Storm, serial killers, sci-fi, shit
Posted 10 February 09 by Scott AndrewsWoken last night by the windows rattling in the storm. Living in a non-double-glazed house at the edge of a huge exposed heath in the middle of nowhere gives you a sober sense of how battering the elements can be when they get going.
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Lots of handwringing about the cancellation of Wire in the Blood and the consequeces for TV and film production in the North East. One quote I read said it meant the North east ‘no longer had a voice on TV’.
Perhaps, and there is certainly a wider case for concern there, but Wire in the Blood was an objectionable, exploitative conveyor belt of mutilated prostitutes and serial killers vicitmising women. It’s hard not to conclude that what the speaker meant by ‘the voice of the North East’ is ‘the same old serial killer shit, but with a Geordie accent’. And sorry, that’s not enough to justify your existence.
The consistently good ratings were, but that’s another argument, and if I were to wade into that row I’d be far more likely to champion Foyle’s War – cancelled despite being one of the top rated shows of last year on any channel – than Wire in the Blood. Because Foyle’s War was, y’know, good.
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Finished season four of Lost last night and cheered when they finally abandoned all pretense of being anything other than a sci-fi show. After years of being coy about it they finally dropped in ‘negatively charged exotic particles’. Purest Trek technobabble!
Then, brilliantly, a character turned a big wheel labelled MacGuffin and vanished an entire island in a blur of SFX. Finally, it’s gone balls to the wall sci-fi and I can’t help but feel it’s the only way to go for the final run of episodes.
There will no doubt be some people bemoaning that the show has suddenly “got silly”.
These people are idiots.
What were you expecting, really? I mean, it’s got a bloody smoke monster in it, for crying out loud! How was the resolution ever going to be anything other than sci-fi? Bring on season five, say I.
I’m hoping the whole damn island’s a crashed spaceship and Locke’s going to turn out to be an alien hybrid or something truly bonkers like that. That’d be hilarious.
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Also floating my boat at the moment is Gavin And Stacy, by Lucie Miller’s boyfriend and that angry mum from Torchwood.
Yes, I know, I’m late to the party, the BAFTAs have already been awarded. Wifey and I are finally working our way through the first set of episodes and it’s consistently laugh out loud brilliant, and I never thought I’d say that about anything on BBC3. But it’s the best telly comedy since The Office, no contest.
I think the reason it works – one of the many – is that it’s not knowing or snide or cynical. It doesn’t go out of its way to portray getting drunk and sleeping around as cool or clever, it doesn’t have the desperate try-hard aren’t-we-cool faux street cred of the insecure and Two Pints.
It knows that at the end of the day that it’s all about looking for love. And that simple truth, and the courage to make the show straightforwardly and unapologetically romantic, is what lifts it above the herd.
Well, that and Ruth Jones in PVC brandishing a whip, natch.
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This piece from The Onion made me laugh until tea came out of my nose:
Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work
