What I've Been Watching
Now I've finally finished my Thriller (Part 1) review/picspam post, I am behind again. Let me talk about what I have been watching over the last couple of months (or more), other than the first 5 discs of Thriler.
1. I finished Secret Army. I did mostly enjoy it, although I got impatient with it again at the end. Terence Hardiman as Reinhardt (who doesn't give a damn about anything since they've lost the war and most of his friends have just been executed in the wake of the assassination attempt on Hitler) did liven things up, though. He was great, and not even actually evil, either. (Particularly his exit when Clifford Rose's Kessler finds time in the last few minutes of the war for one further despicable act and forces the rest of the German POWs to have a court martial and execute Major Reinhardt, and he is shot as the bells ring out for peace, just so that Kessler can hide his identity as head of the Gestapo in Belgium. Kessler is rightly both awful and complex, of course, and Clifford Rose was very good in the role.) Bernard Hepton spent most of the last series in prison, on film, but he did eventually escape and return to the studio, and I gave it a lot of plus points for what eventually happened with Monique, too. Anyway, I watched it! I now know where 'Allo 'Allo is coming from.
2. I skipped ahead briefly to watch Suzanne Neve's second Thriller, and while I'll cover it in its turn, I can report that she is better at terrorising innocent Americans than James Maxwell: she sticks them in her underground pottery kiln and bakes them, no angsting required. 1970s Suzanne Neve is so far a lot more evil than 1960s Suzanne Neve. (I would side-eye the ending of the 1968 Dracula here, but personally, I blame Ed Bishop for throwing her down the stairs in UFO.)
3. I finally got to the E-Space trilogy (DW), watching Full Circle and State of Decay (before an appropriate break for the BBC 1977 Dracula). Full Circle has a good SF idea at the heart, but nothing else much with which to pad it out. Except Adric, but, er, well...
I enjoyed State of Decay a lot, though, especially in comparison to Full Circle (it's good to see that future spaceships will go on with BBC Acorn computers on board!). Plus, the whole Time Lords and Vampires mythology backstory is potentially fun to play with and Romana gets two great costumes, while Adric spends at least an episode unconscious, and it has a great look, particularly for that era, especially the location scenes. What more could I ask for? (I'm sorry: Adric wasn't bad in this one! I'm mean, I know.)
4. And so, then, what more appropriate than that I pause to watch the TV show that caused State of Decay to be postponed for 3 years and gave us Horror of Fang Rock instead? (Accidentally; my viewing is not really that well planed!)
I'm not really sure why the BBC were so nervy about this version of Dracula that they thought DW doing vampires at the same time might make them look silly, but apparently they were. They had no need: this is lovely. It's unlike most of the old TV I've been watching - it was 1977 doing glossy event TV with a 2 1/2 hr feature-length version of the novel that's probably the most faithful adaptation still. (Although there are some changes, of course.) It was very good! I recommend it even if you're not usually into old TV, but are into Dracula. (I believe it is up on YouTube, and I got the DVD pretty cheap anyway.)
(Also it's now fairly proved that I will never be able to read or watch the scene in the crypt where they stake Lucy without laughing. That is the downside of starting with the 1968 version*: I read the book and sniggered because Dr Seward was going on about how he could cope better because of being a doctor, and then in this, Dr Seward asks, "What are we going to do?" and Van Helsing says, "Cut off her head!" 1968 Dr Seward would have been passed out on the floor already, let alone by the time there was spurting blood. Also, in other news I think I like Dracula a lot, even if I'm not into other horror very much. I am sorry I was too wimpish to read it when I was a teenager; I would have enjoyed it, especially once I ran out of Wilkie Collins.
5. So, then, of course I had to re-watch the 1968 version (<3), and now I see that when Mina describes Dracula to Dr Seward in terms that are amusingly nothing like Denholm Elliott, she has merely had a vision of the future and seen Louis Jourdain. (The 1977 is most obviously excellent and best, but the 1968 is much more fun to play with for writing purposes and also it stars a lot of my very favourite old telly actors at once and most of them get shipped with each other. Besides, if you start with a version that has Lucy seduce Mina, what can other versions do to beat that?)
6. I then decided that I should stop being wimpish and watch the rest of Mystery and Imagination. I'd already seen "Dracula", the Ian Holm "Frankenstein" and "The Suicide Club" (the one with David Collings and the cream tarts and the invisible hyenas and Major Geraldyne, because obv. that is the one that David Collings would be in). The Freddie Jones "Sweeney Todd" was out because I Do Not Do Sweeney Todd, which left me with "Uncle Silas" and "The Curse of the Mummy" out of the Thames adaptations, so I watched "The Curse of the Mummy." It was an adaptation of Bram Stoker's The Jewel of the Seven Stars, and I enjoyed it. It starred Isobel Black and Patrick Mower, while Graham Crowden was a mad archaeologist, which was inevitably entertaining. (He spent the first third of it lying unconscious on a bed while everyone else had to act around him. The other actors probably deserve a medal, because I bet he didn't lie still and quiet the whole time.) The booklet, though, quotes the same Times reviewer who'd decided that Dracula was as boring as a Party Political Broadcast, who thought this was dull and it was only a mystery as to how it got made, but I liked it anyway, despite, of course, inevitable Victorian/70s dodginess. (The Times reviewer seems to have had it in for M&I. Looking through the booklet shows he also savaged "The Lost Stradivarius" featuring Jeremy Brett, too. The TV Times viewers were much kinder and enjoyed them all regardless.)
I wimped out on "Uncle Silas" and thought I'd watch the two older 50 mins eps instead, with the additional Richard Beckett character (since the pictures of David Buck in the role looked kind of like Adam Adamant), as that sounded like a suitable safety net. The first of the two survivors was The Fall of the House of Usher starring Denholm Elliott (again) and Susannah York and directed by Kim Mills and that was definitely over my horror limit, but clearly very good (if you like b&w 1960s TV and that sort of thing) and started me off on my wondering sadly what happened to Kim Mills and why he vanished from TV. He really does have something, I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but probably I would have been less freaked out if he hadn't been directing this one.
In contrast, The Open Door was a Mrs Oliphant story that was a little on the dull side and very Victorian, or at least it was until act 3 when they brought in John Laurie to be Very Scottish and exorcise the ghost, clearly a plan with no flaws. After that, I thought I'd had more than enough horror for a bit and left "Uncle Silas "unwatched and returned to Doctor Who and E-Space.
7. Warrior's Gate was very weird and also had Clifford Rose being excellent again. It was definitely the good weird, though, in that way only Classic Who is every once in a while. I mean, it looks like the stranger kind of 80s pop video (one that would definitely get nominated for Yuletide), so it wouldn't be for everyone, but still: the good weird/meta, I think, with bonus believably mundane, petty villains and random lion people. (It must be Doctor Who. <3)
8. I recorded Mrs Miniver off the telly, and the main thing I have taken from this is that Julian Fellowes stole the flower show plot for Downton Abbey. And given that I already know that he stole two plotlines/backstories and a minor incident from Duchess of Duke Street (as well as acting in it), I am now wondering with some interest and amusement, where exactly he swiped everything else from. (Anything from Upstairs Downstairs, maybe?) It's kind of engagingly blatant swiping, though. And gives us May Whitty vs Maggie Smith! Oh my. (I did like it, but it was made mid-WWII and so is very patriotic etc. But well done! There were some really good scenes, and Dame May Whitty as well as Greer Garson, and it was very watchable still.)
9. I also recorded the next old series Drama was offering as well, which is When the Boat Comes In. It stars Jack and Esther from New Tricks (James Bolam and Susan Jameson, who are married in rl, and going out in this). It is early 20th C Tyneside and the first episode was grim about shellshocked returning soldiers, the second had a poor orphan shipped off to Australia alone, and then the continuity announcer went, "And next, things get even harder..." It is, as they say, grim oop north. It seems good so far, though. And maybe one day the boat will come in; there are at least 40 eps on my DVR already and they may not all be equally depressing...
* I don't know if this is really a downside, though. It is very funny.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Please click through to comment. -- Current comments:
1. I finished Secret Army. I did mostly enjoy it, although I got impatient with it again at the end. Terence Hardiman as Reinhardt (who doesn't give a damn about anything since they've lost the war and most of his friends have just been executed in the wake of the assassination attempt on Hitler) did liven things up, though. He was great, and not even actually evil, either. (Particularly his exit when Clifford Rose's Kessler finds time in the last few minutes of the war for one further despicable act and forces the rest of the German POWs to have a court martial and execute Major Reinhardt, and he is shot as the bells ring out for peace, just so that Kessler can hide his identity as head of the Gestapo in Belgium. Kessler is rightly both awful and complex, of course, and Clifford Rose was very good in the role.) Bernard Hepton spent most of the last series in prison, on film, but he did eventually escape and return to the studio, and I gave it a lot of plus points for what eventually happened with Monique, too. Anyway, I watched it! I now know where 'Allo 'Allo is coming from.
2. I skipped ahead briefly to watch Suzanne Neve's second Thriller, and while I'll cover it in its turn, I can report that she is better at terrorising innocent Americans than James Maxwell: she sticks them in her underground pottery kiln and bakes them, no angsting required. 1970s Suzanne Neve is so far a lot more evil than 1960s Suzanne Neve. (I would side-eye the ending of the 1968 Dracula here, but personally, I blame Ed Bishop for throwing her down the stairs in UFO.)
3. I finally got to the E-Space trilogy (DW), watching Full Circle and State of Decay (before an appropriate break for the BBC 1977 Dracula). Full Circle has a good SF idea at the heart, but nothing else much with which to pad it out. Except Adric, but, er, well...
I enjoyed State of Decay a lot, though, especially in comparison to Full Circle (it's good to see that future spaceships will go on with BBC Acorn computers on board!). Plus, the whole Time Lords and Vampires mythology backstory is potentially fun to play with and Romana gets two great costumes, while Adric spends at least an episode unconscious, and it has a great look, particularly for that era, especially the location scenes. What more could I ask for? (I'm sorry: Adric wasn't bad in this one! I'm mean, I know.)
4. And so, then, what more appropriate than that I pause to watch the TV show that caused State of Decay to be postponed for 3 years and gave us Horror of Fang Rock instead? (Accidentally; my viewing is not really that well planed!)
I'm not really sure why the BBC were so nervy about this version of Dracula that they thought DW doing vampires at the same time might make them look silly, but apparently they were. They had no need: this is lovely. It's unlike most of the old TV I've been watching - it was 1977 doing glossy event TV with a 2 1/2 hr feature-length version of the novel that's probably the most faithful adaptation still. (Although there are some changes, of course.) It was very good! I recommend it even if you're not usually into old TV, but are into Dracula. (I believe it is up on YouTube, and I got the DVD pretty cheap anyway.)
(Also it's now fairly proved that I will never be able to read or watch the scene in the crypt where they stake Lucy without laughing. That is the downside of starting with the 1968 version*: I read the book and sniggered because Dr Seward was going on about how he could cope better because of being a doctor, and then in this, Dr Seward asks, "What are we going to do?" and Van Helsing says, "Cut off her head!" 1968 Dr Seward would have been passed out on the floor already, let alone by the time there was spurting blood. Also, in other news I think I like Dracula a lot, even if I'm not into other horror very much. I am sorry I was too wimpish to read it when I was a teenager; I would have enjoyed it, especially once I ran out of Wilkie Collins.
5. So, then, of course I had to re-watch the 1968 version (<3), and now I see that when Mina describes Dracula to Dr Seward in terms that are amusingly nothing like Denholm Elliott, she has merely had a vision of the future and seen Louis Jourdain. (The 1977 is most obviously excellent and best, but the 1968 is much more fun to play with for writing purposes and also it stars a lot of my very favourite old telly actors at once and most of them get shipped with each other. Besides, if you start with a version that has Lucy seduce Mina, what can other versions do to beat that?)
6. I then decided that I should stop being wimpish and watch the rest of Mystery and Imagination. I'd already seen "Dracula", the Ian Holm "Frankenstein" and "The Suicide Club" (the one with David Collings and the cream tarts and the invisible hyenas and Major Geraldyne, because obv. that is the one that David Collings would be in). The Freddie Jones "Sweeney Todd" was out because I Do Not Do Sweeney Todd, which left me with "Uncle Silas" and "The Curse of the Mummy" out of the Thames adaptations, so I watched "The Curse of the Mummy." It was an adaptation of Bram Stoker's The Jewel of the Seven Stars, and I enjoyed it. It starred Isobel Black and Patrick Mower, while Graham Crowden was a mad archaeologist, which was inevitably entertaining. (He spent the first third of it lying unconscious on a bed while everyone else had to act around him. The other actors probably deserve a medal, because I bet he didn't lie still and quiet the whole time.) The booklet, though, quotes the same Times reviewer who'd decided that Dracula was as boring as a Party Political Broadcast, who thought this was dull and it was only a mystery as to how it got made, but I liked it anyway, despite, of course, inevitable Victorian/70s dodginess. (The Times reviewer seems to have had it in for M&I. Looking through the booklet shows he also savaged "The Lost Stradivarius" featuring Jeremy Brett, too. The TV Times viewers were much kinder and enjoyed them all regardless.)
I wimped out on "Uncle Silas" and thought I'd watch the two older 50 mins eps instead, with the additional Richard Beckett character (since the pictures of David Buck in the role looked kind of like Adam Adamant), as that sounded like a suitable safety net. The first of the two survivors was The Fall of the House of Usher starring Denholm Elliott (again) and Susannah York and directed by Kim Mills and that was definitely over my horror limit, but clearly very good (if you like b&w 1960s TV and that sort of thing) and started me off on my wondering sadly what happened to Kim Mills and why he vanished from TV. He really does have something, I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but probably I would have been less freaked out if he hadn't been directing this one.
In contrast, The Open Door was a Mrs Oliphant story that was a little on the dull side and very Victorian, or at least it was until act 3 when they brought in John Laurie to be Very Scottish and exorcise the ghost, clearly a plan with no flaws. After that, I thought I'd had more than enough horror for a bit and left "Uncle Silas "unwatched and returned to Doctor Who and E-Space.
7. Warrior's Gate was very weird and also had Clifford Rose being excellent again. It was definitely the good weird, though, in that way only Classic Who is every once in a while. I mean, it looks like the stranger kind of 80s pop video (one that would definitely get nominated for Yuletide), so it wouldn't be for everyone, but still: the good weird/meta, I think, with bonus believably mundane, petty villains and random lion people. (It must be Doctor Who. <3)
8. I recorded Mrs Miniver off the telly, and the main thing I have taken from this is that Julian Fellowes stole the flower show plot for Downton Abbey. And given that I already know that he stole two plotlines/backstories and a minor incident from Duchess of Duke Street (as well as acting in it), I am now wondering with some interest and amusement, where exactly he swiped everything else from. (Anything from Upstairs Downstairs, maybe?) It's kind of engagingly blatant swiping, though. And gives us May Whitty vs Maggie Smith! Oh my. (I did like it, but it was made mid-WWII and so is very patriotic etc. But well done! There were some really good scenes, and Dame May Whitty as well as Greer Garson, and it was very watchable still.)
9. I also recorded the next old series Drama was offering as well, which is When the Boat Comes In. It stars Jack and Esther from New Tricks (James Bolam and Susan Jameson, who are married in rl, and going out in this). It is early 20th C Tyneside and the first episode was grim about shellshocked returning soldiers, the second had a poor orphan shipped off to Australia alone, and then the continuity announcer went, "And next, things get even harder..." It is, as they say, grim oop north. It seems good so far, though. And maybe one day the boat will come in; there are at least 40 eps on my DVR already and they may not all be equally depressing...
* I don't know if this is really a downside, though. It is very funny.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Please click through to comment. -- Current comments: