ALPHAS SEASON TWO

SY-FY 12 PART SERIES

STARRING: David Strathairn - Dr. Lee Rosen (The Bourne Legacy, The Whistleblower)
          Ryan Cartwright - Gary Bell (Bones, Madmen
          Warren Christie - Cameron Hicks (True Justice, Happy Town)
          Malik Yoba - Bill Harken (Defying Gravity)
          Laura Mennell - Nina Theroux (Sanctuary)
          Anita Ghanizada - Rachel (General Hospital: Night Shift)
          Mahershala Ali - Nathan Clay (Crossing Jordan, The 4400)



A look at season two so far.

At the end of season one the Alphas team was in turmoil: pushed to their limit by the

government and suffering internal problems. Dr Rosen decided to announce the existence of

Alphas to the world and the government were not ready for that. So the start of season two

sees Rosen committed and the team split up. The first objective is for the team to reform.

The series begins with Rosen in a session with a psychiatrist. He knows why he has been

locked away and when his daughter (also an Alpha) visits him he tells her that he will be

out as soon as there is an incident. This proves to be correct, as Cameron and Bill find out

when they take an Alpha to the infamous building seven, where the government lock up the

troublesome Alphas. While they are there they see Gary: he has been imprisoned and had a

chip implanted in his head, as do all the incarcerated Alphas (I bet the govt. would love to

chip our brains!). However the girl that Cameron and Bill bring in can control electric and

shorts out the system and all the Alphas wake up.


A hostage situation develops and Rosen is called in by Clay to negotiate. Before he does he

visits Rachel, who we see in a previous scene has shut herself in her room. In addition to

this problem and Garys situation it appears that Nina has gone rogue, using her ability for

personal gain and not working with the team. Once they are all reunited they go to building

seven. Life is not exactly smelling of Roses for Rosen (sorry!) as there appears to be a lot

of resentment in the team because of his TV announcement, which he made without warning

anybody. Naturally, being the gullible fool that he is Rosen walks straight in to the middle

of the Alphas and thinks that he can win them over with a few softly spoken words. Series

One should have taught him that never works, but he seems to have an unshakeable belief that

he can get everyone to live together in perfect harmony (cue McCartney and Wonder).


The Alphas being held at building seven all escape, thereby giving the team plenty of work

to do in the coming weeks trying to recapture them. There are other problems on the horizon,

too, the biggest of which is the growing power of Stanton Parish, a man believed to be over

two hundred years old. Of course the series needs a Stanton Parish because the team need

someone as powerful as them to oppose, otherwise there would be no problems for them to

solve. Just like Batman has the Joker, and Fringe had the alternative universe and now the

watchers, Rosen and the Alphas need a foe like Parrish.


The second season looks like it will be as good as the first, and the star, for me, is Gary,

played by Ryan Cartwright. Gary is always unintentionally funny, particularly his inability

to display tact, which inevitably leads to  comic situations. The rest of the cast are ok, but

Cartwright stands out as the best performer.

Naturally there are comparisons made between Alphas and Heroes, but whereas Heroes petered

out, the writers seemingly unable to find a direction for the storyline Alphas is written

far better with a strong storyline that appears to have a direction. Part of the problem

with Heroes was that there was neither a task force to stop the rogue Heroes or an organized

criminal gang. The writers tried in the last series to create a funfair full of baddies but

still couldn't find an endgame with which to bring a resolution to the story. Alphas is

better written, with the characters better thought out and the action is dynamic.  However,

there does seem to be a plethora of Alphas, so many that they are in danger of losing their status as special

or different. I mean, what percentage of the population is supposed to have these powers?





The series is about to kick off again in the UK on Sy-Fy. I have watched five episodes and

can tell fans of the show that they are not going to be disappointed. The growing menace of

Parrish, the escaped Alphas and the behavior of Nina give Rosens team plenty of headaches

in the coming weeks. Enjoy!

BLACKOUT

BBC1 3 PART DRAMA

FEATURING Christopher Eccleston (Daniel De Moyes) Previous Roles Dr Who,Heroes,
Dirvla Kirwan (Alex Demoyes) Ballykssangel, Injustic
Ewen Bremner (Jerry Durrans) Trainspotting,
David Hayman(Henry Pulis)
Andrew Scott (Detective Dalien Bevan) Sherlock
       

Christopher Eccleston plays the role of a corrupt coucillor with an alcohol problem who sells information about council tenders to a businessman to ensure he gets the contract. However something goes wrong and an argument ensues. In the next scene De Moyes wakes from a drunken blackout to find that he is covered in blood. When he gets to a council meeting he discovers that the man he met in a dark alley the night before is now in hospital unconscious. He now begins to get flashbacks and realises that he attacked the businessman (Henry Pulis).

De Moyes relationship with his wife is also on unsteady ground and most scenes featuring the two are tense . The whole series is dark and edgy, and as the story develops De Moyes finds himself more out of control. Finding himself in need of advice he goes to see his sister Lucy played by Lyndsey Marshal (Being Human, Titanic TV mini-series) who is a lawyer. Her current case involves armed drug gangs, and as she is standing talking with her brother an assassination is attempted on her but brother Daniel jumps in front of her and takes the bullet. As he recovers in Hospital his sister brings Jerry Durrans to see him. Durrans is a fellow councillor who sees an opportunity to get De Moyes elected as Mayor. Now the plot thickens.

The lead character finds out that Pulis died in hospital so now he has a murder to cover up. This does not prevent him from standing as Mayor and winning the election. At this point he is still under the delusion that one man can make a difference, so when the cleaning contract is next discussed he suggests creating a workers collective that would run the company. This is seen by the other council members as a pipe dream and Durrans has to take De Moyes aside to point out that he works for a company who will get the councils business and De Moyes will help because they know he murdered Pulis. This means that our hero has to do a complete turn-around on his position in the next meeting, announcing that Durrans will head a committee looking in to the company's offer.

De Moyes's social juggling now gets out of hand: he battles against his urge to drink, his girlfriend Sylvie, who he had sex with in an alley prior to meeting and killing Pulis saw him do it. So did a drunk. He now has two people to keep quiet. To add another twist, a police detective is putting the pieces together and he just so happens to be Sylvies ex-husband. Someone tries to kill him to protect the Mayor, at which point both he and De Moyes realise just how deep the corruption goes.
The finale sees De Moyes stand in front of the press to confess, in order to bring all the guilty parties to justice.

This was a well put together drama with an excellent cast, and for the most part the writing is believable. It did leave me wondering: " is this what goes on in our local councils?" It is not difficult to accept that it may, given that we have learned in recent years of MP's committing fraud with their expenses claims and bankers, who are at the very core of our economic system have been involved in fixing the LIBOR rate and losing our pension money by hedge betting on the stock exchange, ripping us off with PPI insurance and lending money to people that they knew couldn't afford to pay it back, therefore causing a recession.

Is there a moral to this tale though? Is the writer saying that power does corrupt, and will corrupt anyone that takes a position of responsibility, or is this a simple tale of an individual making some bad choices? Is the system to blame or is it those that people it? Life, it seems these days is based on shady underhand deals, privilege and contacts: the substance of the individual doesn't matter, all that matters is the perpetuation of the system. Perhaps the point is that we are all doing things that we don't want to do and don't know what to do instead, and faced with choices that we may think we are free to make we pick a card unaware that the deck has been stacked in the dealers favor.

Whatever the intended message this three part series was engrossing and for once I was actually looking forward to a program coming on, I can't remember when that last happened. It's a pity that it only had three parts, although on the plus side this does mean that there was no unnecessary padding out to make a full series. A good watch that deserves a repeat showing (it's not often that I say that, either!).

LINE OF DUTY

BBC2 5 PART DRAMA

FEATURING Martin Compston (D.S. Arnott) 
      Lennie James (DCI Tony Gates) Hung, Columbiana, Jericho and The Prisoner remake
       Neil Morrissey (DC Nigel Morton) Men Behaving Badly, Waterloo Road
      Craig Parkinson (Cottan) Misfits, Whitechapel
      Adrian Dunbar (Superintendant Ted Hastings) Ashes to Ashes
          Vicky McClure (D.C. Kate Fleming) This Is England

It's about time there was some new drama on TV, we don't seem to get much for our license fee these days. I was drawn to this because it stars Lenny James, an excellent actor and I have to say he does not disappoint in Line of Duty. In fact the main cast are all excellent and the writing is for the most part of high standard and the plot is credible.

The basic story centres on an internal investigation in to the arrest record of one Tony Gates, Officer of the year winner, who has been "Laddering". This is a method of adding charges to a suspects arrest charges thus making it look like crimes are eliminated from the list of unsolved cases and in return the police speak well of the accused in court. The department of Internal investigation headed by Superintendant Hastings (Dunbar) believe that Gates won his award by acting dishonestly.

The story begins with D.S.Arnot, who is in the armed response team. There is a mix up during a raid and an innocent man is shot. Arnot resigns from his unit because he does not want to adhere to the official account of events that his entire team have been told to adhere to for the official hearing into the incident. Hastings offers Arnot (Martin Compston) a spot in his team that is being set up to investigate Gates. He is joined by D.C. Kate Fleming (McClure) who has talked her way into Gates's team to gather evidence from the inside. Gates's team has three other members, D.C. Morton (Morrissey), D.C. Cottan (Craig Parkinson) and D.C. Kapoor (Faraz Ayub).

We next meet Gates in a cafe with his "bit on the side". He witnesses and intervenes in a robbery and in return the cafe give him his breakfast for free. This presents an opening for the anti corruption team to start an investigation.Then it gets interesting. As Gates picks up his award he gets a phone call from his girlfriend Jackie (Gina McKee) who has been involved in a hit and run whilst under the influence of alcohol. He helps feign a burglary and the theft of her car to cover it up. Unfortunately it turns out that she has knocked down and killed her accountant (deliberately) .Before he knows this Gates handles the case himself to bury it. Of course it comes back to haunt him.

The team are working on a gang/ drugs related investigation. Jackie turns up at the police station to give an interview about her "burglary". Gates lets her know he has found out what she did. He decides to end the relationship. The evidence against him is mounting and as it does Gates's personal life is going into freefall. Arnott visits the Cafe Gates and Jackie were at and finds out Gates was not alone, which gives him someone else to investigate. He learns about the hit and run.

 In the drugs case there is a take over going on which is the reason for the deaths that they are looking into. It transpires that Jackie launders money for the drug dealer. At the end of episode two Gates goes to Jackies house to arrest her, but ends up doing other things with her instead, then sees her murdered. He is knocked out and his fingerprints are put on the knife.

By the time Arnot gets there the body is gone and Gates is searching the premises, covering any tracks of having been there and claiming that he came to arrest her. It becomes impossible for him to deny that he was involved romantically with Jacky so he has to keep making up new stories as new evidence is presented to him. In a stroke of brilliance Gates turns the drugs investigation in to a terrorist plot. This creates a big distraction but unfortunately for Gates the Drug Baron that had Jackie murdered is keeping the body and knife with Gates's fingerprints on it to force him to work for the gang. He is expected to bring Arnot to a location where they will deal with him. He does this but has a change of heart. He then arranges for the gang leader, referred to as Tommy to be brought in. Gates goes rogue and gets Tommy in his car to tape a full confession. Once he has it he pulls over. When Arnot and Fleming get there he pleads with Arnot to ensure his family are taken care of then walks in front of a lorry. Arnot reports that Gates died in the line of duty.

The story ends with Cottan preparing to take Gates place and we see him talking to Tommy, an old friend, it appears. Corruption wins.

This is the second drama that I have seen on the BBC in the same month that deals with corruption, the other being Blackout. Our society, it appears, is corrupt throughout.

There are a few stereotypes evident in the writing. Arnot most definitely has small man syndrome being defensive, unable to control his temper and at times is hostile towards authority. There is also a boy, Ryan, from a council estate who is drawn in to crime because his single parent mother is a slag and neglects him. A good example of this is when he is arrested his mother won't go to the police station because he "has social workers for that sort of thing". When he is brought home all she says to the police is "You better have fed him". Being a working class person who knows some single mums that work hard for their children I have to say I hate this representation of single parents.

I did, however, like the way in which the hysteria that surrounds terrorism was shown. The threat of terrorism is being used to increase surveillance of the public, limit the internet and to make public searches acceptable even without evidence of a crime being committed. The drama also shows how crime does pay and that our institutions are infiltrated by criminals who pervert the course of justice. Cottan's promotion is the end result of years of planning, sending out the message that the fight against crime is now futile. I mean to say who are the good guys and who are the baddies?

There is also an interesting contradiction in Arnot's behavior: he will not lie in the shooting case yet he lies for Gates, perhaps because he identifies with him being singled out, or maybe because he states earlier on that resources ought to be used to get criminals off the street, not to investigate the police.

In conclusion, Line of duty was well acted by a great cast, particularly James and Dunbar, the storyline was for the most part credible ( the bolt-cropper incident with Arnot aside - he really would have lost some fingers) and the direction was spot on. If anyone at the BBC is reading this: more like this please.