PERSON OF INTEREST SEASON 3 EPISODE 12

Things have been hotting up for Finch and company with the black ops mob catching up with them as well as Vigilance, a sort of home grown terrorist outfit. The episode before Christmas saw  Harold trying to rescue his old colleague Arthur, who has a brain tumor which is rapidly stripping him of his memories.  Finch and Shaw are with him and are trying to get him to remember what he has that Control wants (is it control in POI? I may be confused. I mean Nikita had "Division" and another program recently had The Company. It seems that the black ops in fiction have to have a scary but innocuous name.)
As for Vigilance, I think that they are supposed to represent Anonymous. Forget about the war on terror, the people that western governments fear the most are its own citizens. Just look at the NSA scandal, I mean, who weren't they spying on?

Anyhow, I seem to have got off the point. This episode follows the tried and tested formula that has had me hooked from episode one. The direction is always excellent, moving between scenes that build to the climax of the story. Technology plays a major part and in between scenes that cut from one team members activity to another's there are always flashbacks that  fill out the characters biographies. In this episode I thought that the story in the flashbacks was top notch. We see Harold way back in the mid seventies, in his teens building what his father refers to as a memory machine. Harold father has Alzheimers and is slowly fading out as the unfortunate sufferers of this disease do. Harold tells him that it is much more than that, and one day may watch over and protect us all. This could be a nod to the span of time that the powers that be have been developing this: essentially for as long as there have been computers. Harolds Dad ends up in a home and Finch is on the run, having hacked the CIA database.

In the main story Harold, Shaw and Arthur are held captive. The situation looks hopeless but you just know Root will appear any time now to rescue them. In doing so, however she gets shot and captured. Reece and Fusco are in a jail cell following their fisticuffs. Lionel is trying to get Reece to snap out of his depression, brought on by the death of Carter. He doesn't bite so Lionel leaves after telling him that Finch needed his help. Meanwhile Arthur is lucid long enough to recall where Samaritan, his version of the machine is and they go there to retrieve it. Just after they arrive Vigilance show up. At this time control have root and are trying to get information about the machine by drugging her. When drugging doesn't work torture is used.

Arthur and Finch are in the vault of a bank waiting for rescue from Shaw, who times an explosion to go off when vigilante detonate a device at the vault door. She achieves this but they are cornered when Lionel and Reece show up and help them out. They have destroyed the discs that were stored. Reece announces that he is done with it all and exits broodily. It looks like it is Shaw and Harold from now on as in the other strand of the story the machine helps Root break free and escape. She phones Harold to drop the bombshell that someone else had switched the discs in the Samaritan cases, so someone has Samaritan. It turns out to be the creepy upper class English dude that turns up from time to time. Yes, Britannia still (covertly) rules the waves, and the USA.

Person of interest brings up issues of interest. Finch creates a machine, a super computer that is wired in to everything. Unlike any other computer this one learns from what it observes and the information it processes. It has become sentient. Not only that it has become independent and will not work for the government agency that commissioned it. It prefers to work with independent people like Root and Harold who are different in personality and approach but are both outsiders. The machine gives Finch a small amount of information, a social security number. He then has to decide are they a victim or a perp. If it is the former they get saved if the latter persuaded to rethink. Root likewise gets very little information but the people she is tracking are mostly potential murderers that she always dispatches. In the past Root and Finch's paths have crossed. The machine seems to be playing a game. Her aides are like two sides to the same coin. Harold keeps people on the straight and narrow whilst Root takes out the trash. It is a funny situation. There are black ops and other government agencies chasing around looking for a machine that technically belongs to them. Every time they get near though, the machine has itself moved.

The machine has turned away from its original programming which was to gather and interpret data which would lead to the prevention of terrorist attacks. Did the machine decide for itself (if it is sentient it could be argued that it has a self ) that it had other priorities? Perhaps the machine worked out that 9/11 was a false flag event. After all, it not only won't work with the government it has never intervened to save an agent apart from Fusco and Carter. The machine appears to have deduced that it was too dangerous to be in the hands of the government and trusts no one apart from Finch and Root.

I was really pleased to see the program back after the xmas break but I am a little sad that Jim Caviezel is leaving. I hope it is temporary. It is bad enough that Carter, played brilliantly by Taraji P henson was killed off recently, probably a writers decision to stop she and Reece becoming too close. The story calls for an edgy loner. Perhaps Reece will return in a vengeful mood. Yet Shaws inclusion this season suggests that he is out of the picture for now. Thats not so bad as Shaw is a great character who's inability to socialize is always amusing. There is also an air of suspense as we all wonder what the way forward will be.

I'm looking forward to finding out.

SHERLOCK DEPARTS AGAIN ALL TOO SOON

SHERLOCK: HIS LAST VOW

So, Sherlock comes and goes in three episodes. Again. What the hell is wrong with Mr Moffat? He should stop writing Doctor Whats the point and write more Sherlocks. It is very frustrating watching three episodes and then having to wait a year for more. Surely a series of six is not asking for too much.

This only adds to my annoyance, which arose when I heard that Ripper Street was being cancelled. And why is it being cancelled you may well ask? Because it wasn't getting good ratings. Cobblers! You are the BBC for gods sake. Here's how it should work : you make us pay for a TV license and if we don't buy one you take us to court. Either way you force us to pay you. The license money is what pays for making programs. You do not need to advertise because we pay you. SO WHAT THE HELL DO YOU NEED GOOD RATINGS FOR? You have no reason to compete therefore you have no reason to pull programs because of low viewing figures.

What sort of ratings do you get for the pompous proms or the crap cricket or useless University challenge? I have been praising the BEEB recently, well I take it all back, unless they bring back Ripper Street and get Mr Moffat to concentrate on writing Sherlock. Anyway, here are some thoughts about the last episode.

So Watson is now married to Mary, and it transpires during the opening scenes that Sherlock is dating Janine ( the attractive Irish bridesmaid at J and M's wedding). Fans will of course know that he is up to something as he never dates anyone. We see a scene with John Watson going in to a drugs den with a crowbar to retrieve the son of a friend of Marys. Holmes is there. Watson thinks he is taking drugs again (I thought that this incarnation of Holmes was merely a cigarette smoker. Drugs haven't been mentioned before). Sherlock says he is under cover but Watson doubts him and phones Mycroft, who brings members of the Empty Hearse around to search Sherlock's flat. Mycroft asks what kind of case would necessitate going to a drug den and Holmes replies Magnussen. He is the guy that was being questioned by some kind of committee at the start of the episode. Magnussen has a massive store of data at a place called Appledore and has sensitive information about everybody.

As the story unfolds we learn the reason for Sherlock dating Janine. She is Magnussens PA. He goes as far as to pretend he is going to propose to her so that she will let him in to Magnuss's office. Once in Watson and Holmes find her unconscious on the floor. The intruder and Magnussen are still there. Holmes walks in to an office and sees a woman in black holding a gun to Magnussen's head. Holmes thinks it is Lady Smallwood, a potential client. It turns out to be Mary. (This is groundbreaking, the mighty Sherlock gets it wrong!) This means that he also missed spotting that Mary was hiding a past. Or did he?
I was pleased because I had noticed that she knew what a skip code was in a previous episode so I was already thinking that she was under cover.

Mary shoots him in the stomach.Once shot Sherlock goes in to his mind palace. I like it when he does that. The viewer gets to see Sherlocks thought processes at work. It is a nice touch, just like the words that spring up from the evidence that Holmes is examining. Anyway, in the mind palace he talks to Molly who tells him to fall backward because the bullet has not gone straight through him and this will stop him from bleeding out. He also sees Mycroft who visualises Sherlock as a little boy. Does this mean that this is how Mycroft sees him, I wonder, or how Sherlock thinks that he sees him?

As he slides towards death his old enemy Moriarty shows up and goads him into fighting for his life. When conscious he gets a visit from Mary telling him not to tell John what had happened. He next wakes up to a visit from Janine who is showing him tabloid headlines and telling him that she sold her story to get revenge on him. She has also turned off his Morphine. As she leaves she tells him that he shouldn't have lied because she understood him and they could have been friends. I think that this is significant, as I shall explain in a moment. I believe that she knew what Sherlock was up to all along.

Holmes arranges a meeting with Mary to disclose what he knows. He found the grave that she took her name from and tells her that he knew there was something when he mentioned her side of the Church at the wedding didn't have many people. He also knows that she deliberately shot to injure and not to kill him and that he also noticed that she knew what a skip code was. Holmes agrees to get back the data that Magnussen has on her. She begs him not to tell John but he is there and has heard every word.

In the next scene the Watsons and the Holmes brothers have gone to the boys parents. They are all together so that Sherlock can drug them then he and Watson can go after Magnussen who is at Appledore. We learn that Magnussen was the one that had John dragged away in episode one and put in to a bonfire. He did this to affirm to himself that Watson was a weak point for Sherlock. Holmes has agreed to get top secret information for Magnussen in return for a visit to Appledore. He takes a laptop from Mycroft. Obviously he must have a trick up his sleeve because surely he wouldn't commit treason?

The next "bombshell" is more like a damp squib : there is no secret storage system under the house or anywhere else, for that matter because he keeps it all in a mind palace just like Sherlock. Magnussen gives a little talk on leverage. Then points out he knows there is a GPS in the laptop and secret service will be arriving. Not for him though, but for them. He goes through a little act of entering the vaults then makes the announcement. We then see him pretending to read the documents. This looks a bit stupid, actually. He then tells them he doesn't need proof because he owns papers and can print what he wants and it will be believed. Tomorrow they will be front page news.

They wait outside for the secret service during which time Magnussehn humiliates John as he explains haw it works. Holmes wont intervene. Magnussen tells them that he did this to Janine as well. When Mycroft arrives Sherlock takes Johns gun and shoots Magnussen in the head. Now it looks like Sherlock will have to take a dangerous mission in east europe that Mycroft had mentioned at their parents house. Just as his plane takes off, however.....

...we see various TV screens around the country getting a message saying "Did you miss me?" with a picture of Moriarty accompanying it.

How, you may ask yourself, is this possible when he blew his brains out? This is what I think. At the end of the last series, when Holmes and Moriarty were on the roof Moriarty told Holmes that he had hired a Sherlock look-a-like to scare a kidnapped girl. It stands to reason then that he could hire a double of himself. He tells the double "Do what I say or your family die" just like he did with Sherlock and everyone thinks that Moriarty is dead.

Mind you, I have some other ideas. Janine, for example. Who else has an accent like hers? Moriarty of course! She could be connected to him, a relative or a girlfriend. Maybe Moriarty didn't have a double, and is actually Janine, who has been behind everything from the beginning. Or, how about this : Moriarty gets a double to kill himself. Then to avoid detection he has a sex change operation and becomes Janine. That would be funny. Talk about sleeping with the enemy!

To conclude, this run of Sherlock has not disappointed. It has retained the excellent mix of humor and drama and has expanded the characters biographies, letting us learn a little bit more about them. Who is the other brother that Mycroft alluded to having dealt with in the past? My only complaint, as I said at the opening of this piece is that three episodes is not enough.




Come on, Mr Moffat, we're waiting.....

THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK

 THE EMPTY HEARSE

I’ve been waiting with great anticipation for the return of this show. It is an example of BBC drama at its best. It reeks of quality throughout: the cast, director and scripts are top notch. This program is everything that Elementary is not. Last season ended with the apparent death of Holmes, but this was a cleverly arranged ploy to save the lives of those closest to him. So the first question the viewer is asking is how did he do it?

The episode begins with Holmes on the roof preparing to jump. We see Moriartys body being dragged away as Holmes bungees down and lands in Molly's window. Outside, Watson is advancing in shock towards the body when he is stopped by Derrin Brown (What?) who hypnotizes him briefly to hold him up. Then he is hit by a cyclist before finally getting to the body, which is Moriartys with a Sherlock mask on.

We then cut to a scene with Anderson and LeStrade. It turns out that the above account is Anderson's latest theory. He has started a group called the empty hearse which sets out to prove that Sherlock is still alive. In the next scene a man is chased through some woods then captured by Russian soldiers. He is restrained and tortured until he starts playing mind games with his tormentor. Of course the captive is Holmes but fear not, brother Mycroft is at hand to rescue him. Holmes has spent the previous two years dismantling Moriartys criminal empire. Now Mycroft tells him it is time to come home.

The story line is laced throughout with humor. Watson has grown a mustache and he seems to be the only person that likes it. Everybody else is giving him grief for it. Sherlock decides to surprise John, as if retuning from the dead after two years wasn’t enough of a surprise. We see Sherlock make his way through a restaurant, lifting a tie from a diner and glasses from another, he draws a little ‘tache on his face and pretends to be a waiter. He approaches John, who is reading the menu and gives an order for champagne without looking up, much to Sherlock's frustration. When he returns to try again Johns date, Mary has arrived. Sherlock goes through his spiel and recognition dawns on Johns face. Holmes says quite dryly: “Short version, not dead.”

A fight ensues between the old allies followed by a few short scenes of Sherlock reuniting with his old friends. Next, there is an alternative explanation for Holmes’s fake death which ends with himself and Moriarty giggling on the roof before kissing… at which point Anderson interjects saying “That’s ridiculous” to the member of the empty hearse that just told the story. I think there was a nod from the director to tumblr followers, as this scenario was put on there by a fan. We later see Holmes giving the real version to Anderson. He tells him that Moriarty used a Sherlock lookalike in the previous series who he killed when he was done with him. Molly found the body by checking out mortuaries and they switched it with Holmes after he jumped on to a large inflated cushion. It was all done with Mycroft's men and Holmes’s homeless network.

The plot of the story revolves around a terrorist threat to London. Holmes has worked out that the houses of parliament are the target. An anti terrorist bill is being voted on. Ironically it is November 5^th, Guy Fawkes night, when the original gunpowder plot is remembered. As the story builds, and before he has agreed to work with Holmes again John is drugged and abducted by someone. Mary receives a text which she has already worked out is a skip code. She takes it to Sherlock then the two of them commandeer a motorbike and take off in pursuit. When Watson comes round he is hazy and can’t make out where he is. He is actually in a bonfire that is just about to be lit. Holmes pulls him from it just before he is set alight.

Back to the main case and one of Sherlocks network of informers gets in touch. He works for London underground and had found on TV data of a passenger getting into a car. He is the only person on the platform. When the train arrives at the next station it is empty. Holmes recognizes the man, who turns out to be a government minister who has been selling information to North Korea.  They wonder if Watson's abduction is related to it in some way. Holmes realizes that the man did not disappear, the carriage that he was in did. The train arrived at the next station with one less carriage. They go underground and find the carriage. A scene follows where just as they realize that the whole carriage is the bomb when it is triggered remotely and is counting down from two and a half minutes. Holmes and Watson are getting frantic because neither of them know how to turn it off. As they apparently wait for death John tells Sherlock what he meant to him. He goes on for a while and I thought “the bomb would have gone off by now.” Then Sherlock starts laughing: of course, he had switched it off about two minutes previously but couldn’t resist winding Watson up one more time.

The episode winds down with them reviewing the case and Watsons kidnap. I was wondering if Holmes had him kidnapped to reignite his passion (fitting that he chose a bonfire) for investigating. It looks like Mary is going to be more than just Watsons wife. She will probably be involved in future investigations. The return was well worth waiting for. The balance of humor and drama was spot on. The best thing about this program is the interplay of characters. The main characters all have their quirks which makes the dynamics between characters work so well. It is a joy to watch and I’m looking forward to the next episode. Well done Beeb!

THE FALL SEASON :THANK GOD ITS SUNDAY

Sundays Viewing.

Sunday. Day of rest. Even God has the day off so what has TV to offer us?

ABC offers Revenge and Betrayal. I will be upfront from the start: I did watch two episodes of Betrayal but it seemed to be about an affair and offered nothing much in the way of complications. Or anything interesting, so I ditched it. As for Revenge, I have to admit that I sit through this rather than watch it but my wife likes it so I have to endure it or she'll start complaining about having to sit through Marvels S.H.I.E.L.D.

My first comment on Revenge is that it is taking Emily a long time to actually get it. The show is in to season three now. Mind you, the infinity sign in the shows titles gives a bit of a hint that seeking revenge can go on for eternity - and saves the producers from having to  set an end date for the series.

Anyway, Emily's latest plan is to have Victoria (her evil mother in law ) framed for her murder on the day of her and Daniels nuptials. This, of course requires an elaborate plan to stage her death, not helped by the fact that Victoria has had a hissy fit and is not going to the wedding.Nolan ropes Patrick into coming back and persuading his moody mom to go to the wedding. When everyone is on the boat (did I mention it was a wedding reception at sea? Nothing but the best for the Hamptons crowd). Emily plays a slide show, spills a drink on Victoria to get her to go and change so that Aiden can temporarily lock her up. She is followed by Lydia (who would like to be Victoria even down to stealing her husband), confronts her with a picture of Emily as a waitress at a Greyson do many years before. This is confirmation for Victoria that she has been right all along, that Emily is a lying little gold digger.

Emily is ready to jump off the boat when Victoria comes along. Victoria makes her accusations and then in a grandiose gesture says :

"You are as worthless to me as this bracelet" (a big, chunky diamond laden thing) and she throws the bracelet overboard. That takes Emily aback, as she had "borrowed" the bracelet without Victorias knowledge and worn it at a firing range to coat it in gunpowder residue. Aiden arrives and whisks Victoria away. She prepares herself again only to be confronted by Daniel  who tells her he heard the conversation between her and his mom, that Emily is not really pregnant and just said that so Daniel would go through with the wedding. In a fit of temper he grabs the gun and shoots her twice in the stomach. Finally she gets to fall in to the water, but not quite in the way that she planned. Daniel throws the gun in the water and goes inside. There is no sign of Emily except for her wedding dress which washes ashore. Next episode is January 5th and is called Homecoming.

CBS next for The Mentalist. Having spent five full seasons hunting for Red John, Patrick Jane had worked out that RJ is one of seven people. Season six is about whittling down the suspects. It reached a climax in episode eight when Red John is found and, as promised, Jane kills him.

I must say that I found it to be a bit of an anti climax. It was Sherriff McAllister in the end and it wasn't made easy for the viewer to work it out. You couldn't look back to a series of events and say "oh, yeah, of course its him!" It left me feeling kind of "Oh, well, that's that then." Mission accomplished for Jane. Surely this is the end? No.

There were two more episodes before the Christmas break.It is two years since Red Johns death. Jane is on the run. I thought that perhaps the team would be tasked with finding Jane, but they were already disbanded and were not being put back together in a unit. Going forward it appears that Jane will not be tried for murder if he agrees to work for the FBI. Patrick being the man that he is tries to get everything done on his terms. Cho is now FBI and Lisbon is in the sticks somewhere. Rigsby and Van Pelt, now married are no longer in the force. I have read somewhere that they are not in the next series. It looks like the new team is going to be made up of Jane, Lisbon, Cho, FBI agent abbot, who looks like he will lead the team and finally FBI agent Fischer, the young lady who had approached Jane in Cuba.

So where does the show go from here? Is the program going to be just like any other detective series with the team chasing different criminals each week or will there be a new arch enemy to hunt down? There is a danger that The Mentalist will be reduced to a repetitive loop of Jane breaking all the rules but being indulged because of his success rate. Lets face it, no one else in the show has ever had much success at detecting, they are just Janes backup squad. If this is the case it could become dull and lose its edge. I hope the writers have something good lined up for us.

Over at amc is The Walking Dead, up against Revenge in the 8.00 to 9.00 pm slot. Now in its fourth season Walking dead endeavors to breathe life (ho ho) into the Zombie genre. Following their battle with the colonel we find that Rick is now a pacifist. He has swapped his gun for a spade and he got himself an allotment. Needless to say, he has banned son Karl (a trigger happy prepubescent) from shooting.
As well as the allotments they are keeping pigs, one of which is very ill. Immediately I thought that we are going to have a swine flu epidemic with the people catching the virus from the sick swine. I suppose it will give them something other than zombies to worry about for a while - unless the pigs turn into zombies, that would be a new twist!

There are new people in the prison camp from the colonels defunct town. Just as well because there is a growing number of zombies pushing against the fences. Carol and Daryl (that has a nice ring to it - they should rhyme the names of all the pairs) are concerned about it.  Right at the end of episode one there is a dead pig and one sick kid. Oh, dear! The zombies are amassing again and the reason why turns out to be that someone is feeding them dead Rats. Inside the sick kid dies and of course comes back as one of the undead and promptly starts biting people. The attack is quelled but the group find that cell block D where the newcomers are housed is subject to an outbreak of some kind of virus. The block is put into isolation. Later Rick finds two of the flu victims have been taken out to the yard and set on fire. It turns out to be Carol that did it so Rick takes her out on a supply run and tells her not to come back. I'm sure we will run in to her again in the future as she has been a strong character.

The zombies eventually get through the fence. As they do the old enemy, the colonel appears at the edge of the woods near the prison. There follow some Colonel heavy episodes for a couple of weeks, showing us what he's been up to. This culminates in the Colonel duping another load of gullible numpties into attacking the prison. At the end of the battle the attackers are defeated but the prison is overrun with zombies. Next episode is scheduled for feb 9th. What will be left of Rick and his camp?

My final Sunday choice, I'm not entirely sure why, is Witches of East End. No this is not a Gothic Eastenders but a story about a family of witches living under a curse and not being allowed back to Oz, or wherever their home world is - the magical witch realm, anyway. There is a mother, a powerful witch who is being terrorized by a shape shifter. Her two daughters are destined to live up to adulthood and die. This happens over and over throughout history. There is also an aunt, who turns in to a cat and has nine lives.

Basically the story is this: Mom is under attack by another witch who wants to destroy her and her family because they killed her lover back in their previous life, the one before the present incarnation. Various calamities occur, like the shape shifter impersonating mom ( Joanna Beauchamp played by Julia Ormond) and committing a murder in front of witnesses, daughter Freya (Jenna Dewan-Tatum) gets trapped in a picture then later, on release she loses her powers. Freya (Rachel Boston) has a stalker who has learned of her secret identity and her aunt Wendy (Madchen Amick) gets captured by the shape shifter and also becomes possessed by a bracelet she puts on.

Still, its good clean fun, unless you are a right wing Christian that thinks this sort of program will turn people into devil worshipers, in which case it is evil satanic propaganda.
Having cast my eye over the fall schedule I will next analyze the content while I am waiting for the TV schedule to return to normal.
So its goodbye from me to the six or so people that will actually read this. Bye!

THE FALL SEASON : THURSDAY - SATURDAY

THURSDAY

I begin my examination of Thursday with Elementary (CBS). The poor mans Sherlock Holmes. It has a modern twist - Watson is a woman.Not just a woman but Holmes's sober companion. Ooh! I wonder if they'll get it on? Seriously, I just don't care. Johnny Lee Miller stars as Holmes and Lucy Liu as Watson. The story is set in modern day America and Holmes is a private consultant. There are a few differences with the traditional Holmes, the most glaring being that whereas the original makes deductions that lead him straight to the answer the new version makes at least two wrong guesses per show before he gets it right.

They prefer different drugs too. No more opium smoking, now its alcohol. Not much else to say really. It is a crime drama and it breaks no new ground.

Thursday has nothing more to offer as far as I am concerned so on to Friday.





FRIDAY

I used to watch Bones (Fox) but went off it some time ago when it became less about Forensic anthropology and more about love and romance. On to what I do watch : Grimm (NBC). Again it falls in to that category of genres I don't normally like, because it has monsters, and usually I am not impressed with the CGI monsters or stories about creatures living amongst us. Grimm doesn't spend too long depicting monsters, just giving a little glimpse of what they are but not allowing them to distract from what is usually a very good script.

The Grimm of the title is a person who can see these monsters amongst us known as "Vessen" and kill them. The position is handed down through the family from one generation to the next and one Nick Berkhardt, a detective played by David Guitoni is the current recipient of the role. The Vessen that he hunts come in many shapes and sizes and all inhabit human bodies. They all have extremely long Germanic names. Nick has inherited a trailer full of potions, ancient weapons and old tomes full of stories from past Grimms. It is his job to protect humanity from the Vessen. In time, his girlfriend learns what he is, and he befriends a guy called Monro, who is Vessen (I can't remember what kind but hes very Wolf-like). His partner, Hank, played by Russell Hornsby also knows he is a Grimm. As does his girlfriend and Munros girlfriend and his captain at the precinct. But apart from half the town knowing about him Nicks role as Grimm is a secret.

The longevity in monster stories is amazing, Every year there is a new crop. This is similar in content to lost girl, and in previous seasons we have had The Gates. Is this a fear mechanism at play, keeping people wondering about the people next door, or down the street? Or is it just that people like a scare?

Speaking of longevity next up is Dracula. No modern twist this time, it is set at the turn of the century in Victorian London. The industrial revolution was in full swing and the program offers a new perspective. In the series Dracula is pushing a new wireless electrical system (not unlike Teslas work). Up against him is an ancient order similar to the masons which is called the order of the dragon. They are behind the standard type of electricity that we know and love with its sprawling, dangerous cables all over the place. They are also the descendants of the people that had condemned Dracula to immortality centuries ago. He is determined to destroy them and dominate the market for electricity.

With the help of assistant Renfield (Nonso Anozie), he is trying to find a way to be able to go out in daylight. All seems to be going well when he meets Mina Murray (Jessica De Gouw) at a party he throws and becomes convinced that she is the reincarnation of his wife. He becomes obsessed by her but she shuns him. She is about to be married to Jonathan Harker (Oliver Jackson-Cohen).

It is a dark and moody series, the atmosphere is spot on for the story line and the actors are convincing. A strong cast also includes Katie McGrath as Lucy Westenra,  Ben Miles as Browning and the very talented Victoria Smurfit ( Trial and Retribution, Cold Feet, Ballykissangel) as  Lady Jane Wetherby, member of the order and Vampire killer. Dracula juggles advancing his corporation with searching for a daylight cure and his obsession with Mina. I'm looking forward to its return.

Well that's Friday, and while I am typing I may as well get Saturday out of the way. What is wrong with TV companies? Every bloody Saturday is the same. Sports, misc. repeats and "other" programs, whatever they are. Do they assume that every single person apart from sport fans are out for the night every Saturday night? Its ridiculous really.

At least Sunday is usually good. Until next time, er, keep watching!