Being Human

So, yay for me. I managed to watch an entire series of one of those TV shows that everyone’s been talking about. Being Human.  I’m a bit late to it, of course, because I waited til the series had ended before watching it all in two big greedy gulps, but hopefully that’s a useful way to watch it because it stops continuity being spoiled by iffy memory.

Anyway, what did I think? Generally, I liked it. I thought it was well cast, well acted, with some great dialogue. The effects were unspectacular but (mostly) did they job, and I liked that the show didn’t rely on them. I also liked the British approach to the supernatural, wherein problems are solved over cups of tea rather than suddenly discovered uber kick-boxing skillz. I liked the way the menace of the bad vampires came from a Long Good Friday stylee sense of gangsterism rather than traditional vampire shtick. I loved the ghost stuff over the werewolf and vampire stuff, particularly  the moody 80s ghost that Annie befriends. And generally it was absorbing, moving, compelling drama. All good.

But… I just think it should have been longer. The story was too compacted and the pacing was uneven. The lingering character close-ups were well judged but the story’s momentous events were over too quickly. This was a series that was told in two-thirds or even half the screen time that the story needed. The end result was a good character drama that didn’t give us enough time to each stage of the story before speeding on to the next. Mitchell’s storyline suffered most from this. The moral outrage over his relationship with the wee boy was on and off too quickly for us to believe his total washing-of-hands of humanity that motivated his return to the vampire fold. Equally, his sudden stumbling over their feeding supply and he’s flip-flopping again. Similarly, George’s relationship just didn’t have enough time to grow the way the narrative was telling you it had.

So, maybe the BBC said: You get six episodes, make it fit. It feels like that. A story pared down and crammed in. Hopefully series 2 will be either longer, or less ambitious. I’ll certainly be watching.

Delia Dances

We always knew Delia Derbyshire was ahead of her time, but presaging 21st C dance music by over 30 years is quite some going.

Good on her!

PVR Serendipity

So Christmas is over, I’ve missed most of the things I wanted to see on the telly, and the Hummy (our PVR) is choc full of things neither of us remembers recording. So, now comes the laborious process of picking out the gems, watching them and either dumping them to DVD or deleting them to make space.

Don’t know if anyone’s heard of a recent S&S movie called Sword Of Xanten. I know, it sounds terrible, but it turned out to be a three hour telling of the Nordic Niebelungen legend, and it was pretty darned good. Gritty, tragic, well acted (Max Von Sydow never acted badly in his life) and entertaining – none of which could be claimed for Beowulf, but don’t get me started on that.

But that’s not what this post is about.

Last night’s curio was something else – a half hour animation that was broadcast on BBC4 called The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello. Essentially a steampunk adventure yarn, animated in the style of oriental Shadow Play, it’s a brilliant wee story of an airship’s navigator who has to save his crew when they stray out of the shipping lanes and into “uncharted air”, and simultaneously find a cure for the dreadful disease that is decimating his home city of Gothia. And the best of it is they’ve made three other stories in the series.

These have to be tracked down immediately.