Things to (cautiously) look forward to in 2024

I admit, there are few announcements of 2024 projects in the cultural consumption line that I'm unequivocally excited about. Somehow, I don't think we'll get any great adaptations of Victorian classics this year, and a new Downton doesn't seem to be on the cards either – though there is some hope for original costume dramas on a smaller scale. It seems to be a relatively meagre year for geekdom as well. There's only one Marvel movie slated for 2024 (Deadpool 3 – as I've not watched the previous two Deadpool movies I'm not that invested), and what's worse from my perspective, their planned Disney+ shows don't seem that interesting. They may be fun to watch, or they may not.

Star Wars doesn't appear to be bringing its A game to 2024 either (more on this below). Still, seeing as I've subscribed to eleventy-one streaming services I'm in no position to complain. I feel like a fashionista looking into her enormous wardrobe, wailing "I don't have a thing to wear". Maybe 2024 will be the year when I properly explore the content already available on my services and uncover some gems. Or I may be lazy and simply comfort-rewatch a lot of Downton and Once Upon A Time.

Anyway, I've managed to find a few things that I'll definitely watch and hopefully enjoy:

Doctor Who series fourteen/season one As I've ranted about in my review of the 2023 specials, how much I enjoy RTD's second era as Doctor Who showrunner is entirely dependent on how successfully he steers clear of politics. I've heard a worrying quote from Millie Gibson, who plays Ruby, saying that the forthcoming season will have "controversial" elements and is "what we need". The last thing I need is "controversial" Doctor Who if it takes the form of a showrunner, whose political judgement I don't trust, feeding me his opinions like cod-liver oil. But this might not be what Gibson meant at all. She and Ncuti Gatwa made a great duo in the Christmas special, and there are so many intriguing mysteries set up for this and coming seasons. The one who waits? The Toymaker's legions (I bet that piano-themed villain is one)? The Master's return? Mrs Flood's identity? Oh come on – this has got to be good, hasn't it?

Inside Out 2 Shock confession: I still haven't seen Disney's Wish. It wasn't in Swedish cinemas until the beginning of December, and I was travelling, then I had a cold, and then it was Christmas. By the new year, Wish had moved to the matinee slots, which are of little use to me. So I'll stream it in February or whenever it hits Disney+. Judging by the scathing reviews, it seems that in spite of Magnifico it's not one of the all-time Disney greats.

But at least it will give me some sort of Disney Animation fix this year; otherwise, they are offering nothing. I'm not counting a Mufasa prequel with dead-eyed CGI lions.

However, there is Pixar's Inside Out 2, which could be fun. I loved the original – it's one of my favourite Pixar films, perhaps even the favourite one (in hot contest with Ratatouille). I am a little concerned, though. The film will be tackling Riley's puberty, but among the new emotions introduced in trailers there's no mention of Desire or (which would admittedly be more child-friendly) Love. And in that case, haven't the film's creators kind of missed the point of puberty?

Belgravia: The Next Chapter I had to dive deeply in order to find this one (all right, a Google search on "period dramas 2024"), but apparently there is a sequel of sorts to Belgravia slated to appear in 2024. I say "of sorts" as we're fast-forwarding to the 1870s and a new generation of protagonists, but I'm all for it. The first series of Belgravia, an adaptation by Julian Fellowes of his own novel, was entertaining, if not in the Downton class. But I've stopped expecting the new Downton by now. Just give me a good, solid period drama without TV execs tying themselves in knots over the inequalities of history and I'll be happy.

Moonflower Murders As with Belgravia, my best bet for getting to watch this may actually be Swedish Television, not my aforementioned streaming services (buying the DVD is also an option, of course). It was Swedish Television that picked up the adaptation of Magpie Murders, to which Moonflower Murders is a kind of sequel. These crime novels by the ever-reliable Anthony Horowitz were both great reads, but I think I actually enjoyed the TV adaptation of Magpie Murders more than the book. Lesley Manville is older than I imagined Susan to be, but she has lots of style, and I loved her interactions with the fictional detective Atticus Pünd, played by the mellow-voiced Tim McMullan. In general, there were more connections between the murder Susan was looking into and the story-within-the-story than it was possible to convey in the novel, with actors playing both persons in a murdered detective writer's life and characters in his whodunnit. I'm hoping for more in the same vein.

The Bad Batch season three: Yep, I'm looking forward more to the third season of an animated Star Wars show than to either of the live action series that will (probably) be airing this year. This isn't too much of a slight as I enjoy animation a great deal, and the series has been surprisingly strong so far, considering the loveable clone protagonists are not overly complex characters (I perk up no end whenever the villainous Crosshair shows up). But it's still a bit of a slight. Of course I'll watch Skeleton Crew and The Acolyte, but... kids lost in space (admittedly with Jude Law), really? As for The Acolyte, the quote "This isn't about good or bad, it's about power and who's allowed to use it" doesn't sound very promising (see the first item on the list). Though it has to be said, I'm always there for trashing the Jedi.

Onward Who: Why I still look forward to the new Doctor Who era (in spite of the politics)

Well, I can't put it off any longer. It's time to review the first offerings of the new Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who, "RTD 2" as the fans refer to it. It's not a straightforward business for me. I was torn about the three 60th Anniversary specials that I'd been looking forward to so much. They weren't bad by any means – I thought Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker was great fun, as I knew I would – but they didn't quite live up to my, admittedly sky-high, expectations. They felt more like three solid episodes from series four of Doctor Who (with Tennant back as the Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna) than anniversary specials. I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but I think Chibnall did a better job of celebrating the show as a whole in The Power of the Doctor.

No prizes for guessing what my other major gripe against the specials was (mainly the first one). U-huh, that's right: politics.

I can at least take credit for having called it, to some extent. I knew we could expect some attempts at political commentary from Davies. The problem is that his judgement, when it comes to deciding how much of his own opinions it's OK to put in a show and how, seems to have got worse. The worst example of clumsy commentary was the way he botched the character of Rose – not the companion of the Ninth and Tenth Doctor, but Donna's trans daughter – in the first special "The Star Beast".

It started all right, with mother Donna's furious reaction to Rose's jeering classmates, and a conversation between Donna and her acerbic mum Sylvia about Rose which felt genuine and down-to-earth ("I just get so clumsy", Sylvia complains). I could have gone with this simple, no-nonsense message: This is Rose, Rose is nice, don't be mean to Rose. But then the jargon creeps in. Rose tuts when the Doctor "assumes 'he' as a pronoun" about an alien being; if the point had to be made, why couldn't she say something like "How do you know it's not a 'she'?". 

Then we learn that Rose has inherited a mind-melding condition linking her with the Doctor from her mother, which has resulted in her non-binary-ness as "the Doctor is male and female, and neither, and more". The lecture tour ends with Donna and Rose explaining that they can cure themselves of their condition by just "letting it go", something a "male-presenting Time Lord will never understand". I think most of the Doctor Who fandom collectively cringed at that line.

What bothers me so much about RTD's handling of Rose is his intention. That kind of speechifying isn't going to convince anyone who's still on the fence about trans issues, quite the reverse. Davies has done trans persons no favours. He's not even preaching to the choir, as even the choir seems to think it's a bit on the nose (and I gather the notion that Rose is only trans because her mum melded her mind with an alien has not met with universal approval). No, I can't help thinking that what Davies wanted to do here was purposefully annoy fans who've complained about the right-on-ness of the Chibnall era, along the lines of "They don't like woke? I'll give them woke!" Generally, putting something in a TV series just to annoy some viewers (maybe more than Davies had bargained for) doesn't make for good writing, and it's not good for the ratings either.

The "colour-blind" casting of Isaac Newton in "Wild Blue Yonder" seems to have been done in the same vein. Doctor Who has never resorted to this form of diversity-boosting before, as it has always (well, since 2005 anyway) had plenty of roles for actors of different ethnicities playing roles with the same ethnicity, which is surely preferable to "look, let's just pretend they're white"-casting. The charming Nathaniel Curtis was thus wasted in a cameo that will mostly just irritate people. In "The Giggle", as a contrast, we see Charlie (who happens to be black) enter a toyshop in London in 1925. The Toymaker, posing as a toyseller with a blatantly bogus German accent, remarks that Charlie must be "used to warmer climes". "I'm from Cheltenham", Charlie informs him stiffly. Better.

All in all, I liked "The Giggle" quite a lot. Commentary-wise, I think highlighting the wish to be always right as a 21-century vice is fair and cuts all sorts of ways. The dig at a faux-Boris PM was a bit cheap and also dated, but this is the kind of thing we saw in RTD's first run as Doctor Who showrunner as well. What with my tolerance already stretched by "male-presenting Time Lords" and the like, though, I would have preferred as little commentary as possible, and more focus on the game-playing between the Toymaker and the Doctor (the games they do play are disappointingly simple).

And then came the Christmas special with Ncuti Gatwa as the new, Fifteenth Doctor. And I loved it.

Not because of the goblins, honest. One could suspect that I'd be onboard with almost anything as long as you put goblins in it, but as adversaries go I have to admit they were a bit silly (their song was really catchy, though). But this was just a fun adventure and a promising set-up for Gatwa's Doctor and his new companion, Millie Gibson's Ruby Sunday. I can't have been the only one to complain, when the casting was first announced, that it was uninspired to give us yet another pretty English girl from present-day Earth as a Doctor companion, but Gibson won me over. Her Ruby has great matey chemistry with Gatwa's Doctor and just rolls with the improbable scenarios she finds herself in instead of wasting time questioning reality and her sanity. Goblins exist? OK. Best save that baby from being eaten, then.

I also enjoyed Gatwa's Doctor; I liked him well enough in "The Giggle", but wasn't altogether convinced yet that he hit the right Doctor-y notes. Here, he nailed both the enthusiasm, the wish to know more about everything and the serious, heartfelt moments.

Davies is back, and can write up a storm when he wants to. Murray Gold is back, and his music is excellent throughout. Gatwa and Gibson have both made a great first impression. Of course I'm still onboard for series fourteen, or season one as it will be called on Disney +. Let's just hope I can stomach the political bits.

Fuzzy feelgood fare for anglophiles

Looking for an unambitious subject for a pre-travel, pre-Christmas blog post, I decided to pick one of those "I really should give that a watch some day" films from one of my streaming services, watch it and then write something about it. There were a few options: underperforming, gritty versions of the Robin Hood and King Arthur legends respectively (theme: is grittiness really a good idea here?); a soupy Netflix Christmas romcom (theme: soupy Netflix Christmas romcoms); or the first Paddington film (theme: ideal for anglophiles?). Somehow, I ended up plumping for Paddington.

The story is simple. The titular cute bear makes his way to London from Darkest Peru after the death of his uncle (his aunt holes up in a retirement home for bears, which mercifully does exist and isn't a fib just to get her nephew to seize his chance). Years earlier, before the young bear was born, his aunt and uncle – who belong to an unusually intelligent type of bear – ran into and bonded with an explorer from England, which is why the aunt fondly imagines that a home can be found there. 

The young bear finds London a lot less welcoming than he thought, but manages to get a room for the night with the Brown family, who give him the name Paddington after the station where he was found. Paddington, though well-spoken, is accident-prone, and Mr Brown is adamant that he can't stay, so Paddington tries to find the explorer who once visited his family and make a home with him. Mrs Brown is Paddington's kind-hearted champion, he eventually bonds with the children, and well, you can guess the rest.

The first half-hour or so, I wondered if I had made the wrong choice. Of course this is a children's film, but the plot is very standard nevertheless. Also, there's a lot of slapstick, something I didn't really care for even as a kid (at least not in live action), and even less now as a fuddy-duddy adult. When Paddington uses two of the family's toothbrushes to clean his ears, before flooding the bathroom, I shuddered and wished I had gone for the Christmas romcom instead.

What's not simply standard, though, is the script. From the start, a quirky humour shines through, like when the explorer names one of the bears after his beloved mother – and the other after a boxer he met in a bar. There are a lot of nice details like that. Another early example is when the competitively minded daughter learns Chinese and one of the stock phrases is: "I'm accused of insider trading. I need a lawyer". 

The visual style is also very attractive: like the film as a whole, it aims for whimsical charm and succeeds. The doll's house in the Browns' attic becomes an overview of their house as Paddington writes about them to his aunt; later, the camera swoops in on the toy train of antiques dealer Mr Gruber and shows a scene from his childhood when, as one of the children of the Kindertransport, he was met in England by a stiff female relative. "My body had travelled fast", sighs Gruber, played by kindly-eccentric-man expert Jim Broadbent, "my heart took a little longer". It was about at this point in the film that I decided I enjoyed it after all.

This scene is an example of two other of the film's virtues: that it's stuffed to the gills with solid acting talent, and that it can be heartfelt when it needs to be. But it's the wit and the inventive takes on classic comic set pieces I enjoyed the most. Two bored security guards while away the time by guessing the content description of their packet of biscuits, taking a genuine interest in the amount of sugar and other ingredients. Mr Brown, disguised as a cleaning lady, catches the fancy of a guard – so far, so familiar. But then the situation gets increasingly surreal as Mr Brown tries to explain the discrepancies between himself and the cleaning lady's photo id (she clearly looks like a real menace).

Hugh Bonneville is a reliable comic foil to Paddington as Mr Brown and Sally Hawkins a charming Mrs Brown, but it's often the side characters who steal the show rather than the Brown family or even cute Ben Whishaw-voiced Paddington himself. I'll certainly check out Paddington 2 at leisure, but with an awareness that I need to get in touch with my inner twelve-year-old in order to truly appreciate it.

Half-way through The Gilded Age season two: many Chekhovian guns not fired

When it comes to TV, I'm in a funny situation from a blog perspective. It's not that there aren't a lot of shows on that I'm interested in; it's just that we're in the middle of them, and I'd prefer to finish them before giving an opinion. The jury's still out on both The Crown season six and the Doctor Who specials (of which only one has aired so far) for different reasons. I'm still not sure what I think of The Crown, and am hoping the six remaining episodes will help me make up my mind. As for Doctor Who, if I review "The Star Beast" now, I risk overemphasising my complaints and forgetting about the good stuff, which includes the wonder of being able to watch the show on telly, at the same time as the UK. I'm hoping the remaining two specials will blow me away and make me more thankful.

So a mid-season report of The Gilded Age it is. Not that I'm certain of what my final verdict will be here either. I can only say so far, so good; however, it's still not a patch on Downton.

This is starting to be a problem, as it's the second season, and we should be past the awkwardness of the show setting out its stall. I think the second season of Downton was my favourite one, in spite of it being set during World War I (I'm not too fond of the World Wars as period-drama settings). So why is The Gilded Age, in spite of being entertaining and the best costume drama we've had in a while, not able to hit the same heights?

From a plot perspective, the show is suffering somewhat from late-Downtonitis. Remember how, in the later series of Downton, some storylines were spun out way too long because they constituted certain characters' "arc" for that particular series? The Green murder investigation comes to mind, as does Thomas (uncharacteristically, in my view) trying to medicate himself straight. (That last one didn't take the whole series, but it felt like it.) There's quite a lot of that sort of plotting in The Gilded Age. Mrs Russell is getting involved in the New York "opera wars". Mr Russell is facing strikes and disgruntled workers. Marian is being mildly courted by an eligible widower. And this, it seems, is what they will be doing all season.

These storylines are left simmering, with a desultory mention here and there, without ever really coming to the boil. I can better face the romances moving slowly than, say, the opera plot, which isn't very thrilling to begin with. But I'd prefer a faster pace all round, where the same character could be involved in more than one major occurrence per season. Just look at how comparatively action-packed Downton series two, episode two was. Both Edith and Thomas loved and lost during the episode, and that was far from all that was going on. Afterwards, Fellowes found new things for them to do. No need to dwell on love interests that aren't going to lead anywhere.

A reason for the drawn-out plot threads is, I suspect, that the show has too many characters to juggle. We have the Brook/Van Rhijn household, the Russell household, and Peggy and her parents. It's a lot, especially as both the Russells and Agnes Van Rhijn keep an impressive number of servants. The result is that many of the characters are still pretty sketchy, and I have a problem even remembering their names. You can see that it would be quite a challenge to furnish them with more than one seasonal story arc per head.

Another problem is that two of the characters that get the most screen time – Bertha Russell and Agnes Van Rhijn – are so hard to feel anything for. I still don't understand what's behind Bertha's social ambitions, and I would much rather get some real insight into Agnes's psyche than hear any more of her Dowager Countess-isms. Last season she was at least a good employer to Peggy, but this season she's just stuffy and awful, apparently without reason. We need some introspective scenes with these ladies fast, or we'll never know why their sister and husband respectively bother with them.

Having said that, other characters and plot lines are more of a success. George Russell is still a cynical delight. Ada Brook is lovely, and I found her autumnal love affair so engaging I basically spent one episode holding my breath fearing that Agnes would spoil it. I'm intrigued to see what happens with disgraced businessman-turned-valet Watson, and how Peggy will disentangle herself from her budding romance with a married man. I can watch Oscar fortune-hunting unsuspecting (or maybe not) heiresses all day. And while the servants of both households haven't had a lot of juicy drama coming their way so far, I do like them and hope that better things will be waiting just around the corner.

I also sort of admire Fellowes's disregard for the "Chekhov's gun" principle, which – sorry, Chekhov – I find to be an overrated piece of storytelling advice. How predictable wouldn't stories be if a gun introduced in act one were always to be fired in act three? Fellowes doesn't scruple to introduce a lot of false trails, as he did in Downton. Oscar's ex-lover simply gave up wooing Gladys Russell out of spite. Peggy's child died, so she won't be hunting for him the whole season. Her visit to the South might, after the foreshadowing of her worried mother's warnings, end up with her witnessing the lynching of one of the bright young people she has optimistically interviewed. Or it might not. Julian Fellowes keeps us on our toes and makes life difficult for people like me who enjoy making predictions.

The latest episode, where Fellowes actually lets a momentous change take place for one of the main characters mid-season, leaves me to hope that the drama will soon pick up the pace. Meanwhile, it is still an enjoyable stroll.

Villain redemption and free will: of course I like Loki season two!

Oh joy, Loki stuck the landing! While I'm not quite as invested in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as in, say, Star Wars – I'm fairly new to it after all – it's always a relief nowadays when an MCU project does well and wins the approval of its far from uncritical fanbase. Not to mention that it's great to be able to enjoy the project in question myself without too many quibbles coming in the way.

On balance, I think I liked season two of Loki even more than season one. I had a good time with season one, but I was still adjusting to the fact that Loki wasn't really able to flex his villainous muscles in his own TV series. Also, the over-complicated set-up of the series bothered me, and I wasn't completely won over either by Loki's love interest and alter ego Sylvie or the TVA setting. In season two, we have the set-up out of the way, and though a lot of the storytelling is still labyrinthine, its complications are more enjoyable.

Now we have Loki's whole character arc, it makes more sense to me and increases my appreciation of season one as well. What we saw in season one was Loki's change from a villain to an anti-hero. What we see in season two is his change from an anti-hero to a hero.

Whoa, you might say. Isn't the whole point of Loki that he's a villain? When the shady TVA Hunter X-05 tells him: "Stop trying to be a hero, man! You're a villain. You're good at it. Do that", I for one thought he had a point. However, when push comes to shove, I'm a sucker for a good villain-redemption story, if only it's done right. Loki, ultimately, pulled it off.

I was irritated in season one by the apparent attempt to cram several films' worth of character development into one episode, as Loki was treated to a whistle-stop tour of how the rest of his life would have played out if he hadn't diverged from the "sacred timeline". But I can live with it now as this was only the start of his long and bumpy road to redemption. He made friends with Mobius, but it didn't end there. He fell in love with Sylvie, but it didn't end there. He realised he cared more about her than about ultimate power, but it didn't end there. Season two started with him working apparently selflessly to save the TVA and potentially all of existence, but we still weren't done with the character development stuff.

While the first episodes of season two reminded me of Doctor Who with its time-jumping quirkiness – the lovable engineer and overall fixer Ouroboros (O.B. for short) is in many ways a typical Doctor Who character – the final episode gave me Once Upon A Time vibes, and from me you can't expect higher praise than that. If you'd explain the plot to an old Viking, you'd get the same head-scratching response as if you'd explain the gist of Once to the Brothers Grimm: "Excuse me, who did you say saved the day again?" 

Loki made his final sacrifice in exactly the right way for a redeemed villain: not proudly or self-righteously as a hero might, but resignedly, after having tried everything else. He had a personal stake, rather than acting for an abstract Good of All Mankind. At the same time, he wanted to save not just Sylvie, but a whole group of friends. In the villain-redemption game, sacrificing yourself for a family member or love interest is all fine and good, but sacrificing yourself for someone you don't have to care for yet still do hits harder.

As a Scandinavian, I appreciated the nod towards mythological Loki too. MCU Loki's fate was a great deal less grim – it's not as if he ended tied up in his son's guts with poison dripping on his head, like his wicked inspiration. Nevertheless, he is stuck, and the day he becomes unstuck the world supposedly faces its Ragnarök. Very neat.

Of course, I had some quibbles too. Making Loki so overpowered adds to the ongoing confusion about MCU "gods": I mean, I like the guy, but a Messiah he ain't. Season two dropped the ball badly when it came to the relationship between Loki and Sylvie. Not only is there no discernible romantic chemistry between them any more: she seems angry with him for some reason, though she was the one who betrayed him at the end of season one, a betrayal he never confronts her about. Still Sylvie serves a function as the uncompromising advocate of free will, and I can't but applaud that her outlook won out in the end. The Multiverse may have turned out to be tricky to integrate into good storytelling, but I'm happy that it's still around.

Regicides on the run

"I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did [...] Still, I like Charles – I respect him – I pity him, poor murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!"

Thus Helen Burns in Jane Eyre. When it comes to Charles I of England, I have been raised in the Helen Burns school of thought, and have had little cause to doubt it. It does seem as if poor Charles's main crime was losing the Civil War, which was no reason for the victors to lop his head off. He can't very well be expected to be in favour of deposing himself. 

At the same time, I have sometimes wondered if I'm being a hypocrite. I don't object to the lopping off of a monarch's head in principle, after all, if he is actually guilty of a crime. I have zero problems with the execution of Louis XVI of France approximately 150 years later (because he committed treason – me fancying one of the regicides has nothing to do with it). Which raises the question: could any case be made for Charles I having committed treason? What did treason (in political terms) even mean in the 17th century? When did the meaning shift from "treason against your ruler" to "treason against your country and your people"?

So it was with some interest I learned that Robert Harris's (him again? I'm afraid so) historical novel Act of Oblivion would be dealing with the escape of two of Charles's killers, and the attempts made during the Restoration to track them down and despatch them in their turn. Maybe this was a chance to learn more about the rationale behind the decision to execute the king?

It turns out the book has little to say about this particular question for a good two thirds of its respectable length. It's still a gripping read, though, for the most part anyway. There is built-in tension in a man hunt, and the based-on-fact circumstances of this one are exciting enough. The two regicides in question, both willing signees of Charles I's death warrant, are Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law William Goffe, aka Ned and Will. They escape all the way to America, and as they start to build a modest life there you'd think they'd be pretty safe. Turns out they're not.

The significance of the North American colonies still being under English rule slowly dawns on the reader. The Governor of Massachusetts may be a Roundhead through and through: in the end, when faced with a direct order from the King, he must obey it or face consequences for the whole colony. And so the fugitives move from one safe-seeming hideout to another, doggedly pursued by Royalists. It's thrilling stuff, as soon as the chase is on, especially if like me you have no idea of how it's going to end.

But there is one slight problem for a Helen Burnsian like myself. It is somehow natural to root for men who are being hunted, and the two regicides are quite likeable, so yes, I was rather hoping they wouldn't get caught. At the same time, they're not a pair of Jean Valjeans. They did kill the king, and though Ned eventually comes to question the decision (I suspect it's Harris who's doing most of the questioning on his behalf; it would surprise me if the real Edward Whalley had many qualms), the doubt is a long time coming. Will never has any doubts at all. So they will just have to face up to the consequences, won't they? They can't be surprised that Charles II isn't prepared to forgive his pa's killers just like that. What did they think would happen?

At  the same time, the fictional leader of the man hunt against them, Richard Nayler, is hard to have much sympathy for. At first I wasn't sure that Nayler being a bit of a pill was intentional. After all, I have found more than one of Harris's heroes to be pills. As the story progresses, though, it becomes pretty clear that Nayler's the bad guy. Harris does give him a strong, albeit contrived, motive for wanting to – well – nail Whalley and Goffe (Cromwell's infamous banning of worship on Christmas Day comes into it), and he's not beyond reason. He's not too thrilled about digging up and executing already dead regicides, for instance (Cromwell and two others). Nevertheless, enough should be enough. I'm not sure the personal motive was such a good idea on Harris's part, either; it would have been more interesting if Nayler had been carried by Royalist convictions alone.

The novel, as one expects from Harris, is well and vividly written, and he writes skilfully about the "down times" in the hunt as well. But the book is a little on the long side for my liking, and some of the hiding-out descriptions could possibly have been cut to tighten it up. I was torn about Whalley writing his memoirs while hiding: it did give me some of the background for the decision to execute Charles I that I was initially looking for, but at the same time it slowed down the narrative. 

Also, while I applaud Harris's attempts to get into the religious mind sets of his protagonists – otherwise, it's a common fault in modern historical novels that the characters lose their faith far too easily, so the author doesn't have to deal with a piety they don't understand – I didn't always find it convincing. Better that, though, than Nayler's increasing atheism, which doesn't make much sense seeing as he is so outraged by the very idea of beheading a King. (Why is that so terrible if the King isn't God's anointed? Nayler doesn't seem to have had any personal relationship to Charles.) All in all, Harris has a better hand with the historical figures than the fictional one, though it's clear he prefers Ned to Will.

This isn't my favourite historical novel by Harris, but it's still good; I've found myself missing the New England atmosphere after having finished the book. It's no mean feat to make me sympathise with two Puritan regicides, while at the same time remaining convinced that I would have hated living in Oliver Cromwell's England.

Ahsoka: Enjoyable viewing for Star Wars nerds (not sure about the rest)

So, yeah, I liked Ahsoka. But be warned, I'm not exactly the most critical of Star Wars fans. Hey, I even liked Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I've come to realise that when it comes to Star Wars shows, I'm a complete pushover. You can put anything in front of me TV-wise and I'll gulp it down, as long as it's linked to the good old galaxy far, far away. The same pretty much goes for the movies, with Solo being a possible exception (and I do think that Rogue One has been over-hyped in the wake of Andor). It's a bit troubling to be so undiscerning – Star Wars is, after all, only my second favourite sci-fi franchise after Doctor Who – but at least I have fun. 

I do, however, completely understand if true Star Wars fans – the fine diners to my burger gobbler – tend to be less easy to win over. Overall, I have the impression that they had a good time with Ahsoka, but were disappointed that the series didn't deliver more on the promising scenarios it set up (a feeling I as a die-hard Once Upon A Time fan can relate to). As in Once, it's a question of letting go of all the cool concepts that were never properly explored and instead trying to appreciate the things we actually got.

However, what the average Star Wars movie viewer makes of this show, I have absolutely no idea.

This bothered me. The franchise isn't in such a great shape that it can risk alienating "casual" fans – if by "casual" you mean fans who have watched all three trilogies of the Skywalker saga, plus Rogue One and Solo too. Because you can do all that, and still not have the faintest idea who Ahsoka is.

The Ahsoka mini-series prominently features characters from the two animated shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels but, unlike characters like Bo-Katan in The Mandalorian, they're not properly re-introduced, in a way as to give you a good grasp of them even if you haven't watched the animated stuff. I got the strong feeling that we're already supposed to know the story of Sabine Wren, Ezra Bridger, Hera Syndulla, Grand Admiral Thrawn and – last but not least – Ahsoka herself when going into Ahsoka. And I did, so there was no problem for me. But Clone Wars and Rebels shouldn't be required viewing for a live-action series such as this one. It should be able to function independently, and ideally make its characters so interesting that viewers will be curious to learn more about them in the animated shows.

Even if you knew everything Clone Wars and Rebels could teach you about the characters, though, character development wasn't this show's strong suit, and in this it reflects a common gripe with me when it comes to Star Wars content: the reluctance to explore relationships. The franchise's large male fanbase may be a factor here. Guys are rightly or wrongly supposed not to be interested in too much relationship-focused drama, especially if the relationships in question are of a romantic nature (and admittedly, the most disdainful dismissals of "shipping" do tend to come from male commentators). 

Whatever the reason, we get a couple of surrogate parent-child relationships and some pat-each-other-on-the-back camaraderie in Star Wars, but otherwise attachments are avoided in a way that would make any member of the Jedi Council proud. It's a wonder that anyone besides Anakin and Padmé and Han and Leia procreates at all. 

In Ahsoka, the exact nature of Sabine's feelings for Ezra – for whose sake she makes a momentous and un-Jedi-like decision (I'm all for it) – is never fully explained. But even putting romance aside, we don't get a clear idea of what the characters actually think of each other. What's the deal with Ahsoka and Sabine? Or with Morgan Elsbeth and Grand Admiral Thrawn? Or with Baylan Skoll, a fallen Jedi looking for a new creed to follow beyond the Jedi and the Sith, and his power-hungry apprentice Shin Hati? I want to know!

What the series does have, though, is plenty of atmosphere, some heartwarming nostalgia, a fun droid voiced by David Tennant and potential to develop further if there's a series two. Ray Stevenson, who played arguably the most interesting character (Baylan), tragically passed away after the series was completed, but hopefully there's still room to explore his quest (recasting, maybe? It will be tough as Stevenson was seriously good). Then there's Shin, dubbed "Shin Hottie" by the fans, who's a far more fun bad-girl Force wielder than the aggrieved Reva in Obi-Wan Kenobi. I wouldn't mind seeing more battles between her and Ahsoka and Sabine, and maybe even a temporary, easily fractured team-up.

I'm still not convinced by Grand Admiral Thrawn as the next Big Bad in Star Wars, though. I'm sure he was great in the books the serious fans keep referring to, but here as in Rebels, he leans far to heavily into the "Ah, just as I anticipated" kind of villainy. But I appreciate Lars Mikkelsen as an actor, and there's still time to make the blue guy work for me.