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British TV, y'all
Feb. 22nd, 2012 01:11 pmPride & Prejudice
I watched the Colin Firth one, because apparently he's the definitive Mr. Darcy, to the point where he basically played a Xena reincarnation of the same role in Bridget Jones' Diary. And, you know, it worked. I think you have to have an appreciation of the period for a period piece to wholly work, but when the other romantic comedy I can compare it to is This Means War, I'm inclined to appreciate that that seems like the thing that was written hundreds of years of feminism and progress ago. There's a nice give-and-take to the main relationship, where Eliza Bennett both realizes Darcy isn't so bad and Darcy improves from being an emo kid (I think if you Photoshopped in an iPod playing The Cure into all the scenes where Darcy is standing quietly in the background, looking out the window or some shit, it would work. My other idea is to overdub all his lines with Kanye West reading the same lines, possibly adding "Darcy out, bitch" after he drops a particularly devastating bon mot).
Although there is some weirdness where the miniseries is pretty judgmental of girly girls. Eliza is the heroine because she takes after her father, Troll Dad, while her mother and sisters are these annoying simperers. But apparently that wasn't in the original novel and was added in the adaptation, which I can believe. The BBC was really sexist back then. Remember that episode of Doctor Who where Six beat the Daleks with rape jokes?
"It just goes to show you, Peri, that only genocidal madmen could be opposed to a healthy rape joke!" That seems really inappropriate these days.
Blake's 7
Try to contain your shock, but the nerd has more thoughts about the old British sci-fi show than the classic of romantic literature, beloved by millions the world over. I have mixed feelings here, because while there's a lot to recommend here, there's a lot of rough edges that keep it up from being the undiscovered gem that I think a lot of people would describe it as. I'm only reviewing the first season. Let's go point by point.
1. In comparison to the usual "pilot, than story of the week" structure, Blake's 7 actually takes a few hours to get started. I guess that's a product of the British TV model, where you don't have to bet it all on a pilot which acts as a microcosm for the show you want to do. But for the first hour, you're not watching Blake's 7, you're just watching Blake.
Okay, so the gist of it is this. In the future, there's an evil empire known as the Federation. They're into all kinds of bad shit, like drugging their citizenry with tranquilizers (oddly, there doesn't seem to be any difference in emotional behavior between the liberated heroes and the oppressed people they meet). An average citizen, Blake, is convinced to go off food long enough for the drugs to wear off, and is then confronted with the fact that he used to be an activist against the Federation, but was brain-washed into recanting and then set up as Joe Everyman (well, it's British, so Benedict Everybatch) to prevent him from being a martyr. A new set of rebels want him to re-enlist, but the whole thing is quickly set upon by Federation forces, who massacre the rebels even as they peacefully surrender.
Basically, a lot of the runtime is dedicated to showing how fruitless nonviolent resistance to the Federation is. It makes me wonder if that's a difference between British and American character--a Yank audience probably wouldn't need that much convincing, considering all the Federation soldiers dress like Poke-gimps.
I don't know, that turn of phrase just felt right.
Anyway, this brings me to one of the strengths of the Blake's 7 universe, which I'd like to contrast with a failing in Firefly.
Hold on, someone's knocking at the door.
Oh God, it's the Browncoats!
Relax, relax, it's not about the Chinese! Put down the future Western clubs!
Okay, if you read some of Whedon's statements about Firefly, you'd know he intended the Alliance to be not so bad, just... misguided. In the Core Worlds, it was actually quite nice, it was just when they extended their reach to the Outer Planets that oppression and badness kicked in, blah blah Iraq-cakes. However, I don't think this ever came across on the show itself. Despite the pretensions to shades of gray, the Alliance was always the Evil Empire. I mean, look at the big damn movie. It ended with a bunch of Alliance grunts get raped, skinned, and eaten by Reavers. Would that really be intended as such a fist-pumping moment if we were supposed to see the Alliance officers as a bunch of okay folks, just doing their jobs?
By the way, was that whole "Reavers will rape you to death" thing necessary, in the end? It's both a little silly and a little too nasty. There's a difference between "And then the villain was eaten alive by cannibals. Good riddance!" and "and then the villain was raped to death by rapists. Good riddance!"
Blake's 7 makes it clear that there are a lot of good people working for the Federation, it's just that there's a culture of corruption at the top. You have working stiffs being surprised at the depravity their bosses show, which makes more sense for how an evil empire would run than everyone from the doorman up being Chaotic Evil.
Now, this is more in the territory of "I wouldn't have done it that way" complaints, but Blake quickly regains his memories and turns into Captain Kirk, leaving the whole brain-washing thing as just an elaborate character introduction. Which just seems like such a waste to me. You could get so many plots out of this Jason Bourne everyman character who's forced into the role of a revolutionary and has to regain the past that was stolen from him. I guess perhaps TV just wasn't set up for those kinds of character arcs back then.
That's really my chief complaint with the series, that a lot of the characters are flat. You have Blake, who's The Hero, Avon who's the Asshole, and Vila who's the Coward. Everyone else just has a thing. Gan can't kill people because of an implant (he never shows any preference for killing and he can still knock people out, so this is the rare case where I must say "the Spike storyline on BtVS was done better"). Jenna used to be a smuggler. Cally is psychic. Zen is a computer. Orac is also a computer (but more of a bitch about it).
So while the Blake, Avon, and Vila dialogue is often very witty, the others get lines that are pretty much interchangeable. Maybe you could accuse Star Trek of the same thing, with the Kirk/Spock/McCoy trio on top and everyone else just having a stereotype. But TOS did represent different nationalities back when that was much more of a big deal. In Blake's 7, everyone's just a pasty British guy (cue outraged commenting about how Blake's 7 was the first series to include a Welshman and that was a huge deal because Welsh hatred still runs rampant in the UK). And you have actual character traits to go with the accents. Scotty had the thing with the engines, where he says he'll need three days to fix them and then he gets it done in five minutes. Chekov keeps thinking things were invented in Russia because of the horrible education he received. Uhura had that ear thing that no one else needed, even though they were doing the same thing.
I hear the heroes on this show have a high turn-over rate, so maybe things will improve with the second season, clearing out some of the deadwood and putting in people with personalities. (I'm sorry if that came off as bigoted against people with no personalities. I know you consider the internet a safe space. Please accept my apologies.)
Another thing I should mention is that Farscape, while a good deal more watchable (it does have Claudia Black in it, after all), was pretty wholly inspired by this show. You can see that a lot of the things in Farscape are tributes to stuff in Blake's 7. Alan Moore had a quote recently about there being a difference between stealing and adapting--and he's in favor of stealing. I can kind of see his point. Farscape would've been a crap remake of Blake's 7, either by (for instance) leaving out the Blake/Avon rivalry or trying to replicate the chemistry of the original actors and writing. But by being inspired by Blake's 7 and then paying homage to it, they came up with something much more interesting than a retread with prettier people, like the Crichton/Harvey dynamic.
It's the same reason I'm looking forward to Lockout, which is basically Guy Pearce as Snake Plisken IN SPACE, more than I would a remake of Escape From New York. I'd rather everyone involved be free to do their own thing, free of a forced comparison.
If there's one thing to take away from this, it's the character of Travis, a Federation officer who was horribly scarred by Blake and is now out for revenge--sorta like Crais from Farscape. Now, you know how Crais was sorta lame, the Master to Scorpius's Spike & Darla (to keep with the Buffy theme)? Well, Travis is a guy who's origin story is that he already got his ass enormously kicked by Blake. He basically spends the entire season as Blake's buttmonkey, to the point where you kinda feel sorry for him. His last scene is when Blake screws over both him and his superior, Servalan. And Servalan turns to Travis, I swear to God, and says "You're in a lot of trouble, Travis."
It makes me wish they'd take things all the way and have Travis scream "BLAAAAAAKE!" or something after every defeat, maybe take off his scar mask, throw it on the ground, and stomp on it. That's the way we'd do it in America.
I watched the Colin Firth one, because apparently he's the definitive Mr. Darcy, to the point where he basically played a Xena reincarnation of the same role in Bridget Jones' Diary. And, you know, it worked. I think you have to have an appreciation of the period for a period piece to wholly work, but when the other romantic comedy I can compare it to is This Means War, I'm inclined to appreciate that that seems like the thing that was written hundreds of years of feminism and progress ago. There's a nice give-and-take to the main relationship, where Eliza Bennett both realizes Darcy isn't so bad and Darcy improves from being an emo kid (I think if you Photoshopped in an iPod playing The Cure into all the scenes where Darcy is standing quietly in the background, looking out the window or some shit, it would work. My other idea is to overdub all his lines with Kanye West reading the same lines, possibly adding "Darcy out, bitch" after he drops a particularly devastating bon mot).
Although there is some weirdness where the miniseries is pretty judgmental of girly girls. Eliza is the heroine because she takes after her father, Troll Dad, while her mother and sisters are these annoying simperers. But apparently that wasn't in the original novel and was added in the adaptation, which I can believe. The BBC was really sexist back then. Remember that episode of Doctor Who where Six beat the Daleks with rape jokes?
"It just goes to show you, Peri, that only genocidal madmen could be opposed to a healthy rape joke!" That seems really inappropriate these days.
Blake's 7
Try to contain your shock, but the nerd has more thoughts about the old British sci-fi show than the classic of romantic literature, beloved by millions the world over. I have mixed feelings here, because while there's a lot to recommend here, there's a lot of rough edges that keep it up from being the undiscovered gem that I think a lot of people would describe it as. I'm only reviewing the first season. Let's go point by point.
1. In comparison to the usual "pilot, than story of the week" structure, Blake's 7 actually takes a few hours to get started. I guess that's a product of the British TV model, where you don't have to bet it all on a pilot which acts as a microcosm for the show you want to do. But for the first hour, you're not watching Blake's 7, you're just watching Blake.
Okay, so the gist of it is this. In the future, there's an evil empire known as the Federation. They're into all kinds of bad shit, like drugging their citizenry with tranquilizers (oddly, there doesn't seem to be any difference in emotional behavior between the liberated heroes and the oppressed people they meet). An average citizen, Blake, is convinced to go off food long enough for the drugs to wear off, and is then confronted with the fact that he used to be an activist against the Federation, but was brain-washed into recanting and then set up as Joe Everyman (well, it's British, so Benedict Everybatch) to prevent him from being a martyr. A new set of rebels want him to re-enlist, but the whole thing is quickly set upon by Federation forces, who massacre the rebels even as they peacefully surrender.
Basically, a lot of the runtime is dedicated to showing how fruitless nonviolent resistance to the Federation is. It makes me wonder if that's a difference between British and American character--a Yank audience probably wouldn't need that much convincing, considering all the Federation soldiers dress like Poke-gimps.
I don't know, that turn of phrase just felt right.
Anyway, this brings me to one of the strengths of the Blake's 7 universe, which I'd like to contrast with a failing in Firefly.
Hold on, someone's knocking at the door.
Oh God, it's the Browncoats!
Relax, relax, it's not about the Chinese! Put down the future Western clubs!
Okay, if you read some of Whedon's statements about Firefly, you'd know he intended the Alliance to be not so bad, just... misguided. In the Core Worlds, it was actually quite nice, it was just when they extended their reach to the Outer Planets that oppression and badness kicked in, blah blah Iraq-cakes. However, I don't think this ever came across on the show itself. Despite the pretensions to shades of gray, the Alliance was always the Evil Empire. I mean, look at the big damn movie. It ended with a bunch of Alliance grunts get raped, skinned, and eaten by Reavers. Would that really be intended as such a fist-pumping moment if we were supposed to see the Alliance officers as a bunch of okay folks, just doing their jobs?
By the way, was that whole "Reavers will rape you to death" thing necessary, in the end? It's both a little silly and a little too nasty. There's a difference between "And then the villain was eaten alive by cannibals. Good riddance!" and "and then the villain was raped to death by rapists. Good riddance!"
Blake's 7 makes it clear that there are a lot of good people working for the Federation, it's just that there's a culture of corruption at the top. You have working stiffs being surprised at the depravity their bosses show, which makes more sense for how an evil empire would run than everyone from the doorman up being Chaotic Evil.
Now, this is more in the territory of "I wouldn't have done it that way" complaints, but Blake quickly regains his memories and turns into Captain Kirk, leaving the whole brain-washing thing as just an elaborate character introduction. Which just seems like such a waste to me. You could get so many plots out of this Jason Bourne everyman character who's forced into the role of a revolutionary and has to regain the past that was stolen from him. I guess perhaps TV just wasn't set up for those kinds of character arcs back then.
That's really my chief complaint with the series, that a lot of the characters are flat. You have Blake, who's The Hero, Avon who's the Asshole, and Vila who's the Coward. Everyone else just has a thing. Gan can't kill people because of an implant (he never shows any preference for killing and he can still knock people out, so this is the rare case where I must say "the Spike storyline on BtVS was done better"). Jenna used to be a smuggler. Cally is psychic. Zen is a computer. Orac is also a computer (but more of a bitch about it).
So while the Blake, Avon, and Vila dialogue is often very witty, the others get lines that are pretty much interchangeable. Maybe you could accuse Star Trek of the same thing, with the Kirk/Spock/McCoy trio on top and everyone else just having a stereotype. But TOS did represent different nationalities back when that was much more of a big deal. In Blake's 7, everyone's just a pasty British guy (cue outraged commenting about how Blake's 7 was the first series to include a Welshman and that was a huge deal because Welsh hatred still runs rampant in the UK). And you have actual character traits to go with the accents. Scotty had the thing with the engines, where he says he'll need three days to fix them and then he gets it done in five minutes. Chekov keeps thinking things were invented in Russia because of the horrible education he received. Uhura had that ear thing that no one else needed, even though they were doing the same thing.
I hear the heroes on this show have a high turn-over rate, so maybe things will improve with the second season, clearing out some of the deadwood and putting in people with personalities. (I'm sorry if that came off as bigoted against people with no personalities. I know you consider the internet a safe space. Please accept my apologies.)
Another thing I should mention is that Farscape, while a good deal more watchable (it does have Claudia Black in it, after all), was pretty wholly inspired by this show. You can see that a lot of the things in Farscape are tributes to stuff in Blake's 7. Alan Moore had a quote recently about there being a difference between stealing and adapting--and he's in favor of stealing. I can kind of see his point. Farscape would've been a crap remake of Blake's 7, either by (for instance) leaving out the Blake/Avon rivalry or trying to replicate the chemistry of the original actors and writing. But by being inspired by Blake's 7 and then paying homage to it, they came up with something much more interesting than a retread with prettier people, like the Crichton/Harvey dynamic.
It's the same reason I'm looking forward to Lockout, which is basically Guy Pearce as Snake Plisken IN SPACE, more than I would a remake of Escape From New York. I'd rather everyone involved be free to do their own thing, free of a forced comparison.
If there's one thing to take away from this, it's the character of Travis, a Federation officer who was horribly scarred by Blake and is now out for revenge--sorta like Crais from Farscape. Now, you know how Crais was sorta lame, the Master to Scorpius's Spike & Darla (to keep with the Buffy theme)? Well, Travis is a guy who's origin story is that he already got his ass enormously kicked by Blake. He basically spends the entire season as Blake's buttmonkey, to the point where you kinda feel sorry for him. His last scene is when Blake screws over both him and his superior, Servalan. And Servalan turns to Travis, I swear to God, and says "You're in a lot of trouble, Travis."
It makes me wish they'd take things all the way and have Travis scream "BLAAAAAAKE!" or something after every defeat, maybe take off his scar mask, throw it on the ground, and stomp on it. That's the way we'd do it in America.
