Westworld 2 too clever for its own good #WestworldSeason2

Having enjoyed season 1 of Westworld so much, I was hoping for good things with this 70-minute opener to season 2. Oops. I’m sad to say there wasn’t a single likeable character in the whole piece. There was no moral dilemma to keep us wondering what we’d do ourselves in such a scenario. There was no satire of human behaviour. There were only very brief moments of humour or irony…

And then there was the so-called plot. We followed Bernard in two different timelines/iterations (as a military team arrived in Westworld to clean up the chaos and mess that followed the season 1 finale)… but the two narratives didn’t illuminate each other or provide interesting juxtaposition or create any proper mystery for us to try and solve… they just kept us permanently confused and bewildered about what was going on. And Bernard was either silent, forgetful or malfunctioning… so we couldn’t engage with him either.

Sitting through 70 minutes of that? It’s asking a lot. Look, a season opener is meant to grab us and get us onboard for the ride. It can’t trade on our liking season 1 for long. If episode 2 doesn’t deliver, then I fear people will be switching off in droves.

Beyond Bernard, we followed Thandie Newton’s character for a bit (she’s still looking for her daughter, like in season 1, so nothing new there) and the character of Delores (intent on revenging herself on humans, like in season 1, so nothing new there either). And The Man in Black… who instead of finding the labyrinth (which he failed to do in season 1) now has to find some unexplained door, apparently, but we don’t know why. Sheesh.

Saving graces? Hmm. Well, it’s all beautifully filmed and produced. There are some high concept bits here and there (although they’re very much thrown away). There are plenty of tantalising (if ultimately frustrating) allusions and references for us to ponder (though I’m not sure we care enough to do so). There are a few new characters… although they’re nowhere near rounded enough.

Let’s just hope it’s a false start and that things improve next episode. After all, season 1 had the odd duff episode too. I’m willing to give them another chance… just because I can see they’re working hard at it. Yes, I think that is actually the thing that gives me hope.

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The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Did you know that the word ‘satan’ appears 27 times in the Old Testament, but never as a name? It’s just a general noun in Hebrew. Satan does not appear as a character until 500 years later, when the New Testament was written, at a time when Christians were being persecuted by the Romans. Indeed, in the city of Pergamon (‘where Satan ha[d] his throne’), the Christian bishop was boiled in his own skin within a hollowed out metal statue of a bull. Yikes.

So, chapter 1 (of 4) of the new book now complete. Oof. Hard work, this shizzle. Gotta have it finished by Xmas. Still, chapter two will be quicker, cos I can borrow from ‘The Sub-Genres of British Fantasy Literature’, ain’t it. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.

In other news, I’ve applied for the position of Lecturer in Fantasy at Glasgow University. Who would have thought such a job existed? Onwards!

The UK is finally going to win the Eurovision this time!

The Final of the Eurovision Song Contest will be taking place in Portugal (cos they won it last year) on Saturday 12 May 2018. The UK doesn’t need to go through the qualification rounds in the week before because the UK is one of the main funders/owners of the Eurovision Network. So there. The Network sells TV content to a whole range of countries not within Europe, and that’s why the Eurovision Song Contest often includes non-European countries (like Israel and Australia).

Is the UK’s entry for 2018 any good? Well… and I know I’ve said this about many failed UK entries in the past… I think we actually (really really this time, honestly) have a chance of winning. No, don’t laugh. Our song is by the elfin blonde SuRie, it’s a great Brexit relief song called ‘Storm’, it’s insanely catchy and it has some nice techno riffing. If we don’t have a strong showing with this, then I doubt we never will again.

Wanna check it out? Here it is on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLGEx2x8xoo

Another bite of the Santa Clarita Diet

The second season of this American comedy-horror show has just landed on Netflix. It’s another ten half-hour episodes: the tempo is just as helter-skelter, the plot is just as madcap and the jokes are just as rapid-fire as the first season. In this new season, our zombie-mum is still trying to keep her ‘condition’ a secret from friends and others, while still ‘procuring’ dead bodies to eat – this time round, Sheila (played excellently by Drew Barrymore) decides that it’s ethically okay to eat a group of local nazis (although she’s not so sure about the one in a wheelchair). As before, she is aided by her emotionally-wraught but loving husband (the inspired Timothy Olyphant – who knew he could do comedy too?) and her vaguely-disgusted but strangely-fascinated daughter.

Yet what’s so good about this show is that the second season isn’t just a retread of the first. It builds the characters even more, there are revelations aplenty and the ‘format’ is thrown all up in the air.

None of it is brainless (no pun intended) or throwaway stuff either. There is an abundance of social comment (often about the ironies, tragedies and hypocrisies of life in modern suburbia) and thought-provoking (while still hilarious) subversions of institutions like the police and religion.

This show has teeth… and legs. Most body parts in fact. Although they are sometimes put together differently from the norm. Like a zombie that’s had its limbs fall off and reattached imperfectly. It is scary, funny and very very dark. I love it. It’s a 9 out of 10 from me!

Jessica Jones, The Return!

As a massive fan of the first season of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, I’d really been looking forward to the second season. JJ2 was always going to struggle to be as refreshingly adult and ground-breaking as JJ1, I knew that. What I hadn’t been prepared for, however, was just how far short JJ2 would fall of the high standards set by JJ1. The second season is disappointingly brattish and so, so tired.

There are a whole host of problems with JJ2. Where to begin? At the beginning, I guess. Okay, we are immediately hit with a lack of continuity, with plot inconsistencies and with massive plot holes. A nerdy and nervous superhero (called The Whizzer) comes to Jessica saying someone is trying to kill him. It’s not clear why anyone would want to kill him. He ends up dead anyway. Jessica tracks down someone who might be the killer (I won’t spoil it for you), but it’s never actually explained and the show promptly gives up on that entire plotline. Then a rival private detective turns up, accuses Jessica of stealing his clients (although we’ve just been told in the previous scene that Jessica has no proper clients to speak of) and tries to buy her out. She tells him to get lost and – apart from a later break-in – he pretty much does. Then Jessica’s side-kick Malcolm is emotionally blackmailed by Trish to ‘fall off the wagon’ and start taking drugs again – he does, freaks out, runs into the night saying he never wants to see her again – and then appears with her in the next episode as if nothing’s happened. It’s all really random, frustrating and, basically put, rubbish.

Unlike in JJ1, there’s no major baddie in JJ2. This means JJ2 lacks a consistent focus, is often aimless and is frequently pointless. There is a lack of true moral dilemma, a lack of mystery, a lack of consequences to actions and a complete lack of moral compass. Many episodes are simple soap operas, full of angst and whining. Where is the sass and humour of the first season? We eventually get some wit in a couple of later episodes because David Tennant turns up as the ghost of Kilgrave from season one. It was as if the writers of season two suddenly realised/accepted things just weren’t working and decided to reboot… except Jessica then declares to Kilgrave that she is stronger than him… and he promptly disappears (as if Tennant suddenly decided he was really needed on far better productions than this one). And that’s that. We return to the self-indulgent flip-flopping of Jessica’s dull origin story. Argggh!

Look, it could be that the writers of JJ2 were trying to do something brave with the traditional superhero format. In refusing to have a big threatening male as baddie, and in populating the show with strong female characters, perhaps they were trying to pull off something very advanced and experimental. Unfortunately, in devoting so much of their energy to this new style of things, they neglected to put enough into getting the basics right.  Like a basic plot. Like basic character development (rather than the repetition and restating of things we already know). There is a lot of posing and pouting attempted by Jessica, but without any decent dialogue or depth to things, she just looks like a sulky child. In one episode, she says, ‘When you have dreams, but they don’t come true, they become nightmares.’ Eh? Does that make sense? Not really, cos she’s simply having a car ride with her mum. And Trish’s constant tantrums make her seem like nothing more than a spoilt child. Sheesh. The whole thing is a mess from start to finish.

It’s such a shame. Such a wasted opportunity. And to think I’ll never get those thirteen hours back. A score out of 10? Probably a 5 is fair.

A PhD in fantasy – a Doctor of Dragons and Fairies!

Phew. Finally had the PhD awarded. At last. With great thanks to @LunaPressGlobal for publishing ‘The Sub-genres of British Fantasy Literature’!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sub-genres-British-Fantasy-Literature-ebook/dp/B01MY7VCSO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1520170157&sr=1-1&keywords=british+fantasy+dalton

 

Black Lightning rejects the American Dream #BlackLightning

A high school principal asks his students to reject violence in favour of reason and obeying social and moral codes. But waiting beyond the school gates are gangs with weapons, forcing youngsters into whore houses and using drugs. The police seem powerless to protect the students, because they are underfunded and probably corrupt anyway. The students have little choice but to pick up weapons to defend themselves, some getting themselves killed in the process, and some becoming as bad as the actual gangs. All hell starts to break loose. The principal feels forced to resurrect his secret superhero identity (Black Lightning) in order to keep the streets ‘safe’. He has deep misgivings because he is thereby becoming a hypocritical vigilante. He feels (and very much looks) uncomfortable in his skin – in his lumbering, cheesy superhero disguise. It is an augmented suit too, one that takes a personal toll on him physically and mentally – he starts to become a monster at home, driving away all those he loves and wants to keep close. It is a physical symbol and enactment of his moral and spiritual conflict. It represents the damage done to the psyche and a person’s sense of identity (particularly a black person in an underprivileged area) in today’s (Trumpian) America.

This Netflix tv show (an adaptation of the DC character) will at first seem cliched and naff to viewers. But stick with it and you’ll find that your (genre) expectations are defeated time and again. A mother grieving for her son seeks to confront and shame the gang members who killed her boy. Our innate sense of justice expects her to win out where the cops have failed, or expects Black Lightning to turn up and save her when the gang members turn on her. But the gang members kill her. Outraged, we expect the community to rise up against the gangs, or expect Black Lightning to finally deliver justice. But most people shrug and look to carrying on with their lives. Black Lightning tracks down the killers, only to have a suit malfunction, get a proper kicking and become a laughing stock.

Wow. This is a dark series. It’s not bleak, as it keeps looking for a new way out or solution. Hope and humanity drive it on. One episode, we turn to the Church for answers, and the Church organises a peace march, only to have it shot up by the gangs. In another episode, we hark back to better times, when the local newspaper could name and shame, and hold people to account. But the old editor is now too terrified for his life to print anything too critical of anyone. A different solution is tried in every episode, with Black Lightning muddling through as best as he can, trying to keep faith in himself and justice. Is he a deluded fool? We root for him, but we find it harder and harder (with each set-back) to believe he can ultimately win out. We admire him, sympathise with him, but ultimately fear for him.

This is real life, then. It’s not some escapist superhero caper. The goodies don’t win. The baddies always seem to win. Welcome to the world, boys and girls. And Black Panther… you have no idea.