The Swiss Conspiracy (1975, Jack Arnold)

The Swiss Conspiracy opens with a lengthy title card and voice-over explaining—broadly—the Swiss banking system. Then, the movie’s opening titles, an absurdist, almost silly montage of Swiss postcards, set to composer Klaus Doldinger’s least funky music in the film. Doldinger’s score is always fun and cool (and often quite good), even when it doesn’t precisely match the onscreen action. Swiss is a budget-conscious, European location thriller. There are picturesque car chases, there’s even choreographed fisticuffs (with able stuntmen), but there aren’t pyrotechnics.

After the titles, we get a scene with a guy in a restaurant getting murdered. The film doesn’t spend any time contextualizing it, and when it turns out to be important later (well, qualified important), they still don’t know how to tie it in. The victim is a blackmail victim. There are five more. They’re all customers at Ray Milland’s Swiss bank. Milland and his uneasy vice president Anton Diffring bring in David Janssen to investigate.

Janssen’s a disgraced Justice Department official who had a run-in with the Chicago mob and somehow ended up living it up in Switzerland, consulting when it suits him, otherwise content to zoom around in his Ferrari with his shirt unbuttoned past his navel. Upon arriving at the bank, Janssen gets into a parking space squabble with Senta Berger. She’ll turn out to be not just one of the blackmail victims but also Janssen’s love interest. Berger’s thirty-four. Janssen’s forty-four. He looks early sixties (except, oddly, in their canoodling scenes). So it’s not inappropriate or even weird—other than Berger being interested in brusk, condescending Janssen—but the optics are constantly askew.

Janssen also immediately meets Chicago mobster John Saxon, who’s in town to report his own blackmailing to Diffring. And someone followed Saxon from the airport. Saxon and Janssen know each other—Janssen’s got a great line explaining it’s not a “social” relationship—and there’s immediate conflict. We meet almost the entire supporting cast before Milland gets around to explaining the blackmail scheme to Janssen. It’s an incredibly stagey approach, contrasting how director Arnold shoots it and the film in general. Swiss makes a big deal out of its locations, whether where the mountaintops are alive with the sound of music or the scenic architecture. So when it suddenly slows down to be a corporate office drama… it’s weird.

Because Swiss is a weird movie. Janssen investigates, romances Berger, squabbles with Saxon, meets other blackmail victims John Ireland and Curt Lowens, trades barbs with local cop Inigo Gallo (never seeing the police department is a big tell on the budget’s limits), and runs from hitmen Arthur Brauss and David Hess. Oh, and then occasionally just shoots the shit with Milland. The movie got Ray Milland; they’re going to use Ray Milland.

Then the only running subplot without Janssen is about Diffring and his too-hot-for-him-so-something-must-be-up girlfriend Elke Sommer.

Excellent location shooting, game cast—while Berger easily gives the best performance, no one’s actually bad except Ireland. Saxon’s iffy a lot of the time, but then he’ll have this or that good moment. Ireland doesn’t have any good moments.

Janssen plays his part like he’s in the ensemble, even if Arnold (though more the script) tries to focus in on him. Janssen’s sturdy more than capable, but he’s enthusiastic. Enthusiasm helps.

Right up until the third act, when the film starts deflating all the tires, one lackluster reveal after another. It’s a bummer of a finish, but then there’s a quick, welcome partial save.

For a less than ninety-minute thriller on a budget (in more ways than one), Swiss Conspiracy’s far from bad.

And that Doldinger score is dynamite.

Pi (1998, Darren Aronofsky)

The incredible thing about Pi is how well director Aronofsky is able to compensate for his lead. Pi is about mathematician Sean Gullette discovering a pattern hidden in the stock market—or so he thinks—and trying to navigate the repercussions of his discovery. Wall Street firm lady Pamela Hart is after him for the equation, so’s Hasidic Messianic Jewish guy Ben Shenkman; Shenkman wants the code to bring about the coming of the real Messiah, Hart wants it to control the world economy. Basically Pi might be a prequel to Sneakers or it might be a prequel to Prince of Darkness or it might just all be in Gullette’s imagination because Pi is about him suffering a tragically debilitating psychotic break. Besides showcasing Aronofsky’s direction, Matthew Libatique’s wonderful high contrast photography (hiding some of the low budget aspects and instead making them appear to be personality), and Clint Mansell’s sometimes great, sometimes annoying music, Pi is mostly just a great look at how people sometimes really need mental health care and the results of them not getting it is very bad.

There are touchstones to Gullette’s experience of the film—fetching, caring neighbor Samia Shoaib is pretty for sure real, ditto nice little neighbor kid Kristyn Mae-Anne Lao, who does math problems with Gullette. And Mark Margolis, as Gullette’s former professor, current Go opponent (Aronofsky and Libatique lean in on Go being monochrome) and life mentor; Margolis is pretty real.

Margolis is trying to convince Gullette he’s on a fools errand trying to discover the mathematic equation pi in the world around them, which would either let Gullette get rich off the stock market (or not) or just help him understand how the confusing world functions. The film leaves a lot open in the end, with very little revealed about protagonist Gullette despite him narrating and Pi being a character study; Gullette wouldn’t be able to handle it, acting-wise. Aronofsky has to figure out how to do a character study where it doesn’t matter the lead actor, who’s in every scene of the movie (albeit only an eighty-four minute one), is at his very best doing a combination Johns Turturro and Cusack impression. At his very best, which is rare and always requires someone else to hold up the scene, like Lao or Shoaib; Margolis and Gullette rarely share shots in their talking heads scenes so who knows what Margolis was acting off. Who knows how good Pi might be with a compelling lead performance.

Aronofsky and his crew try to compensate, doing a rapid, handheld urban nightmare. Libatique’s photography is striking enough you wish they’d slow it down so the scenery would make an impression instead of being flashes of light. It’s technically superlative photography. Just gorgeous. The movie’s just too fast for it to really resonate past how Aronofsky needs it to work, what he needs it to convey, because he can’t rely on Gullette to do the work.

Gullette’s the only bad performance. Besides his lead, Aronofsky seems to care about acting. Margolis almost has a great part; he’s excellent and the part goes to pot along with the movie in the third act so it doesn’t matter much. Shenkman’s really good. Hart’s fine. Stephen Pearlman’s good in a cameo. Lao’s cute. Shoaib’s good. It’s just Gullette. His performance appears to be thoughtless. If it’s not thoughtless, there’s a real problem with how Aronofsky directed him then.

I mean, Pi’s a lot better than I remember. Though everything wrong with it I remember is still wrong with it this time.

The Lady Refuses (1931, George Archainbaud)

The Lady Refuses gets frustratingly close to making it to the finish. It collapses in its final moments, though it’s barely been keeping it together through the third act, when everything (by everything the main plot and the single directly related subplot) comes together and profoundly fizzles. The only reason it provides any tension at all is because the movie puts its most likable, appealing character—maid Daphne Pollard—in some kind of danger. Without that peril, it’s just a shrug, like everyone’s lost enthusiasm for the story.

Not a surprise given the eventual resolution.

The film tells the age-old tale of London gal down on her luck, Betty Compson, who has to chose the bridge or working the street–Refuses is kind of shockingly real about that dichotomy—and picks the latter. Only her first night out the cops decide to harass her so she knocks on a fancy door and who should answer but lonely old widower Gilbert Emery. Refuses juxtaposes the cops on Compson’s trail and Emery’s layabout drunkard son John Darrow being disinterested in hanging out with Emery and Emery getting the sads. So when Compson needs help—any kind of help—Emery’s an enthusastic aid.

Soon after a nice dinner and Compson’s assurances she’s never actually worked the street before tonight and hasn’t yet had any customers, Emery hires her to get Darrow away from Margaret Livingston. Now, Darrow thinks Livingston is just after him for a good time, but she’s actually in cahoots with his childhood friend Ivan Lebedeff to get a sizable chunk of Emery’s estate somehow.

By somehow it involves Livingston bedding Darrow on a regular basis and Lebedeff getting more and more insanely jealous over it even though he’s apparently in on it. It’s unclear. There’s zero backstory for any of the characters outside an occasional line—actually, wait, I’m not sure there’s anything in backstory except Darrow and Lebedeff being childhood friends, no one else gets anything.

For instance, there’s no explanation to Emery being openly British and Darrow being obviously American. Ditto Compson, who’s ostensibly a Brit but the character maybe makes more sense if she’s American and there’s even an implication but it’s subtle and Refuses, you know, refuses to do subtle. And the only time Compson does try an English accent… well, a more gracious reading would have her being faking it intentionally.

Anyway.

Things quickly become a love triangle—wait, actually a pentagon when you through in Livingston and Lebedeff—because while Darrow falls for paid personal savior Compson, Compson and Emery are in love. It’ll all work out in the end, Compson and Emery are sure.

As The Lady Refuses is a Pre-Code melodrama (not to mention the title), things very obviously do not work out and the last twenty to thirty minutes they just get worse and worse.

Acting-wise, Compson’s probably the best, though she’s far more effective for her ability to emote than to read her lines. Though the biting her lip thing is kind of annoying (but nowhere near Darrow’s terrible Groucho Marx impression). Darrow’s bad. Emery’s occasionally cute but not good. Archainbaud’s direction is standoffish but when it’s Emery, it just seems British. Albeit British with some boring composition, which eventually gets editor Jack Kitchin in trouble because Archainbaud’s obviously not shooting enough coverage.

Refuses is occasionally academically interesting as an early talkie or a Pre-Code or whatnot, but it’s a fail overall. The resolution’s an odd mix of disappointing and insulting.

Des (2020) s01e03

So, now we get the episode about how sad it makes Daniel Mays to bring harm to people but he does it anyway. It’s the joke about Americans making movies about how sad we are we had to kill a bunch of BIPOC civilians. Only here it’s Mays forcing attempted murder victim Laurie Kynaston to testify against David Tennant and defense attorney Pip Torrens tearing him apart. It stands up for a couple reasons, one it’s entirely predictable Torrens is going to tear him apart because it turns out Tennant has seemingly engineered his entire prosecution and is prepared for all the witnesses against him. Second, Mays ought to know something’s up.

This episode comes the closest to thinking Mays is giving a transfixing performance, with director Lewis Arnold frequently cutting to Mays for reaction shots only he never has any reaction shots because Mays has one, sad expression. Oh, and also all the manipulations of the episode don’t actually matter once it gets to the conclusion because of how the verdict goes. There’s the story and there’s where writer Kelly Jones (Jones’s sole entry is this episode) takes it instead.

Though having a trial episode where Tennant is mostly silent is another thing; why watch “Des” if not for Tennant. He’s got a couple good scenes, but he’s a diabolical mastermind here. “Des” has melodramatic theatrics but it doesn’t have a lot of tangible reality anymore. Even if it does awkwardly open with footage of the actual Dennis Nilsen at his trial. Because… they want show how close they got Tennant’s hair, I guess. It does nothing else for the episode.

There’s also a lot more of Mays and Jason Watkins together, which is just a chemistry vacuum.

I’m not sure what “Des” needs, other than some recasting, rewriting, and maybe a better director. A point would probably help. The big question is whether Tennant’s got some undiagnosed mental health condition explaining him living around dead bodies for years at a time or if he’s just a master planner who wanted an insanity plea. The show doesn’t make any decision—it ignores the question as best it can—and Tennant’s intentionally cryptic too.

Also the text epilogues reveal some information they should’ve baked into the narrative. And, based on the text, they completely got Watkins’s person wrong. But whatever, it’s over, who cares?

“Des” is okay for a Tennant stunt cast and it has moments of genuine interest but… nah. Mays and Watkins are just too flat. Especially Mays, who’s somehow more tedious in his performance than the same Droopy Dog cartoon on repeat.

Des (2020) s01e02

While David Tennant is baring his broken soul to biographer Jason Watkins, DCI Daniel Mays is trying to identify Tennant’s numerous victims so they can properly charge him. There are also more attempted murders, with people coming forward.

And even though Tennant says he’s got fifteen victims—and the morgue says possibly twenty—and there are the seven confirmed attempts, Scotland Yard is threatening to shut Mays down. They don’t want to keep paying for the missing person identifications. Gives Mays a lot to mope about. He’s in an especially bad mood when Tennant asks him to find about his dog, then tells Mays he killed a famous missing person.

Said famous missing person is a Canadian tourist and Mays reopening the investigation pisses off Ron Cook because Mays didn’t ask him. Why didn’t Mays ask him? Unclear. Cook starts his yelling saying he would’ve okayed it or something so… it’s just Mays not doing things right. While Luke Neal’s script is ostensibly trying to show Mays’s diligence, all we find out about him this episode is he ignores things and is a disinterested partner, husband, and father. I’ve been waiting to find out the reason for his divorce is he’s closeted, hence his reactions to Tennant—we find out right at the end of the episode Watkins wants to write about him because he’s gay and Watkins is gay and Watkins doesn’t want the book being done by some homophobic piece of eighties shit—but no. Mays isn’t divorced because he’s gay. He’s on his fourth marriage because British women love apparently Droopy Dog cops who whine about wanting to see their kids but don’t do anything about it.

He also misses clues. Chanel Cresswell, who’s rather good for “Des,” like… there isn’t much in the way of standout supporting performances but Cresswell comes close—she thinks her ex might be one of the victims and drops a major clue in her statement and if it ever registers with Mays, we don’t find out. Though he is the only cop smart enough to think if you kept a murdered person’s possessions you might clean off the fingerprints.

Then there’s a brief thread about Scotland Yard being pissed off about Watkins writing a book and Mays never acknowledges he heard about it and didn’t follow up. Not even to himself.

The stuff with Watkins and Tennant’s good—Tennant’s got a lot of musing on his motives and the source of his murderous impulses–and Watkins is definitely a bit better than last episode. Not enough. And Mays is still a wet towel.

The ending’s a surprise (though also not really because Neal ties it to another twist). So… effective cliffhanger, let’s call it.

But with only one more… “Des” has pretty clearly hit its quality ceiling. The missing persons stuff is fascinating? A documentary would probably be better.

Des (2020) s01e01

“Des” opens with contemporary news footage from 1983 with Margaret Thatcher talking about how she’s Thatchering people and then something about an influx of young men to London who find it’s not what they thought.

This opening is going to have nothing to do with the story. It’s not even a good stylistic match for the narrative style of the show.

“Des” is about serial killer Dennis Nilsen, based on a book by Brian Masters; the opening titles gives the title of the book and the whole “at the request of the survivors… out of respect for the dead…” bit. Obviously not the Fargo bit but you know. The true story crap.

It’s important to pay attention because otherwise when Jason Watkins shows up towards the end of the episode and is fascinated with the case, it initially played to me like he knew the serial killer, played by David Tennant. Mostly because I didn’t pay attention to the name of the book author in the opening titles.

The show centers around Droopy Dog sad copper Daniel Mays, who’s having a hard time with his fake subplot about his divorce and sons. He gets a nuisance call about bones in a sewer drain; the caller thinks they’re human, Mays thinks they’re chicken bones.

Nope.

They’re human and the suspect is Tennant. He’s only technically a suspect because he immediately confesses upon encountering the police, though it’d be hard not to confess since his apartment’s filled with cut up dead bodies. Except there are only three in the apartment, he’s killed at least fifteen.

Only Tennant doesn’t remember any details for identifying his victims, he didn’t get their names, so the cops aren’t sure he’s really a serial killer or something. Well, Mays is sure, but he’s not very authoritative as he mopes. His boss, an effective with nothing to do Ron Cook, tells him to tread carefully.

As a procedural, a lot of it is good. Tennant’s pretty good in a “cast against type” part. He’s closer to fascinating than not, which is good. Unfortunately, Mays and Watkins are both blah.

Luke Neal’s script manages to be simultaneously well-paced and draggy. Lewis Arnold’s direction is fine. It’s okay, good for the Tennant. Mays and Watkins need to get better fast for it to be anything more.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s05e11 – Ship Broken

It’s a good episode with a great twist in the third act but it’s not the episode the cold open promises. We’re supposed to be getting pyromaniac, patricidal supervillain turned time-traveling adventurer and romance novelist Mick (Dominic Purcell) bringing daughter Mina Sundwall onto the time machine ship to hang out for the weekend. We’ve seen Purcell and Sundwall for really brief scenes but never actually having a subplot together.

And, we don’t again.

Because the rest of the Legends are playing with the Loom of Fate and it causes some kind of electromagnetic pulse, knocking out the ship’s systems, without actually bending reality the way they were all hoping.

Or does it. Because the more everyone digs, the more unlikely it seems the ship’s issues were caused by the pulse. Instead, it appears to be intentional sabotage and suspect number one is visiting demon (or lost soul?) Olivia Swann. Swann protests her innocence and tries to sway Tala Ashe to her side while Caity Lotz comes out of her coma (good, when she opened the episode still in it, I was worried we’d have another Sara-less episode). Only Lotz now has future sight. She touches someone and she can see their future. And they’re all dead. In the near future. From stab wounds.

And the more people she touches, the clearer the future becomes—she’s the one who’s doing it.

Throw in Gary Green bringing an emotional support dog (he’s got a note) onto the ship and it’s a pretty full episode.

Lots of fun along the way, lots of cute moments for Jes Macallan and Lotz, a few nice scenes for Purcell and Sundwall—Nick Zano, in his most appealing performance in ages, tutors history student Sundwall and reminds he joined the show as a historian.

Other reminders to the past have Lotz listing all the guys who’ve left the show over the years, which is a really nice touch. The direction, from Andi Armaganian, is really nice.

There’s a great line from Matt Ryan, who’s got less to do this episode than usual, about how as long as someone’s not a weekly villain, the Legends welcome them—Swann’s worried everyone’s still mad at her for unleashing demonic killers on the timeline and he’s assuring her. It’s got a nice echo at the end.

I still hope we get an episode where Purcell and Zano have to help Sundwall with a history report on how important historical figures would view the world of San Dimas, 1988.

High Tide (1987, Gillian Armstrong)

During High Tide’s final twist, I began to wonder just how different the film would be with different music. Sometimes Peter Best’s score is fine—or even good—sometimes it’s very much a product of its time and using way too much saxophone. The film’s biggest melodrama beat, where it commits to just being a melodrama about long-lost mom Judy Davis reuniting with daughter-who-thought-she-was-dead Claudia Karvan, the music utterly flops. It’s a questionable sequence at best—director Armstrong and writer Laura Jones have completely lost any sense of narrative distance or perspective by this point in the film—but it Best’s accompanying music just makes it silly.

Doesn’t help the scenes immediately following are basically a rapid-fire montage to get the characters through their difficult “thinking and feeling” responses, skipping Davis altogether and giving Karvan yet another disagreement with grandmother and guardian Jan Adele. What’s even stranger is the film takes place in a very finite time period—a week and a couple days, yet sometimes it’ll seem like far more time has passed than could’ve, particularly with Davis’s romance with local boy Colin Friels.

It’s all a shame because the first act is excellent. Davis comes to this small-town on tour; she’s a backup singer and dancer for an Elvis impersonator. Little does she know daughter Karvan is living there with Adele in a mobile home park. Karvan’s aware of Davis’s presence almost immediately. The town’s only got one entertainment hall, split between the family friendly and the adults only. Karvan sneaks over to look and happens to see Davis, but has no frame of reference to recognize her. Davis has made no effort to contact Karvan and, for a while, I’d forgotten they were going to be mother and daughter, because Davis is so blasé about being in this particular small town.

Well, she’s blasé because she has no idea. But when her car breaks down and she’s got to stay in the same mobile home park while it’s getting fixed up… it’s only a matter of time before she and Karvan cross paths. And then only a little more time before Adele shows up, telling Davis to stay away or else. Can Davis stay away? Ish. The plot perturbations to inform Karvan of her mystery parentage are rather protracted and basically reveal the utter pointlessness of one of the supporting cast members. High Tide’s plotting is particularly weird because the third act dumps significant supporting cast members, leaving their subplots either unresolved or passed off with a shrug and a line of exposition.

Based on how Armstrong sets up the film’s narrative distance in the first act, with the camera as an omniscient, objective third person, it could be fine. But the camera gets a whole lot less exploratory in the second act, especially once Armstrong settles on her system for conversation scenes. Establishing, close-up, alternate close-up, close-up, alternative close-up, maybe a tight medium shot of one person, then the other, then scene. Armstrong sticks closest to this formula with anything involving Davis, which means you rarely get to see her and Karvan on screen together. Instead there are just the reaction shots as they try to figure out their relationship, which ought to be some good scenes, based on how well Davis and Karvan do in other parts of the film… but the script’s not there. You wait the whole movie—well, after it’s revealed they’re really doing the one in 16.26 million chance of them running into each other—and then the pay-off is blah. It’s okay enough for Davis, but the film’s been gradually less and less her perspective and more her being a subject, but it’s terrible for Karvan. When Davis and Adele are fighting over her, she’s got all the agency of a paperweight.

Again, with that omniscient, objective third person camera Armstrong could get away with it because she’s just finding the image in these actions, but Armstrong has long since dropped it. Even for the terrible melodrama beat, it’s not like Armstrong’s got some beautifully visualized sequence with crappy music. It’s a boring (albeit pretty because ocean and beach and whatnot) visual and that crappy saxophone blaring.

For some of the second act, before it’s clear Davis doesn’t actually have anything going on besides the don’t-want-to-be a mom arc, it seems like High Tide would be better if she and Karvan’s stories were just juxtaposed. But they don’t end up having enough story. Davis’s most successful character relationship arc is with the mechanic (Mark Hembrow), who’s not even in it enough to get a name in the end credits. And Adele… she kind of gets more to do than either of them, but it’s just to burn runtime.

Good photography from Russell Boyd, fine editing from Nicholas Beauman. Sally Campbell’s production design is excellent.

Davis is good, Adele is all right, Karvan’s okay. Friels’s… fine. What’s interesting about Davis is apparently she picks “good” men, which isn’t really part of the story as it turns out. High Tide just needs a good rewrite. And a composer without a predilection for saxophones.

Supergirl (2015) s05e07 – Tremors

In an incredible turn of events Mitch Pileggi as the big bad—Leviathan—is actually kind of fun. Pileggi’s a millions of years old alien (he was around to see the dinosaurs get it) who for some reason has hung out on Earth and run a secret society. It’s not clear why. It’s also not clear why his army of regular people followers include humans who can’t outsmart Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath). Lena’s smart and all, but shouldn’t a millions of years old secret society have better tech than her?

So, Leviathan. Doesn’t exactly pay off and Pileggi doesn’t look quite Rock-like in his Black Adam-esque outfit (and he reminds a lot of Vandal Savage on “Legends”), but it’s actually all right.

Shame the rest of the episode digs deeper into the established pit.

Lena’s also on Team Supergirl for a scene; just enough to remind how good McGrath is with the rest of the cast. She and Jesse Rath’s two or three line banter is more personality than the show’s had in ages. But then her arc is all about her telling Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) they’re now sworn enemies. It’s an awful scene, hinging entirely on Lena having iced Lex for her friends and then it turns out the friends all lied to her. How the show has ruined Lena is one of its many significant faults (ditto not just having McGrath and Benoist get together romantically instead of queer-baiting for, what, three seasons now). It’s not like McGrath is good in the villain reveal (because she’s not exactly a villain, just a pissed off gal pal). Benoist’s a little better but not very concerned why Lena wants a weapon capable of killing everyone on the planet.

If the writing were better, who knows, it might be a good scene.

Speaking of bad scenes, Alex (Chyler Leigh) blathering on to girlfriend Azie Tesfai in an unending declaration of devotion ought to, really, get someone a pink slip. It’s so bad. So bad. Leigh’s not strong enough to carry the scenes and Tesfai isn’t ready for such a big role. Though, again, might just be the terrible writing.

Meanwhile J’onn (David Harewood) has a ludicrous scene with Ghost Dad Carl Lumbly, who I’m glad is getting a check and all, but the Martian family trouble subplot is, well, the pits. It’s perplexing why anyone thinks the scenes are a) a good idea or b) effective. It’s terrible stuff.

Though I guess Phil LaMarr is a little better as Harewood’s brother this episode, though it’s not a high bar.

I figured this episode would be bad but it’s even worse than imagined. The Lena payoff is a complete fail for the show, the characters, and McGrath.

The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e07 – A Fly in the Ointment

“In the Shadow of the Tower” has been getting really good, but it hasn’t done anything like A Fly in the Ointment in the ointment before. When I grokked the format—different directors, different writers, maybe not everything from King James Maxwell’s perspective (though tellingly zilch so far from Queen Norma West’s perspective), I was kind of hopeful, kind of apprehensive. The show’s from 1972; it’s had almost fifty years to get discovered and rediscovered and I’d never heard of it.

Because Ointment delivers on all the potential of the concept, more than I’d ever imagined; Ointment is a comedy episode. It makes fun of British people, it makes fun of them being pompous and ignorant, it makes fun of them so stuck-up compared to Europeans, it makes fun of them being lazy rich. It’s freaking awesome. And it’s got the Major from “Fawlty Towers” (Ballard Berkeley) playing… a fifteenth century version of the Major. It’s awesome.

And it’s a lot more open than the show’s ever been before. They’re not in dreary England, the episode takes place in Rome and other sunny places. Moira Armstrong’s direction is fantastic. Julian Mitchell’s script is just the right amount sarcastic humor, right amount straight humor, right amount exposition. And because of the now anthology style of the show, you could potentially watch it separate from everything else. Maxwell shows up, but basically for a cameo. It’s all about the guest stars.

There’s John Welsh as this English nobleman who’s plotting against Maxwell, forced to collaborate with Eastern Mediterranean types with their loose morals and sexy art. He’s a rich idiot, who everyone entertains because he’s a rich idiot. In his entourage (of conspirators), there’s also Christopher Sandford as his randy lovestruck dandy nephew who’s hanging around for the old man’s money and drinking and whoring while he waits, Donald Eccles is an archdeacon who’s also an idiot and in the group, and finally there’s Peter Bowles, who starts real quiet and ends up giving the second best performance in an episode of outstanding performances.

Thanks to Ointment, no matter what else “Tower” does, it’s under-regarded. It’s amazing.