måndag 22 december 2014

2014 – TV and book highlights

No, December is not a great blogging month, but when all else fails, you can usually rustle up an end-of year list of some sort. My wishes for the new year are more or less the same as in 2012, with the exception of the vain wish that Dan Stevens would stay put in Downton – that ship has sailed long ago. What then, in blog-related areas, has happened during the last year?

Author discovery of the year: Sally Beauman. Yes, this is middlebrow romance we’re talking about, but middlebrow romance with quality. After quite liking Rebecca’s Tale (though it was, as one would expect, too pro-Rebecca) I decided to give Destiny a go and was hooked. Since then I’ve worked my way through Beauman’s back catalogue, and am now looking forward to investing in her newest novel The Visitors, once it’s out in paperback. Let’s hope it has more in common with Destiny and Dark Angel than the over-gloomy Landscape of Love – and I would be grateful if no fictional children were harmed during the making of it.

Villain of the year:There’s still a dearth of new villains on the book front, but TV dramas seem finally to have twigged the importance of villains. Both Mr Selfridge and The Paradise topped up their cast list with new villains, and then there’s Morse’s hot envious colleague in Endeavour (hm – wonder where they got that idea from). But my prize goes to a villain from 2011 whom I haven’t caught up with until now – the delectable, devious politician Troels Höxenhaven in Borgen. Mr Lang – sorry Thackeray – in Mr Selfridge gets an honourable mention. This doesn’t mean I’m over Thomas, though.

Villainess of the year:No contest – it has to be Missy in Doctor Who. The series was in great form this year - more, please!

Costume drama of the year, not counting Downton:I have to take Downton out of the running, or it would win every year until it ends (my guess is series six will be the last, but I’m happy to be proved wrong as long as the characters are not stuck in a Bramwell-like limbo). Adaptations of classics seem to have gone quite out of fashion, regrettably. I’ve begun rewatching Little Dorrit recently, and was once again struck down with melancholy over the axing – many years ago – of the planned Andrew Davies adaptation of Dombey and Son. Nevertheless, the current trend of scripted-for TV costume dramas has its advantages. For one thing, they have a longer life-span, and you don’t know what will happen next. The Paradise has run its course, which is a shame considering what an improvement the second series was on the first, but Mr Selfridge will be with us again next year. And in spite of the trying Selfridge himself and the cool shop-girl Agnes who lacks Denise’s charm, Mr Selfridge continues to trounce The Paradise.

High-brow read of the year: Well, strictly speaking there may be only one high-brow read to choose from. I really must buckle down to some more Ambitious Book Projects next year. Anyway, The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst was a good read. It’s strange to think that largely thanks to a whole crop of not-really-into-chicks baddies, I not only cheerfully wade through guy-on-guy scenes which would have me reaching for my smelling salts ten years ago but positively ask for them – “come on, surely it’s time to give him one?” I’m telling you, villains build bridges.

Totally trashy beach read which you would never admit having read to your friends of the year: I had a surprisingly good time reading a 50-pence copy of Judith Krantz’s Lovers, and I suspect that it’s not her best novel by a long chalk. The characters don’t stay with you, but some of them talk a great deal of common sense. Krantz knows how to spin a yarn, and she’s no fool.

Apology of the year: OK, sorry about having sneered at Zola’s part in the Dreyfus case. He was right, and he was not simply in it to brandish his anti-establishment credentials. Read all about it in An Officer And A Spy by Robert Harris. This doesn’t mean I like Zola – on the whole, the pro-Dreyfusians including Harris’s hero Picquart could have been a more likeable lot. But they were indisputably fighting the good fight.

Comebacks of the year: Jeeves and Wooster made a successful and welcome return in Sebastian Faulks's homage to P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells. And then there's Bridget Jones's last hurrah, Mad About The Boy. Forget the sneering reviews: if you enjoyed thirtysomething Bridget's diaries, chances are you'll snigger over and sympathise with her fiftysomething self as well.  

torsdag 4 december 2014

Splendid sci-fi Scots

Fiddling while Rome burned comes to mind. In the middle of a national political crisis, I've spent my time watching Doctor Who series 8, three episodes per evening. Luckily, the DVD arrived just as I had run out of Downton episodes. Last night, when I'd finished watching the finale, I somewhat half-heartedly checked the news online and found out an extra election had been called. Well, what do you know.

I doubt a new election will bring much joy, but the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi, certainly did. I recently cheered on his Richelieu in The Musketeers: this time around, my feelings are more friendly approval than swooning villain-fangirliness. Which only goes to show how convincing Capaldi is as a) a hero b) an alien. Like Clara, his companion, you sense that cuddles are not on the menu, and their relationship developed interestingly in a quite new direction. Clara's boyfriend Danny, when he thinks he's cracked the whole mystery, exclaims:"You're an alien! And he's your space dad!" He's not as far wrong as all that.

For a comparatively new Who fan like me - I've watched and loved the whole new series from Christopher Eccleston onwards, but I still only have the slightest acquaintance with the old one - a Doctor-companion relationship without any hint of flirting makes a refreshing change. For the old hands, this is the rule rather than the exception, but the first companion I saw was Rose, whom the Doctor actually fell in love with. Then came Martha (one of my personal favourites among the companions), who fell in love with him. Then, it's true, came Donna ("I just need a mate" "Well, you're not mating with me, sunshine") - a very chaste friendship, but the Doc and she were still mistaken for a couple more than once. Then came Amy, who loved her boyfriend deeply, but still occasionally fancied the Doctor in his new Matt Smith guise. And then, finally, there was Clara, who did not seem completely averse to Doctor Smith's boyish charms either.

You see what I mean? Enough of the flirtatious Tardis bantering already. When her and the Doctor's relationship shifted, Clara had the chance to become something more than Amy make two. As usual, there is tension between the Doctor and the companion's boyfriend - who is an ex-soldier to boot, and a good counterweight to the Doctor's occasional hippie-ishness - but this time, the Doctor's disapproval is more that of a stern father-in-law than of a potential love rival. This doesn't mean he has to go entirely without flirting, however: to his own discomfort, he is thoroughly flirted with by the head villain, or rather villainess, of this series. She's called Missy, short for - on second thoughts, I'm not telling.

Missy, played with great relish by Michelle Gomez, is a treat. That she, like Capaldi, is Scottish adds an extra dimension to their scenes together - there's a bond here which the Doctor may deplore but never quite get rid of, and the accent highlights it. Also, I must admit that it was tremendous fun to watch a baddie with the safety catch entirely off. That's not how I usually like my villains, I know. Normally, I want them to have limits, rules and psychologically credible motives. Missy doesn't need any of that. She kan kill off a likeable bit-part player on a whim, and you're still up for more. I don't know if it's the fact that she's female (i.e. role model as opposed to villain object of pining affection), or if it's the whole alien thing. Anyhow, I hope we'll see more of her: I don't know how they'll explain it, but in Doctor Who, there's always a way.

The whole series eight was entirely satisfactory, without a single dud episode, though of course it was impossible to like them all equally. The connecting story arc, with mysterious glimpses of what looked like an afterlife, was more or less resolved in the finale, which was a mercy: in the Matt Smith era, we got story arcs spanning over several series, and very confusing it was too. Yes, the explanation of the afterlife scenario was a tad overcomplicated and not without plot holes, but I can live with that. Bring on the Christmas special (er, Santa Claus? OK, fine) and series nine. And let's hope the Doctor won't have to regenerate for a wee while yet.