How to Be a Man: the Totally Slammin' Gender Politics of 'The Apartment' and 'Say Anything'

First up, if you haven't seen the two films this blog is discussing, why are you even reading this? Go re-evaluate your life choices, watch those films, and then come back here. If you have seen them, congratulations on having reached the minimum requirements for being an intelligent human being.

There's a lot of excellent discussion these days about how the media constructs femininity in various bad ways. We still live in a world where female characters make up only 15-20% of major characters in films, so it's no wonder our perception of womankind is somewhat skewed. As well as the obvious things like the very narrow standards of attractiveness that women are held to, women are also portrayed largely as being capable only of taking on auxiliary supporting roles: wives, girlfriends, mothers, sisters, secretaries, etc etc etc. There's a great thing called the Bechdel Test, wherein a work of media has to feature a) at least two named female characters, b) who talk to each other about c) something other than men, in order to pass. It's not an exact science because there are many great, positive works of art that portray women in a well rounded way that don't pass the Bechdel Test (a lot of Jane Austen, for example) and there are equally works that do pass the test but suck in misogynist ass-sucky ways. But all this has been documented elsewhere by people much smarter than me and who devote much more of their time to tracking gender politics in pop culture (yes, there are people who spend more time doing that than me). For further reading, I'd particularly recommend this article on the different between Strong Female Characters and Strong Characters who happen to be Female.

But I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about Strong Male Characters. Or at least, films that portray what it means to be a man in a way that isn't demeaning or patronising. It's kind of sad that the two films I want to talk about came out in 1960 (The Apartment) and 1989 (Say Anything) but whatareyougonnado?* Let's start with The Apartment, one of my favourite films of all time. It's a romantic comedy that deals with the subject of suicide, obviously. It follows the story of CC “Buddy Boy” Baxter (the always effervescently wonderful Jack Lemmon) who works out that the way to get ahead in the monolith insurance firm he works for is to rent out his apartment, one night at a time, to his superiors so that they can have their extramarital affairs there. While it gets him a promotion at work, it comes at the expense of being shunted out of his own apartment at a moment's notice, an undeserved reputation with the neighbours as an indefatigable Casanova, and one vicious head cold. It also (of course) gets in the way of him pursuing his affections for fabulous and vulnerable elevator girl, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine).

The film's central message is delivered by one of the aforementioned neighbours, Doctor Dreyfuss, in the aftermath of Ms Kubelik's narrowly non-fatal suicide attempt, which appears to be Jack Lemmon's fault (it's not, but he has to pretend it is, and this is why you should just go and watch the film): “Why don't you grow up, Baxter? Be a mensch! You know what that means?...A mensch - a human being!” Even though the criticism is wide of the mark in this specific instance (he's actually protecting Shirley MacLaine), it's still an apt summary of the circumstances. Baxter lives a comfortable lie, using what he has to acquire the lifestyle that he thinks he wants. He confesses later in the film to Ms Kubelik, “You know, I used to live like Robinson Crusoe; I mean, shipwrecked among 8 million people. And then one day I saw a footprint in the sand, and there you were.” This admittance of loneliness, though apparent to the viewer from the start (the first major sequence of the film depicts him sitting alone in Central Park at night), can only come after trying and failing to be a man in a myriad of other ways.

By renting out his apartment to his adulterous bosses, he implicitly condones their behaviour and, while he doesn't quite join in with the what would today be termed 'banter', he also tolerates it. It is only after his promotion that he starts trying to woo Fran Kubelik with theatre tickets; in success, he grows more self-absorbed and goes from the man who could count how many colds she'd had to holding an entire conversation with her about his new hat, failing to pick up on her distress at something else. He even starts affecting the speech patterns of his superiors and is given the key to the executive washroom: all in all, he gains entrance to an exclusively male club, one full of wealth, power and, of course, abuse of those first two things. His lowest point comes when he tries to pick up a girl and bring her back to his apartment himself for once which, predictably, ends badly – it is at this point that Dr Dreyfuss has to step in with advice about being a mensch (my latent Jewishness might well account for my affection for this film). The film's climax – its real climax – is fairly unique amongst romantic comedies in that the two romantic leads don't 'fix' each other: quite separately, Ms Kubelik ends her affair with the married head of the company, played by Fred MacMurray (“When you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear mascara.”), and Baxter quits his job and thus the whole apartment-renting scheme, relinquishing his executive washroom key along with his high-stakes male persona. “I've decided to become a mensch,” he tells aforementioned married boss. “You know what that means? A human being.” Being a man sometimes means poverty and loneliness, but when the credits roll, C.C. Baxter is the only real man left in New York.

What is particularly wonderful is that a film that nominally looks like it's about saving the damaged, fragile woman from the bad, bad man turns out to actually be about saving the male protagonist from his slide into cynicism. Let's not forget, it's Shirley MacLaine that runs to catch him at the end, it's the woman who gets to ride in on the white horse and save the man from his solitary, poor existence. It's implied, as well, that part of her haste isn't just her sudden crushing self-realisation that Fred MacMurray is, as I said, a bad bad man, it's because she thinks Buddy might be about to hop on the suicide wagon himself. (Interesting how in life, male suicide rates are much higher than female ones, but in film it is always a form of tragic, poetic violence that we see visited on female forms.) It is of utmost importance that she rescues herself: while Jack Lemmon certainly plays his role in nursing her back to health and convincing her of the existence of men that aren't complete scumbags (through being utterly and completely non-pushy, I feel like this film should be shown in sex ed classes), it is her who gets up and leaves Fred MacMurray on New Year's Eve, in their favourite restaurant, while playing 'their' song. That's just as brave as Buddy walking into the office to give back his bathroom key, if not moreso.  Plus it's also just so damn cool.  Sorry, Some Like It Hot, in my book the Best Last Line Award goes to “Shut up and deal.”

Say Anything deals with maturity and manhood a little differently. Now, Lloyd Dobler might actually be my personal hero. He's kind of unique amongst film protagonists in that he doesn't grow as a person or have a character arc – rather, his lack of a character arc is his character arc. He begins the film by saying he wants to be with Diane Court and he ends the film by damn well being with Diane Court. He says it himself to Diane's dad: “What I really want to do with my life – what I want to do for a living – is I want to be with your daughter. I'm good at it.” He lets others perceive him as a slacker because he doesn't pretend to have interests outside of what he genuinely likes, chiefly kickboxing and the aforementioned Diane Court. Every word out of his mouth is genuinely, brilliantly honest: when he says at a dinner table of wealthy professionals that he doesn't want to sell, buy or process anything to earn a living, what could come across as adolescent naivety is simply a statement of fact. Lloyd knows himself. In this respect, he is the opposite of Buddy, who spends most of the film convincing himself that he could be happy living as something he's not (a cynical bachelor). Lloyd spends most of the film grimly clinging to being himself, when the whole world is telling him it would be easier if he were someone else – or, at the very least, his girlfriend's dad, who comes to represent the adult world and its deceptions. Lloyd makes a better adult than most of the adults in the film because of this honesty.

But what I want to talk about is the moment when this honesty wavers. After Diane breaks up with him (that goddamn pen, I'm in tears just thinking about it) because she thinks it's the right thing to do, Lloyd goes through his dark night of the soul. He refuses to talk about it, he refuses to open up to his trio of female friends, claiming “I'm a guy, I have pride”. It is the only moment where he gives in to self-indulgence or tries to put up a barrier between himself and his girl-space-friends and, rightly, he is called on his bullshit. “The world is full of guys!” snorts Corey, played by the wonderful Lili Taylor, “Be a man! Don't be a guy!” It's one of the most wonderful lines I've ever heard in a film and encapsulates something that every present day comedy in which a schlubby dudebro likes getting stoned with other dudebros until some nice women convinces him to be maybe a little less stoned sometimes, but in a way that doesn't threaten his male friendships that still somehow end up central to the film, misses: guys are homogenous. To be a guy is to make a safe choice. To assume that being a guy in a group of other identical guys who are exclusively (male) guys somehow qualifies as maturity is erroneous and does a disservice to men. Say Anything says that being a man means knowing yourself and being around people who know you and like you because of it, even if it's difficult and sometimes lonely and it means standing outside someone's window with a boombox playing Peter Gabriel.

Lloyd experiments with being a guy when he tries hanging out with the film's collection of erstwhile guys outside the Gas 'n' Sip. The guys (who include, by the way, Jeremy Piven, whom I kind of love solely on the basis of his association with John Cusack) offer Lloyd various pieces of post-break-up romantic advice of the 'nail someone else', 'bitches, man' variety. Lloyd considers the specimens before him, asking, “If you guys know so much about women, how come you're here at, like, the Gas 'n' Sip on a Saturday night completely alone drinking beers with no women anywhere?” Thus proving Corey's other great line true: “I'm a good person, Lloyd, but you're a great person.” Wait, maybe Corey is my personal hero for being so brilliantly perceptive and also brilliantly flawed (“I wrote 63 songs about Joe this year and I'm going to play them all tonight.”) As he walks away from the Gas 'n' Sip, Lloyd says, “Well, that was a mistake.” Being a man is not only about being truthful to and about yourself, but acknowledging bullshit in others, even when not doing so is the easy option.

What I find most interesting about the cases of both Buddy and Lloyd is how, in one light, stereotypically female their situations are. Buddy is a character who watches his ideal romantic partner waste their time on someone else while pretending to be a collected, well put together grown up and, just at the moment when he appears to be losing it, his love interest rides in to save him. Gender flip it and I'm pretty sure Sandra Bullock already made that one. Lloyd falls in love at first sight (kind of, even if it is before the film starts) and spends his time hopelessly devoted to that one person, 'just knowing' they're meant to be together. In the scene where Diane and Lloyd lose their virginities in the car, it is Lloyd who trembles and cries and Diane who holds him. Flip it and you get an unimaginative but much more typical Twilight-esque teen love story.

Boys are not raised in our culture to be 'men', they are raised to be 'not women': they are taught not to pine, not to mope, not to be a 'pussy' or a 'little girl' because the worst possible thing a man can be is a woman. This is the kind of binary that films thrive off, and one that society is increasingly entrenched in (think 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'), because it's an easy shorthand.  Lazy films rely on cliches and stereotypes as shorthand in order to tell a story in 90 minutes and gender cliches are amongst the most common offenders. These two films portray great and truthful male protagonists because they don't subscribe to gender cliches at all – instead, they take the radical view that women might just be people too, messy and flawed, and in doing so, create male characters who – gasp – sometimes act like women. And, indeed, vice versa.  Everything I described about being a man in The Apartment and Say Anything could just as equally be applied to becoming a mature adult woman. This is no coincidence. I picked these films to talk about because they both understand that when we say “Be a man”, you could interpret it as “Be a neanderthal” or “Be a cliche” or “Don't be a woman” or indeed anything else that patronises men just as much as women, or you could interpret it in a way that actually makes sense. Be sensitive to yourself. Be truthful to yourself. Be a human being. Don't be a guy. Be a mensch.

*On the topic of watching films made several decades ago, I went back to the original Star Wars trilogy after my Pegg/Wright post. Do you know what's awesome about Han and Leia? Apart from everything obvious, like them both being blindingly hot and having sexy belligerent tension? He actually asks her opinion. Repeatedly. And he defers to her when the situation is clearly more in her remit than his. It's a mark of how horribly rare that is in action films today that it stood out to me. And this is from a character that's supposed to be full of deliberately retrogressive macho bullshit. You guys, we are doing so badly.

(NB to a footnote: Uh, Star Wars is obviously not perfect in its depiction of women, mostly because there are none and most of them seem to be strippers of some variety. Leia, however, is badass in a way that doesn't consist of her simply amalgamating 'masculine' traits, and therefore is awesome. Remember what I was saying about films that fail the Bechdel Test and yet are great?)

[P.S. to an NB to a footnote: I don't think the scene in Return of the Jedi where Mon Mothma is briefing them on attacking the second Death Star counts because she's not really talking to Leia specifically.]

From Outer Space to The World's End: A Pegg/Wright Retrospective

Contains spoilers for The World's End, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead.  Also Spaced, a little bit.

The adult world seems horribly in evidence these days, which is the thematically appropriate excuse I'm running with for not updating in a while. I'm moving, if not 'out' then at least 'away', I'm keeping records of my finances, I'm doing horrible jobs because I need the cash - and somewhere in the midst of all this is the voice of a teenage hedonist, a furious Kevin, demanding to know what I'm doing and why and when can we get back to drinking cider out of paper bags in the park?

This, it seems, was also the mood Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright were in when they penned the final instalment of the Cornetto trilogy, 'The World's End'.  When I came home from the cinema, my sister asked me casually if it was good.  "It was kind of...sad," was my response.  I don't mean in a pitiful way.  I mean it genuinely made me sad.*  Originally, I wanted to write an anticipatory post about how I really needed The World's End to be a good film but then life, as always, intervened and I ended up seeing the film much earlier than I expected.  So, to make sense of all this, I decided to go back to the beginning.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) is often the most fondly remembered of the trilogy.  Key word: remembered.  That's not to say that it isn't, to use the correct parlance, a slice of fried gold - it's fast, it's sweet, it's stylish, it embraces the mundane and the extraordinary in one casual pop-culture-fuelled breath, and it's oh so very fucking funny.  Now is the time to start listing your favourite bits, and if you said the 'Don't Stop Me Now' sequence with the pool cues, SO DID EVERYONE ELSE.  But the best thing Shaun of the Dead did was to be different.  It had a freshness and, at that point, a relative fresh-facedness to its leads.  Pegg and Frost hadn't yet appeared in any major sci-fi franchises or terrible Richard Curtis films.  At a time when British cinema was best known for the likes of Guy Fucking Ritchie, it was kind of brilliant.  The lack of pressure being put on these - internationally speaking - relatively unknown quantities produced a film that is petulant and young, but with an ultimately grown-up philosophy.  The seam of social satire running through it (London is a city of zombies, see what they did there) isn't over-laboured, and takes its cue from the best of the *ahem* serious zombie oeuvre.  What is most palpable to me, though, is the glee of two (or three) nominally adult men being allowed to play with the toy box that infects the film throughout.  It's only a few steps on from those fantasy games you used to play when you were a kid: "Oh yeah, and then the Transformer could fight the T Rex with his laser canon!" "Oh yeah, and then the zombies could attack the pub and it turns out it IS a real gun!"

But, as I hinted in my opening parlay, a fair amount of the film's subsequent status as a modern classic is because we remember it like that.  Don't get me wrong, the combination of brains and guts (often literally) certainly makes it worth this title but I don't think it would have been so enduringly successful had it not tapped into something very potent in the psyche of its 20-35 year old audience: that we have somehow been forced to grow up.  For all that we're Shaun, with a respectable job and a nice girlfriend,  so long as Nick Frost's weed-selling, video-game-playing, layabout Ed is around, we have an excuse - we won't move out or grow up, we'll just put on the trappings of adulthood.  And sometimes it takes a little zombie apocalypse to get you to realise that - it's no surprise that the film's climax is not the (rather heartbreaking) death of Shaun's mum, but Ed's self-sacrifice that allows Shaun and Liz to literally ascend (on one of the pub beer lift thingies) to safety and grown-up existence (symbolised here as the, er, military riding in to take charge).  That the film tries to have its cake and eat it too in Ed's reappearance as a chained up zombie in Shaun's shed playing two-player shooters on the Nintendo always struck me as a false note, and just one of a few things that suggest the Wright/Pegg collaboration was still ironing out the creases.  The tonal shifts aren't quite managed smoothly enough, in particular the confrontation with Dylan Moran's David that ends in his disembowelment at the hands of the zombie hoard.  Coming on the heels of Shaun having to shoot his zombified mum and just after David makes his only real attempt at sincerity in the entire film, the gore - and it is, by a long shot, the goriest moment of the entire film - always seems to leave an unpleasant taste in my mouth (eh, you know what I mean).  Kate Ashfield's Liz, as well, is a slightly underwritten creature, more a cipher of what a 'grown-up girlfriend' should be like than a real person (her one quirk, answering the phone with "hi hi hi" is Ashfield's own contribution), and Hot Fuzz wisely dispenses with the love interest completely.

The first of those problems also goes a long way towards being solved in Hot Fuzz (2007).  Controversially, I actually prefer Hot Fuzz to Shaun: it's slicker, it's more confident, it's more tightly written, the performances are more finely honed, and it inhabits a bizarre universe all of its own that makes it an absolute delight.  Shaun of the Dead tries a little too hard to recreate the world of early noughties north London and then slot in a supernatural element; for Hot Fuzz, the relocation to the strange bubble of Sandford (a cunningly disguised Wells, Edgar Wright's own home town) allows the action to take flight.  Wright's trademark cinematography (take a mundane thing and make it EPIC) has never worked better than in Hot Fuzz, where it's less a sign of ordinary folk wishing their lives were more interesting and more a case of how interesting every day life actually can be.  The social satire gets its outing here as well, with the film taking a casual sideswipe at Middle England's refusal to enter the 21st century and again, I think it's best done in this film: the Neighbourhood Watch's intolerance of youths, travellers or, indeed, mimes (can't really blame them for the last one) becomes an apt metaphor for the extremity to which racial and social exclusivity can climb, without ever beating you over the head with it.  Or shoving a pair of gardening shears through your chest and calling it an accident.

The writing is brilliant in Hot Fuzz, the foreshadowing and ironic recalls are sharp, every single clue pays off somehow, and the thought that goes into things like the elaborate yet wildly incorrect theory that Sergeant Angel comes up with is astonishing.  The cast too, cannot be allowed to go unmentioned, not only the frankly ridiculous wealth of contemporary comedy royalty on show (Freeman, Coogan, Nighy, Eldon, Coleman, Bailey, Broadbent, Merchant, David Bradley, Threlfall, Adam Buxton, Lucy Punch - and Paddy Considine and Rafe Spall steal the film for me every time) but the embarrassment of riches that is the Neighbourhood Watch, including, yes, Timothy Dalton, but also Billie Whitelaw (muse of Samuel Beckett!), Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man!) and Kenneth Cranham (Belloq from Raiders!).  It's brilliantly soundtracked as well, with a mix of heavily anarchic 60s and 70s rock and roll alongside the original score providing a fantastic counterpoint to the idea of a town where the cops are the outlaws and the bad guys are city hall.  All in all, Hot Fuzz is just a really fucking good film, and a legitimately good, thrilling action film.  Which brings us on to The World's End.  Except not quite.  Because to talk about my reactions to the finale of the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy, I have to go back even further and talk about Spaced.

Ah, Spaced.  Spaced sits solidly at the number three point on my list of favourite sitcoms of all time (I won't tell you the top two because I may do a sitcom list blog post at some point**).  I didn't watch it when it originally aired from 1999-2000 because I had the excuse of being nine and I was probably watching Toy Story.  Whilst in some ways a perfect time capsule of the late 90s/early 2000s (Pokemon, original Playstations, Coldplay and Muse being not mainstream, awareness of but not ownership of internet, ditto mobile phones, going clubbing dressed in a parka), the sentiment behind it holds endearingly true. It follows the story of Tim (Simon Pegg) and Daisy (Jessica Stevenson-sorry-Hynes), who would nowadays be billed as 'slackers', living in their north London flat (for £90 a week, another sign of the times - although even Simon Pegg admitted that that was a joke in itself by the time the episode was actually aired) and pretending to be a couple in order to get the flat, though this device largely fades out after the second episode.  It became famous partly for its proliferation of pop culture references, many so deft I'm still noticing them today, and partly for its creation of a universe that was cartoonishly surreal.  The brilliance of this was that it's such an obvious way to tell the story of these people: it isn't self-indulgent, it's simply that that's how they see the universe, so incapable of meaningful human contact that communicating via pop culture and breaking away from conversation into imagine spots and inner monologues seems perfectly natural.  As a result, the moments of reflection elevate the show to a higher level of poignancy - one of the sidebar quotations on this very blog is taken from Tim's end of Series 1 outpouring about how life fails to match up to fiction. It's not like it hadn't been done before, sure, but it's the intelligence with which the thought is expressed that makes it memorable.  Other such gems include Tim's advice to Brian on break-ups - so well-expressed I had to look it up to see if it was nicked from a film, and have since tried to drunkenly misremember it to many a heart-broken friend.  Cf also Tim and Daisy's Tekken 2-themed argument over his ex-girlfriend, Daisy's decision to move out and Tim's rom-com-inspired robot ride to the train station to get her back (it makes sense in context).

It is, of course, incredibly funny - and unlike Shaun of the Dead generates a myriad of responses over favourite bits.  Yes, ok, the finger gun fights, the paintball and the clubbing episodes are high on a lot of people's lists but it's the throwaway lines that make it: mine is the sequence when the gang is watching Star Wars and Brian explains chaos theory, to which Tim interrupts with the line about Jaffa Cakes.  Yeah.  You know the one.  It's also tender.  Half the delight of the show is in the subtle romantic tension between Tim and Daisy - it never takes centre stage, not even when Tim runs after her to catch her at the train station, but is manifested in the way the two constantly eyeball each other, needle each other about their sexual partners, and constantly wind up back together in the pub at the end of the episode.  Of course, there's also massive great hints, like Tim writing a poem nominally about his ex girlfriend Sarah that ends, "As distance dulls the memory and bitter history grows hazy,/ I realise that my one true love is in fact a girl called..." Cue confused look.  And while there was some talk of the romantic storyline being more obviously pursued had the show continued on to a third series, it is to the show's credit that it never became the lynchpin of the action, allowing us instead to enjoy the company of two grumpy, lazy, dysfunctional people who just clearly really enjoyed living together.  And for those of you who yearned for something more overtly romantic, watch the documentary 'Skip to the End'.  And skip to the end.

I suppose one of the reasons that Spaced trumps the trilogy is that I was much more invested in Tim-and-Daisy as a unit than I ever was in the at times overly blokey Pegg-Frost dynamic.  Frost's role in Spaced is brilliant and intrinsic to the show, and very much still embodies the bromance of the later films (the "He's not my boyfriend, cheers babe" gag from Shaun appears first in Spaced), but it complements the main duo without ever overshadowing or competing with it.  It also means that no-one ever has to play the 'straight man', a la Shaun or Nicholas Angel or, most recently, Frost's Andy, because the dynamic is simply that of three friends who go through varying phases of oddness.  It is true to say that ultimately the element I miss the most is Jessica Hynes.  Her writing brought a sharp-witted silliness to the show, a fondness for daft jokes and physical comedy, as well as some of the more astute observational stuff (I'm guessing about who wrote what but going on what's absent from the trilogy, it seems clear).  There's a moment on the Hot Fuzz commentary track (yes, I listen to commentaries, come at me bro) where Pegg remarks on the moment when Angel knocks out Sandor Clegane in the frozen veg.  Apparently at the premiere, Hynes said to him, "You should have said 'rest in peas'."  Pegg says, "And that is how much we miss Jessica Stevenson." It may be my favourite moment in the commentary.**

She's also a brilliant performer - even though her career has had something of a resurgence of late (her scene-stealing turn in Twenty Twelve comes to mind), it still disappoints me that she never got as much recognition for the show as she should have done (it's often billed now as being 'from the makers of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz').  I'm re-watching the show at the moment and there's a million fantastic little details in her performance that I missed the first time round: her strange half-rap to Mark Heap's Brian about a potential video-based installation, her delivery of the phrase "the cutting edge" with a sort of squat.  Simon Pegg, too, is at his best here; it's hard to come up with examples when some of the best moments are deliveries of the word 'yes', so suffice it to say that Spaced remains better observed and truer to life in terms of essential human behaviour than anything else on the resume, however surreal and cartoonish the universe might be.  I think what I'm trying to say is that Spaced has heart.  Not that the Trilogy doesn't, but at times it's a bit like being a third wheel.  With Spaced, they're your mates.  Spaced is what you want to come home to.

So.  The World's End.  As a film, I think it's the best made of the three.  Edgar Wright's cinematographic style is put to fantastic use here, with all the clever cuts, strange angles and adrenaline jumpiness of the first two, but just... better.  His time away has clearly been well spent, and having a bigger budget (presumably) can't have hurt.  Having said that, it's just less funny.  This seems consistent with the first two films: they've been getting smarter and more stylish, but simply less funny.  I won't deny, it is a welcome treat to see Simon Pegg in the role of the fuck-up (unlike some, I have no qualms about the role-reversal) because it means he just gets to exhibit how actually skilled he is as a performer.  His performance as the egocentric Gary King, arrested in time at the age of seventeen, is both heart-breaking and inventive.  It's just less...funny.  Sort of.  It doesn't help that the story lurches all over the place a little as well - slow to start and with a supremely unsatisfying (if not downright unpleasant) ending, it lacks the blissful narrative cohesion of Shaun and Hot Fuzz.  I suspect this is a result of the makers not quite knowing what they wanted from it.  Shaun and Hot Fuzz are pretty self-contained, local films, even if they deal with epic subject matter - The World's End, in its sudden lurch to global, end-of-the-universe dealings, misses a trick.  Bigger is not always better.

Ultimately, though, it is the ending I was disappointed in.  The World's End is the last of the trilogy, and it's natural that it should feel like the end of an era.  It is entirely possible Pegg, Wright and Frost will go on to make other films together, but they won't be part of the Cornetto series and, one imagines, will look further afield in terms of style and subject matter. It is right, therefore, that The World's End should be a film about homecoming, about childhood, about adulthood failing to match up to younger days - but the mistake it makes is to yield to that misery. When Tim lamented that real life just wasn't like the movies back in 1999, he made his speech, accepted it, and then danced with Daisy while they discussed porn.  When Gary King reveals that adulthood is such an anathema to his boyhood that he has actually tried to commit suicide, then goes on to head up a team of robot replicas (sorry, not robots) of his teenage best friends in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, that doesn't feel much like going out on a high.  It feels strange that two creatives who are so in touch with their fans and are surely aware of how their fans how grown up alongside them would leave them with the bitter aftertaste of the idea that yeah, your teenage years really were better.  Growing up really does suck.  Get out while you can, and avoid being an adult at all costs.  It's no coincidence that the real hero of the film was Paddy Considine's Steven who, in his blinding revelation of his love for Rosamund Pike (we've all had that moment) and subsequent soul-baring emotional honesty exhibits every admirable trait that confirms that yes, growing up isn't, in fact, the end of the world.  (And actually, speaking of, Pike's character Sam was both excellently written and acted, bar removing her from the men-only climax, so well done on progress made there.)

I suppose, in the end, the reasons I'm dissatisfied with The World's End are a reflection of me, not the film.  I feel like its message could have been an acknowledgement that growing up is necessary, that it generates new experiences that can be as fulfilling as those had in youth, even if not as technicolouredly hedonistic.  But perhaps here that would have been a saccharine Hollywood ending (and kind of the ending of Shaun anyway), and had I seen that, I might have been disappointed in Wright and Pegg, which is far far worse than being saddened.  As it is, the message is simply a little confused (you don't have to grow up if you're suicidal?) and the ending might have made me want to retire to bed with the X Men cartoon on full blast, but that's fairly standard for many members of my generation: we are the arrested development man-babies ('maybes') who might be just about pulling off a semblance of adulthood (jobs, flats, relationships) but our minds are clearly elsewhere - just look at any 'nostalgic' article on Buzzfeed.  Which, ironically, puts us right back at Spaced, making Shaun and The World's End pretty dire warnings about what's ahead.  I think I speak for us all, though, when I say that some days I'd rather face a zombie apocalypse or a hoard of bodysnatchers than my student loans or the Central line in summer - so in that sense, Pegg, Wright and, unforgettably, Hynes have created the most bittersweet wish fulfilment fantasies of all.


*This seems to be happening a lot lately with comedies.  There's nothing worse than the emotional sucker punch you get when you realise you're not laughing any more.
**Hey, it could happen.
***I am allowed to have favourite moments on commentary tracks, it does not betoken a misspent youth.

In Which a Generation of Viewers Learn Never to Trust GRR Martin: 'The Rains of Castamere' (Game of Thrones) Review

Game of Thrones Series 3, Episode 9: The Rains of Castamere

Have you stopped crying yet? Have you? Well I don't care, Casual Viewer, because I READ THE BOOKS.  Do you know what that means? Do you? It means I WENT THROUGH ALL OF THAT TWICE.

The climactic events of this week's episode are probably the most major of the spoilers I have been determinedly holding back while writing this blog, although Jaime losing his hand was a close runner up (don't worry, there are more - so many more - to come, presumably next season).  There have been many occasions on which a friend who either watches the show only or hasn't caught up with the books instigates a "So who do you think is going to win?" type conversation with me, wittering on happily about how Robb is totally going to serve the Lannisters their gilded asses on a plate and I am sat silently, bottom lip a-quivering, holding in the words, "NO HE WON'T BECAUSE HE'S DEAD FOR GOD'S SAKE THEY'RE ALL DEAD."  But th- th- that's Westeros, folks.  

Oh, it's all very clever really.  It works because we think we understand the rules of fiction; today's audience are more trope-literate than ever.  After the shock death of Ned at the end of Series/Book 1, we think we know the rules of this game: sure, the 'anyone can die' atmosphere has been established but we also see now how it's a much bigger and longer story than one that can be held by a single protagonist.  And then we make that mistake again.  We think we know who we're following - it is the War of Five Kings, after all (although the show took the excellent option of sidelining the Greyjoys as early as possible*).  It's Joffrey and the Lannister fen v. frowny Stannis v. hot shit Robb Stark (dead gay Renly having been comprehensively deaded and, as I said, the Greyjoys having been apparently sent to a farm), right? And on a fictional level, we understand the rules of this universe, i.e. some kind of vague pseudo-medieval bullshit, plus tits.  We know that there are codes of honour that some choose to uphold and some don't and it is that choice that the whole show revolves around.  Ned dies because he's honourable and Joffrey isn't.  The Red Wedding is so very clever because of who it is making the choice to defy those rules, i.e. the Freys.  The pretext is a wedding, the righting of a wrong because Robb broke his vow.  The whole occasion is designed, apparently, to restore some of those codes.  And the Freys - unpleasant, certainly, and sadly not nearly as pretty as the rest of Westeros** but not evil, right? Just self-important.  Just a bit "ooh we've got these big over-compensating towers that you need to get past for your war".  I mean, they're not Lannisters.  Wrongity wrong wrong wrong.  

And that's what makes the Red Wedding one of the most shocking events in a book and television series that revels in shocking events: it's done out of sheer pettiness - because Walder Frey was going to have to settle for the uncle of a king instead of a king.  And, for my money, the show got it mostly right.  The payoff, interestingly, didn't come until Catelyn's death in the very last scene; for a horrible, underwhelming moment, I thought they were going to leave it with Robb dropping to the floor covered in arrows and not show us the rest.  In a series known for its violence, this was certainly extravagant with the old Kensington Gore, but it was right to be so: a lesser show might have 'artistically' panned away, tried to give its characters some dignity in their dying moments.  Fortunately, the Game of Thrones team understand that the horror in this case comes precisely from that lack of dignity, the naked brutality of Catelyn slashing the throat of an innocent woman before exploding into a gushy red fountain herself.  I mean, Jesus Christ on a dragon, the massacre was commenced by stabbing a pregnant woman in her stomach.  And given the reworking and focus that's been given to Robb's Non-Canonical Wife, it felt completely...well, not appropriate, but you know.  Appropriately awful.  And unexpected - in the book, Robb's Canonical Wife is not present at the wedding and has currently vanished off to some unknown fate (i.e. I can't remember what happened to her).

The obvious parallel is with Ned's death way back in Series 1 (and how did we not see that coming when, y'know, Sean Bean).  Back then, I was like you, Casual Viewer.  After Series 1 I decided to read the books so television could never hurt me like that again.  Anyway, as well as milking the obvious Stark-dies-because-honour-goddammit connection, there was also all of that "Don't you want to teach little Ned Stark to ride?" stuff and, for fuck's sake HBO, do you ever maybe think about pulling your punches? Cruel.  The final emotional KO was Roose Bolton delivering the killing stab to a somehow-still-standing-despite-resemblance-to-a-secretary-bird (look it up) Robb Stark, echoing the moment when Littlefinger turned on Ned way back when hope was still alive, delivering him to his Lannister-y fate.  Very well done to all involved.

Having said that, it's a difficult episode to evaluate on its own merits.  I spent the whole thing knowing what was about to happen and I suspect that if I hadn't, I would have thought it was dragging a bit.  Danaerys seemed out of a place in an episode that should have been Stark-centric and was presumably only in there as misdirection so that the events of the Red Wedding came completely out of left field.  I was right about Ser Jorah's reactions to Daario though; for every "Khaleesi before personal pride" lecture he gives Ser Barriston, he definitely picks the petals off a daisy going, "Khaleesi loves me, Khaleesi loves me not".  Part of the problem is that Iain Glen is much more sympathetic than the character is probably supposed to be and I don't think I'm alone in kind of rooting for him.  Still, Dany's on a high as she adds a new city to her ever-growing collective (please don't ask me which one though, I'm so confused about everything east of Westeros, I've given up trying), in welcome contrast to, well, everyone else this week.

Elsewhere, Jon Snow's Great Wildling Adventure came to an end as he chose to reveal himself rather than kill an innocent man, proving yet again that Starks are absolute darlings and also total fucking idiots.  As with Robb and his Late Non-Canonical Wife, the Jon/Ygritte storyline has been mixed, I think, without the extensive passing of time that you get in the book (it's one of my favourite storylines in the series and thus there is a bit of readership bias here), allowing you to see the slow confusion of Jon's once black-and-white morals.  It's all been a bit quick, really, and not helped by the fact that Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie are right poshos in real life and the catchphrase heavy scenes aren't helping the feeling that they vaguely heard someone from Yorkshire talking once and just working-classed it up a bit (I won't miss having to hear "Jon Sneeeeeuw" dragged over far too many syllables ever again).  Perhaps that's why Ygritte's silent half-furious half-soulful gaze as Jon Snow hauled ass back to the Night's Watch was by far the most touching their relationship has ever been.  And a sad farewell to Mackenzie Crooke, who also kicked it in this episode, and was sadly underused while he was alive.  Although before he died, he did deposit his soul in that of his pet bird, so hopefully next season will yield us Mackenzie Crooke in a giant bird outfit when they run out of money after all the CGI dragons.

Some surprisingly touching stuff coming from Bran's storyline as well.  Bran has an easy to ignore storyline, I find, given that it's the most overtly Lord of the Rings-y (good guys on magical quest, much walking and hiding from bad people).  Not only does Natalia Tena continue to be consistently excellent as Osha, we can add Art Parkinson as Rickon to the show's ever-explanding list of brilliant child actors.  His tearful insistence that he needed to take care of Bran was the moment of the episode that brought me closest to welling up, rather than the bloody events further south.  Saddest of all, Rickon and Osha are now departing from the merry jaunt across the Wall, leaving us only with Brandon "Did I mention I can't walk today?" Stark, Jojen "Jailbait" Reed, Meera "This Show Has One Too Many Badasses" Reed and Hodor "Hodor"Hodor.  We may not see Osha and Rickon again for a while, so valar dohaeris and all that and I really bloody hope you're the Stark that survives, Rickon.

Speaking of child actors, though, Maisie Williams is taking everyone to school.  It's largely down to her performance that she's become the kind of unofficial mascot/protagonist of the show; the best comment that cropped up on my Facebook feed regarding the episode was, "I hope that little transvestite girl kills the Jesus out of everyone." As do we all, Arya, as do we all.  But for all that she's popular because we like the idea of a little kid being unflinching and killing people and whatnot (god, we are terrible people), this episode very much showed us how (mercifully) far Arya has to go before she becomes hardened to it, still prizing life more dearly than the majority of Westeros' population.  But also not afraid to hit an old man round the head with a branch because he wakes up at the wrong time.  That's why we love Arya.  And after her witnessing of and disappearance from the Red Wedding, her storyline's only just getting good.

After their absence from, yet crucial part in, this week's episode, I'm guessing things'll be a little more Lannister-heavy next week for the series finale.  Aside from Sansa getting the news, I don't want to make any guesses about what they'll wheel out and what they'll keep in the bag for next season because a) I genuinely don't know at this point, I thought they were going to end Series 3 with the Red Wedding in the finale and b) it would be hilariously spoileriffic and I'd rather not be chased down by angry Casual Viewers who have acquired too many ideas from watching Game of Thrones.  Just give me some Brienne and Jaime to see me through to next year.  Curse you, show, and curse all the emotions you have forced into my bitter, dead heart.

*Obligatory, "NO-ONE CARES ABOUT THE GREYJOYS."

*Mad props to my boy Tom Brooke stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach though.  As Lothar Frey.  Not just as Tom Brooke.  That would be bad.

True Romance: 'The Name of the Doctor' (Doctor Who) and 'Second Sons' (Game of Thrones) Reviews

Author's Note: As you can probably tell, I wrote my Doctor Who review immediately after seeing the episode (for the third time).  Game of Thrones, on the other hand, has taken me a week to get round to watching, hence the lateness of this review.

Doctor Who Series 7, Part 2, Episode 7: The Name of the Doctor

Oh Stephen.  I know I say this every year but I swear, I'll never doubt you again.  It was only when my brain had stopped playing the word "WHAT" on a loop and I'd drunk a substantial amount at a Eurovision party that I realised what a truly fantastic episode this was.

I'll admit, a large part of this conclusion came from the cessation of my hyperventilating-y thoughts of OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU TAKING MATT SMITH AWAY FROM ME because, rationally, let's look at the facts: a) We know he's in the 50th anniversary special and b) I don't really believe John Hurt is going to take over full-time as Doctor Number Twelve.  There was that mention of the Valeyard early on in the episode that seems like a great big honking clue: for those unaware, the Valeyard was (in Old Who) the Doctor's final regeneration gone all evil and introspective, basically.  Take that coupled with the closing dialogue about Hurt "not acting in the name of the Doctor", factor in the show's propensity for wordplay/riddles/literal language and it seems to me that, for all the talk of the 50th anniversary marking Matt Smith's regeneration, it could be just as much about resisting a regeneration.  For bonus evidence, the BBC released an interview of Tennant and Smith (together at last) in which Smith said that 10 and 11 seemed to get on pretty okay but there was Someone They Weren't Allowed To Talk About who was more bemused/annoyed by the two of them - given that Hurt was announced to be in the anniversary show months ago, I bet this is who they're talking about and he's sort of the Doctor but not.  Because he's the evil Valeyard guy.*

Although then again, I've just thought back to that "Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor" caption and have immediately doubted all of this. I mean, the Doctor lies though, right?  Let's move on before I devolve back into sobbing "please don't take away Matt Smith" again.**

Speaking of sobbing, I did.  I was all tarted up to dash off to the aforementioned Eurovision party the minute it finished and it was a good twenty minutes before I actually left the house because I was completely redoing my eye make-up.  River River River.  That was some pretty fucking glorious River.  Anyone who wants to disagree, let's take this outside, because that's my River - not clingy and dress size-y and smug, but brave and calm and brilliant.  The moment where the Doctor caught her hand and said "You're always here to me" literally made me drop my fork and neglect my delicious takeaway like a hilarious romcom moment.  We've had so much of the Doctor being superior to River, brushing her off, ignoring her etc etc that she was in danger of becoming just a running joke (Moffat thinks wives are annoying, no-one is surprised) - and it looked like that was how it was going for the first half of the episode too - so that whole dialogue ("I thought it would be too painful" "I think I could have coped" "For me") was possibly one of my favourite things this show has ever done.  All we wanted (me and my pal River) was some acknowledgement that she was in some way different to every other companion that heads through those doors, and we got it.  Sorry Amy, but I'm awarding the 'Girl Who Waited' badge to your daughter.  If that was River's final goodbye - and I suspect it was written so that Alex Kingston could or could not come back as the show demanded - it was a bloody good one.  Compliments all round.

Not least to the actors.  At least forty percent of my DON'T LEAVE ME MATT SMITH woe wasn't down to the frankly inexplicable level of attractiveness he manages to achieve on a weekly basis (this week's new Doctor-fetish: blindfolds) but to the fact that, unlike the rest of the show, he just gets better and better and better.  I mentioned a few weeks ago how he's undeniably a different Doctor to the one who shouted at baked beans that we started with; that came to beautiful fruition here with Smith skipping electrically along the spectrum from comedy to tragedy, and nailing it all the way.  He's so good I'm not even going to make a joke about wishing he would nail something else as well ifyouknowwhatImean.  There's not much I can say about his performance that I haven't said before, except that I am so so so looking forward to seeing how 10 and 11 interact, since 10's whole schtick was 'bouncy yuppy' and 11's whole schtick is kind of 'ancient old man fragility with the face of a twelve year old'.  I turn instead to the supporting cast: Vastra, Jenny and Strax once again prove themselves to be as able a TARDIS family as any ragtag bunch of misfits from the RTD era, and bring a substantial amount of human drama to the proceedings (which is impressive, considering that they're two-thirds cold-blooded). I even welled up a little when I thought Jenny was dead (which would have been a cruelly Whedon-esque move) and her "I'm so sorry, I think I've just been murdered" was chilling and heart-breaking in perfect measure.  Similarly, Strax and Vastra's "The heart is a simple thing", "I have not found it to be so"got me right in the feels - which only begs the question: if you can write like this, Moffat (see also above mention of Doctor/River dialogue), then why don't you, like, all the time?  It certainly silenced my inner Moffat-can't-do-characters demons.

And speaking of characters, this leads us, of course, to Clara, who deserves a special paragraph all of her own.  I was very satisfied with the resolution to the Clara mystery: the whole 'Impossible Girl' thing always seemed like a bit of a red herring.  Far more interesting were the moments when she was confirmed to be 'ordinary' - because that's really what companions are for, in the end, is to celebrate the capacity of the ordinary and everyday for heroism. My prediction was something along the lines of "Clara is just a normal girl being copied across space and time and ultimately the evidence will be all there in the TARDIS" and you know what? It kind of was.  Just, y'know, the burnt out shell of the future TARDIS.  But they were in it.  Oh shut up, I'm going to take that one, and there's nothing you can do about it.  The episode also seemed to clear up the hazy Clara-Doctor dynamic somewhat (maybe it was all that River in the air) with him saving her in a desperately parental way.  Hopefully now Jenna Louise Coleman can get her teeth into something with a bit more in the way of defined personality, because she bloody deserves to.

If I had to have a complaint it would be the villains, such as they were.  The Whispermen were very reminiscent of one of my favourite Buffy episodes/villains, the Gentlemen from 'Hush', complete with creepy nursery rhyme - so much so that it strikes me that writers of this show really need to stop presuming that the Atlantic Ocean magically stops the fans from being aware of Joss Whedon.  I felt like they didn't really get much of an outing, being an obvious red herring to deflect marketing attention away from THAT ENDING but maybe they'll pop up again in future with some extra creepy powers?  Let's hope so, it has been a while since we've had a vintage Moffat take-a-standard-fear-make-it-so-you'll-never-sleep-again villain.  The Great Intelligence was ultimately a bit of a letdown, really.  Contrary to my usual opinion about Doctor Who doing over-laboured story arcs (unfavourable, for those in doubt) I sort of felt he hadn't been signposted enough throughout the series, at least not enough for a Big Bad.  Still, ultimately none of it was really about that, was it? The greatest villain on the show, as always, is the Doctor himself.  Oh I am excite, please to make it November soonest.

So I'm calling it: best series finale of the Moffat era.  It didn't quite have the razzle-dazzle/ preposterousness self-regard of Series 6 mid-series finisher A Good Man Goes to War, but it didn't need it: I'm enjoying this quieter, more self-contained mode, and it gives the show a gravitas (if not a dignity) that allows it to strike exactly the right balance between silly and serious.

In conclusion, kids, it's going to be a very long summer.


Game of Thrones Series 3, Episode 7: Second Sons

The obvious centrepiece of this week was the hilarious and tragic Lannister-Stark wedding.  Lannister family events are understandably awkward occasions (all that inbreeding) but this was more so than usual, given that the nuptials were taking place between sensitive hedonist Tyrion and trembling sorority girl Sansa.

I do so enjoy it when the show takes the opportunity to play with its form a bit, especially Cersei and Loras's little moment under the stars.  In a show that excels in putting together unlikely characters and watching the magic, they set up a potential watercooler let-me-show-you-my-hidden-vulnerability moment, only to have Cersei snap "Nobody cares what your father says." Speaking for us all there, Cersei - I still haven't forgiven Loras for not being nearly as good-looking as the books say he is.  Cersei and Margaery's conversation was, similarly, fantasy's equivalent of Sex in the City, or maybe Hollyoaks.  "If you ever call me sister again, I'll have you strangled in your sleep," hisses Cersei at Margaery's perky breasts after the queen-to-be goes a step too far in advancing the Tyrell domestic policy of winning hearts and minds.  Indeed, Margaery was in danger of slipping more than just a nipple this week as Joffrey seems to be not quite so entirely under her spell as we've been led to believe, ignoring his mother's half-hearted attempt at parenting to go and deliver a casual rape threat to the newly wed Sansa Stark-Lannister.  My hatred of Joffrey has reached something like fascination - I'm too saturated with loathing to hate him more so I just wait in a state of something like awe to see what he'll do next.  He's like the Usain Bolt of sadism.  Just when you think he can't top leading Sansa up the aisle in lieu of headless Ned, he offers to come and help her out with her wifely duties later that night, only it's not an offer and I wanted to reach through the TV screen and make him drink his own spinal fluid.

Across the sea, Danaerys is still on a high as she wins a company of mercenaries over to her side (the Second Sons of the episode title).  Another deviation from the books here, with Daario coming in the guise of a character from an 80s-era children's fantasy film rather than the gold-toothed, purple-mustachioed swashbuckler of the books.  Given that Dany clearly has the hots for him (it's amazing what a gift of the severed heads of your enemies will do, I keep telling my dates that but they insist on getting me chocolate) it's probably for the best.  No reaction from Jorah as yet, but given how much I love Iain Glen's petulant little face as he intones "Khaleesi"in manner that is simultaneously bored and longing, I'm looking forward to it.  Quite a lot of nudity in Dany's storyline this week too - not only is there a requisite concubine getting pawed around, we get full on khaleesi-tits-and-arse too.  I don't know what I expected, to be honest - it is Game of Boners, after all - but the nudity count has been surprisingly light in recent weeks and setting that scene in her bath seemed particularly unnecessary.

The third main strand of the episode was probably just there to balance out the genders on the nudity front, to be honest, as Melisandre gets jiggy with Gendry, if your definition of getting jiggy is tying someone up and attaching leaches to their unmentionables.  I know it's mine.  The most interesting aspect of this strand, however, was the conversation between Stannis and Davos in the dungeons, as Stannis attempts awkward make-up sex with his bf (or just says he'll set him free, whatever).  Mainly this is because Stephen Dillane and Liam Cunningham are putting in such fucking good, understated performances.  The way Dillane plays Stannis, he's the guy at the party that there's nothing technically wrong with but no-one wants to hang out with and you just know he really, really wants to be your friend.  The tacit acknowledgment that Davos was right about maybe not murdering innocent boys was a thing of beauty, and Stannis' attempts to make everything ok again were painfully reminiscent of his stilted interactions with his wife and child a few weeks ago.

The episode was bookended by two more odd couples (alas, no Brienne and Jaime this week, though after last week's BE STILL MY BEATING HEART rescue, they deserve a breather). Firstly, Arya and the Hound reach a tentative detente after one little attempted rock-murder, as it transpires he may be her best hope of getting back to her family.  The show seems to be set on presenting Sandor Clegane in more and more of a sympathetic light of late - no complaints, I'm just intrigued as to what exactly do they know because he sort of disappears from the books at some point.  (Not much Littlefinger of late either - after delivering that stonking monologue about chaos, maybe he's gone out on a high? Ah well, the plot requires him back soon, I believe.)  Our other couple was Sam and Gilly, who have a beautiful - if not terribly exciting - equilibrium to their scenes, with Gilly building a fire while Sam thinks about baby names.  One White Walker attack later - heralded by some frankly much scarier crows - and the mysterious dragonglass seems to be coming in handy.  When you get to Westeros, Dany, you could make a packet on that alone.

All in all, an entertaining episode that had an enjoyably gossipy feel to it - lightweight in comparison to recent weeks, though tightly focused nonetheless.  Sadly there is no episode next week, which means I'll have to wait a full fortnight for my next Jon Snow/Brienne and Jaime fix.  It's a hard life.

This Week's Winner: Doctor Who in spades.  I keep just remembering bits and smiling a beatific smile. And then crying.


*The good people on the Guardian comments section seem to think he's not the Valeyard since he's already appeared in Old Who but instead maybe the very first incarnation who wasn't yet "the Doctor" (i.e. Matt Smith is the 11th Doctor but not the 11th regeneration) or the missing Time War Doctor who ended it by killing everyone and therefore acted for "peace" and "sanity" but not "in the name of the Doctor" - which would put an interesting spin on Christopher Ecclestone's tenure as he always seemed to take personal responsibility for the whole shebang but hey ho (actually thinking about it, this makes the most sense).  Either way, we're all agreed that Hurt is only along for the 50th anniversary ride and MATT SMITH IS NOT LEAVING, OK? OK.
**Right, well, I've just read that the Beeb have officially announced that Series 8 will air next year in split-series format with Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman and Stephen Moffat all returning BUT it will mark Moff's last tenure as head writer and possibly contain a mid-series regeneration. So now I just don't know what to feel.  I mean, on the one hand, more Smith/Moffat in the foreseeable future, on the other...all things must pass.  Fuck you, Doctor Who, I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to feel this existentialist about a children's show.

Robin Hood, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Really Bad TV Shows

Warning: contains heavy spoilers. But look at this like this, if you haven't seen the show, you're not going to watch it now. If you have seen the show, you already know what happens and you're definitely not going to watch it again. Also, I'll get back to Doctor Who soon. Promise.

In a state of the boredom/nostalgia/procrastination mash-up that I call Netflix Ennui, I wound up watching a few episodes of the BBC's 2006-2009 Saturday evening action adventure fare, Robin Hood. Or rather, re-watching. Y'see, I was a rather ardent fan of Robin Hood back in the day, until the third and final season when everything took a resounding nosedive from 'so bad it's good' to 'so bad it's oh god get it away my eyes my eyes'. Like, I really hope nobody from HBO ever watched this show, because I'm getting second-hand embarrassment just thinking about it. I was surprised to discover that there were quite a few things I'd forgotten about it, my memory consumed by the reckless shark-jumpitude of the final series. And it strikes me that the show had quite a lot of potential at the beginning, if it weren't for a few, damning things:

Things I Had Forgotten About Robin Hood That Fucked Up an Otherwise Solid Show:

• Robin strolls casually in and out of Nottingham, lounging around the town square and infiltrating the castle, week in, week out, with precisely zero effort to disguise himself. Nary a hood in sight. At one point, he rocks up in the Sheriff's bedchamber after dark for some light flirting and doesn't even tie him up or anything when he leaves. I mean – not like that – oh forget it. The point is, this is marginally plausible only because the Sheriff is clearly an unpredictable psychopath and one suspects he quite likes having Robin Hood around in his anachronistically tight trousers, but still doesn't explain why the eponymous hero made no effort to come up with a getaway plan beyond “Walk out of the castle, maybe wink at someone”.
• The attempts to make the setting 'relevant' and 'modern', despite the slight snag of being England in the 1100s. One of the things I do remember about the show is the clothes, which were a) bafflingly anachronistic (Marion in trousers, Marion's camouflage-print dress, Robin Hood being more Robin Hoodie ohIseewhattheydidthere, Guy of Gisbourne's leather daddy get-up, more on which later) and b) laughably cheap. I recognised jewellery from Primark and Accessorize more times than I could count. There's a kid in one episode who they just didn't seem to be able to find a costume for at all, I swear you can see the zip on his hoodie.
• The clothes were part of a wider problem, though, which was that the first series clearly just had no budget. It was filmed in Hungary for cheaps, which is all fine until you realise that the thing nagging away at you every time they cut to the forest is the awkwardly obvious lack of oak trees, i.e. the one thing that English forests are pretty pro at. It also means that 1100s England is full of clearly Hungarian extras who don't speak English, just nod with a look of polite confusion in their eyes. This reaches its nadir in the second episode when Allan a Dale's brother pitches up with two of his own men who have, we are told, had their tongues cut out. Why the script even called for the ill-fated Tom to have his own bros in the first place, I'm not sure, but the production damn well wasn't going to pay for them to have lines. Out with their tongues, cue baffled Eastern European locals looking uneasily from actor to actor, wondering who they're supposed to be agreeing with.
• The modernisation aspect also manifested itself through the camerawork. Each episode ends with a triumphant black and white freeze frame like an 80s brat pack movie. It's a bold move, and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't jar with the decision to film the rest of the show on shaky handycam, with a baffling over-reliance on dramatic zooms when a character is about to saying something profound. It feels slightly like the producers were trying to make it an actual mockumentary, before someone suggested that maybe that was a little too anachronistic, even for this show, and they hastily recut all the footage.

And Some Things It Did Ok:

• Women. Ok, it doesn't pass the Bechdel Test by a country mile, seeing as there are only two women in the whole of Nottingham, apparently, and I think they stand in a room together, like, once. Djaq, the Token Girl Outlaw, is pretty boss – all dressing up as her dead brother and doing Advanced Saracen Science and stuff – but I could have done without her horribly mangled love triangle that just sort of faded into a love...duangle in the second series, at the end of which she announces that she's staying in the Holy Land to take advantage of be-cheekboned jailbait Will Scarlett. And Marion is all kinds of smart and self-reliant – they actually make a pretty decent stab at a spy narrative for her, trying to work the system from the inside to protect her father, compromised loyalties, etc etc – of course, if the show had been made by HBO for grown-ups, instead of the BBC for families, it would have been much more sophisticated and also much more naked. C'est la vie. I also remember hating Marion with a passion when I was sixteen; watching now, I'm not entirely sure why. She's not a great actress, sure, but she's not offensively bad – about the same level of charisma vacuum as Robin himself, which fortunately means you can just ignore the romantic leads and get on with the business of the fine supporting cast.
• And I do mean fine. This is something the show did gloriously right – I swear to god, the burgeoning knowledge of my sexuality that was triggered in my youth by Johnny Depp diving off a cliff in Pirates of the Caribbean was completed here by Richard Armitage swaggering around in black leather and guy-liner*, pinning Marion against castle walls** saying things like “Do you not understand? You mean everything to me”, all accompanied by a gaze so smouldering that you could see the stone melting behind her head. Normally when you have a dastardly villain trying to run off with a blushing damsel, you applaud the hero swooping in on a rope to save her. Richard Armitage, on the other hand, would go around casually stabbing peasants and you'd just think, “Oh, well, he probably had a really difficult childhood.” Maybe that was why Marian was such a terrible actress. Could you keep your sang-froid convincingly in the face of all that?
• And it wasn't just Guy either. Long before I was making jokes about Merlin's Knights of the Round Table being a kind of Medieval Boy Band, the Outlaws were hanging around the forest posing for passing paparazzi (“Just a quick woodcut, be a darling”). Robin is ok in a Justin-Bieber-wishes-he-was-more-grunge sort of way but the show kept insisting that Robin was the most bodacious bachelor Sherwood had ever seen by having women throw themselves at him every two seconds, when this was clearly nonsensical because dude, Alan a Dale and Will Scarlett are right there. Actually, Will Scarlett was my favourite before I saw the light glinting off Guy's black leathers, and then his “What is this thing you call a girl, let me turn my head so you can see the way the shadows fall against my cheekbones, no I don't think my eyes can get any more big or green, I didn't realise my bottom lip was trembling” schtick got a bit wearisome. Alan had to become my favourite in the third series because everyone else good had gone and Guy's hair had taken a drastic turn for the worst, but his twinkly-eyed nonsensically-cockney conman routine was really very diverting – besides, he briefly dumps Will for Guy in the second series and starts wearing black so we're very much on the same page for a variety of reasons.

So thinking about it, maybe the best thing the show did was to arrange a buffet of attractive actors. But hey, that's not be sniffed at – there was clearly something that kept us watching through the bad times and the very bad. I'm inclined to pin it on the accidental sexual tension that seemed to emerge between every single character at some point (I'm talking a Sherlock level of possible permutations), but especially the Guy-and-Marion thing which, by the way, isn't really in the script at all but when you cast Richard Armitage, you cast a tsunami of hormones too. That's probably the area of the script that had most potential: a woman torn between her childhood love that she still carries a torch for, an outlaw on the run, any day could be his last, and a dangerous new man, brooding, cruel, but with a fascinating spark of good in him, a desire for redemption that only she holds the key to, complicated by the fact that he could be the only man truly capable of protecting her. Fuck, that sounds like a good show. I think I might write it. Sadly, the Guy/Marian/Robin triangle came to a rather undignified end when Guy ran her through with a sword that was in no way phallic at the end of Series 2.

The thing is though, I wouldn't want it to be any different. The reality is that if the bad things had been fixed, it still wouldn't have been a great show. It just would have been a much, much more boring one.

*This is actually a really good joke as his character's name was Guy of Gisbourne.

**Oh, maybe that's why I hated her.

No Contest: 'Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS' (Doctor Who) and 'Kissed By Fire' (Game of Thrones) Reviews

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Ancestral Voices Prophesying War: 'Cold War' (Doctor Who) and 'Walk of Punishment' (Game of Thrones) Reviews

War is in the air on both shows this week.  I can't think of a better linking factor than that, so let's plunge in.

Doctor Who Series 7, Part 2, Episode 3: Cold War

Well, that was cracking.  That was like Das Boot collided with Alien* via The Thing.  Captained by Davos Seaworth.**

In a continuation of what I have been saying about the show getting all nostalgic about itself, what with the anniversary coming up, we got a revisiting of a classic Who monster this week, the Ice Warrior(s).  And boy, is it working.  Not just the resurrection of an old foe, but the return to 'Monster of the Week' done right - dark corridors, increasing body count, tense stand-off, obvious yet well-conceived metaphor.  This episode also embraced the best of New Who as well by delivering a couple of twists on the old formula - instead of the West, we land on a Russian sub (cue lots of fun with actors shouting "DAMMIT, ONEGIN" and "PIOTR IS IN THE HOLD, COMRADE" at each other), and instead of a suited and booted Ice Warrior, we get a pair of disembodied and touchingly non-CGI claws dangling from the ceiling like the crane in an arcade game.  It was both scary and fun, serious and tongue-in-cheek - in beverage terms, it was a lovely cuppa.

Last week's 'Warm Respect' on the Clara-o-meter is rising swiftly towards 'Soppy Adolescent Puppy Love'.  Is it just me, or is she the first companion in a good long while to actually react like a person?  Her anxieties over negotiating the peace treaty (it was a test, we all know it was a test, Doctor, you have failed at subtlety***), being struck by the realness of the eviscerated bodies as the Doctor dashes off to do something sonic-y because bodies are ten a penny to him, her agreement to actually stay put when told, her tentative mention of Skaldak's daughter - it was all beautifully conceived and acted.  Mad props to Jenna-Louise Coleman, and mad props to Mark Gatiss for knowing how to write Watson right (I guess he's had practice).  Of course, if I am being really and truly honest (and what better place for that than the internet, right?) I know the real reason I like Clara is because she behaves the way I would behave.  The way I suspect most of us would behave, in fact - scared and stupid and making jokes to deflect the mindfuck of the whole TIME-TRAVELLING SPACE ALIEN thing, and just occasionally sharp enough or human enough to spot something important, save the day and comment on it - who wouldn't want to say the words "We save the world" as much as humanly possible? And then hug it out afterwords.  Naturally.****  The whole 'impossible' parallel lives thing is incidental - Clara is good enough to watch on her own merit, and that really is special.

I can't quite work out her relationship with The Doctor yet though.  Most Doctor-Companion dynamics are played as analogies for romantic relationships, if not out and out cases of sexual tension, and while he seems very keen to impress her, there's a sense in which she's something of a specimen because of her time-and-space-and-death-defying tendencies.  That hug at the end was a little bit fatherly, a little bit grandfatherly, and a little bit something else that makes this a very bloody interesting dynamic to watch unfold.  Long may it continue, I say, and drive us all mad with the ambiguity.

The supporting cast was equally excellent.  Tobias Menzies on excellent cheekbone-sharp form as dour, trigger-happy Stepashin - my only complaint is that he copped it too soon, I would have liked to see him team up with Skaldak for some good old-fashioned murder funtimes.  David Warner was likewise underused, I felt, which is only testament to how excellent he was when he got the chance.  I did keep waiting for him to turn into the villain, though, which is maybe Hollywood's fault.  Liam Cunningham is now no longer allowed to play anything except gruff yet ultimately trustworthy sea captains, and long may he reign.  Props, too, to the rest of the sub's suspiciously young, nubile seamen (tee hee hee).

Menzies and Warner's lack of resolution is a symptom of Gatiss episodes in general though: the pay-off is never quite good enough to live up to the excellent situations he creates.  All three of his episodes in the Moffat era have now ended with the villain essentially being talked down and told to be a nicer person ('Victory of the Daleks', Amy convinces Bill Paterson that it's much nicer to be a human than a Dalek robot, and 'Night Terrors', the Doctor tells Daniel Mays to tell his alien son not to be scared).  Gatiss writes people and dialogue excellently, with warmth and heart, and has an excellent eye/nose/ear for the grotesque and absurd but his plotting leaves something to be desired and there's always a point at which his episodes become Scooby-Doo-scary rather than Moffat-scary.  He's been named as a potential successor to the Blessed St Stephen, but I don't see it.  I'm just not sure his imagination is Doctor Who-shaped - it's all a bit too clever sometimes, but without the flare for spectacle that lets Moffat get away with it.  All a bit too grown up, in other words.

But this is a general reflection, and the oddly prescient eighties setting (heaven knows what they would have done with any Thatcher references) coupled with the chilling motif of mutually assured destruction worked on Gatiss' terms.  I do wonder how many seven year olds were nodding along going, "Yes, of course, because the SALT talks failed in 1979 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan" but hey ho (yes, I know actual history, not just fictional history).  It was a beautiful analogy for how we relate to the unknown, and I suspect Clara's central role in the episode - despite spending much of it waiting backstage, as it were - was due to this.  Lots of funny jokes about Ultravox too.

This may well have been Gatiss' best effort yet, though I'll always harbour a soft spot for Series 1's 'The Unquiet Dead' (Chris Eccleston telling Simon Callow's Dickens that he's a huge fan while in a hansom cab fleeing walking corpses).  He seems to be on a winning streak, actually, after ending Sherlock on such a flawless, ovary-destroying high.  Thus far the series continues to shine in its embrace of its own Glorious History (a mention of Susan last week, and I've just confirmed my suspicion that the HADS was an Old Who concept via the magic of Google).  We know there are Gaiman-retooled Cybermen coming up in a few weeks' time, and an exploration of the TARDIS interior even sooner than that.  Best of all, I've just found out that River Song will be dropping by for snogs and adventure in the series finale, also including a new Moffat villain called the Whispermen.  I'm expecting a barnstormer here, and for once I don't feel over-optimistic about hoping.


Game of Thrones Series 3, Episode 3: Walk of Punishment

And punishment was very much our theme this week with the episode ending on an event I've been strenuously and determinedly not spoiling for anyone who hasn't read the books: Jaime bids a sudden farewell to his right hand.  How great are Jaime and Brienne? Very bloody great is the answer, with their sulky bickering sitting back to back on a horse turning inch by inch towards a mutual respect so grudging it leaves skid marks.  They're finding each other's sensitive spots too, with Brienne asserting that Jaime's best days are behind him (boy, is she prescient) and Jaime suggesting getting raped might go over easier if she imagines it's her Dead Gay King.  Jaime rides in with the most casual rescue imaginable later on (metaphorically, he's chained to a tree), preventing said rape by pointing out she could be ransomed for a hefty sum, then hedging his bets and playing for his own release too, which comes off considerably less well.  Don't worry, it's all character development.  They're Not So Different After All.

Elsewhere in Westeros, the worlds of Doctor Who and Game of Thrones continue to collide with Tobias Menzies showing up again as family fuck-up Edmure Tully.  I don't think the Tullys are really anyone's favourite (their sigil is a fish) but Menzies manages to make the family trait of self-righteousness-in-the-face-of-overwhelming-evidence-of-just-being-wrong sort of endearing, especially as he faces a double dressing down by both his nephew King Robb (what happened to you, man? You used to be cool) and his uncle Brynden Blackfish (an excellently cast Clive Russell - but then, they're all excellently cast).  Actually, Robb recovered a little of his equilibrium this week, without Robb's Non-Canonical Wife to weigh him down - even GRR Martin himself, a man who, after all, is not known for his restraint, kept Jeyne Westerling (Robb's Canonical Wife) largely off the page, knowing that we want to see the King in the North being...well, a king.  One of the successes of that storyline in the books is that what might play out as a tale of love defying fate elsewhere becomes a rash and foolhardy act when viewed in the context of Westeros' special brand of pointy-stick-orientated politics.  The television series' greatest misstep so far has been to take the first view of it, and it sticks out like a chopped off hand.

We're back with Dany again this week, who I'm guessing is cooking up some punishments of her own and developing some much-needed steel ("All men must die.  But we are not men.") as Ser Jorah "Friendzoned" Mormont and Ser Barristan "Obi Wan" Selmy vie for first dibs on the advising.  We get Jorah's pragmatism v Barristan's romanticism; which one will Dany choose?  Well, I already know because I've read the books.  But it's really good.  Anyway, one of the few moments when knowing the series came at a disadvantage as I was desperately hoping we'd get to see Dany's next actions in the same episode but no dice.  Instead, dragon-selling.

Negotiations and machinations took centre stage actually, despite the highest-thus-far injury count (dead slaves, dead horses, dead soldiers, near-rape, Jaime's hand) as we returned to King's Landing for some more Government 101 - this week, finance!  Always good news as it means my pal Littlefinger will be smarming about somewhere (sounding this week like he's lost his voice, but smarming really takes its toll on a person); we get him and Tyrion expounding two very salient views on how to manage a country's finances, it's either "make the numbers dance, fuck the consequences" (Littlefinger) or "really really don't borrow money you know you can't pay back" (Tyrion).  Topical.  Anyone else automatically assume Littlefinger had paid off Podrick Payne's frighteningly flexible prostitutes himself as a means of transferring the debt and being owed a favour? Or was it actually just an opportunity for Peter Dinklage to show us how good he is at being wry and Pod really is a sex wizard?  Anyway, Littlefinger's off to the Vale to woo Lysa "Thousand Yard Stare" Arryn and put his own nefarious plots into practice.  Personally, I hope he gets a spin off.*****

A quick round-up of the rest then.  Stephen Dillane continues to be excellent as Stannis Baratheon, who - next to Daenerys Targaryen - probably has the best actual claim to the Iron Throne yet is a proper hardline bastard, like.  "I want to see Joffrey dead," he says, to the ringing sound of no-one anywhere arguing.  Maybe if he just put a wall up around Dragonstone and took a few days off with Davos and Melisandre, he'd be a bit happier.  Certainly happier than pondering whether he's ready to spill his child's blood for the throne, after Melisandre rejects his advances. ("It would kill you," she says.  Now that's body confidence.)  Not much over the Wall, just more opportunities for Jon Snow to look conflicted and adorable as everyone continues to want to either hug him or slap him or maybe both at the same time, as Ciaran Hinds orders the Wildings off to war against the Night's Watch.  Aforementioned Night's Watch continue to bully Sam Tarly as they return to the home of the monstrous Craster (blimey, it's a good thing I've read the books or it would be really hard keeping all these bearded old white guys straight - I don't want to sound racist but they all look the same).  I spotted Burn Gorman amongst them today too, aka Owen from Torchwood, for whom I have always had a soft spot despite his propensity for playing unpleasant little squits.  No Davos or Joffrey or Margaery this week (boo) and no Sansa or Bran either (some kind of noise that is like shrugging, only noise), with only the briefest of Greyjoys (have a drink on me, show), but really I only notice who wasn't there when I'm writing these blogs and cannot make inappropriate comments about them - another testament to how well balanced this show is.

What really made this episode stand out, though, was the little moments.  There must have always been a temptation to hurtle through the books at breakneck speed, cramming in as many events as possible (including quite a few broken necks), but the series has now fully established itself as an entity in its own right, going at its own pace.  The fact that it can afford to lie back and toss us a delightful scene about Podrick Payne being a sex genius or Hot Pie baking unconvincing wolf bread for Arya (reminding me that Gendry is one of my many favouritest characters ever in the process) is fantastic.  It also brings an actual sense of suspense to a series where, largely, I know what happens: these characters are different, and stand on their own two feet quite apart from their book counterparts.  Because of slight but clever deviations from the source material, I'm genuinely not sure where the whole Theon and Simon from Misfits thing is going, though I have grave (and gruesome) suspicions - likewise Arya and Gendry's jaunt through Sherwood Forest with the Merry Men.  Sorry, Brotherhood Without Banners (but really now).  All in all, another great episode that displays a consummate skill for storytelling.  Is it next week yet?

This week's winner: Argh.  I am starting to see the flaw in trying to compare an episodic piece of new writing with a serialisation of familiar source material, but let it never be said that I don't commit to my bad ideas.  'Cold War' was certainly some of Gatiss' best work yet, and a great showcase for Clara, but with some plot and pacing problems.  'Walk of Punishment' wasn't quite as entertaining as last week's episode, but contained some things I've been desperately hanging on to see and some lovely added bonuses too.  Really difficult, but I'm going to say 'Cold War' just pips it - we already know Game of Thrones is excellent television but I'm still waiting for it to blow me out the water, whereas Doctor Who reached a rare level of sophistication.  Beautiful work on both sides.


*I've just checked and the Guardian's Doctor Who blog has used the exact same comparison minus The Thing, which is a) unsurprising as it's a very good comparison but b) extremely annoying so you'll have to take it on faith that I got there first, and the The Thing reference is all my own work.
**I can only assume his absence from this week's Game of Thrones can be explained by the note he left on Stannis' pillow saying "Gon 2 cptn sub.  BRB.  Miss u.  Davs. xoxo"
***Also a callback to the Christmas episode dialogue on the roof - this is the second occasion that Our Clara has echoed something one of Other Claras has said.
****Totally called that Skaldak's daughter thing, btdubs.  In fact, it's what I would have done.  I definitely would not have, say, whimpered in a corner and then propositioned Matt Smith in light of our impending deaths.
*****With Pete Campbell.  You would definitely watch that gameshow.