Daryl) and the ones who had been characters in the comics. This is of course more a fault of the shortened length of this season and the size of the cast. What was the fault of the writers was that Merle and Daryl (at least at first) were written very badly. Merle was an early red flag for that the show could handle itself wrong. Merle was so one dimensional that it was just hard to watch. It was obvious the show wanted us to dislike him from the start but it turned into a racist red neck sterotype. Luckily Merle's actor, Michael Rooker was able to salvage the character a little in a largely wordless appearance in Episode 3 'Tell it to the Frogs'. Even Daryl (Norman Reedus) suffered from similar faults but 'Vatos' spent a prolonged amount of time with the character and began to become more fully formed, however this could be laid at the feet of Robert Kirkman having fun with a character who wasn't in his comics and didn't have a hand in creating.

Beyond these character issues, and some dialogue problems the show was largely fine, it just suffered from a lack of time to develop. Had it had the full 13 episodes to develop a proper season the show could have quickly found it's feet and shown what it was fully capable of. But as it stands the show must have what may eventually be seen as a prologue season before the show starts proper. But I enjoyed an awful lot of Season 1 of the Walking Dead, the pilot was superb with Morgan (Lennie James) being a character I hope we see a lot more of, and not after as long an absence as found in the comics. Almost every scene at the camp was brilliant, the zombie siege in 'Vatos', Jim slowly realising his fate and Noah Emmerich's fantastic supporting role in the finale as Dr. Jenner.

The first season of Walking Dead had some rough spots but overall I can see the show as ultimately pulling through, as long as some of the new characters are made more fully developed and less one dimensional and the show is able to find some kind of arc to play out over 13 episodes, rather than just the prologue this first season turned out to be. Whilst this first season wasn't perfect, it was damn good. Most of the low points are quick fixes and for the most part the show works great, but with a bit more polishing it could become one of the best shows on TV.

7.5/10

Of Terriers Season 1

Terriers finished it's first and potentially only season last night and now I'm here to review what has been one of my favourite TV shows of 2010. Terriers is absolutely fantastic, the lead actors had crazy amounts of chemistry and it had one of the best 13 episode runs of any television show I've ever seen. And today it was cancelled. Goddammit general public, why does this get to survive and complete trash get to continue. However this post isn't about me hating people not watching Terriers, but instead the wonderous single season that was Terriers.

If you don't feel the title has told you what the show is then you are not alone. One of the main reasons that people are saying that Terriers wasn't a hit was because no one really knew what the show was about and the title and cryptic advertising did not help matters at all. However the people who actually watched the show and stuck with it for all 13 fantastic episodes know exactly were treated to one hell of a ride. So here I go about to explain what exactly Terriers is about.

Terriers is (was) a show that centred upon the P.I enterprise of two men, Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue) and Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James), and the general ebb and flows of the business. They're two men who are a long way out of their league and even called "too small to fail" (*sigh* if only that were true of the ratings). Behind the scenes, Terriers had an all star writing staff made up of Ted Griffin (Ocean's Eleven), Shawn Ryan (The Shield), Tim Minear (Firefly) and Jed Seidel (Veronica Mars) who get to work their usual magic here. The show is a deft mixture of comic and serious moments, and is able to go between the two tones with ease. Even though a pervading tone of the show is the messiness of their operation, you still get sucked in and want to watch these two succeed even though it's clear they are completely out of their depth.

Much like shows of a similar ilk, Veronica Mars and Justified, Terriers swaps between procedural and serial plot lines, and even stories which appear to be stand alone have personal or even serial elements buried within the plot. Just like Veronica Mars did in it's first season the serial plot develops at just the right pace to keep you on your toes whilst also managing the thoroughly engaging one off plot lines. It took Justified, earlier this year, a few episodes to get the tone just right but Terriers succeeds at this from the very first episode. There isn't a single bad episode throughout the shows 13 episode run which is something that not many shows can attest to.

The main overriding plotline of the season focuses upon a large land grab happening within Hank and Britt's home town of Ocean Beach and whilst it isn't present it is still the driving narrative of the season. However every single episode advances the personal lives of the two main heroes, be it Hank's relationship with his ex-wife Gretchen (Kimberley Quinn) or his ex-partner in the police Mark Gustafson (Rockmond Dubar). The ex-partner storyline in particular leads to a fantastic episode of the series written by Firefly alum Tim Minear who wrote 'Out of Gas' for that particular show, and if you've that episode then you know the sort of thing to expect from that episode. The relationships between the characters are key to development of the show, from Britt and his girlfriend Katie or Hank's with relationships with the aforementioned ex-wife, ex-partner and his sister Steph (Karina Logue, Donal's real life sister). However of course the key relationship to the show is that between Hank and Britt.

Luckily their relationship is so good that it's easy to forget that these two are acting. Logue and Raymond-James have such clear chemistry that it just bubbles through in their acting. Be it from the brilliant dialogue or just the looks that they give each other, it's easy to tell that these two men are the best of friends who will have each others backs throughout whatever it is they get involved in, even if it puts them both in serious mortal peril. Character relationship as good as these two are rare, but when chemistry like this happens within a show that is already got such a great creative team, it makes the whole show doubly better.

I could wax lyrical for ages about what makes Terriers work, the chemistry, the great parade of actors, in particular Logue who is doing something akin to career best acting, the writing, the humour and the fact that the show isn't afraid to punch you in the gut (Alan Sepinwall's line). Terriers has great emotional heft that just makes the show work, you care about these guys and their fate and when something bad happens (and bad stuff does happen) you feel hurt. Terriers is one of those rare shows where everything clicked from the start, and sadly has the same story as Firefly (sorry Tim Minear). Even though Hank and Britt aren't the most advanced P.I's in the game you want to spend time with them all the same and the messy ways in which they achieve their goals. Terriers is the an absolutely fantastic one-and-done series, and whilst I'd love to have a second season, this first and only foray into the world of Ocean Beach was damn near close to perfection.

9.5/10

Of True Blood Season 3

Another massively late review, however since my True Blood Season 2 review is apparently the most popular review on my site, how can I not review this third season? Spoilers ahead!

Looking back on my review of True Blood Season 2 review, I probably rated a bit too high. The main issue being that the show lost a lot of steam after the characters came back to Bon Temps. The Big Bad of the season just wasn't as interesting as the other stories that were happening away from the town in the form of the hunt for Godric and The Fellowship of the Sun. The finale was a clear indication of how Season 3 was going to go. Season 2 technically ended about 30 minutes into the last episode, the rest of the episode was devoted to set up for Season 3, where we visited almost every single character and gave them a new story to follow.

This is where we land in Season 3, with about 7 different stories happening and it being more than likely you'll only care about 1 or 2 of them. Going in I found myself only really caring about Eric, Sookie and Bill's story and the one devoted to Hoyt and Jessica. Even my goodwill for Andy and Jason was taken to extreme levels of not caring by having the great comic chemistry of those two ruined by the fact that they spent most of the season in stories unrelated to each other and rarely got to be as hilarious towards the end of Season 2 when they were together.

Sam trying to find his real family started off as interesting and eventually became tedious. Tara is still the most grating character on the show and the most fun I had was watching her be abused by Franklin Mott, and then that story just kind of ended. Terry and Arlene's baby woes sucked up far too much valuable and the only enjoyable part of that was the brief appearance by Michael Raymond-James returning as Season 1's Rene. Then there was Jason and the werepanthers which never really went anywhere at all, beyond the promise of more story next season. Hell even Lafayette lost all his Season 1 edge by being embroiled in an almost superfluous plot about V and the wonders that it does for prophetic dreams

That was the main problem with Season 3 was that it felt like the start of something much bigger. Because none of the stories really ended in any satisfying way what we were left with in the finale didn't really feel that final. It felt more like a pause before the Season continues...just not for another year. Season 3 was just an unfocused mess, and whilst the messiness is part of the fun of True Blood, Season 3 suffered for it. A good season of television is able to take a variety of different strands and create a compelling narrative out of them. Whilst these different strands might not connect at the beginning of the season, by the end it's kind of expected that they intersect in different and interesting ways. True Blood Season 3 didn't really do that at all. Occasionally certain characters would cameo in someone else's story, such as Tara helping Sookie and Alcide get Bill out of Edgar's house or Jason killing Franklin for Tara, but on the most part there was no narrative cohesion. Season 3 suffered because every character seemed to exist within their own bubble and didn't care for anyone else. Whilst everyone existed in the same universe, it just felt odd that no one really knew what was going on in anyone else's lives. Watching True Blood was like watching 7 different television shows crammed into one show.

That's to say that everything sucked, I stand by the fact that Deborah Ann Woll and Jim Parrack have insane amounts of chemistry and the main story of the Season with Eric trying to take down Russell was great all the way through. Of course there were a couple of weak portions, such as whether or not Bill was truly evil got tiring a few episodes into the season. Luckily everything with Eric continued to be create because of the presence that Alexander Skarsgård brings to the show. Then there was the new character of Russell Edgington this season played Denis O'Hare who was absolutely brilliant. He brought the right amount of crazy and sinister, especially in the way he dealt with many characters throughout the season. However even this plotline hit some pot holes. Sookie being a fairy (yes Sookie is indeed a fairy) went almost nowhere this season and is probably being held onto for next season and there was the handling of Russell towards the end of the season. When episode 10 ended, it felt like shit was going to hit the fan, but then it didn't. It felt like such a disappointment that the Big Bad of the season didn't actually make anything bad happen. He just kind of got burnt to a crisp and then buried in cement. Only issue was that Eric was also buried in cement but quickly escaped, leaving us to question whether or not it was actually the end of the villain.

However enough complaining, True Blood is still True Blood. It still offers a campy show about vampires. There's still an over abundance of sex and violence. Hell there were more than enough awesome moments in Season 3 to make up for the messiness. There was Bill and Lorena's oh so violent sex scene, Sookie verus Debbie and of course Russell's excellent appearance on the news (spine rip FTW). Hell there were even werewolves and I actually quite liked Alcide. True Blood Season 3 was messy as hell and the finale wasn't nearly satisfying enough as a finale. However there were enough enjoyable moments and story potential that I'm not ready to give up on the show, but if it continues with being this mess and unsatisfying I might have to consider dropping from my rotation.

7/10

Of Mad Men Season 4

I know that Mad Men Season 4 has been finished for nearly 2 months now, but I've finally decided to get round to reviewing it. Spoilers ahead obviously.

Mad Men Season 3 was fantastic, but Season 4 absolutely blew it out of the water. After the game changing finale to Season 3, the big question was what was going to become of the new law firm that Don, Roger, Burt and Lane started. Season 4 began almost a year after the firm had started and found them located in a far more luxurious location than the hotel room they were forced into at season's end, but still far small than the old Sterling Cooper offices.

Donald Draper was in a bad place for most of Season 4. Drinking heavily and attempted womanising. Of course Don was a womaniser in the old days, even when married to Betty, the key difference here was that he was failing, spectacularly at it. Whilst it would be easy to get annoyed at watching our hero fail at something he used to be good, it still led to a fantastic character study. With an early trip to California to see Anna, we were once again brought back to the Dick Whitman character and which version of Don was the real Don.

Which leads us on the to the fantastic episode The Suitcase. It's hard to describe just how good this episode was. Focusing almost exclusively on Don and Peggy and their relationship, Mad Men created one of the best single hours of television this year. Don hit rock bottom, drinking to excess in front of Peggy, getting into a drunken brawl with Duck Phillips, which he lost. Then of course in the background to all this was the presence of the death of Anna, and Don's reason for self destruction. Anna was the only person that knew Dick Whitman, the only who knew what Don was really like. With Anna's death, the torch of this knowledge was passed onto Peggy and Don was able to make an upward climb to his old self.

This led to Don Draper courting for a lot of the season, many potential love interests were introduced with Faye being the most likely. Faye was Don's equal, someone who knew what made him tick, someone he actually revealed some of his past to (obviously not all of it). Someone who looked to be a far better match than Betty. A true intellectual equal. But Don didn't choose Faye, he chose his secretary Megan. We the audience know just how bad a decision this is going to be in the long run, but the fascinating thing about Mad Men is that it is willing to let it's characters make mistakes. This marriage almost certainly work out, or at least won't make Done happy. Season 5 will obviously spend a lot of time analysing this new relationship and it's ups and downs which just makes me all the more excited.

Of course Don's relationship and life woes weren't the only story in Season 4. Roger losing Lucky Strike at the end of Season 4 which sent Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce into a tailspin as they lost their main financial backing. Not only did it place Roger's position within the company in question but gave us another key moment for Don Draper to shine (alright it is almost impossible t0 discuss the show without talking Don). His letter to the tobacco business was just awesome. Peggy manages to get a new client towards the end of Season 4, which might solve some of SCDP's worries but probably not. Whenever we come back it seems more than likely that they'll be hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

Then we have Joan now being pregnant with Roger's baby. Of course this will pose huge problems for both their marriages, although we should be more scared for Joan. After her husband raped her in Don's office, we know just how evil her husband can be, even if she is love with him. Hopefully whatever he does to (if he ever finds out) won't be too heinous because Mad Men can't lose Joan, the sheer amount of chemistry that she shares with Roger is mind boggling. Whilst at this point it would be counter intuitive to have those two end up together, as long as we get one scene with them together an episode I'll be satiated.

One of the key elements that made fantastic was Kiernan Shipka as Sally Draper. Easily one of the best child actors I've ever seen. Whatever they have her do, from the oh so creepy masturbation scene, arguing with her mother, running away to her dads is fantastic. The show keeps asking her to do more and more complex things and it just amazes me how easily she handles it. I just hope that next season she keeps up having such a large role, although with her now being with mother further away this may be difficult.

My only down issue on Mad Men Season 4 was the lack of presence of Lane Pryce. Whenever he had a fair amount of screentime, be it when he and Don went out drinking and then slept with the prostitutes or his father coming over Britain and ordering to come back with him. Not only did we find out what made Lane tick, with his father smacking him around the head with a cane, but also that he is so much happier here in America than at home in the far more domineering world. Jared Harris is an absolutely superb actor and I desperately want to see more of him next season, of course that is difficult when there are 5 other actors who are far more pressing to the ongoing narrative of the show.

Overall, Mad Men Season 4 was the best seasons of television I've ever seen, much like all other seasons of Mad Men. It's hard to fault with it. The writing and acting continue to be exemplary and engrossing and the direction and art direction is pretty much faultless. The game changing end of Season 3 wasn't so much a kick in the rear for Mad Men, but more an interesting new narrative with so many potentials. Mad Men Season 5 can't come soon enough, and the fact that it will more than likely be airing alongside Breaking Bad Season 4 makes me more excited. Right now AMC have put out the two best shows of 2010 with Breaking Bad and Mad Men, the only hard part will trying to figure out which show was better this year....

10/10

Of Lost Season 6

I've been sat on this post for months. I've gone through my head about how I'm going to put my feelings about Lost Season 6 down. Was it Lost's best season? No, that stands as either Season 1 or 4. Was it good? Of course, great even. I even stand by the finale as being on the best episodes the show has produced. Sure so many questions are left open but I found myself completely un-caring. The character and emotional story overrode all annoyance over the mystery. I still find myself not caring why Walt's powers were never explained. Why Libby was important and so many small inconsequential things. The End will make my favourite episodes of television this year, as may Ab Aeterno and a few others. But the reason why I can't put my thoughts down is because Lost is over. I've spent 5 years (not 6 due to differences in the UK and US) following and adoring the work of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and now I don't know if I'm quite ready to let go.

Lost is probably the most important piece of fictional work that I'll ever experience. Before Lost I was a gamer but then Lost opened me to so much more. I'd have never gotten into movies, comic books, books, music and most important of all television had it not been for television show. I read Watchmen because of Lost. I read The Stand because of Lost. I listened to some of my favourite albums ever because of Lost. I watched Veronica Mars and the Wire because of Lost. Not all of the direct links but the world online which Lost opened me up to was so vast that I've coasted along watching and experiencing so much. Actors works, blogs critiquing Lost, music inspired by Lost. Lost was a gateway drug to what has become my entire life.

To me Lost is by far the most important piece of popular culture ever conceived. To me.

Lost isn't perfect. There are too many narrative dead ends (the Temple), characters been underused (Frank), characters having no reason for existence (Nikki and Paulo (no matter how good Expose was), Bai Ling) and ultimately the flash sideways universe probably not playing as well on second viewing (particularly those before Desmond makes his triumphant return). But that's ignoring what Lost did so well. So many perfectly crafted characters from Locke, Ben, Desmond, Richard, Daniel, Mr. Eko, Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley and Jack. It gave us 'Not Penny's Boat', Flashfowards, flashbacks, new otherton, Sayid being generally awesome, Sawyer's nicknames, the smokemonster, Jacob, hatches and buttons and mind blowing plot twists. Also it gave us The Constant. Never has there been a more perfectly crafted episode of television (apart from maybe Lost's very own Through The Looking Glass).

So far this hasn't been much about Lost season 6, but the show overall. I apologise but now it's over I can't talk about this single season on it's own. Lost is longform narrative pure and simple, each season benefits from the preceding season. Sadly the nature of television means that it's impossible for Lost to be perfect, actors aren't available, budget, strikes etc. But the achievement of Lost is that despite all of these problems it was still insanely watchable, addictive, well crafted, well written, well acted. Lost is an anomaly in television. It's success will never be repeated and what it did should never be tried again. It needs to stay as it is. Would I like if Lost could have been made exactly as Damon and Carlton had envisioned? No constraints? Of course, but sometimes it was the idiosyncratic that made Lost so enjoyable.

Lost has it's place in my heart as being the piece of work that has defined my teenage years. That's a place that can never be taken by anything. I can't wait for this final epilogue on the DVD. I can't wait to see what the actors go onto do. I especially can't wait to see what Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse do. I'll be following Jack Bender and Michael Giacchino. I cannot overstate how much I love and adore this show. Maybe I'm a fanboy but Lost in many ways was my first love. The emotions its made me feel. Pure joy, sadness, excitement, tension.

But Season 6 then? It isn't perfect. The flashsideways would have benefited from Desmond coming in earlier on, the temple whilst necessary due to fan anticipation amounted to little more than a detour, the lack of answers to some questions will of course be frustrating. And the flashsideways probably won't play out as well on second viewing. But who gives a fuck?

Season 6 was all about the memories. Getting all our favourites back (particularly the spectacular and heartbreaking finale), giving a satisfying conclusion to the island story. It was a season where Jack finally became the true hero (and to a lesser extent chose Kate). The smoke monster became a main character. We found out who Richard was. Claire and her squirrel baby. Lapidus and his shirt. The Black Rock blew up. Ben finally got his revenge of Charles Widmore. Sawyer mourned the death of his true love. Desmond actually got his happy ending. Hurley proved how irreplaceably awesome he was. Jin, Sun and Sayid died within 10 mintues of each other. And so much more.

Then there was the finale. That perfect finale Everyone came back (minus a few notables) and we got the heart felt goodbye. One of the series most important lines was subverted, changing from 'Live Toghether, Die Alone' to 'Live Together, Die Together'. The finale was an encompassing of everything that made the show great, the characters. Everyone got their moment to say goodbye, and I was reduced to tears multiple times (Claire giving birth, Sun/Jin realising, Sawyer and Juliet, Jack's death). Even the controversial ending was perfect in tone. Then there was the mirroring of the series first ever scene as Jack lay dying in the bamboo he woke up in six years ago. Those final seconds were a perfect farewell to the show I loved for my teen years. I don't think anything will top the feeling I had being sat in my living room at 8 in the morning watch Lost end in such a cathartic way.

Lost was an irreplaceable force in my life. Whilst Lost Season 6 'only' gets a 9/10 the show overall merits a complete 10/10 for sheer personal and emotional resonance. Nothing I view will hold me, engage me in the same way. But at least I was able to experience it as happening and I'm deeply jealous of those who will be embarking on the Lost journey in the future because they might experience one of the greatest achievements in entertainment history with fresh eyes.

'See you in another life Brother' - Desmond Hume

Of Breaking Bad Season 3

Last year I put Breaking Bad at number 2 in my best shows of the year. In some ways that may have been one place too low. This year, unless Mad Men has a breathtaking season (which to be honest is still highly likely) Breaking Bad is the best show I'm going to see all year. Season 3 may have been better than Season 2 in terms of just about everything. And since Breaking Bad Season 2 was no slouch that's saying something.

After the somewhat controversial end to Season 2, Breaking Bad came back with a string of slower more meditatively paced episodes to bring us back, Walt is still reeling from guilt and wanting to leave the drug business and Jesse still recovering from addiction and the death of Jane. Jesse decides that he is fundamentally evil and Walt wants to still believe he's a force for good. Whilst putting these two at loggerheads may not seem the best way, it lead to some incredible moments such as Walt's criticism of Jesse's cooking style and of course the scene in the 'Fly' where Walt almost admits to his role in Jane's death.

Of course I can wax lyrical about how fucking incredible both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are on this show but if you don't know that these two can own any scene their in you clearly don't watch the show (in which case FUCKING GO!). But Season 3 gave us a lot more depth to the other characters. Hank got a showcase in the seasons early episodes leading to the sublime 'One Minute'. This episode is by far one of the greatest hours of television I've ever watched. Aaron Paul owns the shit out of every scene in the hospital all leading to the concluding scene in the parking lot with Hank. It is by far the tensest I've been watching anything since 'No Country for Old Men' in 2007. Even Skylar gets her own depth having to deal with divorcing Walt as well as slowly being pulled into the drug world. She shows herself to be just as cunning as Walt showing maybe that these two were meant for each other more than originally expected.

Of course, if you can't tell the meditative pace of the early episodes soon gets burned away and we go from one explosive moment to the next. Walt of course goes back to drugs (working now for Gus who is another character that chews the scenery) and shit goes down. Breaking Bad is a tower of cards on the constant verge of collapsing and Vince Giligan makes everything feel like it could explode at any second.

I'm trying to say so much about Breaking Bad without delving into too many specifics which I've already failed at). Just know Breaking Bad is television at it's best and needs to be viewed by as many people as possible. If you don't watch it you'll never see so many insane moments (including why I never want to get on the wrong side of Mike following the finale), monologues, amazing cinematography, great acting, writing and just about everything else.

Overall if you aren't watching Breaking Bad you owe it to yourself to do so. It's the best show currently airing. Quite often tense, very often hilarious, dramatic, heartbreaking. The hyperbole I could spout about this show is never ending. As good as you think you're favourite show is, Breaking Bad is better no question. After a spellbindingly good Season 2, Breaking Bad continued on an upward streak, making Season 3 one of the greatest seasons of television ever. Now I just need to sit and wait till fucking next July to find out what happens next to Walt and Jesse.

10/10

Of Iron Man 2

Well this is late....apologies, more about why in my next blog post.



So Iron Man 2. It takes place a few months after the first film and deals with Tony Stark having just revealed that he is Iron Man to the entire world. So this being an Iron Man film we get plenty of weapon contracts, government involvement and a corporations are dicks message. Really you aren't going to see this film for the plot. It's to watch Robert Downey Jr. play a suave and slightly douchey yet ever hilarious playboy. And giant robots beating the shit out of each other.

Iron Man 2 delivers in spades on one of those and the other, whilst present is neglected a little bit. Iron Man 2 is bigger in every way than the first film and whilst this helps the actions scenes immensely, it takes away some of the spark of what made the first film great. Iron Man 2 isn't bad, but when the first Iron Man so fun and witty and didn't need to rely on huge action set-pieces, it feels a bit out of place this movie improves a weak area of the first film at the neglect of what was working in the first place.

Robert Downey Jr. is still Tony Stark but because the world has increased in scope, he gets slightly less screen time. Luckily the likes of Sam Rockwell (proving he makes all films better by just being in them) and Mickey Rourke are able to shoulder scenes without Downey being in them. But the movie doesn't just rely on those three actors, and whilst no one else is 'bad' you do wish that we'd go back to the others. Even when Tony Stark is embroiled in the Shield parts of the film, which are only there to build mythology for the Avengers movie, he still shines.

I don't want to be too overly critical of this film. The humour is still there, the action is very well done. The balance and tone are great, far better than the shit heap that is Transformers 2. But it lacks a spark of what made the first film rank up there with Dark Knight and Spiderman 2 as truly great comic book films. Maybe it's trying to pack in technically two franchises into one with set-up for Avengers as well as dealing with plot lines from this own franchise. Or maybe a distinct lack in movement of this franchise. I would have loved to be building towards the Armor Wars or the Demon in a Bottle storylines but there didn't seem to be much expansion beyond what we found in the first film. Maybe it's being left for Joss Whedon's Avengers film but I would like to see something set up for an Iron Man 3.

Overall Iron Man 2 is a very fun film. Great action, good acting, particularly Downey, Rockwell and Rourke (Cheadle wasn't brilliant though). Sadly the spark of what made Iron Man 1 a fantastic film has lessened a little bit. I'm still super excited for Thor, Captain America and The Avengers but my excitement for Iron Man 3 isn't burning as strongly as before. I'm sure in roads will be laid in the Avengers film but that movie is still 2 years away. Iron Man 2 could have been one of the greatest comic book movies ever (especially due to the normal comic book movie rules) but sadly it's been bogged down by trying to appeal to two different franchises. When it focuses on or the other it works a lot better, so lets hope Iron Man 3 will be free from the tethers of having to work within the time frame of The Avengers 2.

7.5/10

Of Kick-Ass

Long time no review. I haven't written a film review since the release of Jennifer's Body, but I'm glad my first review is for a movie as brilliant as this one. First off Kick-Ass is just a hell of a lot of fun. This isn't Oscar as I'm sure you'll realise from the purple haired girl saying the word "cunt" in the trailer. Kick-Ass is a new breed of superhero movies, it's completely irreverent and pays homage to so many comic book series which just makes it fun to watch.

On a very basic level, Kick-Ass shares some similarities with Watchmen, despite being tonally completely different. Both focus on a world in which there are no superheroes and real people, influenced by comic books decide to dress up and fight crime. However the first difference is that Watchmen takes place in a world in which superheroes have been around for decades and being one is now a criminal offence, Kick-Ass takes place at the very beginning with the obsession with superheroes. Plus the whole not actually taking itself very seriously idea.

If you've seen the trailers you know that this film is gory as hell, but what is seen very slightly in the trailers is just how well choreographed the fight scenes are. Seriously the fights are just a joy to behold, with bullets and knives flying everywhere.* Also whilst there is so much swearing and violence the movie still manages to fit in some adult themes and comments on the world at large (particularly the idea of social media). So we have swearing, violence, themes and of course due to some scenes set in high school, banter! And such glorious banter it is. Maybe it's the British writers, with a background in 90s gangster films, but the gangsters sparkle with wit, as well as the high school students which in some ways feels like an extension of what was found in Superbad (and not just because of McLovin).

It feels odd to say but Kick-Ass is maybe one of the most realistic superhero movies ever. Yes the final fight scene does take a lot of liberties but up until this point it feels like it could happen. Someone may very well eventually dress up as a superhero and try and fight crime (and it would probably end up in the same way that the Kick-Ass's own first attempt ends). It probably sounds stupid to say the movie feels realistic but it really does in a lot of key areas, but it's also a stupid amount of fun because of how over the top it is. It's a weird but awesome mix of "maybe this could happen, but it could never look as fucking awesome as we're making it look".

The main performances in the film are also uniformly great. Aaron Johnson plays Kick-Ass to perfection. He might not steal the show but he plays the everyman well and you root for him throughout, which is all that is needed. He's a geeky everyman character and you understand his motivations, even if they're not as melodramatic as say Peter Parker's. Mark Strong as the villain is superb, but if you've seen any film such as Sunshine or Sherlock Holmes then you know that Mark Strong can play a villain superbly. Chrisopher Mintz-Plasse as Red Mist is probably the weakest but still offers a great performance. It's clear he's trying to branch away from his role as McLovin which admirably but he doesn't get as much to chew on as the other actors, however by the final reels of the film it's clear they're setting his character up for bigger things in a potential sequel.

However far and away the scene stealers in Kick-Ass are Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz. Nicolas Cage puts in his best performances since Adaptation as the unhinged Big-Daddy. He swaps between this gleeful naivety when in civilian dress, but the moment he dresses up as a superhero he's a supreme bad-ass killing people left and right. The costume is clearly taking infulence from Batman, however you'll also notice that he's putting on a weird voice when dressed up, until it clicks he's impersonating Adam West. It's a surprise and just makes his performance that much more enjoyable. And then we have Hit-Girl. The one thing EVERYONE will be talking about when they leave the cinema. She swears and she's got no qualms with killing you. If you've seen the red band trailer you know what I mean. Chloe Moretz is a revelation and I can't wait to see what she goes on to do, but it's quite clear she's got a long career ahead of her.

Also a quick shout out to the Kick-Ass soundtrack, it fits the scenese perfectly and I now need to find the remix of the Sunshine theme that is used for one of the films action scenes. It's so epic and fits it perfectly.

Overall Kick-Ass is a hell of a lot of fun. Easily the best film that I've seen so far in 2010 and just a great thrill ride. It's not trying to be Oscar fodder, but it's just a great film. Everything from the acting, directing, editing and choreography come together to make a great whole. Sure it's over the top, incredibly violent and features an 11 year old girl saying the word "cunt" but when the movie around it this enjoyable, I couldn't give two shits because of how well it works. Apart from some green screen issues during the final scenes, the film is a near perfect comic book adaptation. It not be as brilliant as The Dark Knight, but it doesn't try to be. Kick-Ass is fun, irreverent and chock a block with geeky reference. The benchmark for 2010 comic book movies has been set high, so we'll see if Iron-Man 2 and Scott Pilgrim can live up to it.

9/10

*of note, same choreographers are working on Scott Pilgrim, just makes me more excited for it!