Life on Mars (2006) s02e03

New writer (Julie Rutterford) and director (Richard Clark) to the show this episode; they do a fine job, Rutterford even getting to approach some character development for John Simm as far as his relationships with his teammates. There’s not a lot, there’s nothing conclusive, but there’s more to it than usual because Simm’s big mouth gets someone else hurt.

The episode opens with two doctors in the present talking about coma Simm’s mental state; the one on the TV thinks he’s doing fine, the one on the radio thinks he isn’t. While the present directly impacting the past (or imagined past, however you want to define Simm’s condition and the show’s reality) is now an episode and series standard, there really aren’t any rules to it. It’s a B plot directly and obviously affecting the A plot but the only time Simm acknowledges it is in the B plot. Even though he’s making all sorts of bad calls in the A plot and he probably ought to see the connection.

There are going to be a series of IRA bombings, only Simm considers himself an expert in IRA terrorism and he knows there’s no IRA attacks using dynamite in 1973 and so it’s all got to be a hoax. It takes until after one of his teammates gets hurt, after he can’t remember how to disarm the next bomb, does he finally consider the possibility there’s really a series of bombings happening. He spends most of the time—outside the actual bomb action—arguing with Philip Glenister and Liz White about how he’s got to be right.

All the evidence points to Irish workers who want a living wage, with main suspect Brendan Mackey having stolen dynamite from his workplace, a construction company run by Peter Wight. Simm’s going to spend most of the episode protecting Mackey from the rest of the team, occasionally in amusing scenes, but Mackey’s a sturdy guest star not some kind of standout. It’s Simm’s show and it doesn’t help when he spends the entire episode looking like an unsympathetic asshole to everyone else.

Particularly White.

There’s a lot about the British being xenophobic about the Irish, with the promise of actual racism around the corner thanks to East Asian immigrants. It even makes a joke about it; maybe the episode’s strangest moment. Not sure why they needed to include it. The show’s got so many layers and it only acknowledges a few of them, but sometimes it seems like “Mars” doesn’t get at least a couple of other really obvious, important ones.

Especially when you lay over the whole “coma fever dream from Simm’s perspective” thing.

Though the season did establish Simm can change the future from the past, which seemingly didn’t make the show bible because the resolve this episode should’ve made it into Simm’s past future studies of the past.

It’s a really good episode for Dean Andrews. It’s a good episode for everyone, though it’s just too thin for Simm.

“Mars” is tricky because it’s so well-produced, so well-acted, the lack of overall show direction makes for a very sore thumb.

Life on Mars (2006) s02e02

Thank goodness for S.J. Clarkson. There’s also a bunch of good acting in this episode, but Clarkson’s direction is what holds it all together because Chris Chibnall’s script certainly isn’t doing the trick.

Chibnall has two emphases this episode—first, lengthy exposition sequences with John Simm and Philip Glenister recapping information the viewer has seen play out on screen with Simm and sometimes even Glenister, but we have to hear it again to set up Glenister for a joke. It’s like a sitcom. Glenister can get through most of them, with a solid result in the joke section, but even he can’t maintain through the entire episode, getting very tired in the last few of expository dump sequences.

The other emphases is guest star Ray Emmet Brown, a Black copper in 1973 Manchester who’ll grow up to be Simm’s mentor in the apparently post-racial present. There are two to three scenes of Simm telling Brown not to be an Uncle Tom, though only one time literally calling him an Uncle Tom and telling him to stop it. Brown does get to tell Simm his feelings, but Simm ignores them and tells Brown how it’s got to be.

Not so Brown can make things better for other Black officers, but so he’s in a position to help white boy Simm twenty years in the future.

There seems to be a potential juxtaposition between Simm mentoring his own mentor with Glenister’s mentor Kevin McNally hanging around for the episode. McNally’s dying and wants to just his arch nemesis (Stephen Bent) before he goes, but he doesn’t want Glenister knowing he’s dying. The juxtapose doesn’t work because Chibnall’s not really good enough at it. Especially not with the twists and reveals, though the grand finale is pretty good and finally gives Brown a solid scene where he’s not scene fodder for Simm.

The episode’s got some decent set pieces, including an all-hands-on-deck undercover sequence—including Noreen Kershaw, who rarely gets to leave the station—and the sequence is well-executed until it turns out to be dramatically pointless and just something Chibnall’s got in there so not everything is talking heads exposition. Most of the episode is Simm talking to someone or someone talking to Simm about the main plot. All the action is in the first act, something composer Edmund Butt seems to understand more than anyone else because he’s got very dramatic, very ominous music in the rest of the episode even when it’s just people talking without there being any danger.

One of those scenes is Liz White, who should have a much bigger part this episode given it’s her first case as Detective Constable (DC). She gets some good material but once it turns into Glenister and Simm’s team-up—someone calls them “Laurel and Hardy” at one point and it’s way too clearly Chibnall’s take on the characters and show—she’s just vaguely around. She’s Simm’s sounding board for work ideas, which is probably better than being his emotional laborer regarding being trapped in the past.

At least he doesn’t tell her what it’s like to be a woman copper in 1973.

It’s an okay episode, but with some big whiffs in the Chibnall script; the production design, soundtrack, direction, and acting (like Dean Andrews finally getting to do some character development) all help compensate for most of the problem’s in Chibnall’s script.

Though nothing makes up for the pointless, single scene transphobic “gag,” or Brown getting the lectures.

“Mars” really needs to temper its ambitions and leverage its strengths more.

Life on Mars (2006) s02e01

Series two starts with S.J. Clarkson directing, which is good, and Matthew Graham writing, which is middling. Graham’s leaning in on the “present affects the past,” with a villain terrorizing comatose John Simm in the hospital and the only way Simm can save himself is confronting the bad guy in the past.

Marc Warren’s actually really good as the bad guy, he’s just not really in the episode very much. He has like three or four scenes—he’s a casino owner who comps the cops, so everyone but Simm loves him—and in the present it’s all voiceover and ominous imagery. Clarkson can make “Mars” work as it skips between locations and tones in the past, but making the ominous present-day imagery work? Nope. No one could.

Because even though Graham’s all-in on the Simm is in a coma in the present… the show itself isn’t, because then there’s no actual drama.

It plays out fairly well in the episode (there’s nothing more frustrating than a script with good scenes but bad, albeit occasionally inspired plotting), even if the whole episode does serve as a lengthy setup to the new series two ground situation.

For instance, there a couple promotions in store for the cast members, which finally brings the team together.

Simm’s got a rougher part than he should this episode, as he continuously harasses Warren’s girlfriend and future wife and victim Yasmin Bannerman, including telling her all about what’s going to happen to her unless she listens to him. Again, Graham’s really lazy about the other characters when Simm’s having one of his outbursts because having them actually address it would entirely change the show.

Though Liz White does warn Simm multiple times he’s on his way to being involuntarily committed this episode, something they must’ve decided one somewhere between series one and series two. Apparently Philip Glenister can get anyone committed at any time.

Again, it’s a solid but problematic (more than actually bumpy, as the procedural stuff is strong) episode in a good show. Even with an iffy arc, Simm’s good, Glenister’s great, and nice support from White, Dean Andrews, and Marshall Lancaster.

Maybe the most galling thing in the episode is Simm being pointlessly cruel to Noreen Kershaw because it’s socially acceptable for him to be pointlessly cruel to women.

The big setup finale, with Starman accompanying the end credits, promises the season’s going to be good. And have an actual season subplot—Simm gets a mysterious call saying he can go home once he finishes his “assignment”—instead of it being shoehorned in….

“Life on Mars” is the odd example of a really good show with a whole bunch of problems. Though maybe that situation’s just the case for any genre mashup.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e00 – Voyage of the Damned

Voyage of the Damned opens with a repeat of the previous season’s cliffhanger, the Doctor (David Tennant) on his space and time vessel, the TARDIS, and it crashing into something and a Titanic life preserver landing on him. Some of it’s reused footage, but I think once we get the third, “What,” exclamation, we’re into the Christmas special proper.

Turns out it’s not the boat Titanic but an intergalactic space liner in town to visit the Earth. The Titanic naming is just a coincidence, it’s not from a planet with much understanding of Earth, just some vague, comically entertaining details. Because even though Damned is about the possible devastation of the entire planet, it’s still the Christmas special. Lots of easy laughs and easier smiles, especially once the special embraces its Poseidon Adventure remake status, which is unexpected. Tennant leads a ragtag bunch of survivors through the bowels of the ship to save the day, with very special guest star Kylie Minogue playing the companion interest.

She and Tennant are really likable together, so it’s kind of a bummer when once the special gets around to clarifying she’s not going to be the new companion but wouldn’t it be swell if she were. Given Tennant seems entirely all right post-companion breakout with Freema Agyeman in the last season.

There’s a lot of action and a lot of effects. The action’s usually better than the effects.

The supporting cast is fun or better—Tennant’s gang of survivors are rich guy Gray O'Brien, tour guide Clive Swift, alien Jimmy Vee, and then working class marrieds Debbie Chazen and Clive Rowe. They’re all at least likable at one point or another, but often usually better. Often because of Minogue acting off them. Even though her character seems a tad shoehorned in, Minogue is a lot of Voyage’s glue, at least as far as the sympathy goes.

Russell Tovey is okay as the one sailor who realizes the captain, a decently stunt cast but thinly written Geoffrey Palmer, is up to some shenanigans.

It’s got its bumps, but Voyage is a perfectly solid outing. Though the show could at least pretend it misses Agyeman.

Doctor Who (2005) s03e13 – Last of the Time Lords

So, when I started watching “Doctor Who,” I didn’t have any idea the title is a joke. Or can be a joke. Even though I’ve known about the show most of my life… didn’t realize it.

Now, is the “Time Lord” thing… is the “Lord” part really important? I don’t think I’ve ever seen heavy Christ symbolism in a British production before—Life of Brian aside—and it’s really weird to see. It’s also bad because it invalidates the very idea of Freema Agyeman getting anything to do with the show.

Given John Simm at one point mocks her for not being Billie Piper to her face… you’d think she’d get to something more than just blow smoke up David Tennant’s derrière. But no, it turns out smoke blowing is Agyeman’s whole job. What’s the point of having a stronger character and a better performance if the show’s going to shaft you even more than it shafted your predecessor. But with an added, frequently iffy racial element.

Tennant does end up having a good moment in the episode, as he gets yet another showdown with Simm—I don’t even remember if it’s the final showdown—the episode’s got a lot of action and a lot of running and a lot of walking and a lot of showdowns.

And farewells. And surprises. It’s never anywhere near as cute as it ought to be. Tennant, despite that one good moment—and not counting when he’s only doing a voice performance—doesn’t really get much to do in the big season finale. Agyeman gets less, but she got more throughout the season. Sometimes. Even with her part so decimated, when the episode ends with Tennant in the same spot as last season… they should’ve just had him waking up and taking a shower. At least show what the TARDIS living quarters look like.

And Agyeman’s send-off is awkwarder than it ought to be. Especially considering how strong she started. It all feels like a defeat.

Doctor Who (2005) s03e12 – The Sound of Drums

It’s still got Russell T. Davies but there’s a director change since last episode. Now it’s Colin Teague, which turns out fine because Teague’s the best director they’ve had all season except maybe Hettie Macdonald. But as far as doing straightforward “Doctor Who” successfully—especially since it’s a modern day episode—Teague excels.

Though not even Teague can handle the rough opening, which has David Tennant, Freema Agyeman, and John Barrowman getting out of last episode’s big deal cliffhanger with absolutely no difficulty because sonic screwdriver.

And then we get a really fast information dump catching the viewer up on what the characters are quickly realizing—all season has been just four days in Agyeman’s regular timeline, culminating in an election of a new prime minister (John Simm), who has quite the history and bone to pick with Tennant. More, everything conspiring against Tennant and Agyeman has been for this Simm related plot. It even gives a way to redeem Agyeman’s duplicitous mom, Adjoa Andoh, while again using sister Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a damsel in distress. Only this time she doesn’t get to be second sidekick, she’s just… damsel in distress.

Because there’s a real danger—Simm—who’s got everyone in his reach and has no qualms about getting rid of his enemies. He even gets back up from his wife, Alexandra Moen, who seems reservedly horrified at his behavior. But Simm’s got all the power.

Moen’s good. It’s a weird, quiet part, but she’s good.

And Simm’s great. Especially once his master plan—getting to do a first contact meeting with some aliens, bringing new glory to the United Kingdom—is in full motion. Because there’s something off about those aliens, which are little flying globes—Tennant’s never even heard of them, which is impossible.

Colin Stinton plays the U.S. president, who doesn’t want the British getting all the history glory. Stinton’s not a good stunt cast. It’s a miss.

But everything else is a hit. Until the last act when it seems like a kids’ TV show as Simm rules from on high in his SHIELD helicarrier, which is a particularly silly turn but whatever.

The last act gets silly, but the character drama for Agyeman in particular… it’s good.

The Punisher: Long Cold Dark (2007-08)

71jqhtwyrml jpg

I’m going to go out on a limb and say having Howie Chaykin do an issue of art—the fiftieth Punisher MAX, so for the collectors’ who got anniversary issues–having Howie fill-in was a mistake.

Maybe if the rest of it weren’t regular artist Goran Parlov, like if it’d been all guest artists. But Howie ends up being a distraction. Sure, he’s doing the least connected material; his issue’s all first act stuff, with Barracuda back to attack Frank through his friends. Except it turns out Frank really does only have the one friend but Garth Ennis’s script has a surprise twist on that front. Meanwhile, Frank’s having a bad few weeks as he tries to shake off a dream about being a mundane white guy in his sixties, which is where the Howie art really comes through. Parlov’s going to visualize Frank and Barracuda as giant monsters in the real world, the monstrosities of toxic masculinity and patriarchy (whether Ennis wants to acknowledge it or not—he just uses bad dads, PTSD, and good dads for his terminology), but Howie makes them real. As real as anything else in Howie art anyway. And it lacks the energy Parlov’s going to bring later. Ennis actually coins it—“dark enthusiasm.” There’s a dark enthusiasm to the horrible violence and terror in Parlov’s rendering of Barracuda and Frank’s constant showdowns, as Barracuda (and Ennis) figure out a way to make Frank hurt. Howie doesn’t have it. His fight scenes are just fight scenes. He does much better with horny old man Frank getting it on with dream old lady Angie.

Because, you know, it’s Howie.

And despite a return guest star in Howie’s issue, it’s all new cast later on, with Frank having to pretend to be human again. Ennis has a very lyrical take on Frank’s first person, with the occasional poetic flex too far, but for the most part he makes it. Especially after Parlov shows up. The first chapter, while Barracuda’s terrorizing and Frank’s moping as much as he’s allowed to mope, has this exquisitely executed history of Vietnam-era rifles, with acerbic commentary from Frank as he fires off rounds to clear his head. The sequence does a lot of work later on, not exactly softening Frank but widening the potential for his first person narration let’s say, which has been Ennis’s whole trip on Punisher MAX.

I don’t think I’ve read Long Cold Dark since the floppies a decade plus ago. Maybe I read a trade. But I don’t think so. So I don’t know if, at the time, it was the first time Ennis had ever gotten me to tear up on a Punisher comic. Now it’s old hat. He got me sobbing with the last Vietnam flashback limited. Long Cold Dark only got me verklempt and teary-eyed and not even about the tragedy of Frank Castle. It’s over someone else, one of Ennis’s MAX originals, who Ennis has layered throughout the series to amazing effect before and even more amazing effect post-Long Cold Dark. It was during that sequence I realized just how unfair giving Howie the first chapter turns out to be, given how good Parlov has to be to execute the finale. Like, they got a guest artist, gave him the easiest stuff, then gave Parlov a whole big thing with no fanfare. Ennis asks a whole lot more of Parlov in Long Cold Dark than he asks of Howie, which is just one of the facts of the comics trade, but still.

The story itself is mostly split between action and Frank’s self-reflection; there are occasional talking heads sequences, sometimes exposition dumps, sometimes just there to get Frank’s first-person narration to the right place. Ennis isn’t using Barracuda for broad comic relief here either. Barracuda becomes a—conditional—tragedy. There are frequent flashbacks for both Frank and Barracuda and Ennis has a nice way of tying the characters and their shared history of Vietnam without worrying about an alter ego thing. It’s one of those “Frank is Barracuda’s nemesis but Barracuda isn’t Frank’s nemesis” things. Frank doesn’t have a nemesis, something Ennis has tried to drive home from the start of MAX.

And Long Cold Dark does feel like a leveling up for the series, not just because it got me teary, but where Ennis has moved the character and how to think about him. Having Barracuda—arguably Ennis’s most glaring misstep in the entire run of the series so far—be so successful doesn’t exactly make up for the previous slogs, but it does show Ennis is able to fix something he was wrong about, which is a fairly singular quality for a comic book writer. I misremembered the content of the story, thinking some of it was later on in the series, and wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

Shows what I know. Howie’s guest art spot being completely out of sync aside (and terribly misprinted in the Punisher MAX Volume 2 Omnibus, beware), Long Cold Dark is outstanding.

Doctor Who (2005) s03e11 – Utopia

So I very awkwardly noticed the female producer who did a couple episodes of “Who” is gone, with Phil Collinson back. It was an awkward notice because she was actually gone last episode. She just did the two-parter with the pre-WWI love story.

This episode is Russell T. Davies writing and it’s the start of the season finale so it’s very clearly the return to old time new “Doctor Who.” I never thought I’d be so happy to see Davies’s name on the writing credit but it’s nice he’s handling it.

We open in Cardiff, with the Doctor (David Tennant) gassing up the TARDIS on the energy rift and telling latest lovesick sidekick Freema Agyeman all about it while making the now uncommon season one references. And then John Barrowman reappears—also last seen in season one—and runs and jumps on the departing TARDIS.

Said TARDIS then loses control and goes to the end of the universe. The stars are winking out, it’s really the end this time. But the final remnants of the human race are trying their best to survive, getting scientifically-minded but not formally educated Derek Jacobi to build them a rocket.

As a teen, I didn’t like Derek Jacobi for some reason and it took me a while to change my mind. But I can’t—based on the IMDb—figure out why. I thought about that history a lot during the episode, which has Jacobi finding a kindred spirit in Tennant, who agrees to help complete the rocket to Utopia. In a hurry too, because the Road Warrior cannibals are at the gates, clamoring to get in.

It’s really nice having Barrowman back. He’s his same flirtatious self, though he’s got a secret. It’s a weird secret—portentous maybe—but it doesn’t matter. Especially if you’ve been watching the “Torchwood” spin-off series, I’ll bet, where Barrowman found a regular gig.

Once they’re helping with the rocket it’s all just a countdown to see what’s going on with Jacobi, who stares longingly at the TARDIS and ignores his female devotee (Chipo Chung, who’s great as an humanoid insect). Hint hint.

The cliffhanger’s not particularly enthralling and the final surprise mugs a little too much but… I guess the episode itself plays all right. Lots of running though.

Lots of running.

Doctor Who (2005) s03e10 – Blink

Blink is apparently not a backdoor pilot to a “Doctor Who” spin-off where recognizable cast—in this case Carey Mulligan on her way up—interacts with the world of Doctor Who without necessarily having to do a lot of scenes with David Tennant. Or Freema Agyeman, who’s second-billed but feels like she left the show and everything is to pretend she didn’t.

Mulligan is a single young Londoner who takes photographs of sad things because doing so makes her happy who discovers a surprising message from “The Doctor” somewhere there can’t possibly be a message. Especially not one for her.

She gets her pal, Lucy Gaskell, to go look again at the message on the wall—which warns of “weeping angels,” these stone statues all around the abandoned, haunted house Mulligan is investigating. Also investigating is fetching young copper Michael Obiora, who’s got all sorts of chemistry with Mulligan. It’s actually an obscene amount of chemistry and amazing the show’s able to get away with it. Technically speaking, the only thing wrong with the episode is Murray Gold’s music. Hettie Macdonald’s direction is fantastic. She totally gets the episode through the concept episode setup and does an excellent job with the actors. It’s a bummer there’s not a romcom spin-off for Mulligan and Finlay Robertson, who plays Gaskell’s DVD rental shop owning brother. Robertson finds evidence of “The Doctor” on various DVD Easter egg hidden features. It’s a weird way to date the episode.

I wonder what kind of special features this season had as far as Easter eggs. Mind you, Agyeman doesn’t appear in any of those Easter eggs segments, which are Tennant apparently answering unheard questions. It’s quirky but not successful. Especially not given Agyeman’s not around because—we later find out—she’s working in a shop to support Tennant as they’re trapped in the past.

So basically the episode is a “Doctor Who” episode like if they made a “VHS board game,” cut out the interactive parts and threw in footage from a different movie. In this case, Mulligan’s murderous weeping angel statues.

It’s a bunch of randomly excellent pieces baked into an outstanding whole.

Until the jaw-dropping bad end stinger. It’s a disaster.

But mostly a big win for Mulligan, Macdonald, and writer Steven Moffat.

Doctor Who (2005) s03e09 – The Family of Blood

So I thought this episode—wrapping up a two-parter about the Doctor (David Tennant) turning himself into a human so as to avoid some aliens who are hunting him and losing himself in early 1900s England—wasn’t going to get any worse after Tennant, having regained his memory and alien… superpowers (sure, okay), asks his human love interest, Jessica Hynes, who he no longer can feel the same way about, if she’d like to join him on the TARDIS.

In order to have this moment, the episode needs to ignore the following. First, Hynes is an early 20th century racist White woman who has been overtly racist to Freema Agyeman. We don’t get to see Tennant and Agyeman reunite, not really, even though she’s spent two episodes catering to his similarly racist White 20th century man when he didn’t have his memory back and had to keep him (and his lady) alive while he was ready to surrender the secrets of the universe to the bad guys. The human Tennant. Because he was a dipstick.

Second, Hynes has already rejected him in his alien capacity. Not just because Tennant no longer loves her—it was a fairly chemistry-absent love in the first place—but also because we’ve done the “the Doctor’s a violent, cruel guy” actually reveal in this episode. The Doctor is willing to do the violence so others don’t have to… which even figures in with the pre-WWI boys school militarization thing—macho imperial British jingoism in 2007—there’s a lot wrong with this episode and the previous one, it’s just not worth going through all the things. Even if they are fascinatingly dated for their time period.

Third, there’s no impression Tennant has checked with Agyeman about Hynes joining them. Like. Two episodes about Tennant being apathetic to the companion and he’s just as apathetic as before. Even though he remembers everything from the human phase, including Agyeman confessing her love. So he’s intentionally cruel.

But fourth, it doesn’t matter because the episode manages to get worse with the Saving Private Ryan postscript.

It’s a big episode full of bad ideas. Agyeman ends up as dissed a companion as Billie Piper and, even more striking, Tennant’s stopped being enough of a draw on his own.