TV Shows – Page 7 – JG Judgementally Comments…

And Introducing… Blakes 7

The seminal and highly influential 70’s / 80’s series, introduced.

What’s The Topic? Blakes 7

Blakes 7 (or is it Blake’s 7? No.) is a British science-fiction series that ran from 1978 until 1981 on the BBC. Although not especially well known in the U.S. and often lumped in with the pile of the many, many, many sci-fi series that got knocked out in the 70’s it is nevertheless one of the more influential and well worth exploring. Babylon 5, Deep Space Nine, Firefly and, especially, Farscape owe a huge debt to its serialized storytelling, dark edge and focus on character, as well as its extreme pessimism. It was created on the spur of the moment in a pitch meeting by TV writer Terry Nation – best known as the creator of Doctor Who’s Daleks back in 1963, but also an absurdly prolific TV writer on both sides of the Atlantic – who described it as “the Dirty Dozen in space”. From exceedingly modest beginnings it went on to critical acclaim but suffered from an absolutely miniscule budget which often couldn’t keep pace with the inventiveness of the concept or scripts.

Telefantasy – Ten Programmes Vital To An Understanding Of The Genre

Exploring science-fiction on the small screen, from its inception right up to the 21st century.

Introduction

Telefantasy (or television sci-fi, or sci-fi on television, or fantasy sci-fi, or any one of many monikers) is one of those terms that covers a wide range of programming and has been around from the mid-40’s in America. The first notable science fiction show was the marvelously-named children’s programme Captain Video And His Video Rangers, and in Britain sci-fi was launched in 1938 with an adaptation of Karel Capek’s almost indescribably influential R.U.R.

Tunnel

Korean sci-fi and some groundworks – a recipie for success!

What’s The Show? Tunnel

What’s It All About, JG? It’s a Korean series from 2017 about a detective who, while pursuing a murder suspect in 1986, is transported forward in time thirty years via the titular tunnel. Upon arrival he takes the place of another officer with the same name – Park Gwang-ho – and bluffs his way into his life. That Park Gwang-ho was also a police officer, so Our Hero gets partnered up – in the police sense – with Kim Seon-jae, a contemporary detective who’s investigating a serial killer whose modus operandi is the same as the one Gwang-ho was pursuing when he got caught up in all this. It’s a sort of reverse Life On Mars, in other words, with the detective going forward in time not back, a bit of culture-clash comedy, a genuinely compelling case at the core of the show, and a bunch of soap-opera antics to keep us amused while that main plot ticks away. Will Gwang-ho be able to catch the serial killer and return to the love of his life back in 1986?

The Equalizer

A revival of a revival of an original – can that possibly work?

What’s The Show? The Equalizer.

What’s It All About, JG? Well, back in the dim and distant days of the 80’s, when bubble perms were acceptable and day-glo was somehow alright to wear for a night on the town, Edward Woodward defended the lost and in-trouble of New York City who had no-one else to turn to. It was all exceedingly 80’s, with a moody synth theme tune, grubby locations and ice-cool Robert McCall as played deadpan-straight by Woodward. Then, in the dim and distant days of *checks date*, erm 2014, the series became a movie, starring ice-cool Denzel Washington as Robert McCall – in other words it was exactly the same. But wait! Now, in the dim but extremely present day of 2021, we have a third go-around, this time starring Queen Latifah, as ice… no wait, that’s not it. She’s exceedingly cool but the ice has gone this time out, instead playing Robyn McCall (no relation) as someone who’s driven to help people but is also balancing a family life at the same time. It is, in other words, every bit as 2021 as the original series was 80’s.

Kim’s Convenience

Can Canadians do sit-coms?

What’s The Show? Kim’s Convenience

What’s It All About, JG? It’s a Canadian sitcom about a Korean-Canadian immigrant family who run a convenience store in Toronto. It’s all very traditionally sitcom-y, with the patriarch of the family, Appa, running the titular store and family life revolving around it. That family life includes a n’er-do-well son trying to make things right after a spate of petty teenage crime led to a rift between him and his father, a loyal daughter trying to do the right thing by her family which trying to assert her independence, and Umma, the matriarch who, at least on the surface, feels more grounded yet can spin out just as easily as anyone else given the right circumstances. In other words, it’s a family sitcom. What that summary fails to do, though, is sum up how unutterably charming and delightful the show is. Which may be a bit of a spoiler for what’s coming up…

Wandavision

The MCU comes down to earth with its first Disney TV show.

What’s The Show? WandaVision

What’s It All About, JG? Following the events of Avengers: Endgame and the death of Vision, Wanda retreats into a world of comforting sitcoms, generated by her extraordinary power. This means that a “hex” has been placed over the town of Westview and its inhabitants become her puppets, while out in the real world agents of S.W.O.R.D. attempt to discover what’s going on with the weird red glowy thing that’s covering a town in New Jersey. Turns out Wanda is generating sitcom episodes every “week” in a different style, while Agnes – revealed as Agatha, replete with her own theme song – is trying to steal Wanda’s chaos magic, which means everything ends in different coloured fireballs being slung around.

Tales From The Loop

Under-appreciated excellence from Amazon Studios.

What’s The Show? Tales From The Loop

What’s It All About, JG? Good question. It is, technically, a science-fiction series which is based on the artwork of Simon Stålenhag, a Swedish artist who specialises in painting largely bucolic, slightly old-fashioned landscapes into which technology intrudes. It’s straightforward retro-futurism, in other words, and if a series of paintings sounds like an unlikely basis for a sci-fi show it nevertheless finds a way to work. Across eight episodes we encounter the inhabitants of Mercer, Ohio who live near “The Loop”, a hazily-defined piece of technology that allows the impossible to happen. The series explores the characters of the town in separate but overlapping stories, sometimes connecting with other characters or plots, sometimes not. The series is utterly uninterested in building either traditional arc-based narratives or technobabble science-y explanations for the events that occur, instead investing in its characters and what they go through as a result of events or occurrences caused by The Loop. If that all sounds odd – it is.

Tenet

What if Doctor Who but James Bond?

What’s The Movie? Tenet

What’s It All About, JG? It’s Doctor Who for people who don’t watch Doctor Who but who nevertheless quite like the idea of a two hour Doctor Who story but also James Bond. Basically – very basically – there’s a temporal Cold War going on, with the future attacking the past for comparatively nebulous but plot-necessary reasons. Our hero is The Protagonist, played with glowering intensity by John David Washington, who’s out to… erm, save the present I guess? Probably. Anyway, he finds out about Tenet, an organisation who are trying to stop the future and save humanity as it is now. He is aided in this quest by Neil (Robert Pattinson, continuing a long and surprising run of not sucking), someone who The Protagonist doesn’t know but who seems to know him. There’s also some Bond-type shenanigans with an Indian arms dealer who sometimes-helps-sometimes-not, and a Russian oligarch (a fruitily entertaining Kenneth Branagh as Andrei Sator) who can contact the future, and his wife, a standard-issue wife-kept-prisoner-in-a-gilded-cage routine that should be familiar to anyone who’s seen Thunderball. Sator is behind all of this and suffering from terminal cancer so, um, has decided to take the world down with him at a time of his choosing. Like you do. It all culminates in lots of running about the place, some fairly obscure temporal physics and a big rush to the end in order to prevent the movie’s McGuffin causing a loosely defined catastrophe.

The K2

Spy shenanigans meets.. well just about every genre under the sun in this excellent Korean drama

What’s The Show? The K2

What’s It All About, JG? It’s a one-season long Korean drama which posits the question “What if 24, but Dynasty?” Which is not, frankly, a question that gets asked often enough. Our hero is Kim Je-ja – played with slightly boyish enthusiasm by Choi Seung-hun – who is framed for the murder of a civilian in Iraq. Returning to Korea as a fugitive he accidentally catches Jang Se-joon, a predistential candidate, in flagrante with a mistress which through a series of what can only be called shenanigans, leads to him to work for Choi Yoo-jin, his wife. She’s hiding his illegitimate daughter, Go An-na, from the public eye as a means to control Jang- Se-joon and ensure her own elevation to First Lady. Kim agrees to work with her (under the codename K2) to take revenge on another presidential candidate, Park Kwan-soo, the real perpetrator of the Iraq murder for which he has been framed, while he slowly – sometimes very slowly – falls for An-na. Meanwhile Choi Yoo-jin’s younger brother, Choi Sung-won, is manoeuvring to take over the family business and treats the life and death situations as little more than a game for his own amusement. It’s a strange mix of espionage, family drama (the whole Dallas-esque sub-plot involving the protracted fight for the family business), conspiracy theories, techno-thriller, adventure serial, high-kicking action and romance all wrapped up in one show. Whatever else you can say about The K2 it certainly doesn’t lack for content.

Snowpiercer

Round and round and round they go, where they stop nobody… cares

What’s The Show? Snowpiercer

What’s It All About, JG? Based on the movie, based on the graphic novel, Snowpiercer tells the story of the last human survivors of an environmentally-devastated Earth who circle the globe in the titular Snowpiercer, a train of a thousand carriages. The train contains everything people need to survive but is riven with tensions, alliances, bigotry and shifting loyalties. It’s all a huge analogy for the class system, capitalism, systemic oppression and the way that human beings react when forced to come to terms with who they are. Sounds great, right? What a shame, then, that instead of that we get a bog-standard detective show where someone gets killed, someone has to investigate, turns out its some rich bitch who had a crush on her bodyguard or something and…. oh who cares.