Don't Lose Damian

It's a well-known fact (to me anyway) that Homeland lost the plot after Damian Lewis left the cast. I'll long remember that iconic image of Brody hanging from a noose in Iran at the end of season 3; what came after for Homeland is instantly forgettable. Homeland's point was always the question of Brody's loyalty and Carrie's relationships - professional and personal - with him.

Lewis leaves the cast, Homeland dies.

Now there is a repetition of this point with Billions. This excellent TV series hinged around the tense relationship between two protagonists - Paul Giamatti's District Attorney Chuck Rhoades and Lewis's hedge fund billionaire Bobby Axelrod. It was one of those shows where your empathy with the characters constantly shifted. Brilliantly written and acted, it was an outstanding watch. At the end of season 5 Rhoades wins, Axelrod has to sell his company and go into exile in Switzerland; Lewis leaves the cast. In the last few weeks we have seen season 6. What a let down. The new owner of Axe Capital is Mike Prince, who turns out to be ... nice. He is going to clean up the hedge fund, only accept squeaky clean investors (good luck with that) and bid for the Olympics. What? Rhoades is baffled - he hates billionaires and here's an acceptable one!

In the latest episode we, the viewers, are confronted with the strange device of graphic images overlaying the appearance of each character, the graphics showing their clothing and accessories and their valuations. It's like one of those movies where you see things through the lens of a robot or android - I think it may have been Blade Runner but I'm not sure; maybe Terminator or Ex Machina? Anyway, it's a very irritating device for two reasons: 1. There is so much text that you can't read it before it's gone (Louis Vitto Manhattan $10,000, Gucci Jeans $3,100, Gucci Stuart Hughes Bel ... wait, it's gone! I haven't got to the shirt yet!) 2. It's pointless flammery, as if the producers need to remind us of the show's title. Not for me.

Lewis leaves the cast, Billions dies.

If you're thinking of casting Damian Lewis in a TV show, people - make sure he's contracted through to the final episode ever.

How well do I know my sons?

I recommended Money Heist to Dan, my younger son. The recommendation was a success as he rated it "probably in my top 10 [TV series] ever". Which led me to think what the other 9 would be. So I'm going to give it a go and he can tell me my score in the Comments. Maybe he could even take up my offer of a guest blogger spot!

Bear in mind he's 35 years younger than me so I have to avoid some of my own preferences - e.g. Only Fools And Horses - he was 2 at the time. Here goes. No particular order.

The Sopranos

Game Of Thrones

Stranger Things

The Wire

Breaking Bad

Dexter

Friends

The West Wing

For the final guess it's a toss up between Succession, Billions, The Thick of It and Homeland. I'll go for...

Homeland

I eagerly await my score..... 

Other readers can post their top 10s!

The Sinner

I was brought up in an evangelical Christian household and spent my formative years in membership of the Salvation Army. The SA was founded in the east end of London in the middle of the 19th century, where the alleviation of poverty as its central social mission was fuelled by a deep hatred of alcoholism and other vices of the poor. So I had an instinctive understanding of the concept of Sin - the sins of drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco and much more were a fundamental part of the organisation's message and of the prohibitions of membership.

You can imagine the temptations this brought to an inquisitive and intelligent teenager; they were probably the origins of the rebel I became and arguably continue to be.

I pondered this when I started watching the Netflix series The Sinner. It's a psychological  drama covering four seasons, each of eight episodes. The central character, Harry Ambrose, is a detective who appears in all four seasons although the rest of the cast of characters changes for each season. In each case there is a murder and we know the perpetrator straight away. But Ambrose looks beneath the plain facts and seeks to understand the murderer's motivations, believing that there may be ameliorating circumstances which could affect the justice system's treatment of the case. With the perpetrator he acts as therapist as much as investigator.

As the seasons follow, the scenarios grow darker. Season one features a - on the face of it - perfectly normal wife and mother who unaccountably stabs someone to death on the beach. Season two gives us a glimpse into an ugly cult through the eyes of a young boy who poisons two of the cult members.

As things progress, we learn about Ambrose's own background and understand more of why he relates to these abused people whom he sees as victims (of their pasts) rather than offenders. It seems to me that he is the eponymous Sinner.

Season three for me just got too dark. A teacher, husband and father is involved in the death of someone whom he knew and was very close to. As we are shown flashbacks to their relationship we come to see that person as someone very destructive indeed. He came across to me as almost the personification of evil and I simply felt - halfway through episode four - that it was disturbing me too much and I should stop.

So I did.

I spent some time debating whether I should post this. But, if I'm going to describe movies and TV shows which I enjoy and think you might too, I felt a responsibility to mention those which I would dissuade anyone whose sensibilities are similar to mine from watching. It's fair to say that there has been a degree of critical acclaim for The Sinner and it has many good points. It's just that, for me, it went too far into the dark side.

Bella Ciao

Bella Ciao is a folk song originating in World War II resistance movements in Italy. It continues to be a part of anti-fascist protests throughout the world. I came across it in the wonderful TV series Money Heist, which glorifies anti-establishment themes and in which Bella Ciao occurs as a leitmotif to characterise the robbers' anti-authoritarian instincts. Freedom for the people! Of course, they also set out to steal billions of euros' worth of currency and gold bars. The song provides moments of joyous celebration when things go well - which they don't always. Absolutely no spoilers, though, because you'll want to watch this.

You can sing along:

One morning I awakened,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao!
One morning I awakened
And I found the invader.

Oh partisan carry me away,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
oh partisan carry me away
Because I feel death approaching.

And if I die as a partisan,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
and if I die as a partisan
then you must bury me.

Bury me up in the mountain,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
bury me up in the mountain
under the shade of a beautiful flower.

And all those who shall pass,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
and all those who shall pass
will tell me "what a beautiful flower."

This is the flower of the partisan,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
this is the flower of the partisan
who died for freedom

Credibility Stretch

Man turns up at his wife's memorial and makes a speech in which he accuses her of selfishness in committing suicide.

Man (same man, let's call him Our Man for brevity), a surgeon, hooks up with a dodgy cockney (we'll call him Lee, because that's his name), who is an eco-eccentric and survivalist with a whole suite of 'rooms' deep underground beneath Temple [remember that, you'll need it later] tube station. They run a business providing medical services to those who are unwilling to go through the usual medical channels. Patching up gunshot wounds, for instance.

We discover that Our Man's wife isn't actually dead. She is in a 'hospital ward' in the underground complex, next to a laboratory in which he is continuing her research into a possible cure for her illness.

Lee brings in a mate (we'll call him Jamie) with a gunshot wound. Jamie arrives with £2 million in a brown paper bag (actually a sports bag). He ran away with the cash from a robbery, leaving his fellow robbers at the mercy of the police. Who are now looking for him. The robbers that is. And the police of course.

Jamie needs a blood transfusion but they have run out of the universal O negative. Our Man phones the only person he knows with that blood type - Anna, his wife's co-researcher and his ex lover - and 'invites' her to see his new home, where she is knocked out with chloroform and her blood used on Jamie.

Anna finds Our Man's wife and agrees to help the research.

Jamie's pregnant wife is given a 'burner' phone with which to communicate with Jamie - the underground complex has full WiFi, obviously - and not surprisingly she gets interrogated. By the police. And the mates of the by now incarcerated robbers.

Our Man discovers that his wife is suffering renal failure and needs a kidney transplant. He makes contact with an underworld supplier of kidneys and needs £100,000 to buy one. So he steals the money from Jamie's stash.

Sounds a promising plot for a TV show? It. Does. Not. Unless it's a comedy. Which Sky's Temple is not, being presented as a 'medical crime drama'.

I've watched some dross in my time as an armchair TV critic but this takes the proverbial biscuit. Want a recommendation? Avoid it like the plague. The above summary covers five episodes of this ludicrous show. There are many more but I won't be watching.

Farming news

Clarkson's Farm: I don't much like Jeremy Clarkson, or his alt-right libertarian spoutings. However, Richard Wagner was probably an unpleasant man, with anti-Semitic leanings, but I enormously enjoy his music and I approached this TV series with a similarly open mind. Not a fan of Clarkson's petrolhead stuff, I thought perhaps he couldn't murder farming and, in this eight episode 'account' of a year on his Cotswold farm, he doesn't; at least not all the time.

It's apparent that a great deal of this is staged and scripted (as is the majority of TV), so it's possible that the whole thing never happened in the way that it was portrayed but you either suspend belief and enjoy it or switch off. I chose the former. Clarkson claims that the tenant farmer of his farm decided to retire and so our Jeremy (I can't believe I wrote that, it sounds ridiculously familiar) decided to have a go himself - with, it has to be said, an Amazon film crew in tow. Fair enough, he's a TV presenter by trade so do what you do best.

Did you know that the luxury sports car manufacturer Lamborghini started as a tractor manufacturer? You can buy new Lamborghini tractors today, although they are now made by someone else, albeit still sporting the iconic name. Obviously the first thing Clarkson did was to purchase one. Only around £100,000, I think. I don't know how much tractors cost but I'm guessing that's high end. More expensive machinery follows, as he sets out his initial aim to grow crops. Not surprisingly, he doesn't have a clue how to do that. It's a bit of a soap opera really, but Clarkson shows some empathy engaging with various locals whom he recruits to help. These people form the dramatis personae of the production.

In a way it's a Del Boy epic - grand schemes (such as a rewilding project), flitting from project to project, an inability to be interested in detail (selling spring water in the farm shop before it has been tested - sounding very much as though inspired by the Only Fools And Horses episode Mother Nature's Son) and a propensity to ignore rules (the farm shop stocks pineapples when the planning permission specifies local produce only). It is brought to his attention that, in order to get a government grant available for leaving a field as grass (I'm pretty certain there's a technical term for that), the grass has to be mowed regularly; he opts instead to get a flock of sheep. Which proves to be an economic disaster but, predictably, great television, telling us everything about this show. Clarkson sets himself up as a lovable buffoon, kept in order by his cohorts - and by his Irish girlfriend Lisa who flits in and out of the show, adding colour, from time to time.

It's Laurel and Hardy to an extent but, interestingly, there is a deal of serious comment about the economics of farming today and the mountains of paperwork required. As the year progresses, Clarkson changes: he becomes more serious, engages fully in hard physical work and, with his new mates/advisers, is prepared to work through the night on occasions to get things done. Throughout, and particularly at the end of the year, when all the crops have been harvested, he reflects that these months have been some of the happiest in his life. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. For me, a very enjoyable show.

Is impartial news a thing of the past?

Where do you get your news? Do you cross check other sources for corroboration?

I thought I'd check out the new TV channel GB News, recently launched by the 'big beast' of political journalism, Andrew Neil. Neil has been one of the best, most forensic political interviewers of recent years and has appeared to be scrupulously impartial in his verbal destruction of politicians of all stripes. A surprise, then, to see Neil as the face of a news channel that doesn't pretend to be impartial - indeed loudly claims to be 'anti-woke' and against the 'metropolitan mindset', 'identity politics' and cancel culture'. If you turn on to GB News, therefore, you wouldn't expect to be surprised by the thrust of its 'news' reporting.

You'd imagine Priti Patel, of all our British politicians, would be pushing her way to the front of the queue for an 'interview' (i.e. a platform for her views). And there she was: 'taking the knee is gesture politics' - you can see it on the GB News Twitter feed, if you feel the kneed.

Except. At 12:30 today, I watched Gloria De Piero (ex Labour MP and TV journalist) and economics/business journalist Liam Halligan co-hosting a three hour show "DePiero & Halligan" (so not "News at 12" or "The Lunchtime News", or indeed any pretence of being news). Gloria introduced an item from the Yorkshire Post on the number of Covid-related fines issued by the police in Nottinghamshire, which turned out to be largely breaking of Tier restrictions - remember those? - from however many months/years ago that those existed. Followed by someone called Sarah giving her opinions on the impact of continuing restrictions on 30 guests at weddings - cut to Gloria, nodding her approval of these views. There was no balancing item from someone in authority as to why it was necessary but, worst of all, it just felt very Radio 5 Live, members of the public blathering about local things no-one else is interested in. Basically provincial gossip. Is that it, Andrew?

I am a news sceptic, in that I basically don't believe there is such a thing as an unbiased presentation of news. If you are a reader of the Daily Telegraph, the Mirror, the Sun, the Guardian, you pretty much know the slant you will get on news items - indeed you read your paper of choice because you broadly agree with its general political stance. I read - and subscribe to - the Times, largely because its reporting of football and horse racing is supremely detailed and enlightening. I enjoy the Comments sections but always check out the authorship of a comment piece in order to evaluate its degree of impartiality. I watched last year's US General Election avidly on CCN, completely aware of (and enjoying) its anti-Trump bias.

I am absolutely not a fan of the BBC. Nothing to do with its impartiality or otherwise; I just don't believe it should exist. If there is a role for a public service broadcaster in a democratic country (something I dispute in an era of multiple news outlets), it should be restricted solely to news and news analysis. No competition with - and desire to eclipse - other media outlets, no drama, no sport, no provincial gossip and definitely no national cheerleading. And no licence fee.

So that's me; no pretence of impartiality, but I don't have to be. And no provincial gossip here.

Sharp Objects

I've not really connected to Amy Adams in  the past - I suppose early in her career. I actually haven't seen her in many movies. The one I do remember was a tsunami disaster movie with Ewan MacGregor. I can't remember what it was called and can't be bothered to look it up. I wouldn't say it was bad but it wasn't gripping - as disaster movies are supposed to be.

However, the TV series Sharp Objects is absolutely outstanding and stars Amy Adams.

I have an aversion to TV series which get an unwarranted second season - not because they are too bad to warrant it but precisely because they are too good to warrant it; they have said what they have to say and to contrive a follow-up undermines the quality of the original. So I hope Sharp Objects doesn't get a second season, because this is The Best.

It's easy to list TV shows that went on too long. Even the classic West Wing - should have finished when Bartlet ended his second term; there was no point to the rest. Homeland - should have finished when Brody died; the Carrie/Brody relationship was good, afterwards Carrie just went crazy.

Conversely, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (like West Wing, written by Aaron Sorkin) was so good and there was plenty left in it. The characters were ripe for further development. Don't know why the studio cancelled it. Ratings, I guess.

So, Sharp Objects, based on a novel by Gillian Flynn. Adams is Camille, a journalist who is assigned to an investigation into why a young girl - and others previously - have disappeared. In her home town, to which she is not keen to return. Camille is a seriously flawed character but gets to grip with the mysterious circumstances. She decides to stay at her family home. Her mother (Patricia Clarkson won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress) is not exactly delighted to see her and - what she (the mother) sees as - her disruption of small town life as she relentlessly probes into current and recent tragedies.

  

Eliza Scanlen (recently Beth in Little Women) plays Camille's rollerblading younger half sister and Chris Messina a detective (Willis) is brought in from another force to help with the investigation. He and Camille are the outsiders and are duly resented by the townsfolk. The interactions between these four main characters make a great show.

To tell more would be to spoil, so suffice to say that the acting is universally superb, the plot is a dark depiction of small town middle America and the music is amazing.

The 8 episode series aired on HBO in 2018, after which HBO announced there would not be a sequel. Well done, HBO! It simply doesn't need more.

One final thing: do not switch off during the final credits of the final episode; you will miss an important coda.