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!

THE FALL SEASON - WEDNESDAY

THE WEEK IN TELEVISION

Wednesday.


 What do we have to soothe away the midweek blues? On the CW we have The Tomorrow People, a remake of a classic 1970s British TV series which I can remember watching at the time. As a kid I really wanted one of those teleporting belts. Sigh! I never got one. Anyway the remake is flash and jazzy and very 21st century. Its great to see a show like this brought to life again with all the splendor and amazement of modern effects making it what you wish it could have been back then. I have to admit I don't remember any of the original story lines (it was over 40 years ago) so I can't compare them to the new story lines. It is more than likely, though, that the producers have reworked the whole concept.


In this version The Tomorrow People are the next generation humans with super powers. However there is also an organization dedicated to rounding them up and neutralizing them. Each episode introduces a new character with powers and the Tomorrow People must get to them before they are captured. The show is similar in feel to S.H.I.E.L.D. and is not far away from the same kind of theme, namely super beings, enhanced soldiers,etc.
Steven, the main character realizes something strange is happening to him as he becomes an adult. Then a young woman starts contacting him telepathically. He meets up with her and her group. Things get complicated when it is revealed that Stevens uncle Jebadiah ( or Zebadiah, something Biblical anyway! If I was getting paid for this I'd go and check but I cant be bothered) is the head of the organization hunting down Tomorrow People, and wants Steven to work for him. He agrees to do it but only because he needs to be inside the organization to help his friends and find out what happened to his missing dad, who worked with his brother (Stevens uncle).

Tomorrow People is OK as an adventure/sci-fi series which mainly centers on the main characters to-ing and fro-ing from one camp to the other. The show is a bit of a let down, however because the plot is often let down by the ease with which the Tomorrow People pull off their missions, or escapes. At times when you think that there is no way out one is found that seems a bit too incredulous, such as Steven pretending to take Caras powers with His uncle practically breathing down his neck. He managed to stop time ( a feat he so far had not been able to control) and switch syringes. Its OK though, if you are into sci-fi, which I am.

Recently I have commented on videos by RevMichelleCollins on Youtube and mentioned her in a blog. She has been circulating a story that goes as follows:

The US government has spiked the water supply with nanobots. Their purpose is to make everyone ill. According to her source, a retired army colonel the government are going to turn off the power and these nanobots will be activated. Essentially, what she is describing is the plot of Revolution. In Revolution the power grid was turned off and people went back to a basic way of living. Season one ended when a so called patriot launched nuclear weapons, destroying major cities. The power had been restored by the
patriots specifically to launch a nuclear attack.



Season two sees the patriots return from Cuba, where they claim that the last vestiges of the US government have been hiding. Munro has been blamed for the nukes and Aaron appears to have super powers, being able to set people on fire from a distance. In fact, it turns out that his nanobots will protect him without his knowledge. Tom is well, being Tom, showing that he is willing to sell anyone out to get where he wants to be. He wants to infiltrate the patriots then destroy them. Sadly for him though, the man in charge of the people he is chasing for killing his wife in one of the nuke attacks turns out to her new husband. After Tom recovers from his WTF? moment he gets her alone and she tells him that she was following his advice and doing what it takes to survive.

Season one was a quest to get the power back on. It turns out that to do so would cause the world to ignite because the power lines would surge and cause explosions as well as affect the nanobots in peoples bodies. Season two is about who the patriots really are and what they are up to and, of course stop them. It has kept the momentum from the first series but lacks the clear cut differentiation of sides. It's hard to see where the series is going now that the power is not going back on and unclear as to what happens when the patriots are exposed. Its beginning to have a new world order feel : perhaps it is more predictive programming.

Another new series is Mob City. It is set in the L.A. in the 1940s and is about a special task force being set up to deal with organized crime. It is based on a series of books called L.A Noire. It boasts an excellent cast and is directed by Frank Darabont, director of The Walking Dead.

 They are being shown two episodes at a time on TNT. It has the usual mix of ruthless gangsters and corrupt cops which the new team have to deal with. Jon Berthnal stars as Joe Teague (Walking Dead) , Neal McDonough plays Captain William Parker (Justified, Desperate Housewives). Parker is determined to destroy organized crime and Teague is his lead agent, Teague is not exactly a clean cut officer. He has a past which keeps coming back to haunt him. Their targets include Mickey Cohen (Jeremy Luke), Bugsy Seagal (Edward Burns) and Sid Rothman (Robert Knepper, from the recently axed Cult).

  It is well made with a film noire sort of feel to it. It has all the classic gangster components, even down to the femme fatale, who in this case is the lead characters ex wife.  Alexa Davalos stars as his ex Jasmine Fontaine. There are no real surprises - it is a gangster show, pure and simple. Definitely worth a watch.

So Wednesday is trans-humanism followed by the apocalypse then a trip in to the past to watch the violence and greed that made America what it is today. A nice midweek mix.

THE FALL SEASON - TUESDAY

Tuesday has thrown up a mixed bag this fall. Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC) is like Marvel without superheroes. I mean, you expect super powers from a marvel story but none are on display. Agent Coulson, who died in one of the films is alive again and in charge of a squad made up of a super soldier, two nerdy boffins, a pilot with a history that she doesn't like to talk about ( but that provides us with flashbacks) and a hacker that they meet on their first outing. They deal with the uncanny and the superhuman, seeking them out and bringing them in for readjustment. It is the same kind of easy watching as Sleepy Hollow, no thinking required but good fun.

CBS are showing my favorite program of recent times - Person of interest. In its second series the big brother spying background seems appropriate what with Mr Snowdens recent revelations, and all. POI is about the surveillance state. A computer genius, Harold Finch played by Michael Emerson of Lost fame creates a machine that analyses data and comes up with names of potential terrorists. However, Harold created a back door into the system to deal with the victims and perpetrators of other crimes that were not related to incidents of terrorism and were being disregarded. All he gets is a social security number. He doesn't know if the person is to be stopped or saved. He recruits an ex special ops soldier called John Reece (Jim Caviezel, number six in The Prisoner remake). Reece deals out the necessary violence and has help from two police officers. Season two has introduced a new member to the team, Reece's old partner in special ops. That's right, the one that tried to kill him. I still love this show although I was sad to see Carter get killed. I rather liked her.

This is the kind of program that falls in to the category of "predictive programming". According to believers in predictive programming the elite are about to radically change society. They want a world govt and international laws that will replace national laws. PP is supposed to get people prepared for the coming changes by subtly releasing information in popular tv shows and movies. This is supposed to soften people up before the implementation of change and also persuade people to accept the changes. I'm not sure if there are statistics to show if it actually works or not but my instinct is that it wouldn't work. I think that people for the most part can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. It would be a lot more logical to push ideas through bogus news stories and documentaries. At least these are made with an assumed air of plausibility which can sway the viewer.

SARAH SHAHI Becomes a regular in the new series

Whatever else it may be POI is gripping and entertaining. In addition, it turns out, it may not be far from the truth either.

Moving on, the CW has gone all spooky, airing The Originals from 8.00 pm to 9.00 pm followed by Supernatural (9.00 to 10.00 pm). The Originals is a new show which is based around a family of a brother, sister and half brother who are the original vampires, now centuries old. At one time they were big in New Orleans but left. Now, 80 years later they return, because half brother Klaus (who is also half vampire and half werewolf) wants to reclaim their own kingdom.

 This is a fantasy world which includes as inhabitants vampires, werewolves and witches, as well as humans. The Vampires rule, have thrown out the werewolves and forbidden witches to practice magic. This kind of stuff is not normally my cup of tea but I have to confess I have found The Originals to be quite fascinating. There are plot twists all over the place that keep it moving forward and good interplay between the main characters. Daniel Gillies is quietly menacing as Elijah Mickaelson and his half brother Klaus, played by Joseph Morgan  is great as the volatile half breed who's usually uninterrupted blood-lust has been slightly tempered by the news that he has got a werewolf girl pregnant. It turns out that half breeds are super powerful so there are those from each community that want his baby killed.

We now go from new program to one that seems will never reach an end. I used to really love this show but it is now downgraded to "like" status because I keep asking myself, What next? I mean the Winchester boys have opened the gates of hell and the world is overrun by demons. To beat them Sam went to hell, coming back, now possessed by the Devil, he has to rid himself of Satan and close the gates of hell. Then in heaven (where the angels are every bit as bad as the demons of hell) there is a power struggle because god is missing, no-one knows where he is. Somewhere along the line Dean gets sent to purgatory along with Castiel, an angel, and takes an entire series to get out. Next they manage to get tricked into shutting down heaven which results in all the angels being expelled and becoming fallen angels who await the receipt of a human host. Oh, and prior to this they stopped the apocalypse so I'm now wondering where the show is going. I hope that is accurate, apologies to fans if not- its season nine and Im working from memory.

 They still do great random comedy episodes such as the recent Halloween special, but I thought that the writers had it nicely sewn up a few series back (possibly season five). The world was saved from an apocalypse, they were settling down with families: it seemed a good place to end it. Mind you, part of me still doesn't want it to end. Another part of me, however thinks that they are now flogging a dead horse.

The final journey in to fantasy for the night comes courtesy of the family channel and is called Ravenswood. It is a spin-off from the Pretty Little Liars series and is a lot less graphic than the previous two shows (well obviously, it's on the family channel, Duh!). Mind you, I'm getting sick of the gratuitous sex and violence on TV. I wish that we could go back to the days when things were just implied. At least it kept the viewers imagination alive. Ravenswood is about a town of that name which a young man and a girl he has befriended on the bus are on their way to. When they get there they see a cemetery which has their graves and the grave of three other teenagers, who they happen to bump in to. The girl has an uncle that they stay with. He is the town Mortician and is decidedly weird. Anyway to be brief the five kids end up in a car together, have a crash and the new girl is killed. Fear not! however, as she hangs around as a friendly ghost and a story begins where the kids want to know why they are targeted for death. They do some research and discover that there have been accidents in the past involving five teenagers. Against this backdrop they discover that there are malevolent spirits that are out to get them.

It's a pleasant show but I suspect it is way too tame for most adult tastes.

Well that's Tuesday done. I am trying not to get too in depth with the analysis. I just want to give a feel for what the shows are like and return to them when the seasonal festivities are over and the tv schedule returns to something like normal, because I'm not sure what is on a mid season break and what is back to its regular slot in the new year.

The Fall season

A round up of the fall season in the states

It has been a long time since I last commented on the content we viewers are offered on TV. I thought that as I have been absent for so long, rather than write about one program I would cast my eye over the schedule and look at the programs that I have been watching.

My viewing schedule was in good shape at the start of the season. However, as is usual at this time of year the US TV schedule is basically dropped for a month in favor of xmas specials, endless repeats and seemingly endless sports coverage. Add to the mix my pet hate genre the reality show and you basically have a whole load of nothing from week two in December until new year.

So beginning with Monday here are some programs of varying interest.Fox have been screening a new show called sleepy hollow. Recently there have been a lot of supernatural and ghost stories. The horror genre is also spawning new shows. Someone at Fox must have decided to combine a bit of every genre and throw a bit of rip van winkle as well. Having said that I have to admit it is fairly entertaining if you are in to this kind of thing. Tom Milson, who plays Ichabod Crane, resurrected 18th century civil war hero and Nicole Behari (Lt. Abbie Mills) have a good chemistry and the banter between them is funny at times. It is a program for the times as the theme running through the series is the coming of the apocalypse, which Crane and Mills are trying to stop.

A much more satisfying program is The Blacklist (NBC). It is a pacy political thriller in the Nikita mode, but with a more believable plot line than it. James Spader is brilliant as Raymond Reddington, an FBI agent who has been off the radar for years then suddenly shows up at FBI HQ with a list of the most wanted world criminals and information that will help capture them. In exchange for the information Reddington demands to be partnered by a young female agent called Elizabeth Keen. Keen was adopted as a young child and doesn't know who her father is. As the series progresses she begins to suspect that it is Reddington, although he denies it. To add to the intrigue Keens husband may not be who he claims to be and she doesn't know who to trust. Week by week the new partnership, with the help of a backup team hunt down and capture someone on the list. It is interesting to watch because although Reddington is cooperating with the FBI he is also carrying out a covert agenda of his own. This adds to the drama as the viewer is never quite sure what he will do next, although we soon come to expect him to do the right thing in the end.

Running in the same time slot as The Blacklist is Hostages on CBS. It is a political thriller about a surgeon who leads her field ( Dr Ellen Sanders played by Toni Colette) who is called upon to operate on the president. However on the eve of the operation a masked gang take the family of the Dr hostage and tell her she has to kill the president when she does the operation or she and her family will be killed. She is to switch the presidents pre- op medication then operate as normal. She switches the meds, but at the last minute aborts the operation. She outwits the gang, she thinks, but of course they still have her family.

My only complaint about the show is that in real life, at this point, the family would all be killed and the mission terminated. Not in TVland. The op is postponed for two weeks. It seems to me that whoever wants the president dead would find another way now. In episode three the ringleader, FBI hostage negotiator Duncan Carlisle (Dylan McDermott) who is actually the ringleader of the kidnappers has an attempt made on his own life by someone further up the chain of command that wants him punished for his failure.Why does someone want the president dead? In episode two there is a flashback of six months previously. Quintin Creasley  the Whitehouse chief of staff is telling Delaney that sometimes you have to look at the big picture:

"what they are doing is a necessary component of something much more important than just one man.... history calls upon us to do something bigger than we ever expected. Sometimes we are asked to shape the future of the world."
This could be a hint toward the New World Order. This may turn out to be an interesting show, to which I shall return in the future.

As you will see as we progress through the week there are some recurrent themes and plots as well as similarity in programs. I tend to watch things that are not too mainstream and not a comedy (does anyone know of an existing comedy that is actually funny?)

 Not a bad nights viewing, considering.