TV Culture - Box Clever

The spoilers featured this week are for shows that have been out for a while and the number of bloody hells uttered in a Sunday night documentary, everything else is as restrained as I can manage...

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The third part of Simon Reeve: Wilderness is very much like the previous two and I suppose I have to accept that this is what Reeve considers 'extreme fun' as opposed to his usual cutting edge and cut throat documentaries. In this episode the intrepid explorer is in the Coral Triangle around the Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea finding rare coral reefs, tribes that live on, in and under the water and finally searching for whale sharks. 

This really is an eco-documentary series rather than anything else; it is about climate change but it's also about protecting the rarest environments on the planet and ensuring the great wildernesses of the world stay that way because without them much of the planet would change much faster than it is presently. This time, especially, we saw the true beauty of the planet - from sky blue seas to rare species of animals to the utterly spellbinding whale shark, the largest fish in the sea and still truly a puzzle for even the best marine biologists on the planet. It was not an episode without some jeopardy, but again it was a problem with a member of the crew rather than anything from outside. 

It was also decisive in one aspect - the wife went 1-0 up in the great Bloody Hell guessing game. She went for her usual (safe) one bloody hell, while I figured that as he was going to be spending a lot of time under water his opportunities to say bloody hell would be limited. He uttered the words at the 32 minute mark when armed eco-police were checking the boat he was on and it was enough to give the wife a lead that she now can't lose, even if I win next week, like the Ashes, she's currently the holder of the Bloody Hell competition and even if I guess correctly next week, she retains the imaginary trophy until the next Simon Reeve series. Bugger. 

At What Cost?

There is a scene in the early episodes of season two of The Morning Show where the usually narcissistic Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) genuinely tells the perpetually angry Bradley Jackson (Reece Witherspoon) to be careful around ace UBA interviewer Laura Peterson (Julianna Margulies) because the woman wasn't her friend; so when Peterson asks Bradley one of those questions that she didn't want to answer, she does something on the spur of the moment that felt like it was designed to shut the interviewer up but suddenly becomes one of the focal points of the series - Bradley kissed the LGBT+ advocate and found herself plunged into a sexual relationship that even she doesn't seem 100% comfortable about, especially when pressurised to 'come out' by Peterson.

As a result, Bradley agonised over whether to actually do what Peterson wanted her to do but held off because I think it's clear that Jackson is bi-sexual at a push and coming out would feel as though she was boxing herself into a corner she'd struggle to get out of. The problem is, the fabulous Corrie Ellison (Billy Crudup) has obviously fallen in love with Bradley but has held back from making their great friendship anything but that because of the Mitch Kessler business, which has made everyone involved in the TV business wary of doing anything that can be construed as either coercive or creepy. So when Corrie's heart is visibly shattered as he discovers that the rumours he's heard about are probably true he's faced with a dilemma of his own. You see the head of UBA wants to make the forthcoming shitstorm of libellous stories about the now dead Hannah Schoenberg go away and the only way he can do that is give the newspaper that is going to run these stories something even more salacious and therein lies the biggest dilemma of them all.

Meanwhile, Mitch (Steve Carell) is still in Italy running away from his past but being pursued by a wannabe Italian filmmaker who seems to have designs on him, despite his monstrous history. I'm have a conflict here because Kessler is obviously a prize shit and arguably solely responsible for Hannah's suicide, but he's also genuinely hurting and wants nothing more to do with his past and just wants to disappear into the background. However, his new Italian friend has other ideas, which he is resisting and probably because he's scared of being stung again this time as a victim rather than a perpetrator. He kind of deserves to be butt-fucked, especially as Mitch Kessler might be seen as the new Harvey Weinstein, but there is an argument to suggest he could never be that bad and his predatory nature has been overblown and he is simply a narcissist with no self awareness - which is equally as bad but in his business a little more excusable.

Chip (Mark Duplass) is having grave reservations about coming back to the show as Alex's producer, not least because he's starting to get hostility from others on the show who see him as a facilitator in the Kessler business and Alex's personality epiphany swings back and forth as she tries to convey this image of a new woman, but in reality she's just as neurotic and narcissistic as she's always been, she's just less self aware.  While Corrie's new Head of News, Stella Bak (Greta Lee) is struggling in her role and alienating more people than she's making friends. And all of this has happened in the first half of this season and yet it still feels as though it's treading water compared to the first series...

The second half of the season does what the first half fails to do - it fucks you up. From the utterly devastated Corrie's reaction to Bradley's admission that she likes being with another woman to the conclusion of the Mitch Kessler story that you see (or guess is) coming but it still shocks. Yet, despite all of this the two main factors in the closing episodes are the arrival of Covid - which Alex catches - and how everything starts to fall apart for all the main players; of which Alex is the only person who seems to want to come out fighting. Meanwhile Chip, who might have been complicit in the Kessler business, is so loyal it's like watching a puppy dog trying desperately hard to please its shitbag owner, puts his life at risk to prove this. There is also a quite fantastic interview between Bradley and Maggie Brenner, which the latter is completely unprepared for which, given all that has happened, might just be the thing that cements Bradley and Alex's friendship forever. Cracking stuff, even if it wasn't as good as season one.

Still Angry and Emotional

Two weeks after watching Mr Bates Versus The Post Office we watched the documentary that accompanied it, Mr Bates Versus The Post Office: The Real Story and it not only allowed the anger to swell back up, it made anyone watching it want to see people at the Post Office face criminal charges. Whether that can ever happen, because of the cover-up culture employed by the national-owned institution, will probably only get answered if we get a political party in power that cares about righting the wrongs of the past, but it doesn't make anyone feel any better about this entire shit show. What this documentary does is show the real people, the real hardship and the utter hell they were put through. It's all well and good watching a dramatised version, but when you see the real people you have to ask yourself how this crime against humanity was allowed to happen and how the people in charge of that organisation can sleep at night - and I fucking hope none of them can and are fearful for their freedom.

The Grim White 

I get the impression that murder mysteries in snowy locations is a thing at the moment; the problem is I'm not convinced by it as a concept and the latest one - True Detective: Night Country is turning into something almost as dull and pointless as Murder at the End of the World.

All those five star reviews after the first episode makes me wonder what the people reviewing would make of it now we're four parts in and all that seems to be happening is fuck all. This is why I'm convinced my theory is simple and correct. I have to ask if this is a murder mystery why are we spending so much time 'agonising' over Evangeline's sister, who is about as rounded as a Lego piece, or being subjected to Danvers being a Class A arsehole who has slept with just about everybody and no one likes; not even her adopted daughter, her former partner and her boss. Why are we interested in her deputy's Russian mail order bride or her protégé's strained relationship with his wife? This is becoming tedious, especially with all the 'ghost story' bollocks, the suggestions that Ennis is a town of the dead, or the fact that these 'days of night' seem to be stretching the whole night thing just a touch. This is just terribly overwrought and really not going anywhere and with only two episodes left something needs to happen soon or it will be a waste of 6 hours of my life. 

What is also a little strange is bits of it are filmed in Alaska and these bits seem to feature the mainly US or Native Americans and the bits with the British and Irish actors appear to be filmed in Iceland - Jodie Foster and (the quite awful) Kali Reis straddle the two but no one else does. You don't see Chris Ecclestone anywhere apart from with Jodie Foster and you don't see many of the other recurring characters with other recurring characters - if you catch my drift? I'm just finding the entire thing a bit of a slog and frankly the dysfunctional Alaskans deserve each other with bells on; no one in this show is remotely likeable, apart from maybe Danvers' protégé and she treats him like shit - but then again, she treats everyone like shit.  

Next Week...

Obviously, television hasn't been a high priority this week with my house half in rubble as the new kitchen project began. It'll be like this for at least two more weeks is my guess and while the living room is a haven - and a warm one at that - it is, at present, full of my new kitchen, so we're crammed up one end surrounded by boxes.

Next week will likely be more of the same; the finale of the Simon Reeve series, the penultimate episode of the Jodie Foster mystery - which it appears others are cottoning on to my complaints about - and the third season of everyone's favourite fictional morning TV show. I have a few new things lined up, but whether we'll get to see any is anyone's guess. I want to at least get through a couple more of Domino Day but this seems to be slipping down the priority list quite fast; I promised a good friend that I would check out Mr & Mrs Smith despite not being that attracted to it; I've got The Big Door Prize to watch and The Essex Serpent. I've heard excellent things about Criminal Record and Home Before Dark so they're both sitting and waiting for us to find the time to watch. I also want to give Silo a chance, despite having similar reservations about that which I have with other recommendations and there's all that old stuff I'm promising myself I will rewatch but we only have so many hours in the evening to watch anything...

As always, you'll find out next time.