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Brit telly marathon
Apr. 5th, 2012 01:01 pmThanks to the lovely Marleen, I had the chance to catch up on a few series I had missed so far recently. The whole thing awakened in me the memories of uni-days together with a longing for feeding my head in this insane manner more often. Instead, I have become "one of those guys", always having to consider the SO in my plans and spontaneous decisions. You can never just ask me whether I have time, it's always "us". And the SO obviously does not share my tastes in these matters.
So this was, on the whole, a very pleasant opportunity.
All in all I was exposed to:
"Sherlock" Season 2: Which I liked on the whole. It is a badly kept secret that I am a major fan of Moffat's work, particularly "Coupling", and that in my youth I read a fair few of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, so this really was a "must watch". And I wasn't disappointed. I thought that "Hounds of the Baskervilles" really was the weakest of the three while "Scandal in Belgravia"'s ending really could have done with being just a smidgen less twisted. I enjoy a good double/triple/quadruple-cross but this was just bordering on silly.
State of Play: In one sitting, I hasten to add. It was worth it. It's good to be occasionally reminded of why John Simm, Polly Walker and Bill Nighy are held in such high regard. There is a small voice in my mind that is trying to urge me to watch the remake with Russell Crowe but at the moment I have my doubts about the wisdom of this step.
Black Mirror:"15 Million Merits": Hm, I think I liked that. The idea and excution certainly were interesting but in terms of length it was getting close to outstaying its welcome. There is only so much you can drag out of the concept in terms of character development, so you either had to keep that to a minimum or make something more significant out of it. The fatty-hating colleague is a case in point for this. He came across as a single arse rather than the representative of an obnoxious society as a whole.
Watching this film made me feel dirty for a while though, despite the fact that I don't really watch a great deal of casting shows.
The National Anthem: Which worked on the whole, I thought. An outrageous idea, no doubt, and solidly handled, but not offering any revolutionary insights into society or the human psyche. It mainly made me wonder why something like this would never stand a chance of being produced for german telly.
Nathan Barley: Which I mainly watched because Marlene mentioned that she normally like Charlie Brooker's work but had bee disappointed by this. Well, and because on the basis of the cover art, I would have guessed this to be an abomination on the scale of "PhoneShop" but other than that really had no idea what to expect. Having said that, I thought that it was actually not bad... for about two episodes, after which it was just more or less repeating the same sortof joke over and over and over. Still, as a parody of the sort of people you can encounter in Berlin as much as London, this worked for a while, even if it mainly came off like a diluted version of a "Jam"-sketch.
Cruise of the Gods: Sorry, I see what you were trying to do there and it's not entirely without good bits but as a whole, it did little for me, except for making me feel that James Corden actually isn't all bad (Still haven't forgiven him for "Lesbian Vampire Killers").
So this was, on the whole, a very pleasant opportunity.
All in all I was exposed to:
"Sherlock" Season 2: Which I liked on the whole. It is a badly kept secret that I am a major fan of Moffat's work, particularly "Coupling", and that in my youth I read a fair few of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, so this really was a "must watch". And I wasn't disappointed. I thought that "Hounds of the Baskervilles" really was the weakest of the three while "Scandal in Belgravia"'s ending really could have done with being just a smidgen less twisted. I enjoy a good double/triple/quadruple-cross but this was just bordering on silly.
State of Play: In one sitting, I hasten to add. It was worth it. It's good to be occasionally reminded of why John Simm, Polly Walker and Bill Nighy are held in such high regard. There is a small voice in my mind that is trying to urge me to watch the remake with Russell Crowe but at the moment I have my doubts about the wisdom of this step.
Black Mirror:"15 Million Merits": Hm, I think I liked that. The idea and excution certainly were interesting but in terms of length it was getting close to outstaying its welcome. There is only so much you can drag out of the concept in terms of character development, so you either had to keep that to a minimum or make something more significant out of it. The fatty-hating colleague is a case in point for this. He came across as a single arse rather than the representative of an obnoxious society as a whole.
Watching this film made me feel dirty for a while though, despite the fact that I don't really watch a great deal of casting shows.
The National Anthem: Which worked on the whole, I thought. An outrageous idea, no doubt, and solidly handled, but not offering any revolutionary insights into society or the human psyche. It mainly made me wonder why something like this would never stand a chance of being produced for german telly.
Nathan Barley: Which I mainly watched because Marlene mentioned that she normally like Charlie Brooker's work but had bee disappointed by this. Well, and because on the basis of the cover art, I would have guessed this to be an abomination on the scale of "PhoneShop" but other than that really had no idea what to expect. Having said that, I thought that it was actually not bad... for about two episodes, after which it was just more or less repeating the same sortof joke over and over and over. Still, as a parody of the sort of people you can encounter in Berlin as much as London, this worked for a while, even if it mainly came off like a diluted version of a "Jam"-sketch.
Cruise of the Gods: Sorry, I see what you were trying to do there and it's not entirely without good bits but as a whole, it did little for me, except for making me feel that James Corden actually isn't all bad (Still haven't forgiven him for "Lesbian Vampire Killers").
