Mirrored from my original review over at tvgeekarmy.com (here)


The Tenth Doctor episode "Blink" is widely regarded as the high point in the Russell T. Davies era of nu-Who. It's a tightly scripted stand alone story that barely features the Doctor, instead following the experiences of a young lass called Sally Sparrow and her struggles against four of the most terrifying creations to ever grace the screens of British television. The Weeping Angels they were called, statues that would come to life and move when no-one is looking at them.

In addition to tapping into a primal human fear, the episode also played with time in an expert fashion, had fantastic dialog and gave us a lead character who was instantly endearing, so much so that many people (myself included) are hoping to see Sally Sparrow back on our screens sometime.

Fast forward to the final Tenant season – the one before the four specials that brought us the end of the Tenth Doctor – and we have a Moffat two-part story called "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" that succeeded on two fronts. It was a tense and scary piece that once again reminded viewers that Doctor Who is a show about hiding behind the sofa while the action happens. It also introduced the character River Song, a mysterious woman who knew more about the Doctor than anyone else alive, but the Doctor had never met her before. In fact, as the story passed it became clear that this episode was the Doctor's first meeting with River Song and River's last meeting with the Doctor. This playing with the concept of time was another example of the extra level Moffat's writing brought to the show.

These three episodes are important because they set the background for this two-part story.

Now, before we start looking at the episode itself, it's time to talk about the elephant in the room and deal with the massive crime the BBC committed while the exciting episode cliff hanger was airing.

A picture paints a thousand words, so a short video must paint a million:

Fortunately most people won't have experienced that irritating piece of advertising. For those of you who don't want to spoil the end of the episode what happened was this: right at the tense and exciting end of the episode, an end which leads into the second part of the story, the BBC decided to cover the bottom of the screen with a brightly coloured cartoon Graham Norton. Now don't get me wrong, I rather like Mr Norton, but this piece of advertising ran completely against the mood of the episode and clearly undermines a scene that was quite brilliant.

Hopefully the BBC will learn from this mistake and won't repeat it. But we'll see, as they've been aggressively pushing their voting shows for quite some time now and I guess they want to pull in the Doctor Who demographic as well. Leaves me wondering if the actor playing the twelfth Doctor will be determined with a televised voting show; wouldn't that be an exciting piece of television?

Onto the episode itself...

Wow, just, wow. "Time of Angels" wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn close, building on two of the best episodes from previous seasons which was quite a risk to take. Screwing it up would taint the other episodes to some extent as they would no longer stand alone. Likewise, bringing back the Weeping Angels was also a considerable chance to take, and I wasn't sure that they were suited for a return to the screen.

Let's go with the one weak point in the episode before we move on: River Song. Now I like the character, I quite like the time concept and I enjoy the coy way River keeps what she knows close to her chest. But I also found her quite irritating. Before, when Alex Kingston was acting opposite David Tenant, there was a bit of chemistry between them. There was something which instantly hinted at a connection between them, before even the plot and dialog took us there. Matt Smith on the other hand has absolutely no chemistry with Alex - this does work on one hand as he comes across as a young school boy afraid of the girl in his class who likes him. On the other hand The Doctor is at least a thousand years old and he does have a granddaughter, so it might just be fear of the future fuelling his actions.

Either way Matt and Alex don't work together on screen and that's a little disingenuous to experience. Still, it's the risk you take when you have one character that's reincarnated into an entirely new personality.

It's either that, or I just don't like Alex Kingston/River Song at all. I'm suspecting a little of both. I know I really disliked her handling of the TARDIS and the removal of the old landing noise. But I did enjoy the Doctor's indignant retort about how he likes that noise.

Onto the good stuff – pretty much the entire remainder of the episode. We have a fun bit that plays with the concept of time by having River leaving a message for the Doctor to find, knowing that eventually in his travels he will run into it. Then we're introduced to the religious military headed by Father Octavian. And we're off on a bug hunt.

The episode reminded me of Aliens, with a group of soldiers heading into a situation that turns out to be far more dangerous than they initially realised. I adore Aliens, it's one of my favourite movies, and The Time of Angels stands up alongside it quite well. It keeps the threat mostly out of sight, but that's the brilliance of the Weeping Angels, that they aren't a threat until they are out of sight.

The best moment in the episode occurs quite far in, when the Doctor is talking about the indigenous (and now extinct) native population of the planet, a pleasant race that all have two heads. The immediate understanding for the viewer comes – none of the statues have two heads – but realisation for the Doctor, Amy, River and the clerics comes slowly. As such, the moment where the Doctor realises that all of the statues are Weeping Angels contains a great deal of potency. Instead of being in there hunting one single Angel they are now trapped inside a mausoleum with hundreds or even thousands of Weeping Angels. That's the moment where everything really began to feel like Aliens "They're coming out of the God dam walls!"

I do feel that the cliff hanger at the end of the episode could have been edited a little better. I would have preferred a cut that ended with the Doctor shouting "Me" and pointing the gun upwards, having him actually fire the gun and seeing the impact on his target has revealed his escape plan already. I would have liked a week to speculate about it rather than be sitting here already able to predict how they'll escape.

Amy had a more prominent role throughout this episode, having time interacting with people other than the Doctor was great and it's now becoming clear that she's as weird as suggested in various interviews. I wasn't seeing it up until now. I still prefer Donna – she's my favourite of the nu-Who companions – but Amy has real potential.

The most important part of this story is the second part, now on one level the two part story has sort of failed. I'm not busy speculating on what's going to happen next week, but that's because the episode didn't end with the Doctor and the others in peril. It ended with them about to escape from peril. But on the other hand I have been begging for more two-part stories in the style of the original show and that's what "The Time of Angels" is. It is classic horror Who with a cast full of disposable characters and a nasty that's as unpleasant as it gets. It was exciting, it was tense, it was fun and it was full of greatness.

Depending on the second part next week this story could be one of the best we've had, it's certainly been set up well. If we were still in the Russell T. Davies era of Who I wouldn't be confident that the second part will be as good as the first. But we're not, and as such I feel confident in predicting that the second part will be even better.

Now we just have to wait for it... Darn.

Other Observations:

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This is mirrored from the original post of my review over at tvgeekarmy.com

Doctor Who is an iconic British television institution; the titular character has been through many different incarnations, aided many allies and faced countless foes. But the most iconic and haunting of all his enemies are, of course, those terrifying salt and pepper pots: the Daleks. Representing the worst of human nature, the urge to destroy anything which is different from the perceived norm of humanity, they are genocidal creatures which have faced the Doctor many times and survived.

For me the two iconic Dalek stories from the first seven incarnations of the Doctor include "Remembrance of the Daleks," a seventh Doctor story that shattered the biggest protection a child hiding behind the sofa had. It gave us Daleks that were able to travel upstairs – something that was used with great effect in the ninth and tenth Doctor's encounters with them. The second story is none other than the fourth Doctor's six-part serial, "Genesis of the Daleks," which contains that defining moment of mercy on the Doctor's part, refusing to commit genocide and wipe out the Daleks even though it would save millions. Instead he spared them proclaiming that "out of their evil must come something good".

Skip forward to the 2005 episode "Dalek" in which the Doctor encountered a single Dalek in a collection. It should remain relatively fresh in the memories of most people who saw it, so I think it'll suffice to say that it was one of the most potent episodes of the ninth Doctor's short time on the screens and the end of the episode made the eventual series reveal about the surviving Daleks a great deal stronger.

The Daleks are as essential to Doctor Who as butter is to bread, so Eleven's first encounter with them needed to be memorable, strong and also avoid the terrible mistakes that occurred in the two-part episodes "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks". Russell T. Davies had the Daleks limping from one encounter to the next, seemingly destroyed on several occasions, only to pull more of them out from his hat. Now, I'm not going to dispute the fact that the return of Davros in "The Stolen Earth" was a brilliant moment and was one of Rusty's better series-end stories, but he did have the Daleks seemingly wiped out time and time again. So much so that, if the British public didn't know that Doctor Who always means Daleks, you'd be forgiven for assuming that Journey's End presented us with the definitive end of them.

Moffat has chosen to deal with this issue early in Eleventh's time on our screens, giving us "Victory of the Daleks" as the third episode of the series and effectively re-establishing the Daleks as a credible and serious threat to life, the universe and everything. But he goes further than that in the episode, and Mark Gatiss's script delivers everything you'd want from the episode and more besides.

"Victory of the Daleks" was a fun and energetic episode that had huge helpings of goodness for us to consume. Starting with the wonderful Ian McNeice giving a great performance as Winston Spencer-Churchill and moving quickly forward, developing in an unexpected direction, one that I must admit I was a little surprised and delighted with. The story looked set to be one rotating around the dilemma of using Dalek-like machines called "Ironsides" as weapons against Nazis and it quickly revealed that they were in truth Daleks masquerading (the obvious reveal); but then the story went one twist further, revealing that the Daleks were doing this in order to lure the Doctor and bait him into providing a testimony, one that would allow them to use a progenitor and rebuild their race from the start.

Once again Moffat shows his ability to steer the story in an unexpected direction and make it feel believable. In the series opener he gave us a Doctor with a plan, a back up plan and then another half dozen alternative contingency plans to work with. Now he's given us Daleks that are able to use the Doctor's predictability about certain things and turn it to their advantage.

But he did more than that. In one fell swoop this episode rose up to match a past episode with a similar title ("X of the Daleks") and also took a huge step towards returning the Daleks to a more iconic appearance. Rusty's Daleks were a bronze (except when painted military green), busy affair; Moffat's new Daleks are a cleaner creation, coloured in a bright, solid and shiny style (available in a range of colours for the fashion conscious! Just like your phone!) that harkens back to the Daleks of the last century. Mind you, that's hardly surprising, I mean Moffat did write a Dalek into his 1990s relationship sitcom "Coupling". The man is an unashamed "Who-aphile" and we're all very fortunate he's at the helm of the show now.

Matt Smith's performance as the Doctor continues to grow, but I did feel there were a few moments in this episode where he wasn't as solid as he had been in the previous two and he didn't deliver his dialog with as much conviction as he could have. Then again, he did face of against the Daleks while armed with nothing more than a Jammie Dodger and how can you not love someone who does that?

Speaking of the Jammie Dodger, it was nice writing to have the Doctor improvising such an iconic and highly British biscuit as a detonation device in order to bluff the Daleks and encourage them to monolog their (relatively) evil plans to him. The audacity and inventiveness of the man knows no bounds!

Likewise it was a great moment to have the newly created 'pure' Daleks kill the last of Russell's creations – wiping the slate clean and sending the Daleks forward ready for later confrontations. It was also a good touch to have them see through the biscuit bluff (which is what I'm going to now call any similar situation on television) and also have a plan which relied on the predictability of the Doctor's nature in order to escape and rebuild their race.

"Victory of the Daleks" is an episode designed to acknowledge the past of the show while also setting things in place for the future. It was an episode that felt weighted in the history of Doctor Who without being overburdened by it.

In short, it was a huge success as an episode and the best work Mark Gatiss has written for the show to date.

Other observations:

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This one may well be old hat to many of you, but recently I chanced upon the web series "We Need Girlfriends" and thought it was worthy of sharing.



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Ok, so I watched the first episode of Treme on Tuesday and I've pretty much spent the past few days thinking about what to make of it. I know from experience of previous David Simon pieces (The Corner, Generation Kill & The Wire) that the first episode of his works is going to be a slow build that throws you into a story that feels like it's already in progress.

The Wire - Simon's 'head and shoulders above all else' show - was a show which took me exactly fourteen episodes to click with, until the start of the second season I was wading through a show with a dense plot and hard to understand dialog that occasionally was unbelievably brilliant and at other times real hard work to keep up with. Of course, I'm now at the point where I can pretty much name all of the minor bit part players by sight - thanks to repeated viewings and of course my Watching the Wire series (currently on hiatus).

The first, and most important thing, is to immediately familiarise yourself with the characters. Lets face it, you're not going to get anywhere if you're only able to name the actors by either their own name or the names of the characters they've played in the past.

So here's the core cast introduced in the first episode (HBO Page here):
Ladonna Batiste-Williams - Khandi Alexander (Fran - The Corner)
Toni Bernette - Melissa Leo (Kay Howard - Homicide: Life on the Street)
Albert Lambreaux - Clarke Peters (Lester Freamon - The Wire)
Antoine Batiste - Wendell Pierce (Bunk Mooreland - The Wire)
Davis McArly - Steve Zahn (He's one of those guys you'll recognise without knowing where from)
Creighton Bennet - John Goodman (The Big Lewbowski, amongst others)
Annie - Lucia Micarelli (First appearance)
Sonny - Michiel Huisman (De co-assistant, no I haven't heard of it either)
Janette Desautel - Kim Dickens (Deadwood)
Delmond Lambreaux - Rob Brown (Finding Forrester)

If you're going to follow the series you'll need that list - I know I will, Simon doesn't give traditional character introductions, he just throws you in there and expects you to swim. Which, I must admit, was a little tough with Treme. There's no doubt already that it's a fantastic show that's going to bloom into a must watch for critics and culture vultures, but there's also no doubt that it's a show which is going to be inaccessible to many viewers. I'm OK with that, but it is a shame that so many viewers will miss out because they're unwilling to put the effort in.

Treme is also a little bewildering at this stage because I don't know much about the city, the neighbourhood or the disaster. I know I can trust David Simon's writing to change all of that, he's an authentic storyteller with a real eye for enlightening and bringing home truths to the viewer.

Until that point I'm just going to enjoy watching Clarke Peters dressed up as a Mardi Gras chieftain.


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No full update here today. But you can read my review of Doctor Who's second episode over at TVGeekArmy.com

It's located here.
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The fifth season of The Sopranos marks the moment where that legend of an actor Steve Buscemi (seriously, name something he's not good in) steps out from behind the camera and onto the screen. Taking the role of Tony Soprano's cousin Tony Blundetto. He'd been involved in the show previously - directing the episodes Pine Barrens and Everybody Hurts. Tony B's story is one of the major arcs of the fifth season, the man did grow up alongside Tony Soprano and, as it turns out, went to prison at least partially because of Tony S.

Tony B's story is a pretty interesting one, for those of you who've seen the season before and need a refresher I do recommend the wikipedia article on it (here) - as long as no-one has amended it to mention that Tony B was in fact an intergalactic time traveller from Vogon 6 who came to Earth in order to determine the secret of making really good cheese. (Unlikely as, let's face it, Americans don't know how to make decent cheeses - they'd be better off snooping on the British or French). Tony B's story is also strengthened by Steve Buscemi's unholy Acting Talent, (did I mention how good Steve is in his performances? I did, well let's mention it again). Fortunately for The Sopranos the show is filled with accomplished actors providing charaters that are deep, meaningful and very real - so Steve's performance as Tony B fits into the show like Cinderella's foot in the glass slipper (such a daft fairy tale) - he doesn't overwhelm the plot, instead he remains a low key prescence who gradually grows, changes and becomes more significant in an entirely natural fashion.

The rest of the season continues in the solid, real and above all else, brilliant style you should have come to expect from The Sopranos by now. Tony is dealing with his seperation from Carmella in the only way he can, by persuing Dr Melfi, Meadow and AJ are dealing with their parent's break up in their own ways. And Uncle June begins to show mild, early signs of Alzheimer's disease - which would be a tragic (if somewhat fitting) end for a man who lived a life that was pretty dispicable in the terms of normal society.

The mounting tension between the New York families provides another thrust of season five's plot - the struggle naturally has a great deal of influence on the lives of the New Jersey crew as they (in essence) live in the shadow of the "New York Mobs". And when other events begin to strain the relationship between the two groups things really begin to break out.

There's an awful lot to like about the fifth season of The Sopranos, it's on par with the fourth one in terms of quality and is a fantastic piece of television in it's own right.
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Last week I posted a caricature of Horatio Cane and I wanted to show you some more of the Artist's work. His name is Anthony Geoffroy and his website is located at www.anthonygeoffroy.com (alternatively his deviant art page is here).

His site is all flash, and I'm not a big fan of flash websites, they always feel clunky and like they're trying too hard, but his art is excellent and here are some of my favourites.



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I've never been sure what to make about the genre of disaster movies, on one hand they almost always represent a struggle of man against nature which often involves touching personal stories and a strong moral about 'man's folly in over-reaching the limitations of the natural world'. They are also spectacular to watch with special effects that often push the envelope of your expectations for film visuals.

But on the other hand they feel rather twisted and a more than a little sociopathic as they always feature vast amounts of people being killed - often in ironic or unpleasant fashions. In some way they're almost the tamer, but genocidal version of the "torture-porn" genre - in as much as they have a great to offer someone who's just hoping to see a lot of people killed very quickly.


2012 is one of the most recent disaster movies, based on the Mayan prediction that the world will end in 2012 - it well. Does. Some science mumbo-jumbo involving the sun essentially overboiling the Earth's core results in the crust destabilising and lots of eye friendly cracks occuring all across the globe.

The story itself follows both the decisions of various world leaders - with the US President (adeptly played by Danny Glover - Predator 2) taking a major role in the movie - which is to be expected as he's the first world leader to be advised of the situation by the scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor - Serenity).


The personal aspect of the story follows one Jackson Curtis (John Cusack - Gross Point Blank), mild mannered a minor novellist turned limo driver. He's seperated from his wife (Amanda Peet - Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) who's dating a plastic surgeon (Thomas McCarthy - The Wire). From here I think you can pretty much figure out where his story is going to take him, and to be fair Cusack does well with the role he's been given - but the entire thing doesn't hang together well when it's the group isn't busy running away from the latest disaster.

For myself the most enjoyable part was Woody Harrelson as paranoid (but correct) conspiracy theorist/pirate radio broadcaster Charlie Frost. Woody brought a level of enthusiasm and quality to the screen which lifted the story up for a while. I think a disaster movie based around his character would have been a fantastic prospect, and it's a shame he wasn't the central role.


On the whole 2012 was a decent film, but it did feel a little hollow at times. It was visually a feast, filled with exciting moments set against a chaotic backdrop - but the core story felt just a little flat. It's certainly something you'll enjoy watching the once, but not a film which holds up to repeated viewing. I'd recommened it to disaster movie enthusiasts, CGI lovers and people who want to spend a couple of hours unwinding and watching something which is full of style but shallower on the substance.


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Available on the BBC iPlayer here.

So Tennant is gone, likewise Russell T. Davies. One will be missed, but the other - not so much. The main question I'm sure most people will have had going into this evenings return of Doctor Who would most likely be "What's the Eleventh Doctor going to be like?".

Honest truth of the matter, Matt Smith had some huge shoes to fill, following on from arguabley the best incarnation of the Doctor full stop. David Tennant brought an extra level to his portrayal which gave the Doctor more depth and humanity than ever before - he managed to surpass my personal favourite Doctor, the one I grew up with (the 7th - McCoy) and I feel really took the character to new places.

I write all this in order to express just how huge a task Smith and Moffat had before them, they needed to open up with a memorable and fun episode which grabbed the viewer straight off and wiped the slate clean while acknowledging the epic performance which came before.

Lets not mess about shall we? The story itself was pretty simple; aliens, a threat to the world, introduction to a new companion. It was classic Doctor Who boiled up from the old baby formula, but the entire piece was nothing short of fantastic. Matt Smith very rapidly settled into the role and gave an energetic, fun and above all else believable performance - pushing through early almost clown like moments with an endearing quality before developing into a Doctor you could like, believe in and most of all enjoy watching.

Karen Gillan was likewise quite great, I'm sure that the series will develop her further as it progresses, she didn't have a lot to do other than be amazed and annoyed with the Doctor here. But she did do it well and I think she shows a lot of promise.

Moffat's was everything you could have hoped for and more, weaving a fun introductory plot that mixed action and a personal story with the first hints at an overrarcing metaplot involving a 'silence'. It wasn't as deep as his work in the previous series, but it didn't need to be - it was instead sheer fun from the first moment to the last and had a lot of 'The Christmas Invasion' in it's flavour. Stating, here's the new Doctor, here's his companion, here's some fun, action and excitment. Enjoy!

And I certainly did.

I'm going to be following each episode in this series and writing about it either on the Saturday or the Sunday right afterwards. I also have the additional bonus of being a Cardiff resident and as such there are some areas I might recognise and be able to mention in a "Cardiff Who Spotter" section. Here's the first.

Cardiff Who Spotter:
The village of Leadworth is actually The Cathedral Green in Llandaff in some scenes.


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One of my favourite things to mock in police procedural type shows (amongst others) is the old Hollywood standby of digital enhancement. The short YouTube video above is a great example of just how prevalent this trope actually is. It's almost as common as the dreaded 'Will They/Won't They' and it's pretty much the key mechanism used to drive the plot in Rising Sun (the quintessential "enhance that picture" story).

I'd love to launch into a long rant about the ridiculousness of the trope, covering the hackneyed nature of it and the obvious crutch it provides for any CSI type show. Unfortunately I can't, because it turns out that technology can enhance pictures in this fashion, sharpening the image and using mathematical algorithms to fill in any blanks or blurred areas. So our dear friends in La-La land aren't as far off from the truth as we all thought (and hoped). Looks like fiction has predicted future technology once again.


You can read the full article here on Wired.

It looks like you win this one Caruso!


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I've moved home and I'm pretty settled, so Rev/Views will be starting up again on a thrice weekly basis. The initial plan of attack is to finish reviewing the rest of The Sopranos, look at the second seasons of Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad and then potter about reviewing various the other DVD sets that I have left to finish - including a look at 2012 which will be up either Monday or Wednesday next week.

The third season of Watching The Wire will resume, I just don't know exactly when - perhaps when I'm not living in a room filled with boxes.

This post is entirely full of the truth and not the least bit a joke, it's my protest about that rather lame tradition of April Fools.

See you tomorrow!
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Yeah, that's right. After spending some time trying to work out what to write about TV - inbetween packing to move home and work - I've decided it's best if I take a little time off to see if it recharges my batteries about TV and writing about it.

I'll be on Twitter still, writing random 140 character things isn't as hard as writing on here, but I won't be updating for a little while. It might be a week, it might be until after I've moved. I don't know at this point, I'm just feeling creatively drained and need to focus elsewhere for a little while to recharge.

So. Watch this space as I imagine Treme will be the spur I need to start falling in love with television all over again. Or maybe I'll get another screener copy of something, that often gets me going again. We'll see.

Back soon!
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Things have been rather erratic here with regards to updating. As some sort of an explaination where I live is a digital switchover area and that is making work a little more stressfull, so I'm just getting home too wiped to write. But I'm also moving house at the end of this month, so a lot of my spare time is spent sorting through stuff, deciding what to keep, what to move and what to throw out.

Excuses aren't much uses, but hopefully things will return to a more consistent and regular update schedule in April. I shouldn't be offline for an exceptionally long time (as I was when I moved this time last year) either.

But scheduled to come up is the final few Sopranos seasons, Treme as soon as it's on the TV and a range of other DVD reviews. I also have a half written piece on my feelings about the current (and historical) portrayal of Vampires in the media. That tickle anyone's fancy?
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Starring:

					Kevin Alejandro		as		Detective Nate Moretta
					Arija Bareikis		as		Officer Chickie Brown
					Michael Cudlitz		as		Officer John Cooper
					Shawn Hatosy		as		Detective Sammy Bryant
					Regina King		as		Detective Lydia Adams
					Michael McGrady		as		Detective Daniel Salinger
					Ben McKenzie		as		Officer Ben Sherman
					Tom Everett Scott		as		Detective Russell Clarke

With the second season of Southland returning from the media grave this week I wanted to take a look at the first season - which originally aired on NBC before they foolishly cancelled it. Fortunately the show now has a new home over on TNT and while I wasn't completely aware of the show and it's trials previously I do have good things to report about the show now I've taken the opportunity to catch up.

Now believe it or not (because I do have a slight reputation for marathon TV watching) but it has been quite a while since I've sat and watched a single show for more than two or three episodes on the trot. Southland's first season represents the end of that drought, I watched the pilot episode yesterday and then the rest of the first season (six episodes) today. In case it's not clear from that, the show is gripping and pretty great.

In fact, watching Southland was a lot like buying an awesome new pair of shoes; you're somewhat concerned that they won't fit as well as your old pair - maybe they'll pinch and rub your feet in an unexpected and painful manner before their broken in. Then, when you try them on you find out that they're not only a perfect fit, but also they're oddly familiar - feeling a lot like your favourite old pair did.

OK, daft shoe analogy aside Southland does echo a couple of shows in it's style and depth - specifically Homicide: Life on the Street and The Shield. That alone should immediately tell any regular readers [are there any? Hello? Is this thing on?] just how much I enjoyed Southland and how good I feel it is. Stylistically there's a lot to compare with The Shield, not only are the locations somewhat familiar (both shows are set in LA) but also the camera work has that same "real" documentary feel which brings you closer to the action. Of course Southland departs from The Shield considerably in one aspect; the main character isn't an exceptionally corrupt cop, and that's enough to make the show very distinct. But it feels so close to The Shield in many other aspects that at times I find myself wondering where Dutch, Claudette, Julien, Danny and Billings are. In short Southland feels a lot like The Shield without the Strike Team storyline. You have detectives and plain clothes officers doing their jobs - dealing with the reality of life as a cop in all its grim truth.

This is where the show also starts to feel like an updated version of Homicide (the show which influenced The Shield) as you've got an ensemble style cast rotating around the main story lines and dealing with - dare I say it - gritty crimes that aren't afraid to be grim and sudden. In fact this is one of the reasons that NBC cancelled the show, they were exceptionally short sighted and failed to look back at history. Iconic shows in the style of Southland exist, they're often cited in critic top 10s and have excellent DVD sales due to a high rewatchability. Fortunately TNT has seen the potential in the show and snapped it up, but they have mentioned some changes, so we'll have to hope the second season isn't homogenized into a clone of CSI (from what I've seen, it doesn't look like it has been - phew).

So I've written about the feel of the show, but what is the actual concept?

The show is a fast paced Police Drama (note, not a procedural) that follows the working and home lives of several police officers working in the LAPD. You have officers John Cooper and his rookie partner Ben Sherman, and the wonderful Chickie Brown; then there are Detectives Russell, Lydia, "Sal", Sammy and Nate. The show follows each partnership not just in the line of duty but in their home life as well - Sammy in particular has a great deal of difficulty with his wife - a woman who seems to have little to no redeeming features at all, but he must see something in her.

It's a show which literally plunges you in at the deep end, expecting you to be able to keep a track of each character/face and follow something which is quite literally 'in progress'. It's not as dense as The Wire can be to follow, the cast isn't that sprawling, but the breakneck speed of the scenes can make it hard to track some of the less familiar faces at first.

The stand out performances from the first seven episodes come from Michael Cudlitz (Band of Brothers), Regina King (227, 24) and Arija Bareikis (Oz, Crossing Jordan) who's fantastic as the hard nosed SWAT-wannabe Chickie Brown. They're the faces I identified with fastest, though it must be said that Shawn Hatosy's performance as Detective Bryant - the man with the completely bizarre and childlike wife - is one which grew on me, his tolerance for her is rather admirable.

So Southland is a show which should appeal to those of you who enjoy police dramas (as opposed to police procedurals) and those of you who enjoy tense action sequences involving alley chases, gun fire and even good old fashioned fisticuffs. There's a lot to enjoy here and it's possible that given time Southland can grow into one of the big shows to watch.

Unfortunately I'm located in the UK so I won't be able to catch up with the second season any time soon. But from the screener footage I've seen it looks like the second season hasn't lost the style and feel which made the first season so enjoyable.

You'll Enjoy Southland if you enjoy shows like:
The Shield, Homicide, Life, The Wire
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The 1980s brought us a host of iconic, memorable moments/shows/films (and in reflection a lot of terrifying and naff ones), many of which are emerging as remakes/relaunches in various levels of quality (BSG, V, The A-Team etc etc.) Now it's entirely debatable if Sledge Hammer! is one of those former shows - there's certainly no signs of anyone rushing to recreate the show at the moment (but given the current trend for leaning on remakes and reality TV instead of working on quality new material, who can tell?) - but it certainly is an iconic example of "an 80s show" in many ways.

Sledge Hammer! is named for it's titular character Detective Sledge Hammer, portrayed by David Rasche - Sledge is a comedic pastiche on Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry character; with all the dials turned up to 11. A counter-culture dressed nihilist with only two loves in his life, the law and his gun. Considered a stickler for the law he's also something of a contradiction, his version of the law involves exceptional rough justice meted out in an increasingly hypocritical fashion. While he's brutish, lacking in intelligence and generally a pretty poor police officer he does deliver results - mostly through a combination of dumb luck and various levels of brutality.

Sledge's "carefree nature" and enjoyment of the job is threatened when he's partnered up with Doris Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin ) - who's not only a woman, but she's also intelligent and a talented cop who does actually follow the rules. I think you can see where this odd couple pairing is going can't you? And yes, the show does play with the 'mismatched cop buddies' theme as a part of it's satire. It also allows Sledge to display his massive level of ignorant male chauvinism here. ("What, you think all women should be barefoot and pregnant?" - "No, I encourage women to wear shoes") Doris is indeed everything Sledge is not.

Finally there's their supervisor - in a show filled with stereotypes used for comedy you'd expect him to be the loud shouting, high blood pressure "GET IN MY OFFICE NOW!" type. Well, he is! Captain Trunk (Harrison Page) is the archetypal long suffering police captain with an insubordinate, troublesome (but effective) detective. A man, who if events in the last episode of the first season hadn't happened [mysterious hint], would end up dead from high blood pressure causing a stroke.

Sledge Hammer! itself was a sitcom which did well with the critics but struggled to gain it's audience thanks to being placed in the dreaded Friday 9pm slot. But the show did manage to secure a second season on the numbers who watched when it was shifted to a better time slot. (Honestly I don't know why the American networks don't just pick cult shows with low audience numbers and relatively low costs to run on Friday evenings instead of constantly sending shows to die there. Suck it up guys, just air some cheap tat as time filler!)

Sledge Hammer! is something of an odd show; I don't find it laugh out loud funny, clever or exceptionally brilliant in any regard - but I wouldn't call it a shitcom, no not at all. There's something quite hypnotic about the broad characters, cartoonish villains and ridiculous story lines used in the show - it's almost as if the irony and slightly naff nature of everything brings it together in some transcendent form of brilliance. It's not one of the 'so bad it's good' shows, it's more one of the 'so self aware and ironically in tune with it's ridiculousness that it's good' shows - OK I made that type of show up, but it's the only way I can explain just how magnetic Sledge Hammer! can be.

Also, this season coined the phrase "Hammer Time!" three years before MC Hammer would use it and at least one of Sledge's lines is (unintentionally?) ripped off and used by Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun. Two pretty reasonable impacts on pop culture for a rather obscure show - one of which is still going strong today.

Now the thing is, it's very hard to recommend Sledge Hammer! because it's appeal is difficult to define. It's not got exceptionally clever things to say, it's not cripplingly funny and the action in the show is pretty ropey at times. But it does feel like it's relevant and that it has a strong message of satire at it's core, as such it's for these reasons and a few other intangible ones I do own the first season of the show and enjoy watching it on occasion. Perhaps it's because Sledge reminds me of Stephen Colbert, I don't know.
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Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior bounced onto our screens back in 2003 as Tony Jaa's breakthrough movie, putting him firmly in place as a martial arts action star to watch; with his speed, charisma and accomplished grasp of Muay Thai he managed to make the rather plot thin Ong Bak into an enjoyable martial arts movie.

This was followed by Tom-Yung-Goong (The Protector) a film I know very little about at all beyond the fact that it was endorsed by Quentin Tarantino(but we all know QT is a bit of a movie slut, he'll endorse anything if he enjoys it) and that it is the most successful USA released Thai movie.

Ong Bak: The Beginning purports to return to the original movie as a prequel to it. Now I'm going to out and out admit right here that I couldn't find a single way that OB:TB links to OB:MTW at all, not even the least bit. It's set in a different time, with different characters and apart from Tony Jaa himself being in the lead role it doesn't seem to have a single thing in common with OB:MTW - even the fighting styles used weren't similar. That doesn't mean it's bad - just that the title seems a tad misleading.

So as such it's best to look as OB:TB as being it's own story; mixing a blend of history and fantasy, which is interwoven with fast paced fight sequences and a plot which exists to do little more than string the various set pieces together. OB:TB is about the orphaned son of a warlord who learns martial arts from outlaws and then proceeds to beat all the salt in the seven seas out of a range of people with a variety of weapons.

The fight scenes themselves are a delight to watch, beautifully shot and choreographed with pinpoint precision. Tony Jaa is an accomplished martial artist with a great deal of showmanship and talent with weaponry and the time he spends training shows in this film. (However, there is one scene where he uses a pan long gun [three-section staff] and it feels that choosing to use this was a little overambitious because it's clear he's struggling to keep it under control at times and that's a little distracting.)

The visuals of the film are also stunning, the camera work gives us beautiful landscapes and scenes which are breathtaking. The dance scene is an awesome piece of visual cinematography and many of the panoramic setting shots are enough to make you want to pack your bags and run off to the Thai countryside.

However, there are a few fundemental flaws in the movie though, the first is the plot - which is exceptionally ropey and poorly laid out even when judged by the traditionally light and loose standards of the martial arts movie. Compared to classics like Snake in the Eagles Shadow, Young Master, Kung Fu Hustle, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Once Upon a Time in China; OB:TB is hugely deficient. In truth even compared to Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior it's hugely deficient in the plot department and that's really saying something because OB:MTW had a plot so thin I can't even recall what it was about.

Secondly the dialog in the film is rather laughable at times, the film bills itself as a heroic fantasy epic

Finally the movie itself isn't a complete piece, it ends on a cliffhanger and it is due to be completed with Ong Bak 3 - this is quite frustrating, but it does explain why everything in the movie (and I do mean everything) seems hugely underdeveloped. It's better to look on this in the same way people looked at Kill Bill: Volume 1. It's the first part in a larger project and as such it might look better when the rest of the story is released.

Anyway, don't get me wrong. OB:TB is an enjoyable film, it's just not in any shape or form a classic of it's genre. You'll watch it, enjoy it and then forget about most of it apart from the action sequences and the more brutal moments in the fights. And that isn't a bad thing.

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Southland - NBC's cancelled cop drama, will be returning from the grave on the 2nd of March over at TNT. It's a show which has gotten onto my radar because of it's resurrection and the reason for it's original cancellation. NBC felt it was too dark for the time slot it was in. It was pulling between four and six million viewers at the time it got canned.

Dark television is something I have a great deal of time for; Millenium, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Shield, The Wire. These are all shows which are exceptionally dark and as such right up my street.

And so because TNT have decided to revive Southland it's something I've become willing to invest time in.

The first series of Southland had just seven episodes, dealing with an ensamble cast and serialised stories. Now the second series is looking to focus more around two of the characters and head a little more towards the procedural in it's nature. Not exactly what I personally want from a television show, but it is something that appeals to a wider audience - still, I'm reserving judgement until I've seen episodes from the second season. So there's a review of the show to come in the next few weeks.

Until then, here are a couple of teaser videos to let you decide if Southland is going to be for you.

Preview of the second Season
Behind the Scenes: The Overview
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[Review for Series Two]

Make no bones about it, for myself Gavin & Stacey is the best British wait no, scratch that Welsh comedy to have come out in recent times (it is actually the best British one, but that's not as important). It's a show which has propelled Barri (That's Barry for all you philistines out there) onto the television map with it's wonderful, sweet story about two people and their families/friends coming together.

More than that though the show holds a little something extra where yours truly is concerned, this is because I grew up for a large portion of my life in the village next door to Barri and growing up it was a place we'd visit on the occasion. Gavin & Stacey embraces the town and the nearby areas by using parts of Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan for it's scenes. Even the ones which are allegedly filmed in Essex are in fact filmed in Wales.

This does result in quite a few amused moments for people who are local to the area, but that's no more unusual than the reactions to various parts of Doctor Who - which has used Wales to represent many other places. And of course Torchwood has turned Cardiff Bay into a shrine for the now deceased Ianto. Certainly watching this show with friends and family does result in the 'name that location' game, something I'm only good at when they're using Cardiff itself, I'm not so great on other parts in the Vale.

I could carry on for a long while about the scenes and areas used in the show, and if I let myself - I would. Still, the important thing is the attention to detail the show uses. It's a series about the little things, things which make life the rich experience that it is. It's a series about romance, friendship and the differences between two cultures that geographically and historically are very close, but are absolutely adamant about drawing the line in the sand between them. So much so that people who live in England and Wales do not tend to identify as being 'British' but instead as English or Welsh. For those of you in the States (or elsewhere in the world) I guess this is kind of like the difference between New York and New Jersey.

Sadly for us the third series is the last series for Gavin & Stacey; which is on one hand a crying shame, but on the other hand it's following in the tradition of all the great British sitcoms of recent years - "leave them wanting more". With that it joins more recent shows like Spaced, Black Books, Phoenix Nights and classics like Fawlty Towers.

Like those shows I listed above, Gavin & Stacey also follows another of the great British sitcom traditions - having the writers of the show also act in them and give fantastic performances. James Corden is as great as he was previously in the role of Smithy, but Ruth Jones hits a new high as Nessa - her combination of rude charm, blunt responses and wild past experiences with famous people entertain more than ever; while her adaptation to her new situation with Baby Neil (as opposed to father Neil or grandfather Neil) is just a delight.

The rest of the cast are clearly comfortable in their roles by this stage and there's an innocent enthusiasm about the characters which I find both adorable and funny. Of course the absolute master at this is Rob Brydon, who continues to give a Shakespearean performance that is simultaneously deep and funny - but that should be no surprise for those of you who've watched him solo in Marion & Geoff.

All I can really say is that Series Three is every bit as competent, endearing, enjoyable and laugh out loud funny as the previous series (and specials) were. It's a shame that the show is over, but it's performance didn't have a single bum note and that's something to be proud of. Alongside being Welsh.

Which just leaves me to ask you.

"Oh, what's occurrin'?"

The Extras:
No Longer Occurrin'
Out Takes
Cast Favourite Moments
Photo Gallery

Details:
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Rating: 12
Region: 12
Run time: 2 hours 52 mins
Soundtrack: English
Subtitles: English HOH
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[1st Season review here]

That's right! Its the all singing, all dancing special 102nd edition of DVDs in Review! Now I know you've been waiting with anticipation to see what boxed set would be the focus of this very special post and by now you'll have realised that it's the much requested second season of that wonderful comedy show - How I Met Your Mother.

I'm actually pretty astounded that it finally came out on DVD; it feels like I've been waiting for this release almost as long as I was stuck waiting for the third season of The Shield to be released in the UK (for the record that was 2 years, 10 months, 19 days of agony and surviving on downloaded episodes) - now it hasn't been that long, but it has been over a year, which is a little ridiculous considering that the show is on it's fifth season in America.

[Don't worry, I'm not going to rant about regions and slow releases creating an artificial market and encouraging piracy today!]

How I Met Your Mother is a cream of the current crop sitcom designed as a self billed "love story in reverse". Narrated by Ted it looks back on the journey he undertook seeking 'the one' - the mother of his children, a poor, long suffering boy and girl who have to endure his unending story of how he met their mother.

This show is of course no secret by this time, it's a massive hit and one of the two shows which catapulted the wonderful Neil Patrick Harris back into the limelight (I guess Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle helped a little as well) by reminding us just how awesome he is. It's quite a turnabout from my perspective at least, because I remember him from Doogie Howser, M.D. - which in all honesty was a show I couldn't stand and only tolerated the end of because The A-Team was on afterwards. Yes, I think it's fair to say I hated Doogie Howser as a child - but I can honestly say I've got nothing but positive things to say about NPH.

I've digressed, onto the boxed set itself. It contains the second season, which can be considered to be the 'Robin' season in Ted's story arc. The first season was spent somewhat chasing after Robin and resulted in more than a few failed relationships on Ted's part. But it's also the season where Lily and Marshall approach their wedding, complete with all the pitfalls and issues that entails.

So many comedy shows are pretty much afraid of approaching a young marriage, preferring either to dance about with lots of close and "nearly" moments in order to avoid the "Moonlighting curse" (something I hate). Or they establish the marriage before the show starts and then deal with the comedy of a married couple. HIMYM instead takes the somewhat fresh route of charting Lily & Marshall's growing relationship and the course into marriage. Managing it with expertise and making it something both touching and exceptionally funny.

Cast wise things remain much the same as the first season; with Barney Stinson fully emerging into his role as the breakout character with the best delivery of lines, Robin gradually strengthens as a character and becomes more quirky and poor Ted remains the most boring member of the bunch - most of the time playing the straight man to everyone else.

HIMYM has been called 'Friends for the noughties', but I feel that's somewhat unfair a comparison, because in many aspects HIMYM is the more accomplished and enjoyable show - it has Friends to look back on and as such can see what will work and what won't - and as such it's surpassed the umbrella waving beau of the nineties as my favourite new york 30 something sitcom.

If you've not already started watching HIMYM, now is a great time to catch up on the first two seasons.

Details:
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Languages: English, French
Rating: 12
Run Time: 7 Hours 38 mins
Region: 2
Subtitles: French, English, Swedish
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