Veronica Mars Season One - 1st through 5th January 2011
Ok, so if I had to sum up Veronica Mars for a fan of TV Shows who had never seen it then I would say it is like Twin Peaks meets Buffy meets The OC with whip smart writing, plenty of nods to 50s film noir, quick fire pop culture quotes and a harder, darker and more violent edge than you'd expect.
It has the overall plot of a promiscuous, fun loving but damaged teenage girl's murder with pulp detective sensibilities like Peaks, the clever banter, school out-cast dynamic of Buffy and the soap opera, South California stylings of The OC (only it's better than the OC).
It's faults are few and far between, the main one being that the supporting cast of characters is never as well defined or overly interesting as you'd necessarily like but this is more than made up for by the cracking plots, frantic dialogue and some genuinely effecting moments.
While it does occasionally dip its toes into soap opera territory, it is never preachy, seldom soppy and unlike Buffy, Veronica is never annoyingly self righteous or overly whingy, which is a massive plus.
While the show was always interesting to watch and I can't think, off the top of my head, of any bad filler episodes that can plague other series, just occasionally the individual, week by week stories got a little throw away or convoluted but that's never the really point or the focus of this series because it's all about the murder of Veronica's best friend Lilly and the Chandleresque, twisty, turny plotting that they miraculously manage to sustain through 22 episodes.
What shocked and interested me the most about the show, in the end, was just how adult it was in places and very pleasingly so. It never shies away from violence or mature subjects such as rape, child abuse, incest, disease, alcohol and drug abuse and, of course, death but I never once felt I was being moralised to, in fact while the character of Veronica Mars definitely has her principles, she is not and the show is not moralistic in an over baring, finger wagging way. Where Buffy can fail frequently because of the heavy handed, fairly childish, self important soap boxing and a show like 24 always has to feature people who disapprove of, agonise over and chin stroke about the lead character's decisions, which, while I enjoy both shows, annoys me no end, Veronica Mars is almost a more realistic depiction of what it's like working your way through life, with themes of living with decisions and loyalty without the smug faced posturing.
Despite loving the writing, the noir throwbacks, the cameos and especially the central dynamic between Veronica and her father and while I would urge or suggest anyone who hasn't seen it to give it a go, I can't say I am a hardened fan just yet, let's see what the second and third seasons bring.
Still as a one off set of 22 episodes with one over-riding, well plotted, interesting storyline and a set of ok characters it was continually watchable, funny, engaging and exciting. Definitely a little gem in a sea of similarly set high-school shows.
8.5 out of 10 cookies
Points from the Wife 8 out of 10
The Kids in the Hall "Death Comes to Town" - 16th September 2010
When I first heard about this 8 part mini series I was excited but also I was cautious. I have been a fan of comedy far too long to know that when once incredibly funny and innovative groups of comedians get back together after a while, to do something else on film, the results can often be, despite the best will in the world, cringingly shoddy, ill conceived and embarrassing. I'm talking to you Monty Python!
While it can be difficult for fans to accept that there will be no more of something they loved, like Firefly or Evil Dead for example, sometimes, what we learn is it's better to have the memory of something than to have that memory soiled messily by an over aroused skunk of a bad idea or over-the-hill performers.
If I was completely ruthless and harsh I could probably get enough examples together and point to enough of those problems in Death Comes to Town that I could write a fairly scathing but ultimately inaccurate review.
I could also say that having recently, on and off, been watching the old KITH sketch show on DVD box sets, feeling nostalgic and having a genuine love of their work and performing, that Death Comes to Town was great, made me laugh, had a good plot, funny characters and had enough of the old spark and charm that I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The truth, as always I suspect, is somewhere firmly in between these two mindsets.
To put this all into perspective, I first came across Kids in the Hall, along with a couple of my good friends, who I grew up with, probably back in 1993 or 94 when best-of compilation shows of their sketches would air on Channel 4 in Britain around 2am often with no real schedule, rhyme or reason. We would often have to record these onto video and watch them at a later date and, although, I was possibly too young and not Canadian enough to get all of it completely, it was indelibly printed on my brain, along with listening to other Canadian export The Tragically Hip driving round in my friends small beat up old car, as representing a fantastic part of my life growing up.
Probably a while after Brain Candy came out, the same friends, found an ex-rental VHS version of the film tucked away somewhere and it quickly became the thing I often watched when I would stay at their house. I know The Kids went through a rough time filming it and it was badly received when it came out but I think it's just perfectly fantastic and I rate it highly amongst my favourite comedy movies of all time. It's endlessly quotable, the performances and production value is high and it makes lots of good points about the nature of big business, celebrity and pharmaceutical manufacturers power that was way ahead of the curve.
When I first read about Death Comes to Town, as I said, I had mixed feelings but they definitely turned to excitement when I heard it was finally to be screened in the US on IFC over the summer. Good or bad I wanted to see it all, then buy the DVD and watch it all over again, despite the quality. Such was my fandom of The Kids.
Now, you'd think but maybe I am naive, that if you were a smaller cable channel that had spent money on this mini series from another country, you would screen the hell out of it and repeat it all the time. Other channels do exactly that with shows that are home grown so it didn't seem like a far fetched hope. Well, they didn't, they screened the 8, about 20 minute episodes over the course of 4 weeks, 2 episodes back to back every Friday night with no repeats during the week. Well the night they were set to debut the first two, I had a birthday party to go to and so that completely destroyed my chances of watching them every week. Then they announced that all 8 episodes would be screened back to back last Sunday. Right, I thought, that's my day, I'll turn the phone off, lock the doors, in-bed myself onto the couch like a flabby whelk, surround myself with junk food and marvel in the beauty of The Kids new show. Well fate, the bitter sweet hell bitch that she is, had other plans and I woke up that morning to find out my cable box had broken. So when I should've been having the most fantastically slobby weekend since Michelangelo finished the Sistine Chapel, told the Pope to bugger off, bought himself a bucket of chicken wings and settled in to watch his favourite soap, I was actually deep in the intestines of the borough of Queens replacing said cable box in a shopping mall filled with the sort of cross-eyed, hunched backed flabbys you normally read about in the Weekly World News from the safety of your own toilet.
So when a friend of mine announced on Farcebook that he had DVR'd it, I pounced on the opportunity and so, after a long and frustrating saga trying to watch the damn thing, I finally got to sit down and take in all 8 episodes, back to back, without adverts, in their silly splendour as, I like to think, they were intended.Initially, on first viewing, as I watched it, I laughed a lot. They did a great job of setting the whole thing up and while this is a totally new venture for The Kids, as it's not a sketch show and it's not a movie, not only does it essentially blend those two mediums by having one continuous story line over the course of 8 loose episodes of television but it also lets you know that you're on familiar turf with their usual brand of bizarrely observed archetypes. Obviously, watching them one after the other, it was difficult to still be chuckling on episode 8 after 2+ hours of lunacy (I was still grinning though) but unlike anything else the Kids have ever done it is the plot that keeps you watching, that and the characters.
Firstly, the plot. Yes it essentially boils down to a slightly contrived and very loose whodunnit in a town full of characters who are all revealed, over the course of the running time, to be engaged in some sort of over the top soap opera but it is written well and each character, far more this time than before, is fleshed out through exposition and amusing flash backs.
The show has obviously been compared to both Twin Peaks and The League of Gentlemen, the latter being a little closer on the mark and I don't think The Kids themselves would deny this legacy but they do make the 'murder in a small strange town' show their very own. The only negative to having obviously concentrated on the plot for each of their grotesque creations slightly more than usual, is that, in the end it is somewhat of a let down that due to the disarray of the slightly weak finale there aren't really consequences to any of it and that counter acts the nice build up a bit.
Secondly, the characters. While each of The Kids gets their chance to shine with a variety of mad, sick or stupid townsfolk, not all the characters hit the mark particularly well. Bruce McCulloch and Scott Thompson come off the best in terms of playing varied, interesting, genuinely well crafted and funny characters and Mark McKinney probably spends the most time on screen as he plays seemingly more main tier characters than the others in the shape of Death, The Judge, one half of The Cops and the News Anchor, this does mean, therefore, that my two favourite Kids and founding members, Kevin McDonald and David Foley seemed somewhat sidelined. Kevin McDonald has a lot of great jokes in the show through a surprisingly small selection of parts and he can still deliver an underwhelming line in such a way that makes it an absolute killer joke but he's been given only one real character that's worth anything, that he can really sink his teeth into, and that's the part of the Defense attorney who is putting all his money into increasingly ridiculous medical devices and means to keep his extremely aged and ill cat alive. I am not sure Dave Foley, on the other hand, elicited one laugh from me the entire time, which sadly must make him The Kids' Eric Idle. He had only one main character and that was of the mayor's drunken wife and she was possibly the least funny character on the whole show.
What has happened, you see, is that when I watched it the first time, all the way through, I enjoyed it, I laughed, it was fun seeing The Kids again do their stuff and I would still recommend it to anyone who is a fan of their comedy but after just a day of having it (and this review) rattling around in my head, it's errors, like a sweet full of chemicals and saccharine, have started to leave a bad taste in my mouth. As I write this and try and organise it in my brain, trying to keep the positive at the forefront, the negative slowly creeps in.
For example, despite filming at a good looking, real location there seems to have been very little attempt made to make the wigs, costumes or make up look good or real. One of the many things that's fantastic about Brain Candy is that it doesn't look like the same guys just threw on silly wigs, dresses, comical bow ties or some glasses and just wandered on to set, they all actually look like people, like proper characters and The Kids play them as such. Here they all look like they literally just ran into the make up trailer, stuck a moustache on and some joke-shop teeth then ran right back out again and played the scene. Also when you think back to Brain Candy some of them played up to 9 parts whereas here we don't seem to get the same diversity with twice the running time.
Then there's the character of Death. They name the show after him, McKinney plays him perfectly well and there is a neat little character arc by the end but with actually very little death in the plot line we are just left watching the character of Death wonder about and take up time.
I would also say that fat jokes and hand job jokes, while maybe a little funny and in one case highly disturbing, seem a little beneath the Kids and the fat suit character especially seems a little old and tired now.
These are all things, though, that niggle me as a fan who had high hopes but also they didn't ruin it totally either. It didn't have quite the inspired weirdness of their previous productions, although the little boy character of Rampop who sees adult humans as brightly coloured, badly rendered butterflies is pretty funny and strange but, on the plus side, it did take the time to actually delve into proper story lines for the characters this time and they did all agree that this time, making it, they all had fun.
A special mention must go out to Scott Thompson who filmed the thing while he was still having chemo for cancer, you'd never know and he is superb in it.
Overall then my summary would have to be that, if you can look past the tv production values and the fact that they probably should've just made it a tight 2 hour TV movie, when it hits, it is as sublimely funny, weird and wonderful as the kids have ever been and when it misses it luckily never gets embarrassing and you know there'll always be something hysterical round the corner, so in that way it is probably more akin with the original sketch show than the somewhat more original Brain Candy.
As a fan - 7.5 out of 10 for old times sake and old crumb cake
As a critic - 6 out of 10 chips, pickles and a valiant effort.
Dr.Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog - 28th August 2010
There honestly isn't a bad word to say about this internet mini series (except, of course, that there isn't enough of it - I could watch a hundred more) everything about it is wonderful. It just feels so good that something like this exists.
As you know, from the previous Dollhouse review, I am a Joss Whedon fan and I think this is some of the cleverest, funniest stuff he's ever done. The acting, while knowingly over-the-top in some cases, is fantastic and they all have singing voices that are great to listen to and not poppy or whiny at all. For something which was made for relatively little the whole thing looks great and suitably comic book. As for the plot and characters, that they manage to pack so much into three 15 minute episodes is incredible and even with the overall goofy and knock-about nature of the thing, it is genuinely shocking and touching when the end comes around. It's funny that the only real innocent and do-gooder is punished and the egotistical Hammer and megalomaniacal Dr.Horrible get to live and yet you still go with it. The songs are also tremendously catchy and memorable without ever becoming annoying, like, for example, the Timewarp.
On the DVD as well as an informative and fun making of you also get a musical commentary which contains songs and humour almost as great as the film itself. It's a genuine treat and ensures that this DVD never gets old.
10 out of 10 delicious ice cream and brownie deserts
Points from the Misses 8 out of 10 delicious ice cream and brownie deserts
Dollhouse - August 2010
Right, so between Abrams and Whedon (not that it's a fight particularly), I am firmly in the Whedon camp. Especially as I don't trust anyone who doesn't reveal their first name, what's with the J.J. ? hmmmmmm? Seems pretentious as hell if you ask me.
I have the fondest memories of watching Buffy at university with my housemates. They used to be released in 2 VHS boxsets a few months apart and each time my friend would purchase a box set we would have a Buffy marathon. A ton of sweets and munchies would be purchased, duvets would be brought down to the sofa, curtains would be drawn, eyes would be glued to the screen, laughs would be had and lectures would be missed. I would later buy them and Angel on DVD myself and with my wife, who I introduced to them, I would watch every episode again back to back. Then Firefly and Serenity, which I consider Joss Whedon's finest hour, would prove to me that Whedon seemingly can do no wrong and also introduced me to Nathon Fillion who could prove to be the next generation Bruce Campbell.
Joss Whedon firstly writes good characters and then secondly gives them interesting and unexpected things to do, not like M. Night Shamalawhotsit where it became a twist for twists sake (although Joss does terrific twists) and not like Lost where the unexpected things happened because the writers seemed to be scrabbling around for any old 'cool' idea but because it makes sense within the parameters of the plot. In every Whedon show you get the distinct impression it's actually building to a genuine climax and that you won't be disappointed, I never feel like I am being taken down a blind alleyway he can't get us out of and you also get the feeling that he has thought this through, you are in safe hands and he cares. Also he is funny, really funny, you only have to watch Dr.Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog to see that (review coming soon because I watched that again this weekend).
So, to Dollhouse then, the show that before I'd even seen a frame of it I knew it had been cancelled, reviews had been mixed and I had heard from friends that they didn't really like it either. This was a challenge then because I wanted to see it and judge it for myself but I also didn't want to watch the first Whedon show that I might not like. I was also on the fence about Eliza Dushku as well because the Faith character in Buffy she played could be 50% exciting and sassy and 50% annoying (but then again so could Buffy).
I am just going to say that I loved it and no it didn't have the pop culture attitude of Buffy, the class (or cast) of Firefly or anything like the humour of his previous work but it was still one hell of a complex, adult, interesting and exciting show.
I could go into each episode and the overall plot of the piece but honestly all I want to say about it is that both my wife and I were on the edge of our seats and happily plowed through the 14 episodes on the DVD (including the original pilot) in no time at all and despite the negative and unfair reviews I have read about her, I thought that Eliza Dushku showed incredible range and versatility in all of the roles she is required to play in this show.
I also have a theory about why it wasn't so popular on TV. Watching each episode without adverts on DVD, the in depth, dense plot line develops quickly and cleverly. I couldn't imagine watching it week after week and having to wait each time, it would lose its carefully crafted nuance. Also this is a TV show without, really, any heros or villains. It's the first TV Show I have watched where everyone is in a grey area, which is just terrific. My wife and I had long discussions about whether we sided with the Dollhouse characters or the FBI agent and who in the Dollhouse would turn out to be good or evil. There was a lot more moral ambiguity than ever before and that doesn't sit well with audiences used to the black n white weekly soap opera/entertainment show where the labels are clearly defined. I did think, at some point, you had to accept what the Dollhouse was and not judge it in order to go along with the ride. By the time Alpha showed up we were completely hooked!
Thank goodness that Season 2 comes out in November because we are both hankering for more time in the Dollhouse. Now who's going to give Joss some money to resurrect this and Firefly simultaneously hmmmmmm?
8.5 out of 10 glorious steak and fries
Points from The Misses 9 out of 10 glorious steak and fries