From Emma Peel to Not!Agent Scully
Did the Thursday BBC night thing, starting with The Avengers (BBC4) - The Girl From Auntie filled me with silly glee. (The episodes they'd been showing were almost formulaic, what with missing scientists being press-ganged into nefarious purposes. Not that Steed/Peel's quipping and investigating and fights weren't fun, but this was better. I say this although it was light on the wonderful Emma Peel. Though her absence was almost a presence. But I liked her replacement, Georgie, an actress who didn't look anything like her, who was both up for the high japes of investigating, although both inept and yet accidentally good at it. You never felt she'd stick beyond the ep, which added to her charm.
But apart from the surrealism - the taxi full of random playthings, the unlikely assassin (Miss Marple gone evil?) the knitting club (although so bad that the women did the work and the man issued orders/got them to make up his cardigan) there was the riffing... We started with Emma leaving a 'MFU' charity costume ball, and because I'm used to the fannish acronym, I thought huh, and then the ep was entitled 'The Girl From Auntie' and yeah...The Importance of Being Earnest, James Bond, The Beatles... Absolutely daft ep and brilliantly so.
BBC1's modern day offerings...less so. I mean, there's daft, but it isn't brilliant.
Still, I'm enjoying The Innocence Project, mind. I assimilated two more character names this ep. Last week there was Ford = Smug Mentoring Law Professor. Driven Page Bob is Beth and Geeky Boy = Adam (or Adamski). I hope to get everyone's names by the end of the run.
I like the titles. Before them, we got a short little recap of what the Innocence Project is - I still think they botched the backstory last week, but I think some other things I whinged about may gel and improve as it goes on. The exposition dumping was still obvious and there is much that's cliched - Beth had this week's issues that only Ford could help with. Her mother, who is a bit Julie Cooperish, r no, Taylor and her mother are the better comparison. So, she prefers Beth's mysterious but missing brother. This explains why inferiority complexed Beth is DRIVEN. That and her POVERTY (are law students different to normal students? Granted, my uni experience was probably atypical for the wider UK scene, and it was the last year of grants, but the blonde Girlfriend's attitude of Beth on a loan - poor = bad, and everyone reacting with Horrified She Didn't Just Say That awkward silence, instead of And So? eyebrows. I should not be surprised that aspiring lawyers think that poverty - although Beth is obviously better off than the ASBO family - is bad. But then, I work and pay taxes and I thought £50 to bribe a security guard was steep. But Adam is the son of two psychiatrists. And thus posher than me.
He is also sweet and idiotic. ASBO boy had him wound round his little finger, and I don't think that listening to Silly Hair Boy was really the way to go mentoring and being a good influence on ASBO boy. In fact, I was more with Copper Mature Student and teaching ASBO boy that anti-social actions have consequences. (Not that ASBOs are the greatest way of showing that either, but whatever.) Adam's relationship with Silly Hair Boy is inconsistent, incidentally.
ANYway, Chirpy Blondie was great. I luv her, she's smart and a good friend for Beth and her Page Bob of Drivenness. Also capable. Two seconds of byplay between her and Adam (getting the IQ results. I tend to think she had the higher IQ, because I am sexist like that, but certainly, she's not as clueless at life as sweet, sweet, geeky Adam.) was cuter than the flirty UST scenes (again) between Beth/Silly Hair Boy. It's rather obvious how that will play out. Only Grumpy Blonde Girlfriend hasn't got the message.
I am confused about the status of Ford and his ex(?) wife's relationship. His noticing the shoes was just weird. I approve of his So Will Be A Proper Member of the Team colleague, even though her fancying him prob feeds his ego, which he doesn't need.
As for the main case, I called the father being significant, I gaped at the innocent prisoner's eyebrows, and got quite het up at Beth forgetting that if he was innocent the party who was guilty of the murder was walking free (bad), so just because the innocent man liked the structure of jail and her parental issues were coming into play, she couldn't dump the case.
Next week will probably sink Blondie and Adam, because they will be shown to be irreconcilable.
The State Within Ep 3. I really could have done with a handy diagram to remind me of who was involved in which (part of?) the conspiracy(ies). I joked about it last week, but I really wanted one this week. But then McIntyre and the creepy man who seems to be doing all of the henchmanning dirty jobs had hands of blue and I could do the translation to eeeeeeevil very easily. I am still not sure what the Main Conspiracy is precisely up to (more power and money and the crushing of their enemies? And who cares if it hurst innocents and is a threat to our way of live? blah blah blah).
Mark is still lovely (but so was the reporter, unfortunately, he was the Will Tippett of the show, so as he pulled the threads of The Main Conspiracy together, you knew that the poor boy was not going to get motel!sex, because Mark was The Hero and got to do the Comforting and then the Life is Short Let's Have Sex. Which was also Boss/Flunky sex, so there will be awkwardness next week. I also really liked our feisty redheaded FBI agent. Her life is probably in danger. Meanwhile, did executed!Lennie James have a back up plan? Did he give away something in his letters to implicate McIntyre at least? Does Nicolas have a back-up plan? He seems to be centralising info A LOT, which is dangerous.
The show manages to be both obvious and confusing, all together, which is quite a feat.
But apart from the surrealism - the taxi full of random playthings, the unlikely assassin (Miss Marple gone evil?) the knitting club (although so bad that the women did the work and the man issued orders/got them to make up his cardigan) there was the riffing... We started with Emma leaving a 'MFU' charity costume ball, and because I'm used to the fannish acronym, I thought huh, and then the ep was entitled 'The Girl From Auntie' and yeah...The Importance of Being Earnest, James Bond, The Beatles... Absolutely daft ep and brilliantly so.
BBC1's modern day offerings...less so. I mean, there's daft, but it isn't brilliant.
Still, I'm enjoying The Innocence Project, mind. I assimilated two more character names this ep. Last week there was Ford = Smug Mentoring Law Professor. Driven Page Bob is Beth and Geeky Boy = Adam (or Adamski). I hope to get everyone's names by the end of the run.
I like the titles. Before them, we got a short little recap of what the Innocence Project is - I still think they botched the backstory last week, but I think some other things I whinged about may gel and improve as it goes on. The exposition dumping was still obvious and there is much that's cliched - Beth had this week's issues that only Ford could help with. Her mother, who is a bit Julie Cooperish, r no, Taylor and her mother are the better comparison. So, she prefers Beth's mysterious but missing brother. This explains why inferiority complexed Beth is DRIVEN. That and her POVERTY (are law students different to normal students? Granted, my uni experience was probably atypical for the wider UK scene, and it was the last year of grants, but the blonde Girlfriend's attitude of Beth on a loan - poor = bad, and everyone reacting with Horrified She Didn't Just Say That awkward silence, instead of And So? eyebrows. I should not be surprised that aspiring lawyers think that poverty - although Beth is obviously better off than the ASBO family - is bad. But then, I work and pay taxes and I thought £50 to bribe a security guard was steep. But Adam is the son of two psychiatrists. And thus posher than me.
He is also sweet and idiotic. ASBO boy had him wound round his little finger, and I don't think that listening to Silly Hair Boy was really the way to go mentoring and being a good influence on ASBO boy. In fact, I was more with Copper Mature Student and teaching ASBO boy that anti-social actions have consequences. (Not that ASBOs are the greatest way of showing that either, but whatever.) Adam's relationship with Silly Hair Boy is inconsistent, incidentally.
ANYway, Chirpy Blondie was great. I luv her, she's smart and a good friend for Beth and her Page Bob of Drivenness. Also capable. Two seconds of byplay between her and Adam (getting the IQ results. I tend to think she had the higher IQ, because I am sexist like that, but certainly, she's not as clueless at life as sweet, sweet, geeky Adam.) was cuter than the flirty UST scenes (again) between Beth/Silly Hair Boy. It's rather obvious how that will play out. Only Grumpy Blonde Girlfriend hasn't got the message.
I am confused about the status of Ford and his ex(?) wife's relationship. His noticing the shoes was just weird. I approve of his So Will Be A Proper Member of the Team colleague, even though her fancying him prob feeds his ego, which he doesn't need.
As for the main case, I called the father being significant, I gaped at the innocent prisoner's eyebrows, and got quite het up at Beth forgetting that if he was innocent the party who was guilty of the murder was walking free (bad), so just because the innocent man liked the structure of jail and her parental issues were coming into play, she couldn't dump the case.
Next week will probably sink Blondie and Adam, because they will be shown to be irreconcilable.
The State Within Ep 3. I really could have done with a handy diagram to remind me of who was involved in which (part of?) the conspiracy(ies). I joked about it last week, but I really wanted one this week. But then McIntyre and the creepy man who seems to be doing all of the henchmanning dirty jobs had hands of blue and I could do the translation to eeeeeeevil very easily. I am still not sure what the Main Conspiracy is precisely up to (more power and money and the crushing of their enemies? And who cares if it hurst innocents and is a threat to our way of live? blah blah blah).
Mark is still lovely (but so was the reporter, unfortunately, he was the Will Tippett of the show, so as he pulled the threads of The Main Conspiracy together, you knew that the poor boy was not going to get motel!sex, because Mark was The Hero and got to do the Comforting and then the Life is Short Let's Have Sex. Which was also Boss/Flunky sex, so there will be awkwardness next week. I also really liked our feisty redheaded FBI agent. Her life is probably in danger. Meanwhile, did executed!Lennie James have a back up plan? Did he give away something in his letters to implicate McIntyre at least? Does Nicolas have a back-up plan? He seems to be centralising info A LOT, which is dangerous.
The show manages to be both obvious and confusing, all together, which is quite a feat.