A Freudian Clit
While I've always liked The League of Gentlemen well enough, the new series "Psychoville" by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton is a perfect realization of what they started in that first show. It's been awhile since I sat down with League, but I remember they were already messing with adding more complex story lines by the third outing and this new show makes everything coalesce beautifully into something should be gift for anyone who loves strange humor or attaching car batteries to people's lips. I think the two go hand in hand, but maybe that's why Meineke has a restraining order on me. Ah well, c'est la vie.
Psychoville is a hybrid comedy/horror/mystery following five characters who live far apart but are all seemingly connected when each receives threatening letters from a masked man that, at first, only says "I know what you did." Given that this show was written by two guys who did League, each character is slightly-to-severely off their rockers. One is a 38-year-old man-child obsessed with serial killers and have a creepy relationship with his mother; another a one-armed clown who does children's parties that inevitably end with him waving his stump around in their faces. You get the idea.
What makes Psychoville work so well is that as the plot moves forward and things become more and more insane, it never stops being hilarious. Keeping such a tenuous balance between scenes that are actually suspenseful and then snapping back to something that makes you laugh is a hard thing to achieve but it never, ever feels forced. Also, while the plot isn't the most original thing ever written, the little twists and turns combined with some damn fine character building keep you just needing to know what happens next.
Speaking of, the characters are all wonderfully done but the most surprising one (for me) was Dawn French who is just damn creepy as a midwife who believes the plastic baby doll she carries around to be a living, breathing child. Don't get me wrong - it's done for laughs numerous times but there comes a point where it's unsettling and I give French all the credit in the world for making it work.
I could go on and on, but the other two I want to quickly mention are David, the aforementioned man-child, and the character of her mother. These are portrayed by Shreasmith and Pemberton themselves and you can tell the care they put into these particular roles. In the first episode, David and their mother just seem uncomfortably creepy but by the last episode, both characters have developed into something that is actually kind of tragic and touching. I'm not trying to say it all becomes a great drama or anything, but their arcs are so well done you manage to feel a bit of sympathy for these people. That actually goes for all the characters in "Psychoville" but, once again, it never becomes the end of a Ricky Gervais vehicle where everything always seems to become ~meaningful~ which puts the breaks on any and all humor. It just gets you more invested in the characters and allows actual suspense to build when it's needed. Really, the writing in the series is just perfect. I want to print out all the pages and fap all over them.
I went too far again.
While I'm sure few if any of you have seen the series, since I know most of you are from the US, I'm going to ramble about one episode that I think is one of the best episodes of anything I've seen before. I'm going to white the text so you can highlight it if you really want to know/seen the episode already, because I think first seeing it spoiler-free is the best way to go. Unless you don't give a crap. Whatever. Let me know if this doesn't work, 'cause I've never done it before and it might end up as +50 font done all in blinking, neon green.
I'm referring to the fourth episode called "David and Maureen". First off, the homage to Hitchcock's "Rope" was just a great thing to see. The entire episode centers around the two aforementioned characters killing their latest victim in their killing spree. After stashing the body in a... fuck, is it called a chest or a table? I can't remember what they referred to it was, but afterward the rest of the 30 minutes all takes place in the same room with only one other person coming into the picture. The achievement of only having two shots is impressive but, just like the film it is paying tribute to, what really matters is how they copied the tone perfectly and added the morbid humor that runs through the whole series. It's almost fruitless to try describing it without seeing it yourself, but I'm not exaggerating when I say it is one of the best 30 minutes of television that aired last year, anywhere. Plus, the end does a great job of taking that goddamn ridiculous song that was played mid-episode and makes it menacing in the closing minute. It's a testament to the power of the writing and the actors and the highlight of an already wonderful series.
Ok, so without giving anything away, the series ends with things going even more batty and has a cliffhanger that makes me sad to wait until December for just a special and then even longer for a new series, which luckily has been commissioned. Still it's going to be a long, hard wait for new Psychoville because I really wish more television would aspire to its level of entertainment. I certainly hopes it spreads to the US because more people deserve to see it, which is why I am blabbering on about it here. If you can import R2 DVD's, I say get it. Hell, even if you need to see it any other way the Internet offers, I say get it.
Actually, I'll just post the first 10 minutes of the first episode here. I'm sure Youtube will do the rest for you.
Psychoville is a hybrid comedy/horror/mystery following five characters who live far apart but are all seemingly connected when each receives threatening letters from a masked man that, at first, only says "I know what you did." Given that this show was written by two guys who did League, each character is slightly-to-severely off their rockers. One is a 38-year-old man-child obsessed with serial killers and have a creepy relationship with his mother; another a one-armed clown who does children's parties that inevitably end with him waving his stump around in their faces. You get the idea.
What makes Psychoville work so well is that as the plot moves forward and things become more and more insane, it never stops being hilarious. Keeping such a tenuous balance between scenes that are actually suspenseful and then snapping back to something that makes you laugh is a hard thing to achieve but it never, ever feels forced. Also, while the plot isn't the most original thing ever written, the little twists and turns combined with some damn fine character building keep you just needing to know what happens next.
Speaking of, the characters are all wonderfully done but the most surprising one (for me) was Dawn French who is just damn creepy as a midwife who believes the plastic baby doll she carries around to be a living, breathing child. Don't get me wrong - it's done for laughs numerous times but there comes a point where it's unsettling and I give French all the credit in the world for making it work.
I could go on and on, but the other two I want to quickly mention are David, the aforementioned man-child, and the character of her mother. These are portrayed by Shreasmith and Pemberton themselves and you can tell the care they put into these particular roles. In the first episode, David and their mother just seem uncomfortably creepy but by the last episode, both characters have developed into something that is actually kind of tragic and touching. I'm not trying to say it all becomes a great drama or anything, but their arcs are so well done you manage to feel a bit of sympathy for these people. That actually goes for all the characters in "Psychoville" but, once again, it never becomes the end of a Ricky Gervais vehicle where everything always seems to become ~meaningful~ which puts the breaks on any and all humor. It just gets you more invested in the characters and allows actual suspense to build when it's needed. Really, the writing in the series is just perfect. I want to print out all the pages and fap all over them.
I went too far again.
While I'm sure few if any of you have seen the series, since I know most of you are from the US, I'm going to ramble about one episode that I think is one of the best episodes of anything I've seen before. I'm going to white the text so you can highlight it if you really want to know/seen the episode already, because I think first seeing it spoiler-free is the best way to go. Unless you don't give a crap. Whatever. Let me know if this doesn't work, 'cause I've never done it before and it might end up as +50 font done all in blinking, neon green.
I'm referring to the fourth episode called "David and Maureen". First off, the homage to Hitchcock's "Rope" was just a great thing to see. The entire episode centers around the two aforementioned characters killing their latest victim in their killing spree. After stashing the body in a... fuck, is it called a chest or a table? I can't remember what they referred to it was, but afterward the rest of the 30 minutes all takes place in the same room with only one other person coming into the picture. The achievement of only having two shots is impressive but, just like the film it is paying tribute to, what really matters is how they copied the tone perfectly and added the morbid humor that runs through the whole series. It's almost fruitless to try describing it without seeing it yourself, but I'm not exaggerating when I say it is one of the best 30 minutes of television that aired last year, anywhere. Plus, the end does a great job of taking that goddamn ridiculous song that was played mid-episode and makes it menacing in the closing minute. It's a testament to the power of the writing and the actors and the highlight of an already wonderful series.
Ok, so without giving anything away, the series ends with things going even more batty and has a cliffhanger that makes me sad to wait until December for just a special and then even longer for a new series, which luckily has been commissioned. Still it's going to be a long, hard wait for new Psychoville because I really wish more television would aspire to its level of entertainment. I certainly hopes it spreads to the US because more people deserve to see it, which is why I am blabbering on about it here. If you can import R2 DVD's, I say get it. Hell, even if you need to see it any other way the Internet offers, I say get it.
Actually, I'll just post the first 10 minutes of the first episode here. I'm sure Youtube will do the rest for you.
Click to view