Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Boxed sets
Perhaps I was a little economical with the truth in my comments about boxed sets on the 14th as we do in fact own one of the modern sort, to wit 'Games of Thrones' series 1, purchased for around £25 from Amazon (before VAT) or around £3 an hour - which I guess is quite a lot by cable TV standards although quite a little by DVD standards. There are booklets, one thoughtfully setting out the main characters in a family tree. There is also an aboriginal language, either real or invented, to add a bit of colour to the savages.
The purchase was intended to fill the gap in the ITV3 schedules left by the thinning out of the older detective drama, not being that keen on the younger detective drama, which we find a bit brash and loud. Also a tendency to do a Guardian on us when all we are looking for is some anodyne entertainment - ironically enough a tendency which I used to sniff at in the in-laws who used to go in for Morecombe & Wise for much the same reasons. We got our money's worth although we have about run out of puff about half way through the second time around.
Opening sequences very clever with someone having had a lot of fun with the computer graphics. But they do wear a bit thin after a while. Perhaps they ought to be tapered, starting at say 5 minutes and working down to 1 by the middle of the series. I grant that you do need something to set the mood and scene, but maybe not the full 5 minutes every time.
Staging good, slightly marred by a tendency to chuck in gobbets of sex (both regular and gay), bad language and violence where they are not really needed. Except, to our minds, to earn the 18 certificate needed to generate sales in the core target audience of young adults.
Story good, drawing lines from the geography and political affairs of both old England and further afield, and bowls long nicely, slightly marred by a tendency to chuck gobbets of political and social science into the most unlikely mouths. Chucking which played havoc with the characterisation. Gobbets which rather reminded me of Star Trek, which also used to go in for this sort of thing, at least in the series which was around when I was at London's lead establishment for the study of such matters, that is to say the London School of Economics. Regular weekend afternoon fare while one waited for the pubs to open.
Shaun of the Bean was an honourable exception to all this gobbeting, and as well as being honourable, he was also brave, loyal, decent, dumb and kind to dumb animals. The catches being that all these admirable qualities cloaked a past reeking of butchery in the course of stupid feudal feuds and that his best mate was a drunken, whoring oaf who enjoyed - and still enjoys, despite his advancing years - all this butchery for its own sake.
Is it more than a coincidence that in a not very large cast we have two pairs of what are effectively rather nasty single mothers (who also happen to be queens) with really nasty sons? Or that the most thoughtful member of the cast should be a dwarf? Does the Guardian have a seat on the advisory board?
The purchase was intended to fill the gap in the ITV3 schedules left by the thinning out of the older detective drama, not being that keen on the younger detective drama, which we find a bit brash and loud. Also a tendency to do a Guardian on us when all we are looking for is some anodyne entertainment - ironically enough a tendency which I used to sniff at in the in-laws who used to go in for Morecombe & Wise for much the same reasons. We got our money's worth although we have about run out of puff about half way through the second time around.
Opening sequences very clever with someone having had a lot of fun with the computer graphics. But they do wear a bit thin after a while. Perhaps they ought to be tapered, starting at say 5 minutes and working down to 1 by the middle of the series. I grant that you do need something to set the mood and scene, but maybe not the full 5 minutes every time.
Staging good, slightly marred by a tendency to chuck in gobbets of sex (both regular and gay), bad language and violence where they are not really needed. Except, to our minds, to earn the 18 certificate needed to generate sales in the core target audience of young adults.
Story good, drawing lines from the geography and political affairs of both old England and further afield, and bowls long nicely, slightly marred by a tendency to chuck gobbets of political and social science into the most unlikely mouths. Chucking which played havoc with the characterisation. Gobbets which rather reminded me of Star Trek, which also used to go in for this sort of thing, at least in the series which was around when I was at London's lead establishment for the study of such matters, that is to say the London School of Economics. Regular weekend afternoon fare while one waited for the pubs to open.
Shaun of the Bean was an honourable exception to all this gobbeting, and as well as being honourable, he was also brave, loyal, decent, dumb and kind to dumb animals. The catches being that all these admirable qualities cloaked a past reeking of butchery in the course of stupid feudal feuds and that his best mate was a drunken, whoring oaf who enjoyed - and still enjoys, despite his advancing years - all this butchery for its own sake.
Is it more than a coincidence that in a not very large cast we have two pairs of what are effectively rather nasty single mothers (who also happen to be queens) with really nasty sons? Or that the most thoughtful member of the cast should be a dwarf? Does the Guardian have a seat on the advisory board?
# posted by Jim @ 6:37 AM 
