Telly stuff
Jul. 15th, 2011 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightMy posts do rather seem to have narrowed down lately to What I Watched On Telly, haven't they? Oh well.
Anyway, this week, I watched a BBC adaptation of Sarah Waters' wonderful novel, The Night Watch, and the first episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day. More about those behind cut.
Spoilers, obviously.
I'm a bit confused about TW; Miracle Day. Apparently, the US version gets more sex and violence and the UK one gets more conversation. Will the same hold true for the eventual DVD releases, does anyone know? If so, it'll be really annoying. I hate to think I might have missed anything at all, but I couldn't find a d/l I could play so I've no way to compare.
Not that I'll definitely be buying the DVD set, because after this first episode the jury is still way, way out. It was an odd confection all right. The glossy, American stuff sat decidedly oddly next to the rather un-glossy Brit stuff. I couldn't help noticing the extreme contrast between the two hospitals, for instance, and I bet American viewers noticed it too, and some of them are probably now thinking all that nonsense Sarah Palin spouted about the NHS is true.
Maybe that's a universal American perception of our health service, unfair as it is, just as the bizarre release of Bill Pullman's character from prison was an equally unfair Brit perception of American justice. RTD must subscribe to the view that Americans are more scared of being sued than they are of anything else (and he wouldn't be the only Brit who thought it), to the extent that they would rather let dangerous paedophiles loose on the streets than take the risk.
To me, that whole thing was very silly. Firstly, if the governor (it was the governor, wasn't it?) was so worried about being sued by Oswald Danes, why wasn't he worried about being countersued by Danes's victim's parents? Silly, silly, silly. I don't believe any American states governor would ever dare release a prisoner like Danes, no matter what the threat. Also, I really resent that Danes was being supported by some sort of anti-death penalty lobby group, since it implies that people who are against the death penalty are all "Paedophiles! Yay!" which is arrant nonsense and quite insulting.
:Steps off soap box:
On a less indignant note, I can't say I'm convinced by the Danes character. Yes, Bill Pullman is doing a good job of making him utterly repulsive (he might as well go around wearing a t-shirt saying, 'I'm a paedo, ask me how'), but that's partly the problem. He's too repulsive. He's supposed to be charismatic. Instead, he's just creepy.
I also thought most of the action sequences were old-style Torchwood silly. The Welsh-set ones were fun, though, and I did enjoy Gwen and Rhys's domestic bliss with guns. I also envy them their beautiful country hideaway. However, none of the American characters gel for me yet. Everything is too Hollywood and glossy. 'Course Barrowman has a lot of Hollywood showbiz gloss, but over here he's most often seen on telly introducing early Saturday evening family game shows (in fact he's just been on, wearing a jacket with blue-sequinned lapels), so it's always a bit jarring when he's being Captain Jack (oh, and I still miss Captain John, so there!).
So, not a whole hearted endorsement, but I will keep watching, if only to (hopefully) catch another glimpse of Robin Sachs as 'British Professor', which had me in stitches when the credits rolled.
As for The Night Watch, I did for the most part enjoy the adaptation. I thought it was a little rushed and can't really understand why the BBC changed certain plot points either, unless it was because they thought the only heterosexual characters in the story deserved a happy ending more (not really, but unfortunately that's one way you could interpret it). I also didn't find the actress playing Helen very convincing. She was certainly nothing like how I imagined her. But Anna Maxwell Martin as Kay and Anne Wilson-Jones as Julia were both excellent (and there was real sexual chemistry between them). Well worth staying up for anyway.
Anyway, this week, I watched a BBC adaptation of Sarah Waters' wonderful novel, The Night Watch, and the first episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day. More about those behind cut.
Spoilers, obviously.
I'm a bit confused about TW; Miracle Day. Apparently, the US version gets more sex and violence and the UK one gets more conversation. Will the same hold true for the eventual DVD releases, does anyone know? If so, it'll be really annoying. I hate to think I might have missed anything at all, but I couldn't find a d/l I could play so I've no way to compare.
Not that I'll definitely be buying the DVD set, because after this first episode the jury is still way, way out. It was an odd confection all right. The glossy, American stuff sat decidedly oddly next to the rather un-glossy Brit stuff. I couldn't help noticing the extreme contrast between the two hospitals, for instance, and I bet American viewers noticed it too, and some of them are probably now thinking all that nonsense Sarah Palin spouted about the NHS is true.
Maybe that's a universal American perception of our health service, unfair as it is, just as the bizarre release of Bill Pullman's character from prison was an equally unfair Brit perception of American justice. RTD must subscribe to the view that Americans are more scared of being sued than they are of anything else (and he wouldn't be the only Brit who thought it), to the extent that they would rather let dangerous paedophiles loose on the streets than take the risk.
To me, that whole thing was very silly. Firstly, if the governor (it was the governor, wasn't it?) was so worried about being sued by Oswald Danes, why wasn't he worried about being countersued by Danes's victim's parents? Silly, silly, silly. I don't believe any American states governor would ever dare release a prisoner like Danes, no matter what the threat. Also, I really resent that Danes was being supported by some sort of anti-death penalty lobby group, since it implies that people who are against the death penalty are all "Paedophiles! Yay!" which is arrant nonsense and quite insulting.
:Steps off soap box:
On a less indignant note, I can't say I'm convinced by the Danes character. Yes, Bill Pullman is doing a good job of making him utterly repulsive (he might as well go around wearing a t-shirt saying, 'I'm a paedo, ask me how'), but that's partly the problem. He's too repulsive. He's supposed to be charismatic. Instead, he's just creepy.
I also thought most of the action sequences were old-style Torchwood silly. The Welsh-set ones were fun, though, and I did enjoy Gwen and Rhys's domestic bliss with guns. I also envy them their beautiful country hideaway. However, none of the American characters gel for me yet. Everything is too Hollywood and glossy. 'Course Barrowman has a lot of Hollywood showbiz gloss, but over here he's most often seen on telly introducing early Saturday evening family game shows (in fact he's just been on, wearing a jacket with blue-sequinned lapels), so it's always a bit jarring when he's being Captain Jack (oh, and I still miss Captain John, so there!).
So, not a whole hearted endorsement, but I will keep watching, if only to (hopefully) catch another glimpse of Robin Sachs as 'British Professor', which had me in stitches when the credits rolled.
As for The Night Watch, I did for the most part enjoy the adaptation. I thought it was a little rushed and can't really understand why the BBC changed certain plot points either, unless it was because they thought the only heterosexual characters in the story deserved a happy ending more (not really, but unfortunately that's one way you could interpret it). I also didn't find the actress playing Helen very convincing. She was certainly nothing like how I imagined her. But Anna Maxwell Martin as Kay and Anne Wilson-Jones as Julia were both excellent (and there was real sexual chemistry between them). Well worth staying up for anyway.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-15 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-15 09:02 pm (UTC)But :shrug: It was done for plot purposes so I understand why they did it.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-15 09:20 pm (UTC)So I disagree, it wasn't just for plot purposes, it was a neat plot point that made good use of a genuine (if highly unlikely) legal situation. There have certainly been cases in this country of people who revived after execution who were allowed to go free because the sentence had been carried out.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-16 10:20 am (UTC)Yes, a very long time ago. Not these days.
What you are suggesting - essentially imprisoning someone just because it is convenient - would break all those limits, and he would indeed be entitled to sue the hell out of anyone who did it. Nor can I imagine any American politician (or I hope any British one) keeping their position if they were seen to behave in an illegal fashion.
Sorry, considering Danes's offense, I still don't buy it, any more than I buy expecting logic or sense in TW.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-17 04:44 am (UTC)At the risk of talking politics, let me try to explain.
Office holders can't behave in an arbitrary fashion, and they don't. They have to stick with the law at all times, even if that is electorally unpopular. Obvious recent examples spring to mind like votes for prisoners and not deporting foreign criminals. The government weren't going against popular demands because they were unaware of them, or somehow wanted to be perverse, they were following their greater responsibility to maintain the law. Politicians have the power to change the law, but not to break it just because it is convenient. They have to stick to the law as it currently is until they have time to change it. And any system that develops where politicians are imposing arbitrary law, even for the 'best' of reasons like overwhelming popular support or the conviction that they are absolutely 'in the right' is tyranny. And tyranny is a far worse crime than paedophilia, just ask the people of Libya.
Well we obviously haven't had capital punishment for a very long time. And when we did, as far as I know, the last incidence of someone surviving hanging was long before that because hanging with a trap-door drop is a very successful way of killing people. Hanging without a dead-drop is a very slow and inefficient way of killing, and survival was by no means rare if friends and relatives could get in and cut the person down quickly enough. But it is the common law that applies in such a situation, something we share with the US, so it's not a case of the legal situation having somehow changed unless a state had specifically introduced a law legislating that if someone survived execution they were to be imprisoned, or executed again or whatever. Such a law is unlikely because if a state had such an inefficient method of execution that survival was probable they would simply change the method rather than bother to legislate for failure.