My year in lists 2022

The end of the year is about making lists, so here's everything I've watched, read and played in 2022. The below is ordered roughly by preference, and the links go to my jottings on here, Goodreads and Letterboxd.

Films

I was living away from my wife and kids for a few months this year and filled out the evenings by watching films. A lot of films. The Truffaut deep dive didn't bring up many pearls, but the top half of the list below are definite favourites. Only one trip to the cinema to see something new this year, and I'm happy it was Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Daniels - Everything Everywhere All At Once [link]

Paolo Sorrentino - The Great Beauty [link]

Jane Campion - In The Cut [link]

Wong Kar-wai - 2046 [link]

Steven Soderbergh - Out of Sight [link]

Yoshihiro Nakamura - Fish Story [link]

Mike Nichols - Primary Colours

Clive Barker - Hellraiser [link]

Sion Sono - Love Exposure

Gregor Jordan - Buffalo Soldiers

Norifumi Suzuki - Sex and Fury

Rian Johnson - Knives Out [link]

Susan Seidelman - Desperately Seeking Susan [link]

Jon Watts - Spider-Man: No Way Home [link]

Spike Jonze - Being John Malkovich [link]

Alfred Hitchcock - North by Northwest

Jane Campion - Holy Smoke [link]

Lana Wachowski - The Matrix Resurrections [link]

François Truffaut - The Soft Skin [link]

François Truffaut - Anne and Muriel (Two English Girls) [link]

François Truffaut - Shoot the Piano Player [link]

François Truffaut - Jules and Jim [link]

Christopher McQuarrie - Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Francis Lawrence - Constantine

Mark Cousins - The Story of Film: A New Generation [link]

Lorene Scafaria - Hustlers [link]

Nagisa Oshima - Violence at Noon [link]

Shohei Imamura - Warm Water Under A Red Bridge [link]

Masayuki Miyano - Lala Pipo: A Lot of People [link]

Books

I've started cross-posting my Goodreads reviews on here and it really looks like I mostly write about books now. Harold Bloom never fails to encourage you to up your reading game. After devouring his Bright Book of Life I tried a bit of Virginia Woolf (not for me) and Leo Tolstoy (a bit better), and am planning on finally tackling a Dostoevsky next year. Three weeks in Japan meant some Japan-focused reading (Ian Buruma's short history, Kawabata, Mishima, Empire of the Sun). Took a conscious break from science fiction (Rachel Cusk, Donna Tartt, Alan Hollinghurst) but I think I'm going to go back to it with a vengence in 2023. This year I strayed out of my comfort zone, next year I'll marinade in it.

Stephen King - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft [link]

Harold Bloom - The Bright Book of Life: Fifty-Two Novels to Read and Re-Read Before You Vanish [link]

Duncan Weldon - Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: The Surprising Story of Britain’s Economy from Boom to Bust and Back Again [link]

Ian Buruma - Inventing Japan 1853-1964 [link]

Ernest Gellner - Nations And Nationalism [link]

Gene Wolfe - Castle of the Otter / Castle of Days [link]

Joshua Clover - The Matrix (BFI Film Classics) [link]

Jordan Ferguson - Donuts (33 1⁄3 series) [link]

Scott Plagenhoef - If You're Feeling Sinister (33 1⁄3 series) [link]

Anne Billson - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BFI TV Classics) [link]

Liara Roux - Whore of New York: A Confession [link]

J.G. Ballard - Empire of the Sun [link]

John M. Ford - The Dragon Waiting: A Masque of History [link]

Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina [link]

Donna Tartt - The Secret History [link]

Alan Hollinghurst - The Line Of Beauty [link]

Florence Dugas - Sad Sister [link]

Rachel Cusk - Outline [link]

Gene Wolfe - Gene Wolfe's Book of Days [link]

Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway [link]

Angela Carter - The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman [link]

Yasunari Kawabata - The Sound of the Mountain [link]

Yukio Mishima - Thirst for Love [link]

Samuel R. Delany - Equinox (Tides of Lust) [link]

Adrian Tomine - The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist [link]

Inio Asano - Downfall [link]

Warren Ellis / Chris Weston - Ministry of Space [link]

Peter Milligan / C.P. Smith - The Programme

James Tynion IV / Martin Simmonds et al. - The Department of Truth, Vol 1: The End of the World [link]

Junji Ito - No Longer Human [link]

Tom of Finland - The Complete Kake Comics

Doug Petrie / Ryan Sook - Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ring of Fire [link]

Brian Wood / Rebekah Isaacs et al. - DV8: Gods and Monsters [link]

Peter Milligan / Esad Ribić - Sub-Mariner: The Depths [link]

Warren Ellis / Jacen Burrows - Bad World [link]

Games

I beat Disco Elysium and Dark Souls this year and honestly feel like I can retire from gaming. It's not going to get better than that, is it? Dragonfall was very good prestige TV, and given I don't watch TV there might be room to do a few more RPGs like it. Otherwise I've been enjoying narrative-light systems-heavy games on mobile, which are convenient snacks and a bit easier to digest. Probably will be some more of that in 2023.

ZA/UM - Disco Elysium: The Final Cut [link]

FromSoftware - Dark Souls Remastered [link]

Harebrained Schemes - Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director's Cut [link]

Mega Crit Games - Slay the Spire

Subset Games - Into the Breach

Fleabag

I've been trying to work out why this doesn’t irritate me the way Lena Dunham’s Girls did, given the initial similarities. For all of Dunham's self-flagellation, there was nonetheless a sense of entitlement to her project – ultimately she does want to be the "voice of a generation" despite the claim being sheathed in irony within the show. Her erasure of people of colour is all the more damning as a result. Fleabag is also white and middle class (and to my eyes the design of her flat doesn't quite square with the economics of running a failing small business in London), but she has no pretensions to being destined for great things. She's just another lost soul in the city.

The stakes are also higher than anything Hannah Horvath has to deal with. Both characters have a lack of self-esteem which lead them to make poor romantic choices (to put it mildly). But with Fleabag, this is presented as a kind of yawning crater opened up as a result of multiple bereavements, made worse by the fact she blames herself for one of them. The show is funny in the typical excruciating British comedy-of-manners way, but it's just as much a dark drama about someone's life falling apart, and their attempt to clutch desperately at things that might put it back together.

That's the first season anyway. The second one is about the upswing after reaching the pits of despair. The cleverest part of the show is that it finds a way to provide a psychological explanation for its signature technical innovation – Phoebe Waller-Bridge's masterful asides to camera. I imagine this technique grew out of the show's origins as a one-woman play, but there was always something slightly incongruous about a deeply lonely person having this animated inner dialogue with the audience. Who really is she talking to?

The introduction of a love interest who is a priest brings this out. The dramatic tension inherent in a sexually voracious character falling in love with someone sworn to abstinence is obvious. But the connection the two characters form is built on this propensity to communicate with invisible people. The show draws this out explicitly – the priest is the only one who can sense Fleabag's asides, even if he can't overhear them. They are prayers, and we are Fleabag's chorus of gods.

The arc of the show thus becomes Fleabag's conjuration of an army of silent companions that bear witness to her struggles – an imaginary source of comfort and validation she cannot get from her deeply messed up family. The show ends with the realisation that she doesn't need us anymore –  unlike the priest, who chooses God over love and in doing so is revealed to be a coward. The show might break off the affair at the end, and be seen to end on a downer. But there is a triumph in Fleabag's final wave goodbye to us. She is casting off her crutches and is finally able to cope on her own.

The gap between panels / Comics as TV

Latest column at the London Graphic Novel Network takes the Fraction / Chaykin comic Satellite Sam as a starting point to talk about the relationship between comics and television. That's despite the fact that I have mostly stopped watching television. Read it here.

House of Cards

The 1990 BBC version, that is. Was spurred to watch it by the boys at Kraken, who were rather taken with how deliciously evil the protagonist is. It wouldn't be fair to tar all Tories with the Urquhart brush, however (as their question cheekily suggests). The man is clearly a caricature from the moment he puts on a fake mustache (although the boldness of Mattie's murder at the end did catch me unawares). The show succeeds in spite of the silly stuff. Some of the shenanigans, particularly the way leaks and briefings to the press are used in internal party struggles, ring true. With Corbyn having to pick his way through a nest of vipers in the Parliamentary Labour Party, we may be seeing more such behaviour in the coming months...

Mattie's conspiracies are unbelievable because her editor is right (in the real world, if not in the world of the TV series) – politics isn't as exciting as sex, drugs and murder. Most of the time it's about pale old men struggling to unpick Gordian Knots of policy in a way they can advertise to their constituents and the party leadership. Urquhart's skulduggery would not work now, and I doubt it would have worked in 1990 either.

Urquhart is a pure Machiavel. The deputy editor of the Chronicle describes him as a politician without politics – appealing because of his character rather than his policies. He is all things to all men – able to shapeshift as circumstances dictate. He is the embodiment of Machiavelli's virtuoso, bending to the winds of fortune as he navigates towards his goals. The audacity with which he weaves his plots, and the way he co-ops the audience to root for him, is proof of Machiavelli's perception that there is glory to be found in cruelty and fear.

Wolf Hall

I wrote about the first book here, I've not read the second. The BBC adaptation wrapped up last week, and it's a near perfect piece of television drama. Imagine Game of Thrones if it was just about Varys and Littlefinger and all the gratuitous sex and violence was scaled back to zero. Instead there's Mark Rylance carefully climbing that Tudor greasy pole.

Mantel's big theme is how politics works in an autocratic state. To borrow from my post on the book: Cromwell has to remake England to service the king's whims. He has to get up in the middle of the night because his sovereign has had a nightmare, and his position is secured because he is able to provide the most flattering interpretation of the dream. Careers are made and unmade in such moments. Everything rests on the disposition and desires of a single all-powerful man.

I remember the book being a bit harder on Thomas Moore – Anton Lesser portrays him more sympathetically. Cromwell does do everything he can to make Moore compromise, but Moore is too proud and stubborn. Nonetheless, the audience is left with the sense of a society where freedom of expression is policed, and can be curtailed if you get on the wrong side of the king. Cromwell is a dissenter in private, but his job is to be the arm of the theocracy in public. His stoicism may be prudent, but it is by no means just that Moore should die for staying true to his beliefs.

Orphan Black

The only TV commentary I read comes from the folks at ILX, and this rings particularly true: every explanation to date has been less an explanation and more a reveal of something else that requires explanation. The writers blog each episode, and it seems that the show-runners tend to throw in random scenarios which the room then has to fold into the narrative. This leads to very noticeable lurches where a character or plot-line is wrenched away from one location to the next, all in the service of thrills and spills. No doubt the velocity of the story is captivating, but when you step away from the vortex you're left with more questions than answers.

And as great as Maslany is, she can't make a character like Rachel breathe without the writers giving her a motivation to run with. An obsession with motherhood feels incongruous buried within a ruthless corporate clone: are all female leaders (the hated boss bitch) just sublimating their maternal instincts? The show as a whole is vague about the conflict it sets up between religious nuts and science freaks. Ostensibly, the heroes are fighting for a middle way between these extremes, defending their family against the assaults of ideologies that seeks to destroy it. But 'family' is also an ideology and subject to change in the face of social and technological change. This is ripe territory for the show to explore.

As an example: how will the mechanisation of childbirth transform motherhood? How will women feel towards their children when they are freed from constraints men have never had to bear (the process of pregnancy, birth, postpartum). The show steps back from such a future. Instead both Rachel and Helena (and the organisations that raised them) are obsessed with children and jealous of Sarah for having a daughter. Clones are facinating and valuable for still unarticulated reasons. Two seasons in, that's disappointing.

Girls

Should forewarn, I've only seen up to the end of season two (the box-set was bought at Christmas for my girlfriend, and we are both very infrequent television-watchers). Just a couple of notes:

The "voice of a generation" pitch in the pilot is delivered during a bad trip and couched in irony, providing creator Lena Dunham with enough cover should the critical viewer wish to interrogate that claim. But I'm mindful to take the boast seriously, since it hits at something true about the profession Dunham (and Hannah) have chosen – the determination to write to a degree requires the belief that you can write something of significance, despite the world doing its level best to discourage such ambitions.

The gaps between Dunham and her character are not as easily distinguishable as she would perhaps like them to be. She puts an awful amount of herself into her creation – including her battle with obsessive compulsive disorder in the second season. I wonder what part wardrobe (or even the lack of it) plays in her personal differentiation technique. Hannah's outfits are often outrageous, hair often unkempt, make-up non-existent, while Dunham looks super suave and composed in interviews. Hannah does (and wears) what Dunham wouldn't dare.

Dunham acknowledged the race problem in the show, and the scenes with Donald Glover in the first two episodes of the second season were an effective, and funny, apology. In fact, the confrontation scene between them was one of the best pieces of writing Dunham has produced. Her (quite valid) explanation for the lack of black actors is that she's half Jewish, half WASP, and wrote what she knew – four characters that represented parts of that culture and heritage. The question to be asked is why other people don't have a HBO series to write about what they know.

Another counter-argument that has been advanced is that someone living in New York would interact with non-white people a lot more than is suggested in Girls. Only having visited the city a few times, I can't judge whether it really is more integrated than what the show presents to the viewer. Either way this shouldn't let Dunham off the hook, not least because Girls is hardly true to life anyway.

In the first episode, the show explicitly sets itself up as an antidote to Sex and the City and the high-flying lifestyle it presents, but is it really a cold injection of realism? While Girls tries to circumvent any attempt to frame it as an aspirational show (featuring uncompromisingly unlikable characters predestined to make the worst of any situation), I think it remains aspirational, since it asks us to care about what happens on screen despite giving us precious little reason to. Marnie in particular displays no redeeming features whatsoever throughout the two seasons, and yet Charlie remains besotted with her (at the end of season two both him and Adam become male incarnations of the manic pixie dream girl). The result of watching all the terrible things these characters keep doing over and over again without lessons being drawn is that their behaviour becomes normalised. You're allowed to be this selfish and callous and irresponsible, because this (the show suggests) is what being in your early 20s is like.

Dunham can save the show from making this conclusion by treating her characters as more than fodder for jokes and drama, and she is capable of it. I say this because episode five of season two, "One Man's Trash", managed to convey a complexity to Hannah that was not evident before. Dunham finally presents us with an explanation for why Hannah is such a self-destructive moron. Hannah courts pain and distress not only to be supplied with material to write about, but because it separates her out from other people and makes her feel special. Unlike normal "selfish" people who want to settle down and be happy, Hannah will beat herself up in order to give expression to the suffering of others. She is the everyman holding the experiences of her generation within her. The fact that this position is itself extremely self-serving and arrogant is a potent irony. Her masochism is what keeps her initial relationship with Adam afloat, and the inklings of an arc suggest itself which will turn Adam into the stable Joshua character Hannah encounters in "One Man's Trash".

Arrested Development Season 4

One of the reasons The Office works is that Ricky Gervais's self-flagellating cringe-inducing antics are approached in part from the perspective of Martin Freeman's normal dude in the madhouse, and his sweet relationship with Lucy Davis (Stephen Merchant's influence, I'm sure). The contrast between the likable and the horrific is what makes the series so poignant. Rightly or wrongly, I approached the first three seasons of Arrested Development in the same way – the absurd family nonetheless being kept together by the one son who acted as the straight-man for all the japery. We even had a kind of doomed romance between Maeby and George Michael to invest in.

Season 4 ends all sympathetic attachment with any of the characters – Michael and his son become just as bad as everyone else in the family. I guess this is what everyone means by the show becoming "darker". But I wonder whether Mitchell Hurwitz really finds nothing of worth in the characters he writes. Hungering for some sweetness in the season's black liquorice flavour, I found it in several of the characters choosing to waste their energy on projects they clearly have no hope of achieving rather than leaning back on their legal or medical qualifications and leading comfortable, responsible lives. I think there is a fondness for the resolute rejection of normality the Bluths represent. The satiric elements in the show (the corrupt Republican politician, the software companies built on nothing, the sub-prime mortgage crisis) are reminders that the real world is far from free from the idiocy, delusions and petty jealousies the Bluths display.

The comedy isn't even the point anymore. It's true, there are fewer LOL moments than before. Rather, the new structure where the same events are revisited and retold from the perspective of different characters forgrounds the tangled plot above everything. The lightning-fast assembly of hair-brained schemes is what the show is all about. This was always present in Arrested Development, and in fact I remember thinking that Michael was probably the true crazy for not embracing the lunatic freewheeling energy of his family. In season 4, he finally has.

Game of Thrones Season 3

I still made time for Game of Thrones despite pretty much quitting television. Why, though, is the question. Perhaps because I've read the first book, I felt like I had a pretty firm grasp of the first season's theme and methods. GRRM's project was to use his medievalist nerd knowledge to inject some realism into the high fantasy genre. We have dragons and zombies stirring over the border, sure, but the real story was at the centre – the political "game of thrones" where the kings of Westeros struggled to assert authority over several powerful barons they nominally ruled. Season 1's beheading of Ned Stark was a shock because it went against trad fantasy expectations – Sean Bean was the Aragorn guy rather than the Boromir guy this time, and in the ASOIAF universe THAT'S what gets you the chop. Season 3's infamous Red Wedding played the same trick over again – and here the lesson of the bloodshed (revealed in the last episode) is that barons also need to manage their knights properly if they want to continue to order them about.

Or it would have been, except that Game of Thrones tends to overlay these (rather interesting) matters about the effective practice of medieval lordship with the OTT trappings of operatic drama. Srsly the look on Roose Bolton's face when his treachery is revealed is straight out of panto. GRRM wants his realism on the level of world-building and social structure, but his characters are cut out pulp figures with only the shallowest of depths. They are all introduced quickly and undergo very slight changes despite being put through colossal hardship and strain (Sansa is now less whiny, Daenerys is more assertive, Tyrion is monogamous). GRRM's style is less to initiate change, but rather to reveal new shades of the same personality in different scenes and conversations, something the TV show has taken onboard. So we have revelations about Jamie, Tywin, Varys and Littlefinger this new season. And part of the joy of watching the series is seeing how this cast bounce off each other.

Nevertheless, what we end up being put through is the blatant maneuvering of characters and tweaking of sympathies over and over again. And to what purpose? How much longer is the show going to keep teasing us before shit gets real and we start to see some meaning behind the madcap adventures. Basically, I'm starting to worry that we're building towards a Battlestar Galactica-level epic disappointment where the threads weaved so far end up in a mess rather than, I dunno, a satisfying tapestry. Bad metaphor aside: what is GRRM trying to do with this story apart from wheel us about the seven kingdoms? However the game ends, whoever wins, will be significant. And I'm wondering whether GRRM will choose to tie everything up with a long-lost king of the north marrying a long lost queen of the desert as per fantasy tradition, or will he end on something real.

The only meaning to be found in season 3 is in the convo between Varys and Littlefinger. The former serves the realm by nudging and balancing the players of the game to achieve as much peace as possible, the kind of thinking the republican Machiavelli would champion. The latter on the other hand is an unprincipled Machiavellian prince climbing up that greasy pole – he confidently calls it a ladder, in fact. Perhaps the game is really between these two opposing wills, one selfless and conserve-ative, the other self-interested and revolutionary. It would really be saying something if Littlefinger is the one who wins, or if Varys is the one to stop him. And we're gonna have to wait an awful long time before we find out. Will it be worth it?

Game of Thrones

Season two finale just watched, which didn't fumble a single beat. The previous episode's Helm's Deep meets Normandy landing battle also a flawless hour's worth of entertainment. The one-two at the end make up for a couple of tread water mid-season episodes that didn't do much but push the plots along. Like a lot of long-haul genre shows, Game of Thrones is all about the pay-offs. And so far (unlike Battlestar Galactica) it is delivering, probably because there is a roadmap underneath it all, provided by the books.

I read the first book and watched the first season in parallel, and decided at the end of both that the show did some bits better and some bits worse, so it kind of evened out. G.R.R. Martin worked in television, and his writing is very televisual, so I didn't think I would be missing much if I just skipped the books (they are extremely long-winded). I gather that the second season has also managed to improve on the books in a bunch of ways, so I'm pretty happy with the way I've managed my time. The waiting required between episodes and seasons is frustrating, sure, but nowhere near as much as waiting for a new book in the series.

I don't think the appeal of the show lies in its characters so much as in genre. Martin sticks to the high fantasy formula but makes it palatable with dashes of medieval realism. These are not real people we are watching on the screen, they are archetypes sanded down to human-sized proportions. Sure, there are no heroes or villains. Your sympathy is drawn to all the players as they perform certain well-defined and easily-recognisable roles. No one really changes in this world (except when subjected to horrific physical and psychological abuse r.e. Clegane, Sansa, Dany, Ros – also an arc with established contours, and one not without its problems).

But would we enjoy Game of Thrones as much if its characters break free from their moulds, if they become complex and ambiguous (and not just in order to service the plot as with Varys and Baelish). Maybe, but there is a certain pleasure in the retelling of familiar stories as well. I don't mind the show staying exactly as it is: superficial flash entertaining pulp mixed in with a bit of grit.

ETA:

Rather disappointing the extent to which Laurie Penny misses the point. I don't think G.R.R. Martin has a lot of faith in 'good rulers', which is why he lobbed off Ned Stark's head so spectacularly in the first book / season. The idea that the 99% are pawns in the 'game of thrones' played by the 1% was voiced quite clearly, I felt. This won't change whoever is in power. I suspect Martin and a lot of his readers believe it hasn't changed to this day.

Bleak House

I have watched the BBC adaptation, back when it was out, and I remember enjoying it. The scene between Lady Deadlock and Esther Summerson on the grounds of Chesney Wold still sticks in my memory, but little else does (my memory is a very imperfect instrument). Happily, this meant I got more out of reading the book – the chase sequence at the end was a thrill since I couldn't remember how it ended.

Nevertheless, cannot escape the conclusion (formed early in my life) that Dickens isn't really for me. I'm not the sort that finds the caricatures (Skimpole, Mrs. Jellyby) particularly funny – they strikes me as shallow (more hints of knowingness on Skimpole's part would have been good), and the repeated catchphrases kept getting on my nerves (a bit Little Britain in that respect). This stuff became so repetitive it just stopped being interesting, I kept wanting to get back to Esther, Charley, Caddy and the mystery of Lady Dedlock.

Satire is exaggeration for comedy, and Dickens contrasts it with another kind of exaggeration, towards the ideal. I'm a real sucker for this kind of Romanticism. But actually, what's great about Esther is that her humility looks almost like a neurosis, and is thus lightly, ever so gently, mocked. There is a kind of balance to the character. As for Mr Jarndyce, perhaps Nabokov is right and he is "the best and kindest man ever to appear in a novel" – sacrificing his own personal (and sexual) desires for the good of those he loves. There is a kind of balance there as well, between temptation and self-denial.

And I guess what I mean by "balance" is... depth.

Undeniably, certain chapters in the novel build to very moving illustrations of fortitude amidst poverty, which make slogging through every session with Skimpole worthwhile. Also undeniable the skill necessary to so intricately (if implausibly) interweave these various plot lines and character arcs into a satisfying whole. If the plot of Bleak House could be visualized, it wouldn't be linear so much as a web. Which is why adapting it into a soapy TV series makes so much sense. It would also provide the opportunity to cut out a lot of the repetition. A bit like with Jane Eyre, (and The Lord of the Rings, for that matter) I'm left with the impression that the adaptation (what I remember of it) matches the original.

The West Wing

Schmaltz is just unBritish, isn't it? I think it was Ian Hislop I remember reciting that old cliche about The West Wing being a kind of liberal fantasy to comfort the political classes, the warm glow from their tv sets making them forget the horror show playing out in the REAL White House. But Brits are made of sterner stuff. No, no. We know that politicians are nincompoops, civil servants are weasels, and spin-doctors are power-crazed bullies. We can take it. In fact there's a certain grim enjoyment whenever those low expectations are met.

The defining feature of The West Wing is its sentimentality. The conceit is that all that guff about public service actually means something to the people you're watching. I just finished the final season: this is a show where one of the characters obsessively re-reads the Constitution of the United States when he has time off; where one of the most moving scenes is the President handing his own pocket-sized copy to his aide. When Josh says he prefers Rob Zombie's early work, I'm pretty sure he just has the wikipedia page crammed somewhere in his memory.

The famous frantic walk-and-talk shots don't connote chaos, but efficiency. These people work even when they are between offices, and they stay on top of everything.  They also speak inhumanly fast, and make jokes so quickly it seems as if they're somehow telepathically linked -- a hive mind of witty conversation where the improbable set-ups whizz by so fast you don't notice them until the punch-lines hit.

And the show luxuriates in the grandeur of office. Just the title sequence gives you a flavour. Washington isn't just a place, it's a magical palace at the center of the universe where all human life is monitored and nurtured by caring, committed worker elves buzzing around a kindly Father Christmas. It's manned by impressive guards, it hosts shimmering balls, it has hi-tech video screens displaying satellite images. There is protocol, there are obscure ridiculous rituals. You're all supposed to call him 'Mr President'...

And man alive, the melodrama you endure for SEVEN YEARS watching the cranky, awkward political genius and the patient, perpetually crestfallen secretary circling each other, never quite connecting. And their romance so mercilessly stretched out, every advance circumvented, derailed by their own brutal indecisiveness. This is epic romance on an ENORMOUS scale, Sam and Diane manipulation taken to the very limits of tolerability. By the time they get it on, trumpets sound and the Second Coming has arrived (well, the election of another Democratic President anyway).

And I do love it. I find all of this soppy, idealistic nonsense supremely addictive. Having gone through all the seasons now I'm more aware of the traps this show lays down to ensnare your comfort-seeking mind. But there is a lesson here as well. Undoubtedly all this pomp and ceremony really does affect people, inside and outside the machine. And sometimes, you need that myopia, those inspiring speeches. They give you that glory-boost to get your ass working and motivated through 15-hour days.

The West Wing is at its most touching when it focuses on characters who sacrifice their lives, their sleep, their peace-of-mind to the never-ending marathon that is governance. When the show steps outside the White House to examine the utter wasteland of their private lives, it reaches a place of deep pathos. I remember some long-ago season where Josh arrogantly lists his achievements before admitting he 'doesn't know how to do this' i.e. ask someone on a date. C.J. says something very similar to Danny at the end: she doesn't know how relationships work, she didn't have the time to figure it out. Sam Seaborn has a life in California which he didn't have when he was Deputy Communications Director. And yet he gives it up, because the job is that important.

And while you're watching The West Wing, you really believe it is.

Rubicon

This piece says it better than I can. Rubicon is really two shows, each one has its own plot, mise en scène, themes. It practically had two different creators. And the stuff from the 1970s just isn't as interesting as the stuff post-9/11. What was most disappointing is that the season ended on a flourish influenced by the former rather than the latter. Truxton Spangler's motive is some conspiracy beyond even his control, rather than the much more chilling revelation in the fourth episode, where he switches off a call from his nagging daughter, and tells Will about the "gift" of distance. Intelligence, government as a whole, is about seeing people as patterns and numbers, not as people. This is all Spangler knows (I wonder if the name is a reference to Spengler?) There is no empathy there. Just the joy of seeing the connections, manipulating the actors, executing the most daring and audacious plans, and impressing his cabal of school-friends.

Pace-wise, Rubicon has its moments, but it can sometimes be a slog. The nonsensical plot and the absurd institution at the centre of the show (where everything is on paper, and everyone has too much time on their hands) doesn't help your investment in the story. The opportunities for extremely rewarding character work were not taken. Instead, Grant starts off an asshole and inexplicably morphs into dependable rock. His infidelity, Tanya's substance abuse, and Miles's failed marriage get perfunctory treatment. They are little asides to add a couple of extra dimensions, before we get back to Will's quest for answers. I would have preferred it if the show abandoned the season-wide narrative, and instead did standalone episodes testing the characters' personal, ethical and political mindsets -- like the episode midway through where the team have to decide on whether to order an air strike in an area full of civilians, or when Tanya and Miles witness U.S. sanctioned torture.

...but if I wanted that, I might as well have just gone and re-watched my West Wing DVDs, right?

True Blood

The premise of the show is that a Japanese firm has managed to synthesize human blood, bottle it and sell it, removing the need for vampires to kill humans and allowing them (those that desire it) to re-enter society. But choosing to go mainstream isn't easy. In the illiberal South where the show is set, the vampire Bill Compton has to confront small-town ignorance, and the disdain of other vampires in his attempts to fit in.

This setup means the show can easily comment on issues of privilege and minority-rights, and to its great credit, it takes those opportunities. Characters have passionate arguments about being black, gay or female and dealing with prejudice. But how exactly can a vampire metaphor reflect these different experiences? Before the invention of True Blood, vamps were, of necessity, murderers. Even when this necessity is removed, many choose to continue living outside the law. The show is clever in balancing the value of tolerance (Sookie) against the very real danger vampires pose to human life (Sam). To me, the closest parallel that suggested itself is the attitude many Bulgarians have towards Roma gypsies, who have a reputation of keeping to a way of life that is incompatible or even hostile to the majority. Now, I would argue a priori that Roma gypsies, and other such racial-cultural minorities, have been criminalized by society. By portraying these issues using vampires (who certainly have inhuman powers, and seem to have difficulty restraining their lust and bloodlust) the show is in danger of suggesting that real-world minorities are discriminated against because they have something in their nature that is wrong with them.

This sounds pretty sensitive, even for me. But imagine if the show managed to confront this difficulty head on. Why are vampires so anti-social? Maybe because they are products of society just as everyone else is. Maybe their anarchic libertinism is just another social construct. Maybe they haven't so much created their identity, as believed the identity others have thrust upon them. A natural conclusion to Bill's story might be the re-establishment of that normal boring domestic lifestyle he lost so long ago.

Needless to say, I don't think True Blood is going in this direction. The social-commentary aspect of the show seems to be a cool little side order to the fiery main meal. In the words of creator Alan Ball, this series is all about the 'terrors of intimacy'. Louisiana is hot, sticky and very very sexy. God and public approval try (and usually fail) to keep a lid on passionate excess. Our heroine Sookie is a telepath constantly facing up to the hypocrisy that results. Eavesdropping on everyone's dirty little secrets for most of her 25 years has miraculously resulted in a open and benevolent disposition. Like her brother Jason, Sookie is dim enough get into some pretty hairy situations. But while Jason is led into innumerable scrapes by his egoism, Sookie gets there by being nigh-suicidally selfless.

Sookie's superpower isn't telepathy so much as the ability to not be ruined by telepathy. You would expect her to be withdrawn or misanthropic, resigned or angry. Instead she's awkward but cheerful, and bursting with goodwill. This despite not being able to go on dates because she is able to hear all the beastly things prospective boyfriends are thinking about. But Bill is a vampire, thus unreadable. Plus he's tall, dark, handsome, and seems to be playing nice. Romance ensues, with much gothic archness. The traditional thematic features of vampire stories are retained: lust and pain, sex and death. But Sookie's telepathy, and some self-awareness, could allow for a deeper exploration of the psychological drives behind such desires and fears. Why does she forgo dating the safe and dependable (and pretty cute) Sam? At points I wonder if her unlimited reserves of generosity concerning vampires is pathological: an obsessive need to will a malevolent world to be better, or get torn to pieces. Sookie's optimism often looks more like a death wish.

I'm in the middle of season one as I write this, and am still unsure of whether the show is able to go in these directions. We are saddled with a murder mystery plot, and various side-plots involving knockout supporting characters: Jason, Tara, Sam, Lafayette. Diverting as these guys are, they often drain time and interest away from the central couple, and leave the potential depths that could be explored through that relationship unvisited. And if the main characters remain in Edward and Bella mode, then I don't think I'm going to stick with them through to Season 2.

Game Of Thrones

"The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are." - Ser Jorah Mormont

"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground." - Queen Cersei Lannister

"The High Septon once told me that as we sin, so do we suffer. If that's true, Lord Eddard, tell me ... why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?" - Lord Varys "the Spider"

Should re-post this ramble over here:

Shit's hitting the fan in A Game of Thrones. Bout time. A book this long is going to have some problems plot and pace wise, but once it gets down to it, it's riveting. And I do admire the thought behind the world-building. I've studied a little bit of medieval history in my time, and Martin has certainly done his homework. If anything (I'll say this of Mieville as well) you'd want MORE of that on show. Why is the monarchy so influential if each house has their own army? How does Drogo distribute tribute and ensure loyalty in his khalasar? I've got my own answers, and perhaps there are answers down the line. But if the project is to make fantasy "realistic" (go from exploring myth / symbol to the kind of social commentary you find in SF) then my medieval-geek glands need just a little bit... more.

Characterisation IS kinda thin, tho. My friend who's watching the series described Prince Joffrey as Draco Malfoy without the depth, and he's right (so far...). Personally, I get the feeling Stark wouldn't last a week faced with real Anglo-Saxon / Carolingian warlords. What is this code of honour he sticks to really ABOUT? I cheered Littlefinger on every time he skewered it. Wouldn't Stark have been more interesting and convincing as a conflicted anti-hero doing beastly things in office whilst trying to protect and care for his family? Maybe that's down the line as well...

Anyway. Haven't enjoyed a fantasy book this much in years. I feel a binge coming on.

To add: I've only seen the first couple of episodes of the HBO series, and so far it seems like a pretty straight adaptation. The book is pretty televisual to start with -- chapters are always single scenes (sometimes intercut with flashbacks and dream-sequences) headed by p.o.v. characters. If anything, adapting it could have been an opportunity to fix some of the book's limitations. But instead, the world and characters were rendered even more simplistic and unoriginal, with blood and boobs tacked on most gratuitously. At times, the style reminded me of The Golden Compass film. With both projects, the creators forgot that the source material won its readers by building fully immersive worlds where social structures were coherent and you could see the dirt underneath a character's fingernails.

Also: expect all of these opinions to change once I actually finish reading the book / watching the show!

Dollhouse Episode 2.13

Some notes:

Chuck continuity away, let's just go for the awesome. And just how bloody awesome was it! It's Dollhouse gone Firefly, edge of civilization struggle for survival. And the goal: get civilization back. DeWitt and Topher, making amends.

The Alpha / Echo / Ballard triangle was beautifully dealt with -- Alpha giving Echo THE hardest gift for him to give. And, as before, memory as imprint. Those that have passed becoming a part of who YOU are. Wonderful stuff.

Priya and Tony doing the happy families thang is nicely contrasted with Zone and Meg's split-up. But there's hope in the air. As Zone admits, it takes a while for him to process stuff. Maybe he'll be back. It's terrible lonely out there, particularly if you've been through hell.

But it's open ended, as every Mutant Enemy finale has always been. But it wraps up the series in fabulous style. You mos def leave the show with emotions bruised, the only thing you could ask for.

Dollhouse Episode 2.12

Some newts:

Yo Boyd! Wadup man? You gonna tell us wagwan with the last two seasons of this show? You know, when you were the nice guy, but no really you were the evil genius behind the whole thing? What was that all about, huh? You wanted a family? You wanted to cotch with the people you were planning to exploit? For TWO YEARS? Sounds pretty strange, doesn't it? Sounds like your character suddenly stopped making sense a little bit, no?

Yeah. At least on a first impression. But thinking about it for a spell, I'm starting to see what the show was trying to say with this contrived piece of idiocy. Boyd saw the implications of Rossum's research before anyone, and found Caroline body to be the only possible way out. But he didn't want to just save himself. He wanted a family: someone to care for as the world went to hell.

So he played Topher, DeWitt and Echo -- pushing them, changing them, giving them principles and the will to live (and die) by them. He kinda turns into Ballard squared: freeing loved ones only so that they serve his purposes. He is the ultimate patriarch, encouraging his children to excel whilst expecting complete loyalty from them. And if they don't return it... well then there's always force.

Which is why Boyd's end is so fitting. The tables are turned. He is robbed of all agency, and the people he has deceived and exploited give the orders. The children become the parents, and exact vengeance for their sins.

But all of this clever exegesis doesn't do away with the fact that my initial reaction to this episode is one of distressed bewilderment. Particularly as I had invested quite heavily in the Boyd-Saunders relationship, and to see their whole characters flipped was a bit of a downer. But more generally, as with the previous episode, the emotional and comedy beats were all strained and warped under the overriding pressure of PLOT and TWIST. There's cleverness there, but it gets crushed under breakneck nonsensical storytelling.

Then again, this is Dollhouse. Like, what's new? I guess the balance went too far the other way. I can be incredibly lenient about the show's nuts-and-bolts problems, if there were enough ideas to digest afterwards. With these past two episodes, I'm not feeling the clever so much as the confused.

A word on Ballard and Mellie. I THINK the idea was that Ballard had to become a doll before understanding that dolls can be complete human beings. Except that when he tells this to Mellie, she has been programmed to love him, which would suggest that she is NOT complete. EXCEPT except: she has been told this, fights it, and then gives into it. Is that agency enough? If we had doubts, then her suicide answers them. But again, as with all this Boyd stuff. Very clumsy.

Will the finale make things better? I hope so. Because right now season two does not look like it will surpass season one's achievements.

Dollhouse Episode 2.11

Some naturals:

Talk about PLOT. This one moved so quickly that the strain on plausibility became almost too much. Twists packed in like sardines. Topher and Bennett sorta had to fall in love in five minutes. Security Man materialized to deliver a warning and disappeared again. Saunders came in, had her heart broken, then totally switched. Boyd became a daddy, got shot, went away, came back, and then WHAT THA FUUUUUCK???

Didn't see that one coming!

Making the drama work in an episode with so many elements was always going to be tough. In this one, Topher really shone, doing awkward funny, awkward cute, completely broken down, resolute and selfless. In what felt like ten seconds. Ideally, you would have given the character (and the actor) more time for each phase. But under the very severe constrains he had to work under, I thought Toph did pretty well.

Not really digging the Ballard revelation. In "Epitaph One" the distance between him and Echo pointed to some interesting history between them. But no, Toph just scooped out his love for her and that's that. Bit of a letdown, really.

Similarly with Saunders. Her arc in "Echoes" was the show at its very finest. So to see her all loved up, all weepy, and then to find out that she had no agency AT ALL was a bit of a downer. A more interesting character was traded in for ohmystars THAT TWIST!

Caroline ain't ALL nice, which was a good little idea. The scene where she gets busted by Bennett displayed some fine work from Dushku. She seemed to be not only callous but TIRED of being callous. There was a faint air of dispiritedness both to her false friendliness and to her determination to bring down the evil corporation. You know what? Echo IS stronger.

Was that the point? Was that the plan all along? Here's to hoping the final two episodes make this switcharound make sense...

Dollhouse Episode 2.10

Some nodules:

Last post we talked about crazy. WE SPOKE TOO SOON. This one was straight-up mental in the best possible way. Things going bump in the night. IN YOUR HEAD.

Acclaimed comix artist John Cassaday (who worked on Whedon's Astonishing X-Men) is responsible for the direction, and if this was his first gig, props props props! The shootout, the giant snowcapped tree, the apocalypse. Everything looked gorgeous. And a generous helping thrills and scares. Perfect.

The obligatory Tony + Priya SO CUTE squeek over here. SQUEEK! ... and I'm done.

As for the ending, well this is what we've been waiting for! The leading figures in the Dollhouse becoming a TEAM. A family fighting alone against the world. This is where Buffy, Angel and Firefly STARTED from. This is what all Whedon products are ABOUT. And with this show, we had to wait TWO FREAKIN YEARS before we get there. That, in a nutshell, is why Dollhouse failed to engage the fans and the wider audience.

Great reveal and everything, but did DeWitt had to be so cruel to everyone beforehand? A bit storytelling > character, I feel...

But WHO CARES! We have definite Scoobies vs. Big Bad set up now. ONWARDS!

Dollhouse Episode 2.9

Some nibbles:

So many odd frames! It's like everything is slightly skewed! Simple, and very NOT radio-with-faces. Much appreciated.

Also, that shot of DeWitt in a drunken stupor... classic! And the oner that follows her into the Dollhouse's communal shower... slick. Props Mr. Director Man!

Then again, the final stand-off between Echo and the hive-mind soldiers was a tad silly-looking. But how would YOU shoot that scene, huh? That's the thing about this show. The stories are another degree of crazy. How do you translate them for television on the cheap? Ultimately, I'll put up with the silly if there's enough clever.

And the clever in this episode? Soldiers are dolls -- programmed machines. Individuality, meaning, purpose, is excess to requirements. But love breaks through all mind-washes. Awww!

Speaking of, Priya and Antony are just THE CUTEST!! I think I may have said that already... like ten billion times.

Ballard's on the bench, because dead. How long will that last, I wonder...

And DeWitt at the end, bathed in the blue of the electric chair, the whites of her eyes glistening. Inhuman. Even dolls she's programmed refuse to give her what she wants. Jealousy, resentment, loneliness, fear. She has no allies anymore. No family. And so... scary white glistening eyes.