TV Culture - A Range of Emotions

There's some spoilers here and there, but old stuff not so much...

Angry, Upset and Disgusted

Fuck. Fucking hell. Mr Bates versus The Post Office is without a doubt the most emotive television programme/series I think I've ever watched. It made me want to scream at the TV; it made me want to scream at politicians, at the Post Office and at the general injustice of it all - British Justice: what a fucking joke; what an absolute load of horse shit.

Honestly, by the end of it I had tears in my eyes and I know the wife did and I think we were both so fucking angry, because for over 20 years peoples lives have been systematically destroyed by a Post Office - owned by the government; Conservative and Labour - that lied, cheated and knowingly fucked up the lives of sub-postmasters every week, wilfully and with a degree of evil that is just utterly wrong. A corporation that went out of its way to obfuscate and prevent the truth from coming out; a corporation that treated those seeking the truth like imbeciles and felt it was above the law to the point of making the law an absolute mockery. This was undeniably the most damning thing and greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the United Kingdom. This was a fucking sick joke dished out by a group of people who should, if there's any justice face criminal proceedings and Paula fucking Vennels, handing back her CBE after it, she should be put inside for a long time. The woman is a Christian - allegedly and apparently - it just confirms my longstanding belief that Christianity is the worst fucking religion on the planet, a religion inhabited by people who wouldn't know the true meaning of Christianity if it was spelt out to them on a big fuck off white board. 

Do I need to tell you what this four-part series was about? I expect anyone who doesn't has been either hiding away for years or is one of those atrociously awful right wing wankers who thinks British law is fabulous and all of these people were secretly criminals - don't think that hasn't already been said on numerous pages because I've seen it. This is about a 20+ year fight to clear the name of people who were essentially framed by the Post Office as criminals; many of whom have died, committed suicide, been financially ruined, lost everything, suffered mental health issues - have been victimised and demonised by a business that knew - it fucking knew - what it was doing. 

God, I'm so fucking angry, disgusted and upset and so should you and most of this happened on the Tories watch and ironically if it hadn't been for a back bench Tory MP it might still be raging on, claiming more people's lives. Cunts the lot of them, every single fucking last one of the cunts who knew about this and tried to hide it. CUNTS!

All Star Brilliance

And breathe...

I've said this before but it's worth saying again - dump Netflix, dump Disney+, dump Amazon, Hulu and whatever other streaming services are out there and get Apple TV+. You won't regret it and pound for pound you will not be disappointed with your return. This is a streaming network that might have brought us that borderline awful Monarch series, but also knocks the ball out of the park with shows such as Ted Lasso, Lessons in Chemistry, For All Mankind, Shrinking, Silo and now The Morning Show.

Okay, the Morning Show started in 2019 but I didn't know it was an Apple TV series and the moment I discovered it was I was on my torrents search engine looking for it and to kick the week off we started with the first episode. Man, what an all-star cast, I mean who hasn't been on this show? It's wall to wall A list celebs, padded out with B list celebs and has people in it you haven't seen for years and others who will go onto bigger things. What you have to start with is Jennifer Aniston as the co-anchor of the eponymous Morning Show, who for 15 years has co-hosted with Steve Carell, but he's suddenly fired for a 'Me Too' moment and lives are thrown into complete turmoil - history has been made and cancelled.

Also involved in this is Reece Witherspoon (about to become Aniston's new co-host), Mark Duplass, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Brett Butler, Billy Crudup, Nestor Carbonell, Jack Davenport and that's just the first episode, there's a whole host of others lined up for one, two or three episode guest appearances and this first season is going to be about the fallout from Carell's character's departure and how the USA's one time favourite morning show maintains its audience and gets bigger. It sounds a bit trite, possibly even boring, but trust me on this, This is TV that kicks you in the balls and then gives them a gentle massage, but you know there's another kick coming, maybe two. We needed a new series to get into and instead of trying one of the things we have already, we've dived into something I hadn't even considered 24 hours ago. I don't think there's been anything since the heyday of Aaron Sorkin that has been this compelling and riveting about US television.

Crudup is superb as the almost psychotic deputy head of the network who seems to believe in chaos over order and it is absolutely brilliant to see him cast as someone other than the villain of the piece - that's not to say he won't end up being the villain, but at the moment he's absolutely fucking excellent as the 'shoot first and ask questions if we feel like it' exec. Mark Duplass, who like Jake Johnson in last week's film blog, is a Safety Not Guaranteed alumni is also pretty good as the bewildered executive producer of the Morning Show and someone who is in charge, but seemingly in name only. I can't believe it has taken us so long to find this utterly fabulous TV show.

Amazing Misadventures

Regular readers of my culture blogs will know that while I have a soft spot for George Clarke's programmes, I also find him irritating and his shows incredibly formulaic. Most Christmases George (and usually Will Hardy, his mate) go somewhere to look at fancy houses and amazing structures, usually somewhere cold and snowy. This time around George is on his own, in a complete series and he's travelling the USA, not only to look at the architecture but also in search of Americana and have a bit of a travelogue at the same time. Regular readers will also know that over the last year my opinion of Americans has dipped to an all-time low...

George Clarke's Adventures in America hasn't done anything to change that opinion, especially as it seems to be more about oddball characters than the thing we associate him with more than anything else - amazing spaces.

George tries his hand at historical commentary and social opinion here and he should stick to knocking down walls. He doesn't do a very good job of looking or sounding sincere about the horrors of slavery - although I'm sure he was - and he looked like a crawfish out of water with the Cajuns in Louisiana. However, it was when he got to Texas that I wondered if Channel 4 had made a monumental fubar as he spent more time getting a Stetson made, going to a rodeo and spending a huge amount of time in the country's biggest man cave stuffed to the gills with Americana that just smacked of privilege and money and oddly enough he seemed more at home there than anywhere else. The congenial Geordie just isn't, say. Simon Reeve, he's not even in Robson Green's league; he's just a big bloke who says 'amazing' a lot and gets by with his winning smile and his lack of personality. At least there wasn't people going over budget here, not that that would happen in such a diametrically disparate country as the USA; a place where 80% of the people who get made bankrupt do so because of unpaid medical bills. He looks like he has a great time, I no longer understand how anyone can go to that country and enjoy a place that is just fascism hidden behind a lie and if things go the way they're going these fuckwits are going to elect Trump again. The Yellowstone Caldera can't erupt soon enough... 

A Horror Show

The second episode of True Detective: Night Country has a real wtf opening, one which leaves you wondering if you've just wandered into a detective version of The Thing. It is full on horror and one of the most disturbing things I've seen on telly for months.

However, as the episode progressed with Jodie Foster's Danvers continuing to piss off almost everyone she comes into contact with I started to get an idea about what I was watching and what happened in this puzzling mystery. In fact my theory could spoil it for you so you might want to skip the rest of this review...

First off, this links back to the first season by virtue of a tattoo and secondly, you might remember I reviewed a film last autumn called Wind River, with Elisabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner, about the death(s) of a (two) Native American girl(s)? In that, the (second) girl in question died of the cold after running away from something over two miles from where she was found; she had been raped and badly beaten but had actually died from exposure. The FBI cop - Olsen - and tracker who was also a friend of the girl - Renner - trace the killing back to an oil refinery station where it soon became obvious that the remaining people there were responsible for the girl's death and her boyfriend who was killed to keep him quiet about the horrible event. In Night Country there might be a lot of mystic mumbo jumbo but the missing research centre person - the one who seems to have gone mad - was the boyfriend of the woman killed five years prior to this spate of horrendous deaths; he has a tattoo like the dead woman and I think he's led these other men to their deaths because they're responsible for the original murder and he's getting his revenge. if I'm right, this is not only a cop out, but is also lazy TV making dressed up as something fabulous - which it is, if it isn't what I've just theorised. Time will tell...

Next Week... 

Our schedule is pretty much going to be devoted to The Morning Show, the rest of season one and maybe the start of season two. Night Country is going to feature, especially as I try to work out if this is just a re-tread of an old film and I might review the next stage of George Clarke's embarrassing USA journey. Of course, something new might pop up, but one thing is unlikely to change, we won't be watching (IMHO) shite like The Traitors or Gladiators, because we're funny like that...

Besides, having shorter, pithier blogs might be the way forward at the moment; you don't have to feel like you're wading through tons of stuff to see if I'm reviewing anything you'd watch.