Safety Lights Are For Dudes

So I've just steeled myself and sat and watched Russell Howard's Good News on t'iPlayer. And... I think Tim did good. The clip of him in his John Lennon specs aged about 12 at conference that they started with might have helped*. Russell Howard is still a shouty annoying berk, but I think Tim is worth watching.

Anyway, while he was not-awful-but-not-great on HIGNFY last week**, he was much more like the Tim we all know and love on this, so I'm less hesitant about reccing it. Here you go: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06r95rs/russell-howards-good-news-series-10-episode-7 Tim's bit starts at 15.50.

Oh, and Tim, if you want to go somewhere for a tat I know several award-winning tattooists... ;)

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* although "oh how ADORABLE!" is possibly not the reaction a political party leader dreams of...
** and clearly very nervous: if you watch it, watch his hands

Things I have seen of late and wish to blog about:

Jack Dee, live at the Victoria theatre in Halifax. Was hilarious, although on a couple of occasions he skirted a bit too close to the "I'm not racist but" line. He was wearing amazing purple loafers, though. And he made fantastic attempts at inserting local colour into his set along the lines of Mark Steel's In Town. If I had paid for the tickets I would have considered them good value for money. 8/10

Gambit was silly, but a lot of fun, with the usual caveats about Hollywood movies' stupid approaches to gender politics. It has lots of naked Alan Rickman in it, which, IMHO, is recommendation enough. 7/10

Sightseers is the most original film I have seen in a long long time. If you imagine a feminist take on Natural Born Killers written with the dry and wistful humour of Alan Bennett you're somewhere close to beginning to grasp the feel of this heartwarming romcom about serial killers. I don't want to go too deeply into any of it, because I want you all to go see it. There's a bit of gore, and there's some strong language and really, really inappropriate concepts... but the way they are handled I guarantee you will laugh at all of them. Line of the film was he's not a person, he's a Daily Mail reader, but literally every scene has at least one laugh out loud moment. It was an utter joy hearing peals of laughter in the cinema, and it was lovely hearing the other patrons enthusing about the film as they left. It's not a film that needs to be seen on a big screen by way of effects or big visual stuff, but it's a film that makes for a great shared experience. Go and see it. Please.
Also if, like me, you fall in love with the leading lady you might wish to see her other works, which include Horrible Histories and Garth Marenghi's DarkPlace. 10/10

Strictly Come Dancing has been a lot of fun this year, principally because of the adorable, modest, brilliant and talented Lisa Riley, who has absolutely bloomed and become an amazing dancer. She also SO clearly is having the time of her life and getting on like a house on fire with Robbie. I'm not going to give Strictly a mark though because it's the kind of thing you know whether you like it or not.

Elementary I love love love. I love Johnny Lee Miller's characterisation of Holmes (and have just about expunged his Frankenstein's Monster from my brain), and I love Lucy Liu's sharp yet caring Watson, who has EXACTLY the right balance of intelligence and compassion to be Watson as Watson should be - not the dullard Watson is so often portrayed as, and I REALLY love the way they interact with each other. This is not a brilliant Holmes leading a stupid Watson to enlightenment, it is two people learning different things from each other, exactly as it should be.
Part of the reason it's so good is because the Moffatt series has dibs on the original stories for TV adaptation the makers of Elementary have been forced to be creative, and they have come up with something genuinely great. Better than Sherlock? Hell yes. Sorry Gatiss. 9/10

American Horror Story: Asylum I am having very mixed feelings about. It took me a LONG time to get into series 1 - and I thought about giving up on it more than once - but once I did I really loved it. Jessica Lange is still awesome, and every episode passes Bechdel without a problem, partly due to the huge cast, but partly because there is actual proper gender balance... but there are some bits of it which seem to be going for titilation over plot (oh, I know, in a horror series, what a shock). I'm also not sure about having it setting just two time periods, and the vast majority of it in 1964, rather than jumping about through history, and slowly tying things together. However, I am willing to keep giving it a chance longer than I normally would because the first series did just go on getting better and better. 6/10

Grimm series 2 is still gender unbalanced and still has needlessly silly terminology, but other that is a lot of fun. I am DEEPLY in love with Monroe. The conceit is interesting, and it falls neatly into the slot for fantasy in my head. And a lot of the recurring characters are great too. I particularly love Nick's mum and Monroe's mad-as-a-bag-of-frogs biker ex-girlfriend Angelina. 8/10

Continuum on the other hand, I am starting to wonder if it was made to fit exactly into a slot in my head. It's like someone thought Hey! Jennie loves sci-fi and she loves detective shows and she loves kickass female lead characters: I wonder what'd happen if we put all those things together? The result is a show that's by no means perfect, but still really, really good. I particularly like that the police department's geek is a girl, and am enjoying very much the mystery-of-the-week format. It's still overly male, but it's a step in the right direction, and passes Bechdel most weeks. 8/10

The Almighty Johnsons series 2 is being rather enjoyable too. Ingrid, Ty and Olaf are still my favourites. It's fun to see my predictions coming true, but also being twisted in unexpected ways. The episode A Damn Fine Woman is one of the finest episodes of television I have seen in a long time, and the rest of the series has been a lot of fun too. 8/10

I can't believe a pub singer version of Bohemian Rhapsody was enough to knock Jaz out. FFS. And Ruth getting knocked out was totally unjustified too.

(ETA: for those who haven't realised, I just saw the results for The Voice. Looking forward to when the competition is over and then I can look forward to hearing Becky, Jaz and Ruth again. Of those who are left, if Bo doesn't win, people need shooting).

Election? What election? Not that I'm in denial, but tonight was the first episode of series two of Psychoville, and the first series was so brilliant, and so self-contained, I was somewhat worried about the possibility of shark-jumping. I need not have been.

Effortlessly blending the return of much-loved characters with startling new ones, and beautifully setting up a new intrigue, this episode of Psychoville was everything a fan could have hoped for. The creativity and dark, twisted humour of the writing was never in doubt, but special mention here needs to go to the actors. Who knew that Dawn French was going to manage to make Joyce even MORE creepy? And Stacy Liu, the actress who plays Jennifer, was just amazing. To convey so much through the very tiniest of movements of just a hand, and the stillness of her face... There's some skill there, especially in a show where most of the characters are so gloriously over the top.

There were several laugh out loud moments too - "perforated..." "no, it's just mellow birds, do you want some?" was my favourite - but they did not detract from the drama or intrigue.

Not NOW, Silent Singer indeed...

The series so far, barring the gender-and-race-fail which is endemic in television (and which has been amply covered elsewhere - for example here and here), has been excellent. And yeah, I know that's a big thing to be barring, but...

The third and final episode wasn't as bad as the first two (especially not the second) for those things. What it was, was:

• beautifully written by Mark Gatiss, seamlessly slotting in clever references to the source materials with modern twists
• brilliantly directed, pulling the stylistic cues we had got used to from the first two episodes and swirling them around the story in a glorious work of art
• stunningly acted by the Martin Freeman and Benedict Frumious Bandersnatch, and indeed, most of the other actors. I particularly liked the blind old lady
• enjoyable from start to finish

Sure, it wasn't perfect. Nothing ever is. ( spoilery bits under the cut )

But aside from those minor and picky points, I really loved it. And Mycroft. Oh Mycroft. A character I have had a crush on since I first read his name in print. A character I crushed on even when he was played by a very elderly and rotund Charles Gray. And now played by a writer/horror geek/Who geek/actor I have a crush on anyway, and the guy who wrote this very fine episode...

Mystic SB foresees many fandom icons.

Just, you know, Grand Moff? Mr Gatiss? Sort out the gender-and-race-fail for next time. Please? Because then it would be perfect.

I really wish they had cast the gorgeous girl who plays the sergeant who calls Sherlock "freak" and whose name I forget because her character was clearly a tokenistic bolt-on as LeStrade. That would have been awesome.

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... thanks to lovely lovely trav28.

Am I the only person who had a huge crush on Gus?

* tumbleweed rolls past *

* bell tolls in the distance *

Ah.

I see I am.

Carry on then.

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