Downton Abbey Christmas Special

Is it possible for a show to parody itself?  I'm sure there's a precedent somewhere (Moonlighting and Star Trek: Next Generation come to mind) but a show as ah, serious as Downton?

Yes, of course I'll be downloading it in the new year.

An awkward ep, to be sure.

Taken 2 - Update

Thank Christ they put some clothes on her.

Pity the rest of the movie didn't get some common sense going - for example, to go to the US embassy does one really need to crash through all the security? having removed the shackles of captivity, does one leave one's ex-wife with the phrase, I'll be right back, or could one perhaps move her to a safer fucking place until further notice?

Meh.

Taken 2 (2012; Oliver Megaton / Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen)

The first Taken film was a pleasant surprise:  Mills (Liam Neeson) is a retired spook whose daughter (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped, and he gets her back, no punches pulled.

In this sequel, there's half-an-hour of set-up before the plot kicks in and - spoiler alert if you haven't seen or heard anything about the premise - the tables are turned and its Mills' daughter's turn to rescue her parents.  That's a nice switch, I thought to myself.  It's certainly avoiding the bad luck John McClane has had with his wife in the first few Die Hard films.

I had to stop the film at the 40-minute mark, though:  1). it was past my bedtime, and 2). all the leg, crotch and cleavage shots of Grace were beginning to really grate - and I couldn't get rid of the thought, She's going to spend the rest of the fucking film in those fucking shorty-shorts, isn't she?

An update may follow.

Last Resort S01E09

What an ep.  What stakes.  What complications.

What fuckheads ABC are for not renewing this show.

Vegas S01E09

Tone was a little all over the place but this still wees all over Arrow for character and storytelling chops.

And about goddamned time Moss was part of the ep's story, rather than as a goddamned walk-on.

The Walking Dead S03E08

It's NCEA time, so in that spirit here's some questions.

1.  In a world of extraordinary uncertainty where the dead reanimate, you have survived by being fast, ruthless and commonsensical.  You find yourself in a room surrounded by fish tanks filled with zombie heads.  There's a noise coming from a cupboard - the noises of someone or something inside.

You open the cupboard and a little child making gravelly grunty noises pops out with 1). a hood over its head, 2). its sweater turned into a straitjacket, and 3). a chain around its neck.

What is the first thing you do?

(a). Cut that motherfucker's head off.
(b). Pull the hood off.
(c). Ask the child, Where're your parents, yo?
(d). Remove the chain.

2.  Optional Question for Bonus Mark

You have just joined a ragged group of survivors.  There are six of you.  You are in hostile and unfamiliar territory.

One of your fellow survivors screams her head off at every goddamned fucking instance of zombie contact.

What do you do?

(a).  Have a quiet word with the screamer to SHUT THE FUCK UP because her screaming attracts attention.
(b).  Cut the screamer's tongue out.
(c).  Lose the screamer at the first opportunity.
(d).  Do nothing and hope for the best.

Vegas S01E08

Another nice ep.  The little brother's fledgling romance with the count room woman is a nice touch.

The flinty chemistry between Quaid and Chiklis is one to savour.

And nice to see Stark Sands find work after NYC-22.

Update:  okay, so that's not Sands but a lookalike.  Military uniforms always make it hard for me to differentiate between individual soldiers.

Arrow S01E07

I don't watch this show for the dialogue or the acting or even the PG-13 violence.

I watch it for the narrative developments.  If this means I'm a sucka for cliffhangers, then I'm a sucka.  There's no other explanation.

Falcon: The Blind Man of Seville (Sky, 2012)

I only really watched this because there's a Kiwi as the lead:  Marton Csokas.  The pleasure increased with the title credits:  Kerry Fox, another Kiwi, Hayley Atwell, who made a nice spunky impression in Captain America:  The First Avenger, and Bernard Hill, who always gives warm grampappy fuzzies.  And it was directed by Dredd helmer Pete Travis, which I loved to bits.

Back to Falcon.

Nothing new as far as the genre is concerned.  The actors' native British accents were a little incongruous at first with the Spanish location, but the casting and the decision to not bother with Spanish accents is another plus in this show's favour.

Did I like it?  It looked nice enough.  There are small pleasures like the city itself, and (I think) Charlie Creed-Miles continually disgruntled sidekick detective.

I suppose I'll try another.  For New Zealand.

The Bourne Legacy (2012; Tony Gilroy)

I'd read the reviews so expectations were low but - wow, what a loser of a film.

I've loved your earlier work, Mr Gilroy but this one - pssht, let's pretend another Tony Gilroy cobbled this together.

The Sweeney (2012; Nick Love / Love & John Hodge)

Ahh what a load of 1970s throwback bollocks.  A great cast with Ray Winstone, Hayley Atwell, Damian Lewis and Steven Mackintosh, though.  But seriously:  have the filmmakers not seen any film and/or television crime stories in the last thirty fuckin' years?  What do they take the viewing audiences for?

Morons?

Fuckin' hell.

Vegas S01E06-07

This show is beginning to spin off into moral territories that very few broadcast shows like to go.  Broadcast shows are that:  broad.  As in without nuance, as in lowest common denominator.

Creators Nicholas Pileggi and Greg Walker have been devious sons-a-bitches in giving us a McCloud knock-off in this post-Longmire and -Justified procedural telly landscape and sneaking in some moral fucking ambiguity.

Seriously, bitches:  WTF?

Yes, I teared up at the end of the last ep because for all of Savino's (Chiklis) hustle and bluff, he loves his wife.  And was it the previous ep or the one before where that was that unsubtle reveal of why Lamb (Quaid) just won't let his brother cut down a tree on the ranch - he loves his wife, too, the old coot.

Vegas is the shizz.

Last Resort Cancelled

Oh fuck.

The Walking Dead S03E06-07

If this show suffers from too much of a good thing, it's pacing:  ep x, we'll learn this-little-piggy-went-to-market; in ep y, we'll blow some nasty-ass TV CGI up and we'll learn that this-little-piggy-stayed-home; and so on.  It's so fucking measured.

Maybe it's just a part of the whole zombie canon:  seemingly interminable suspension, consistent ignorance/idiocy as to the lethality of the plague, action that is driven not by logic - or a love for life - but by the next ad break or upcoming ep.  What the comic does so well is that - tragic lapses of attention aside - our heroes learn shit.  I hear that's fucking called character development or some shit.

I suspect a lot of my bitching and whining in this post is informed by another motherfucking AMC mid-season break - after next week's ep, it's who-the-fuck-knows how long until we get to the end of this - let's be honest, pedestrian - zombie show.

And bitch and whine as I will, I'll still waste precious bandwidth on this fucking show.  Why?  Because it's diverting a little from the comic.  Although, seriously, I could do without the goddamned grief.

The Hour S02E01 (BBC, 2011-)

The gang's all back.

A bit slow to begin with.  It's been so long - so it seems - since its maiden season that I'd completely forgotten what happened in the previous season.  The ep only really seemed to pick up with the return of crusading investigative journalist Freddie Lyon (Ben Whishaw) after his big O.E.

I should've written this sooner after watching the ep so I can only offer the following thoughts:

• Was news producer Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) such a weak sister last season?
• I kept waiting for new Head of News Randall Brown (The Thick of It's Peter Capaldi) to say colourfully offensive and bawdy dialogue (alas, shit out of luck in this ep);
• And the ep seemed a bit filled up, if you know what I mean - flaccid and unhurried.

Still.  Nice to have a classy sub-Mad Men show to watch until Dick Whitman and friends return in the new year.

The Walking Dead S03E05

Two thoughts watching this ep.

I spent the first half of this ep screaming Ditch the fucking bitch! at the groan-inducing leave/don't-leave bullshit between Andrea and Michonne.  I'm like, Save this shit for Revolution or TRON Uprising, for pete's sake.

Second thought is during the baby-formula-run and Maggie sneaks into a daycare centre, scans the room she's entered, then goes straight into a cupboard.  I mean, FUCKING EXCUSE ME but after however long of surviving in this godforsaken fictional world, wouldn't SECURING THE FUCKING BUILDING be a logical first step in an unfamiliar environment?

FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Vegas S01E05

Took four eps under the belt - and possibly the appearance of Dewey Crowe - for this series to goddamned sing.  Almost made me want to revisit Casino but I don't think my heart (and/or stomach) could take it again.

It's a bit constrained by its procedural element but Dennis Quaid's stubborn cussedness and Michael Chiklis best-intentioned two-facedness are proving a great hook.

Carrie Ann Moss - who turned up more in this ep - still needs something to do.  Writer dudes?  Hello?

Roll on the rest of season 1.

The Walking Dead S03E01-03

Season 2 was a steaming pile of shit.  It was boring.  It dragged.  It didn't have Frank Darabont at the helm.  I watched the first few eps with a growing sense of dissatisfaction.  I can't remember which ep I pressed 'Stop' part way through.  I jumped to the end of the season, in time for the farm break-out and I was like, Yeah, whatever.

Watching season 3 was motivated largely by the comic - the prison saga, in comic form at least, is fucking awesome - and so, like a dog going back to its vomit, I'm three eps and it... shows promise.

Nothing like the first season.  But it... has potential.  To be entertaining.

Arrow S01E04

This ep wins the prize for most awkwardly written and delivered dialogue so far.

Was there a writers room prize for biggest wordcount?

And was the legal consultant in Tahiti or something?

But like a crack whore, I'm gonna get the next ep.  Either to make sure the slide has begun finally/already or to be there when it gets back on track.

Vegas S01E04

I must be getting soft.

I'm beginning to like this.

Michael Chiklis brings the animal charm that shone through The Shield to give us a mobster with A Dream, and a way to quietly root for him.

Dennis Quaid's impression of a stetson-wearing Easter Island statue was beginning to wear a little thin until we were shown just how sentimental a Harrison-Ford-channeling son-of-a-gun he is.

And The-Irish-Guy-from-the-US-remake-of-'Life-on-Mars' looks like he might have a nice subplot going with the Girl-with-Smarts-who's-also-the-Mob-Boss's-Daughter.

Meantime, Carrie Ann Moss is sorely, sorely missed.  C'mon, writer-dudes:  the woman can take down a room of cops as a warm up, or a foyer of cops and soldiers when properly motivated.