Revisiting Old Marvel Films (Part 5 and probably final)

So it came to pass that someone I know said, "We watched X-Men: First Class and Days of Future Past the other day and they're really good films." ... Disbelieving this nonsense statement, I suggested to the wife that we watch them again. So for the last two nights, while Wimbledon buggers up our viewing schedule, we revisited the world of mutants for what will probably be the final time (or at least until the MCU revives them or we accidentally watch Age of Apocalypse...).

X-Men: First Class is a typical Matthew Bourne film. Like Guy Ritchie films of the Noughties, Bourne films have a kind of motif and he usually has Jane Goldman along in some capacity. The first thing you notice about it is it doesn't really feel like any previous Fox X-Men film. It's obviously a prequel to the first three, but it also feels quite fresh. I think it also features the very first 'fuck' in a Marvel superhero film (but I could be wrong about that) in a humorous Wolverine cameo.

The problem with First Class is its inconsistency; it jerks around from being a recruitment film, a spy thriller and a scene setter for what was to come while also ensuring that what had already happened in the future (the three X-Men films) would seem slightly wonky, but no one anywhere wants to try and untangle the mire that the X continuity in films ended up being.

James McAvoy is great as a flamboyant and dashing young Charles Xavier; Jennifer Lawrence (still not quite A list celeb) is a sexy Mystique and Michael Fassbinder is okay as Magneto and the three make a good team to start with, but Eric's ego and megalomania seems to forever get in the way of a reasonable character and things start going to the way of the pear around the time Magneto decides that the man he's been trying to kill for the last 20 years actually had an agenda he believed in.

Kevin Bacon isn't a very good Sebastian Shaw - in the same way Guy Pierce didn't make a great villain in Iron Man 3 - and the transformation from concentration camp scientist to fully-fledged, extremely powerful mutant is never explained or explored; presumably Shaw was a mutant back when he was a Nazi and German, but as one of the earlier X films featured people being turned into mutants it was difficult to differentiate. In fact, his Hellfire Club team of proto-evil-mutants were in general a bit lame and like earlier versions of later mutants and at times it did feel like we were in for a repeat of the lo-quality special effects we suffered in the very first X-Men film.

However, the pace of the film far outweighed the one that came over a decade before, even if Shaw was just the first 'Magneto' in his recruitment drive of 'evil' mutants and there was a degree of the formulaic about all of it. The premise that the CIA would allow mutants to be part of their organisation as quickly as it was portrayed seemed... convenient... and oddly enough the forces of the USA and USSR turning against the mutants that had just averted WW3 seemed trite and... convenient.

It was an enjoyable film and we both felt that while we remembered chunks of it, we'd forgotten enough for it to feel fresh and new again. The special effects were impressive, even if you do feel as though the majority of the major mutants don't transfer their powers well to the screen. Xavier holds two fingers to his temple and reads minds; Lensherr holds his hands out in front of him and manipulates metal and the mutants chosen to be the proto-X-Men and Brother of Evil Mutants (a name that really needs to be made obsolete) were visually stunning, but quite naff at the same time, if you know what I mean. In the end the Cuban missile crisis is averted by mutants but with catastrophic consequences for the two main protagonists. 

As a prequel and a reboot it worked incredibly well, except at the time (2011) I'm not sure what people thought it actually was and whether it would make much sense in the scheme of things. It was what followed that made things slightly confusing...

X-Men: Days of Future Past is one of those films. What do I mean by that? You know, those films you think you've seen but very quickly you're wondering if your mind's been wiped. From the opening scene to the mini post credit scene it was a new film to us, because, we think it was a new film to us. Films we've seen but forgotten often throw up scenes or something that ticks the box, pulls the lever and you go, 'Oh yeah, I remember now' or you simply remember a scene and then a few later and realise that the first time you watched it there was little impression left. This was different. This was inexplicably the first time we've watched it.

How something as remarkable as us having missed the 5th film in a 7 film franchise could have happened is something I expect won't be explained too easily, but while the wife had a faint recollection of the scene with proto-Quicksilver, she admits that might have been from a trailer or a film review, because the rest of it and there were many memorable scenes you couldn't imagine forgetting. But, whether we'd seen it or not was immaterial, apart from the fact I kind of wish I'd seen it before because we both reckon it was the best X-Men film of the lot. Top cast, easy to follow only slightly complicated/convoluted story, and an epilogue that effectively ended the franchise (and allowed them to start again). It would have been a great place to have stopped and had they stopped we wouldn't have had to suffer the talentless Sophie Turner as junior Jean Grey.

Now, another reason why we realised we hadn't seen it was the previous night we were hypothesising about the MCU's take on the X-Men and mutants and I said, "I'd hope that the sentinels will finally get an airing; they've been ignored by the films and they're by far the biggest threat." This is an important throwaway line.

Days of Future Past starts in the future and we're back with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, Huge Ackman, Halle Berry, and some new mutants fighting ... sentinels, giant adaptable robots that learn the abilities of the mutant they are attempting to kill, adapt them and then use them against their prey. Sentinels have always been beatable, but they've always carried that cold emotionless vibe that the best villains often have.

There's a host of A list celebs involved in this 5th film in the franchise, original director Bryan Singer is back, it's a time travel film and it felt like fun from almost the word go. It starts with Wolverine from the future travelling back in time to inhabit his own body in 1973 and then tracking down Eric and Xavier to get them to help him stop Mystique from assassinating a man whose death will result in the near extinction of all mutants and their sympathisers in the not too distant future - approx next year or thereabouts.

My main quibbles with it were the (here's that word again) convenient plot devices that felt forced, like horror films where there's no mobile signal or no one has a mobile phone with them; in this case effectively writing off 10 of the 11 years that followed the Cuban Missile Crisis. Charles, no longer crippled, is strung out on a serum that takes his telepathy away and replaces it with the ability to walk (?!?) but now has no school for gifted youngsters - because of Viet Nam. Eric's apparent involvement with the killing of JFK and subsequent 10 years in high security metal-less incarceration and - Raven - Mystique's conversion from reasonably sane mutant to the wrong side of a wronged Magneto barking, other than that it's a cracking film that rocks along like a express train and does a really good job of flicking back and forth between the future and the past and bringing even more A listers into the film.

The scenes in the future are suitably dark, brooding and apocalyptic. The sentinels are impressive and these largely unstoppable killing machines make very final foes. There's a Terminator vibe going on and a small liberty with Kitty Pryde and an additional power - to transfer the consciousness into the same body in the far flung past and only Logan - Wolverine - has the physiology to withstand such stress so it's up to him, in his 1973 body, to track down all the necessary players and ensure that Mystique doesn't kill the man whose death leads to the future we're witnessing.

What follows is a slightly kooky caper involving prison breaks, flying sports stadiums, some extremely funny lines and the Nixon administration being led down a destructive path by Tyrian Lannister. There's much more than that, it is absolutely jam-packed with killer moments; it's a cleverly constructed story with a satisfying ending. It's the perfect place to stop. 

Why didn't they stop!?

I'm sure had I seen this film I wouldn't have had such major problems/reservations with how the MCU will handle mutants and been so down on all of them - there are at least two X films that are worth watching and I've never felt X-Men: Last Stand was as bad as many people said; as I pointed out many months ago, I enjoyed that more than the more critically acclaimed prequels. 

Days of Future Past isn't the comic of the same name, but it does do an excellent job of recreating the Claremont/Byrne swan song without there being much similarity.

Album Review - Porcupine Tree: Closure/Continuation

Has it been 10 years, or maybe even more? 

I got into Porcupine Tree just as they were metamorphosing into something I wasn't that keen on. But that was okay, I had this huge back catalogue of stuff to keep me going and even if their last couple of albums struggled to produce one decent album's worth of stuff, it was still a huge wrench to discover they were packing it in and L'il Stevie was going off to be a solo star. If nothing else, watching them live always produced at least 50% of old gold and they often played songs you wouldn't expect to hear at a live concert - such as Half Light; an outtake that didn't make the final cut of Deadwing but is probably my favourite song by them, ever. 

Over the last ten years, Wilson has been banging around the music biz like a lost volleyball on steroids, producing increasingly left field 'pop' albums, in what is either a two-fingered salute to all his fans or an admission that like all aging prog rockers he has to see if he can do other genres. In fact the last Wilson album feels a little like ELP's Love Beach; which is a strange comparison as I've never heard anything from that infamous album mainly because of it's name and album cover. The half a dozen ELP fans I know all have said it shouldn't exist and that's how I feel about Steve's last solo project...

But, this is the thing. I've loved loads of artists throughout my life and a perfect example would be Kate Bush, currently having a banging renaissance. Everything she did from The Kick Inside to The Sensual World was brilliant, but the Red Shoes wasn't very good at all and actually feels like the least timeless Bush album. While her 21st century efforts are in my possession, I don't listen to them; there's nothing on Aerial that I'd rather listen to than giving Hounds of Love another spin. Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson are no different and they fall into the same category as Genesis, Yes and even something like Echo and the Bunnymen - there will always be albums I play to death and others that are unlikely to be played ever again.

So imagine my surprise to find Closure/Continuation both accessible and quite enjoyable... Yet this might be because of a strange 'coincidence'... The first PT album I actually got into was Recordings - a 'compilation' album of tracks that never made albums and C/C - if you follow the line of old unused songs revamped for a new market - is like a companion piece to that 'bonus' album.

There's a couple of obligatory lite-metal styled tracks that PT has aligned themselves to over the last 20 years, but in general it's a clever album that really feels like a PT album and if it ends up being their last then it will sit much better with me than [their original final album] The Incident which was a bit shite apart from a couple of tracks. Plus I don't really have a problem with PT's excursions into lite-metal, because sometimes they really do rock, but the band's strength was always in the way the songs were constructed and how Wilson used hooks to drag you in. 

The initial standout tracks on the album are Dignity, Walk the Plank (which is a real change of direction for PT) and the stunningly excellent Never Have, all of which would have been at home on previous albums, even if the production might have been different. The album does seem to want to try and feel like the band's album and not just another SW solo backed by his old mates - which I felt the last two studio albums were. 

It's still very 2022, but drips nostalgia for a time when PT were the most under rated best rock band in the world. I'm quite pleased that I haven't hated it, but maybe that has something to do with expectations. I came to this album expecting to play it once, make some 'controversial' statements on friends' Facebook pages and carry on with whatever I'd carry on with. Instead I played it a few times, gave it a day or two off and then played it again and liked what I heard - in the main. I now kind of hope this isn't the final Porcupine Tree album and that the band get back together in a decade and produce another solid addition to their oeuvre.

Closure/Continuation is the best thing Porcupine Tree has done since Deadwing. There, I've said it. My disdain for Steven Wilson is in disarray. I am lost... 

A rock solid 7½/10

Film Review - Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

It's the hope that kills you...

Except, I had very little hope. I don't rate Sam Raimi and I actually went into this film expecting not to like it and I wasn't that far off the mark. The MCU malaise has struck deep in me and I so wanted to expect much more from this film, but I ended up being somewhat short-changed.

It is a special effects bonanza and all the myriad of trailers for the film did a good job of feeding us most of the first 25 minutes giving the impression it was the entire film encapsulated. The film opens with a Stephen Strange and young female companion hurtling from different realities trying to escape from a truly interesting and scary monster as they try to reach the Book of Ashanti before the monster. Strange dies saving the young girl who is dragged through a star shaped dimensional portal which drags in the corpse of Strange with her.

From that point on you expect one thing and get a much different approach. The girl and presumably the corpse end up in 'our heroes' New York and subsequently, inadvertently, gate crashes Strange's ex-girlfriend's wedding. Stephen then visits Wanda to ask about the multiverse, discovers he's been set up and everything starts to go a little wonky. Like, for instance, where exactly are Stephen and Wanda, because it doesn't look like any place on MCU earth. 

Within 20 minutes the Scarlet Witch is laying waste the armies of magic and trying to kill the girl - America Chavez - to steal her power to be able to go to a reality where her children (from the WandaVision TV series) still exist, oh and she's gone stark-raving mad in the months since the TV show and Strange turning up at her hellbound orchard.

Frankly, you can see Wanda's journey throughout her appearances in the MCU; it's the mutants in microcosm and her already fucked up psyche was always going to crumble, that much was clear after WandaVision. The problem is if you didn't watch that TV show then you missed the massive leap from saving the universe to android body snatching psychopath toying with humans in a malevolent way. In fact, if you're not quite well-versed in the MCU much of this film can't be taken as a standalone, while the bits not mired in MCU history seem to be breezed over or put there for the purposes of moving the main plot along. It's a really badly constructed movie.

Instead of being some kind of revelation to feature Prof X, Reed Richards, Black Bolt, Captain Carter  and an all-different - Maria Rambeau - Captain Marvel, and a different version of Mordo, it felt forced, irrelevant and not really needed - like a middle 8 in a song that doesn't work - and the way Wanda despatched them - quite gruesomely in places - puts her firmly among the Thanos-level baddies. It all seemed rather unnecessary and simply playing to the fans.

In the end, the 'multiverse' is looking like it backed up my growing theory that it is a bit of a red herring, not actually the the main story, just the setting for it. Plus, there wasn't really enough of it and it didn't feel all that... mad; in fact you got the impression that in most alternate realities life is a damned sight better than it is in ours or the MCU's. There also weren't enough Dr Stranges, Zombie Stephen is a bit of a double switch and it all rather fizzled out rather than ended.

The post credit scenes were awful; I mean very poor quality and the one that is supposed to move the story on leaves you feeling like you don't want move anything on and you'd like to go back to a simpler time when you didn't need a PowerPoint Presentation just to explain what is happening at the moment.

I know full well I have developed a massive bug up my arse about the Marvel films over the last couple of years, but the sense of watching a quality film you got when you sat down to view something like The Winter Soldier or Iron Man simply isn't there any more. That's what happens when you set the bar so high, you fail to attain it again.

Yes, yes. Everybody knows my waning enthusiasm for the MCU, but was Doctor Smith in the Multitude of McGuffins any good? 

Well it cracks along at a pace that feels too fast and there isn't really adequate explanation for a lot of it or even how Wanda became aware of America Chavez in the first place, while Strange seems to have become the MCU's uncle Buck, saving the future of teenagers all over the world... But no, it's a mishmash of a film that tries its hand at comedy, horror and cosmic and kind of fails on all fronts. It's not just the sense of wonder and awe that's missing from this, it's the lack of internal logic, especially with its conclusions. If Chavez now has control over her powers and can locate Strange on another level, then surely she would be looking for her folks rather than trying to become a sorcerer?

That's every Marvel film since Infinity War that I've failed to really like. I just want to warn people that Thor: Love & Thunder really needs to be something exceptional or the entire franchise is in danger of simply slowly fading away. 

Revisiting Old MCU Films (again and briefly)

We watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier again (as well as Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame) and I understand why people think it's a great film and used to rank highly among the first raft of MCU films. It is a cracking romp as a Mission Impossible stylee caper. However, having watched a lot of these inter-connected films now in a short space of time, it makes you wonder what the 'continuity guy' gets paid...

There are some remarkable gaffs in this film and there's a couple of thousand pages on the internet pointing out stuff like the time line of this story and how it differs from the first Cap film, but I spotted three biggies that I haven't found mention of anywhere else.

Except they're not biggies in The Winter Soldier they become biggies at a later date in proceedings. 

#1 - the battle in the lift takes place during Winter Soldier, so how come it was replicated in Endgame as it took place months after the first Avengers film? The scene where he takes on Hydra in the lift hadn't happened yet, but it was copied exactly apart from the outcome. Then it gets weirder as Now Cap encounters Then Cap in a battle that couldn't actually have happened because Then Cap was with the other Avengers...

#2 - Cap and Black Widow are now Avengers; they saved the Earth and a few months later in Age of Ultron they're Earth's Mightiest Heroes, so what happened here? Both of them were treated like they had soiled the American flag rather than saved everyone's bacon.

#3 - Cap tells Falcon that Bucky and his entire platoon were captured and experimented on by Arnim Zola, which, unless he was deliberately lying, is manifestly untrue and is even contradicted in flashback footage in this film. Not only was that not what happened, Zola was arrested before it could have.

#4 - The part which fucks up Endgame big time: Steve Rogers sees footage of Peggy Carter from 1954, talking about how Cap saved the lives of a bunch of people and one of them turned out to be the man she eventually married... It's a bit unethical of Mr Squeaky Clean to decide to drop all the infinity stones back where they came from and decide to stay, creating the most obvious time paradox and multiverse strand that all manner of attempted explanation cannot excuse. He expressly went against the wishes of the Ancient One and decided to hang up his suit in 1946, preventing whatever Peggy Carter's actual timeline would have been and - along with Loki also creating an alternate timeline - thus creating the one thing old baldy was trying to explain to Bruce Banner they had to prevent. Talk about selfish and self-centred...

It's probably the reason I have a massive dichotomy about Avengers: Endgame because the internal logic of the film makes no sense at all (and I know, we're talking about superheroes, but, a quality threshold please!). I reckon it's by and large a cracking film, but it very quickly stops making sense, dips into the realms of implausible and settles on a copout ending and essentially binning the three most marketable characters of the franchise - not just in the stories but in the whole marketing and PR department. With the greatest respect to Natasha, not having Steve Rogers and Tony Stark in the MCU has crippled it.

The problem with time travel films is you kind of have to stay within the parameters and keep it relatively simple, because if you don't you leave more unanswered questions than you answer. Endgame tried to be epic and obviously needed to be as the culmination of a big story, but it simply fails to hold up to any scrutiny at all. 

I've said this before but Clint Barton's descent into samurai wielding assassin is a perfect example - why and why? 

Not only does the science not add up, neither does much of the story, including the second snap, when half the population of the world came back unaged... Did these scientists in superhero suits not think about the complete and utter dire consequences of doing just that? What about the people who died as a consequence of the first snap? People on planes, helicopters, cars, at operating tables, who disappeared leaving those in their care to survive? All because Tony Stark had a daughter he would probably have had exactly the same anyhow. 

I just can't understand why Marvel would do this unless there's a plan to undo it all in the future, plunging us into a never-ending loop of Avengers films.

Modern Culture - The Big Guns

It's summer, so TV is shit, yes?

Well... according to your schedules you've got a big bunch of stuff out there and on its way. Better Call Saul wraps up, as does Stranger Things also in two segments. While the Walking Dead kicks the bucket after a three 8-part series. There's the third series of the astoundingly good For All Mankind and the utterly jaw-dropping The Boys; some shit from Sky TV called The Midwich Cuckoos, more Westworld, meh and Ms Marvel from Marvel. Some of these things I won't be watching, because I've either been influenced far too much by the reviews or I don't watch; the others are, have and will be devoured as and when, ennit? 

Let's work our way through the ones we're reviewing then, eh?

There's something not quite right about Stranger Things and it has never felt more like 'we're making this up as we go along' than this first part of the final series. It's had more money thrown at it and it shows with bigger set pieces and more countries and locations being used, but it's all really happening in Hawkins, Indiana and with the main cast all outside of this, doing their own interlinked things, that will all gel together at the end, we hope, it feels a little like it's been done to simply eke out the story.

There seems to be too much of some characters and not enough of others and in the end it feels like there's too much pondering and borderline slapstick/stoner comedy and not enough actual story. That's not to say it isn't great TV, because it clearly does tick many boxes, but when things become as huge as ST is then you need to make the story to suit and I think the denouement at the end of the first part of the final season was a little too contrived. 

There are also too many villains - from the reborn #1 to old monsters to the US Army - it all starts to feel as though the writers are juggling kittens. I don't expect a fantastic conclusion, but I kind of expect something to either end this cycle or leave just enough hanging about for series 5 or maybe a Netflix feature film or two?

Other points that stick out for me are the way some of the characters have devolved while others are exactly the same and very few of them seem to have got much [mentally] older, even though they're all now young adults. The fact the main antagonist is somehow bigger than the last big bad but has dwelt in his shadow for at least three previous seasons - things like that bother the nerd in me. There's also Matthew Modine's 'Papa', Paul Reiser's 'good guy' and Hopper's relevance that bother me as well. In fact there's a lot I struggle with as whether certain aspects are there because the writers have no real memories or idea of what it must have been like living in the rural Midwest of the USA in the mid-1980s - they should maybe have read some Stephen King books rather than pilfered his films.

It makes me sound as though I don't enjoy it. I do, I just found I'm not enjoying the final season as much as I would have hoped and that might be down to me.

***

The Boys seems to have winkled its way into TV folklore with little fanfare and a lot of word of mouth. The antithesis of Marvel's MCU or whatever DC is calling theirs at the moment, The Boys is vicious, foul-mouthed and extremely corporate rather than the almost utopian idea that gaslights its way through most other superhero films and TV. It's also extremely dull in places, full of some really meh plotlines, but is underpinned by two things - the idea that a bunch of unpowered nutters can despatch superheroes with the right weaponry and whether or not Homelander is going to go full on Miracleman (a comics reference that many of you will get and arguably opens that plagiarism question again that constantly revolves around that particular corner of comicbook mythos).

It revels in bad taste; exploding bodies, heads, penises are every where. The word 'cunt' is used as often as 'and' yet there's a sweetness to it that underpins the entire series. It is one of those shows that has actually got better by virtue of letting much of the supporting cast simply drift back into being faces in the background. It was like they were balancing too many ideas by the time they did season 2, so they've upscaled while scaling back. It's clear that while there might be a series villain, the actual main problem is Homelander and how to kill him before he loses what tenuous grasp on reality he still has.

We could probably have done with rewatching the first two series before embarking on the first three episodes of the new stuff, because some of the lesser plotlines are still going on and I'd forgotten most of them. I've noticed that Karl Urban has been working on his English accent, which now sounds more English than some bizarre hybrid of cartoon English, Antipodean and Transatlantic.

I expect this will never cease to have jaw-dropping moments but at least it has something else to balance it out.

***

Ms Marvel has arrived and... well... I'm not sure what to make of it based on the first episode. I think I'm right that it's aimed at teenagers ostensibly, but there's enough other stuff to keep 60-year-old gits mildly interested. 

Here are my first impression: Iman Vellani is actually really likeable as Kamala Kham; I never watched Ugly Betty, but I get the impression that casting a pretty, but not stunningly attractive girl in the role is a bit of a winner. Except, I don't really know any 16-year-old Jersey City teenage Muslims or who or what she is likely to hang around with or do; so it's educational, after a fashion. 

Does it convey reasonably enough the hassle a young Muslim gets in a mixed faith school? - Possibly, but it could also be down to the fact she's a geek who actually wishes she was a superhero and somehow - I'm sure we'll discover the origins of the magic bangle - becomes one. It's cliched in that just about every TV show (and Marvel) with teenagers in it seems to have them as the outsiders or misfits and this is exactly the same. Even down to the person with a massive crush on her, but she doesn't really see it, maybe because of her culture or possibly because she's a bit of a young 16.

He - Bruno - is an interesting character; looks like Dougie Howser's younger brother, is something of a tech genius, also a loner and superhero fan and he's so in love with Kamala he'd walk 30 miles over broken glass to put matchsticks in her shit. It's quite sweet and as true to shit like that as you will ever see on TV. This kid - Matt Lintz - may well prove to be a future film star.

Ms Marvel does a very good job of making the life of a 16-y-o Muslim girl seem as miserable as possible, with well-placed but horribly suspicious parents (well, mother), who, it has to be noted, seem far too old to have two teenage children, given their culture. I felt uncomfortable with Marisa Tomei as Aunt May and she's a spring chicken compared to Kamala's folks. They also seem as culturally bereft as you might image grandparents who are adjusting to the USA not people who have been there many years.

What we saw of her powers was not enough to convince me this works; to be fair they seem lame and while I'm not familiar with the comic version, apparently they're slightly different from those. I expect episode two will address what she can do, but in terms of conventional superhero I'm struggling to see how she'll fair. 

Overall, I found it okay. Far more enjoyable than I expected, but I'm more interested to see more than I was with Moon Knight. Oh, and the mid credit scene - which made a change - was intriguing, but only in a "what new 'agency' are we meeting this time?"

Then episode #2 came along and I spent much of it disliking my age and inability to understand any of the pop culture references, but I did start to quite like the show, even if it feels like an Asian Am-Dram music-less Bollywood film. It still feels like it's aimed at a specific age group but one gets the impression it's going to go off in directions least expected - I hope I'm not proved wrong.

***

A quick foray into films to ask the question: what the fuck happened to the Fantastic Beasts franchise?

The first one was, on hindsight, very entertaining and full of Potter-esque charm. The second one was darker, but still felt like it was going somewhere until the last half an hour when it started to lose me a little. The third part of the trilogy was just an abject mess; a complete and utter load of tripe. Replacing Johnny Depp might have been a necessity at the time, but Mads Mickelson is one of the most one-toned actors I've ever seen and he did nothing as Grindewald and there wasn't even some magical explanation as to why he'd changed his face. Ezra Miller seemed fat and wasted - literally and metaphorically. Eddie Redmayne was not used enough and it was just a mess from start to finish. It's a bit tragic really. 

***

Over the last couple of years, if I had to say what 'my favourite TV show is' then it probably would be For All Mankind. I actually got a shiver of excitement when I knew it was back. It's a remarkable show in many ways because each season takes place 10 years after the previous one concludes. It's also science fiction in that it's an alternative history of the world based on the premise that the USSR beat the USA to the moon. Essentially, FAM is a soap opera following the lives of a group of individuals all linked to NASA and the USAF, but it's a massive idea that allows the show to play with small things.

From the word go it hooks you in; not with astounding and in-yer-face SF action, but examining the lives of the families of the people chosen to be the next faces of the space program - normal families thrust into a weird new world of space travel as the Space Race doesn't grind to a halt, but instead accelerates. The lives of the Baldwin and Stevens families are centre stage, but so is that of the bewildering Margot Madison (played brilliantly by Wrenn Schmidt), a truly oddball in a very square series. She works her way up to being the Director of NASA (by season 3) and is the cog that allows all the other wheels to circle.

What is especially good about the series is that none of the stars were that well known before this; many had been around but as supporting characters, so one shouldn't be too surprised when main cast members die, but every single death in the first two series felt important and the tragedies that befell those who were left behind. By the finale of season 2 you're praying it doesn't play out the way it does, but it does in a gut-wrenchingly cruel way, reminding us that this is not a story with many personal happy endings.

Obviously with ten year gaps between series, there's a slight confusion, because even with the aid of having recently watched earlier series, it sometimes feels there is the need to have a PowerPoint presentation to explain what has transpired. Yet, the writers deftly explain divorces, new partners, major life changes or promotions in a casual conversational way that does more than enough to fill in the gaps. Ed and Karen's divorce was signposted in season 2, so it came as no surprise; what did surprise was who Karen ended up marrying.

Season 3 kicked off in a really high profile way and it also appeared to tie up some plot threads that were left dangling at the end of season 1 which we never got near to in season 2 and while it is now 1992 and all of our heroes are in their 50s - the make-up is excellent - there is an enormous amount that links it all back to the first first episodes, making it feel like the writers actually have a plan and are able to stick with it. However, if ever there was a smoking gun in the opening scene it was when Margot casually complained about space tourism, which seemed to be a cue to get some of our primary players on a space station hotel orbiting the earth destined for tragedy...

It felt weird because while there have been major set pieces in this series, it has been more about the people and relationships than about the science fiction, but because of the accelerated space race, 1992 in many ways is more like what I expect 2042 will be like if our billionaires continue to play astronauts. Gary Hart is serving his second term as US President and the two candidates in the upcoming elections are Bill Clinton and Ellen Waverly, formerly of NASA's manor and a woman with far too many secrets in a world that technologically is far advanced than ours, but in terms of sexuality isn't. 

There's a whole bunch of great characters and most of them are women, because equality is very much advanced and women hold positions of immense power, including the three people in charge of NASA. The Soviet Union still exists and China and Europe are both trying to get into the space race. However, this series is all about the race for Mars and how the USA can't afford not to win this time.

I cannot recommend this series enough. It's a proper sensible SF drama that can be watched pretty much by all ages - yes, there's some bad language, but there's little sex (no nudity at all) or violence. It's the kind of thing that by the end of the season you're second guessing what might be next and I'm already hoping that there's going to be a fourth and fifth seasons, just to see how far the writers feel they can push humanity.

***

One thing I can honestly say I rarely write about is British comedies. That's probably because I can't recall really enjoying one for about ten years - the glory days of fantastic sitcoms is long gone it seems. Yet, the wife watched the pilot of The Other One and persuaded me to watch the first series last year.

It is absolutely awful and I absolutely love it. When I say awful I don't mean the show itself, I mean the awful people who inhabit it, except the only really awful person is Cathy. Not Cat, the half sister she didn't know she had or her mother, who had a long running affair with Cath's father, or Cathy's mum, who is the bewildered victim of the entire idea. Maybe Marcus is just as awful, but Marcus is Cathy's on-off-on fiancée and he's just a despicable shit.

It is essentially about what happens when someone dies and leaves a library full of secrets and what happens when Cathy and her mum, Tess - two very middle class people, or snobs as we like to call them, discover their 'counterparts', Cat (also Cathy) and her mum, Marilyn - two of the most Chav-like people ever created for television. Cat, played brilliantly by Lauren Socha, is a revelation and something unique to marvel at and Marilyn played by Siobhan Finneran is so utterly and brilliantly mad she steals almost every scene she's in.

It's cringeworthy comedy, but in an almost loathsome way. You kind of want Cathy to fall on her arse because she's such a prig, while you want Cat to succeed despite her not really doing anything to deserve anything apart from being really likeable. I approached each episode thinking 'why do I watch this?' and soon remember why. It's actually genuinely funny, even if it's a tad OTT. Holly Walsh, who writes it, is always a welcome guest on QI because she's often surreal and extremely funny, this gets transferred in this comedy series. 

***

We're an episode into Better Caul Saul so I'll avoid talking about that and I have something called The Shining Girls lined up. 

Things we've seen recently include Love, Death & Robots season 3, which was lower in quality than season 2 which was poor in comparison to season 1.

We started watching the thing about people trapped in a town surrounded by vampire like creatures with the black guy from Lost in it, but it grew boring very quickly and we gave up after about 3 episodes.

With Dr Strange and the Monkeyverse of Jizzum available from next week, expect something about that soon. 

A Short Conversation

 A Conversation

"I thoroughly enjoyed that, I like a man on horseback, but it was exhausting, one really can't be arsed to work all of the next four days. I'm 96 you know?"

"Obviously, Ma'am. We can say you were in some 'discomfort' today, that's a nice catch-all nothingness and you can spend the day with your feet up watching the Witchell fellow forever get things wrong."

"Bugger that. It's the Derby meeting. The Oaks is tomorrow. I'm not missing it."

"You're supposed to be at St Paul's attending a service honouring one's 70 years on the throne or had you forgotten?"

"I'm 96 you know?"

"You either go to St Paul's or you stay at home."

"I'll stay at home but I'm not going to that fucking concert. You know I think Rod Stewart's a cunt."

"If you don't go to the concert, you won't be able to go to the Derby. It won't look good and it'll upset the oiks."

"Okay, but I'm not hosting any garden parties and let Charlie deal with the blond wanker."

"Technically, he isn't allowed to do that because he's not you yet. You can't avoid that one unless you die."

"Oh, For fuck's sake...  I'm sure Boris is mentally undressing me while simultaneously bullshitting me and I don't know about you, but I'm 96 and I find that a wee bit creepy. It's very difficult to be pleasant all the time you know?"

"It's only an hour a week."

"When you're 96 you can be in rude health at 3pm and have pants full of death-throes-poo by 4; there's no such thing as 'only an hour' any more."