Yesterday's TV
I probably say this every year, but it’s when there’s no It Takes Two to ‘dissect’ the weekend’s Strictly that it sinks in.
Star Trek Discovery had made it to UK free-to-air TV. So, I gave it a whirl.Lots of exposition, although I failed to take in the year when Michael was doing her log, and needed the appearance of a young Sarek to help me grasp when we were (between Enterprise and The Original Series, right?) I liked the look and how it brought in some of the feel of the recent movies. Well, the Klingons don’t look like Kingons to me, more like Generic Aliens but whatevs
Only the big three of the Shenzen’s crew made any impression, and I kind of prefer Captain Oh My Captain Michelle Yeoh to our heroine, who I suppose is meant to be a Kirk figure who was under a Vulcan influence from an earlier age. Not that the actress isn’t expressive. It’s nice to see an all female mentor-mentee relationship, although the Captain was outright favouriting her Number One. And then they gave the cautious/frit science officer depth.
So, they’re facing Klingons who speak in ALL CAPS (heh, apt) and are clearly a nutjob variety of Klingon (where be the women?) I was left thinking that ‘a Vulcan hello’ probably wouldn’t have been enough to help.
Also, ‘Michael’ strikes me as a weird name for a woman.
I then got sucked into watching Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar, which purports to be (but not really) how Agatha Christie went to Iraq and met her second husband. While solving a murder or two.
It was uneven in tone, starting off with touches of horror (though the curse of Ishtar only comes into play late in the feature-length show), mainly trying to be a Christie pastiche, while playing some of it for laughs, while treating the main character’s psychology seriously. Crystal Clarke was in it (the only actor I knew) because she’s the go-to actress to add racial diversity to your period drama these days.
Look, I was kind of watching for the Older Lady/Younger Guy romance and the mystery plot was fine. There were Iraqis muttering about the Brits stealing their artefacts and references to a century from now for a smidge of post-colonial guilt. There’s a dead monkey and broader types than you’d see in Christie. I was sometimes frustrated that they didn’t dial it up to 11, But then Agatha and Max’s relationship veered from comic to touching to team players and back.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/410159.html.
Star Trek Discovery had made it to UK free-to-air TV. So, I gave it a whirl.Lots of exposition, although I failed to take in the year when Michael was doing her log, and needed the appearance of a young Sarek to help me grasp when we were (between Enterprise and The Original Series, right?) I liked the look and how it brought in some of the feel of the recent movies. Well, the Klingons don’t look like Kingons to me, more like Generic Aliens but whatevs
Only the big three of the Shenzen’s crew made any impression, and I kind of prefer Captain Oh My Captain Michelle Yeoh to our heroine, who I suppose is meant to be a Kirk figure who was under a Vulcan influence from an earlier age. Not that the actress isn’t expressive. It’s nice to see an all female mentor-mentee relationship, although the Captain was outright favouriting her Number One. And then they gave the cautious/frit science officer depth.
So, they’re facing Klingons who speak in ALL CAPS (heh, apt) and are clearly a nutjob variety of Klingon (where be the women?) I was left thinking that ‘a Vulcan hello’ probably wouldn’t have been enough to help.
Also, ‘Michael’ strikes me as a weird name for a woman.
I then got sucked into watching Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar, which purports to be (but not really) how Agatha Christie went to Iraq and met her second husband. While solving a murder or two.
It was uneven in tone, starting off with touches of horror (though the curse of Ishtar only comes into play late in the feature-length show), mainly trying to be a Christie pastiche, while playing some of it for laughs, while treating the main character’s psychology seriously. Crystal Clarke was in it (the only actor I knew) because she’s the go-to actress to add racial diversity to your period drama these days.
Look, I was kind of watching for the Older Lady/Younger Guy romance and the mystery plot was fine. There were Iraqis muttering about the Brits stealing their artefacts and references to a century from now for a smidge of post-colonial guilt. There’s a dead monkey and broader types than you’d see in Christie. I was sometimes frustrated that they didn’t dial it up to 11, But then Agatha and Max’s relationship veered from comic to touching to team players and back.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/410159.html.