nixsight

I didn’t watch all that much TV this week. Without Girl One about, I tend to revert to movies.

I did make the extra effort to catch up on “Life” – we had enjoyed the first couple of episodes, but for some reason just hadn’t got back to it, and I wanted a bit of Damian Lewis.

Sigh.

As always, reviews after the jump, and I’d love to know what you think.

No Heroics 02-05

Okay. Shut up.

It’s not as good as it looked like it was going to be in the first episode, alright?

I’ve been watching these episodes as they’ve been airing, and there hasn’t been enough to say about any individual one to really make it worth posting. The problem – the problem is that the balance between characters chatting in a pub and trying to give each of them a smart-arsed or interesting plot scuppers any chance that the show has of making any actual gags.

James Lance continues to rule as despondent and dark waster Timebomb – who seems to manage to give a nuanced performance despite the horrendously thick and dodgy accent his character has. Claire Keelan seems to get a little bit cuter week by week – possibly in the same ratio as her character Electroclash gets more shallow and horrible.

And there are some absolutely diamond moments of character comedy, scattered throughout these four episodes.

But in general, the show lacks the creative focus and dexterity of other shows aimed at a similar demographic. “Spaced” aimed for character cohesion and purely delivered homage, and the “IT Crowd” chooses rationality over quickfire gags. The acting talent, production values and comedy writing are all in place to make for a much better show, but it lacks something… I think the quality people are in place, but the formal structure of each episode means that if they pick a storyline that isn’t comedy gold from the off, you’re stuck with it for that whole show.

Ah, well – one more episode to go. If they get another season, maybe they can look at loosening up the thing a little, give some space for a few more laughs.

Life Season 1

I absolutely blitzed through this first season over the last few days.

It’d be easy to dismiss “Life” as another one of those investigative weekly US dramas with a lead protagonist with behavioral quirks – because it is one.

That’s no bad thing, really – as long as each one fulfills a slightly different niche or narrative need, or the premise isn’t exactly the same as anything else out there, I think we’ll still get enjoyment out of them.

And “Life” is a great show. Everybody on the show, from actors to writers to directors, does such a good job of putting out a quality product each episode that Damian Lewis’ outstanding performance as the damaged but philosophical Charlie Crews. There’s an edge to the character that doesn’t come out often, but is there throughout, and Lewis does a note-perfect job of keeping it in the viewer’s mind, so that despite Crews’ often flighty, optimistic and whimsical general temperament, when the facade starts to drift a little, and his rage starts to show through, it’s always believable.

Watching them all the way through, it’s difficult to see each episode on it’s own. It’s worth saying that each does have a self-contained story, but each is handled with consistently competent and entertaining skill, so talking about each one here would just be a matter of saying “The duo investigate a murder in the *** district, that turns out not to be what it seems – a brilliant episode!” several times.

However, it is worth talking about how well the show balances it’s ongoing story arc with the needs of each episode. At the beginning of the season, I did wonder whether it was a mistake for the show to have yet another ongoing investigation into yet another police/authorities conspiracy, with yet another lead character with a wall covered in scribbles and charts, but it works here. Each episode only adds a small amount to the puzzle, and it doesn’t make all that much difference to that episode’s story.

The only other show I can think of that has really done such a good job of keeping things moving on the background story without swamping the individual episodes has been “Veronica Mars” – and like that wonderful, lost show, “Life” closes the loop on it’s background story – which, like Veronica’s, is a personal and defining one – at the close of it’s first season, in a nice, satisfying episode that gives the audience closure, and cleanses their palate, ready for a fresh start in the next season.

Of course, “Veronica Mars” followed that first season with a fresh overarching mystery, and an even wider conspiracy, in it’s sophomore year, and only just managed to pull it off. “Life” has left itself a couple of threads to carry over into the next batch of episodes, which may or may not work out for them.

Personally, I hope that the show either keeps the smart ratio of “previously on-to-weekly story” that it did throughout this season, or else ditches it completely, and moves toward a straightforward, if quirky, episodic approach, like the one that serves “House” or “Psych” so well. Charlie and the supporting cast of characters are strong enough and interesting enough that it’d be fun seeing them solving crimes in their own, philosophical way, alongside the more scientific or cold “CSI” franchises, or the pure frivolous daftness of the “Monk” and “Psych” set.

Unlike other well made, slick series like “Lost” or “Prison Break”, this isn’t a show that needs to struggle for a purpose once it’s major plot runs down – because unlike those shows, the major plot isn’t the whole point.

It’ll be interesting to see what the second season is like.

The Unit Season 2: 17

0217 – Dark Of The Moon: A really different episode of “The Unit”, this one – as far as I can remember, it’s the only one we’ve seen that doesn’t find a way to include the wives back home. Even the episode “Natural Selection”, from earlier in the season, that featured a solo Bob story, used flashbacks to get the other characters in there, but this straight-up war story doesn’t use any such trickery, and it’s stronger for it.

In the Middle Eastern hotspot of Waziristan – which thanks to my lousy current affairs and geography knowledge I actually wasn’t certain was a real place – the team find themselves in the middle of a snatch-and-detain mission that goes badly sideways. Managing to escape with their prisoners – the leader of whom claims that they are simple farmers, and debates the morality of US military activity in the region with a stoic Jonas, in a couple of thoughtful scenes – they find their way to a US supply base.

Before long, it’s apparent that a power struggle within the outpost – between the hard-headed and bigotted sergeant and the well-meaning but weak CO that outranks him – may endanger their mission. And within hours the place is surrounded by a horde of angry local militia. The unit has to work fast and hard to bring the out of shape soldiers at the base through the brutal assault, in the face of increasingly uneven odds.

This episode is a great and tough piece of television. The morality play isn’t allowed to overwhelm the hard action that makes up the bulk of this episode, and from beginning to end, it’s intense as hell. It owes a lot to the movie “Zulu” and the battle of Rorkes Drift that inspired it, and despite the viewer’s awareness that the members of the Unit will probablu survive relatively unscathed, the sense of scale, inevitability and peril from that story is retained.

It isn’t much like an episode of “The Unit”, but it is pretty awesome.