The Walking Dead: S02 Ep02 – Bloodletting

What happened?

Rick takes his shot son to a farmhouse where a veterinarian tends to his injuries. Whilst Rick gives his own blood, it’s left to Shane and the hunter that accidentally fired the shot, Otis, to venture to the local school where vital supplies to save Carl could be found. The school, however, is surrounded by walkers and whilst Shane and Otis manage to get in and get what they need they are spotted and trapped inside.

Lori and the rest, meanwhile, have no luck hunting for Sophia. When word reaches them of Rick and Carl at the farmhouse, Lori goes to him and leaves the others by the camper van on the road, waiting another night in slim hope that Sophia will return.

Thoughts

Second episode in, and a second strong showing for this new season. Whilst this episode didn’t generate the tension of the ‘under the cars’ sequence from episode one, what this episode brought was more emotion, personality depth and intriguing group dynamics. These ingredients are far more vital to the sustained drama; a zombie attack every week is not enough for a show to survive 13 episodes of.

I loved how the episode opened properly (I’ll sidestep the flashback prologue, which I thought a bit unnecessary) with Rick desperately running to the farmhouse, skipping the whole ‘introduction’ we can only imagine occurred between Otis the hunter and Rick and Shane. The panic and exhaustion of Rick, the sheer heavy weight of his son in his arms, it really added a humane horror that pervaded the episode.

Andrew Lincoln probably gave his best performance so far here, really selling the awful helplessness of his situation. But far, far better served by this episode was Shane, who was in danger of becoming a brooding menace towards Rick and Lori and here got to show his more noble and decent traits. His speech to Rick, about how he had to be strong just like Lori had been for him, was powerfully emotive. Here Shane reminded us that he had been a staunch and loyal friend to Rick before the outbreak and those values don’t shake off easy.

I also liked how Otis was portrayed. I’m glad he turned out to be a decent man, mortified by what he had done and willing to try and make amends. I’ll actually be really annoyed with The Walking Dead if they don’t allow both he and Shane to survive the escape from the school. I did fear that his slow moves and huffing and puffing might see him become zombie fodder when they were making a run for it. It would be typical of this programme to strike a cruel blow, but killing Otis so soon would just feel unnecessarily brutal.

The farmhouse group did seem intriguing. The horseback woman showed a kick ass capability, and the veterinarian was measured and assuring. They all appeared to be a fundamentally decent crowd, but whether they are to become new additions to the cast or just passing guests is up in the air. I would imagine they aren’t all too keen on leaving (the doctor himself laid out that their strategy was basically to lie low, remain where they were, and wait for a cure to be discovered and distributed). However, I wouldn’t be altogether surprised if all the activity at the farmhouse has created attention to their location and a horde of walkers descend on the place making it essential for them all to jump aboard the survivor convoy and hit the road.

Really interesting conversation between Dale and T-Dog. Dale does straddle a line between well-meaning, level-headededness and overbearing know-it-all. And yet even he was given pause when a delirious T-Dog made the observation that they were the weakest members of the group and, when it came to it, they would be considered surplus to requirements. I liked how it gave Dale food for thought. He might have liked to feel that the medicine Daryl revealed he had stashed (once again he comes to the rescue!) would cure T-Dog and return him to his senses but I got the impression a seed was being planted here that will burrow right into the heart of how this group dynamic functions.

Sophia is a case in point. By the end of the episode the plan seemed to be that they would wait out the night but after that they would head to the farmhouse and just leave a note about where they had gone. (Aside: if less savoury humans come across that note it might also be a reason for the group to move on, with their location given away.) Dale worries about the group becoming fragmented and he, more than anyone, seems aware of how close to falling apart they constantly are. Like Andrea’s unforgiving look stated as she slammed the door on him, this is not a happy family all pulling in the same direction.

Sophia’s survival chances are looking bleak. What is it? Two days now? If she hasn’t found water, food and shelter in all this time then it won’t be the zombies that have seen her off, it will simply be a helpless plight at the mercy of the elements. My hunch is the show will either have her return by the next episode, or she won’t be coming back at all and quite what happened to her will be left dangling as a mystery (potentially leaving the door open for her to show up much further down the line, but just as likely never showing up at all). It’s hard to imagine her mother ever leaving her, though, so what? Do they leave her too?

Again, desperate circumstances, like a mass zombie attack or a band of savage humans might force the group’s hand and get them all moving but, otherwise, they either move and become fragmented or remain and go nowhere. The latter just isn’t an option, unless hunkering down at the farmhouse is considered as good a place as any.

There’s no question I am totally hooked at the moment, and really looking forward to the next episode. Shane and Otis are in a tight spot that promises more nailbiting thrills as they attempt to get back to the farmhouse before Carl fades away – I anticipate the next episode is going to really play on this tension and eke it out for all its worth.

What was the best part?

The moment a walker came lumbering alongside Andrea in the forest and had her pinned down was brilliant in its execution; the surprise appearance of the walker just suddenly being there was a real jolt. That the woman on horseback came along, cool as you like, and gave the walker a smack showed she’s got some fighting skills but it fell to the all-too-cool Darly to deliver the finishing crossbow shot whilst barely even looking at his target.

What do I think will happen next?

I hope that both Otis and Shane make it out of the school (I’m confident Shane will, Otis not so much – though it’d be a shame to kill him off in this way) and they’ll get back to Rick’s son and, one close call, tense operation later I am sure that their efforts will prove successful. I just don’t see the boy not making it! After that the big question is: Do they stay or do they go? I suspect they’ll stay up until circumstances have it that they can’t stay.

An Idiot Abroad: S02 Ep06

What happened?

Karl takes a drive along the famous Route 66 in America, stopping off along the way to visit a weird bottle dump home, a cuddling commune, an explosive gold hunter, an Amish community and sing in a Glee-style concert before he finished by viewing the end of Route 66 on top of the wings of a bi-plane.

Thoughts

Can’t say I was particularly enthused by the ‘bucket list’ concept for this week – travelling along a road across America didn’t really strike me as all that fascinating. However, this episode of An Idiot Abroad really managed to make it feel like an effortlessly enjoyable journey, and I think Karl was perhaps more relaxed and willing to participate (maybe due to not being kept too far away from the general luxuries and familiarity of the western world).

As anticipated, the journey was staggered with pre-arranged events for Karl to participate in, but this was a necessity. If Karl just kept driving then he was utterly unlikely to encounter anything random or spontaneous so this episode, more than any other, was really dependent on the pre-arranged items. Luckily they were weird enough to be eye-catching, yet not so silly so as to be preposterous.

Well, except for the Glee concert part, but what a joy it was to see Karl actually get involved, stomping around the stage ‘singing’ Van Halen’s Jump with a broad accent. Clearly this also showed that Karl is not a man that is averse to his own sense of comic timing and schtick; he delivered a comic performance and the crowd loved it and it made for good TV.

It’s curious how Karl, and this programme, seem to have to wrestle with the notion of how genuine it all is. I personally think this series has seen a more genuine Karl than the previous series did. This series he has been seen to smile, laugh, make dry bemused comments about what was going on. Last series seemed more determined to only show Karl ‘in character’; miserable, moaning and angered. This series there’s been a little more dimension to his on-screen persona and, whilst I don’t doubt that it’s what he is like, there’s almost certainly an element of him exaggerating his own traits, or holding back other aspects of his character to remain true to the tone of the programme.

That’s fair enough. I don’t have a problem with the show in the sense of how ‘genuine’ it is in that respect.

I did like seeing Karl at the hugging commune. Was it wrong that I was rather attracted to the commune leader? Her discussion about how it was OK for men to become aroused, and offering to spoon Karl. . . He showed stronger will than I would have in turning her down and getting out of there early.

Better was his charming relationship with the gold prospector. Charging into the remote mountains on a riotous ride in his 4x4, this gun-toting man of the world was great value. But I really enjoyed how Karl seemed to warm to him, putting faith in this man to keep him safe no matter what happened. They’d make a great double act, and it was good to see Karl rise up to the man challenge and shoot at the explosive targets (even if he did scurry away and cower like a big girl’s blouse!).

The ongoing thread of the episode had Karl seeking out a gift for his girlfriend (the ever-unseen star of the show Suzanne; someone who should never, ever be revealed because there is so much humour to be mined out of wondering how she deals with a man like Karl in her life). It resulted in some amusing moans that, as ever, revealed Karl to be the opposite of romance, and it was a delightfully pitiful present in the form of a jar of peas from the Amish community.

I really enjoyed the feel of this episode. I think Karl not being too annoyed and yet not being too comfortable really helped, but it was just a really eventful, varied collection of encounters and strange characters that really worked. Contrived without feeling forced, amusing without feeling absurd – another strong episode. So far the only weak link this series was the first episode, and that’s something I am happy to report.

What was the best part?

For once the climax of the episode actually delivered the most entertaining part of it. Karl stood atop the wings of a bi-plane whilst the pilot really didn’t seem to show him any mercy, performing barrel rolls and loop the loops whilst Karl shouted and cursed at the top of his voice. I defy anyone not to have watched that and at least smirked, if not laughed out loud.

What do I think will happen next?

Next week Karl is off to Japan to climb Mount Fuji, which I am really looking forward to seeing. Japan is a country that totally fascinates me so to see Karl poke his nose into it and see what he makes of it will be highly interesting.

Terra Nova: S01 Ep04 – The Runaway

What happened?

A small girl, Leah,was seen around the perimeter of Terra Nova, an apparent escapee from the Sixer camp. Whilst she claims to want to remain in Terra Nova it turns out she was sent to retrieve a strange box from the house that Sixer-leader Mira used to live in.

Whilst Taylor manages to prevent the girl escaping with the box (she was doing so believing that her brother would be hurt) Jim is captured for a brief period by the Sixers and told that Terra Nova is not what he thinks it is. Unable to open the box, Taylor has it kept safe until they can figure it out. The Sixers do reunite Leah and her brother and they remain in Terra Nova as permanent residents.

Thoughts

Almost symbolically, the penultimate scene of this episode pretty much encapsulated what the whole thing had been about. The box containing an unknown thing was unopened and locked away in a safe. A mystery presented and then left unresolved. That was pretty much the nature of this episode, from the unopened box to Mira saying to Jim that he didn’t know the truth about Terra Nova but that he’d eventually find out. . .

OK, I don’t expect Terra Nova to reveal all its secrets but let’s hope a few things get let out of the bag before the show gets cancelled! It’s a fine line between building a mystery that fuels audience anticipation and annoying the viewers by dangling secrets with no answers. Lost successfully walked this tightrope very well (especially in the early seasons) but that was because it reeked of quality and grabbed interest. Terra Nova, for me, hasn’t earned those credentials, that seal of quality, and so it dangling intrigue is more irksome than intriguing.

What most struck me about this episode, when it ended, was a sense of, Is that it? It actually felt like it was an episode that was dealing with a deeper, dramatic thrust and yet came out feeling more insubstantial than the previous standalone episodes had done. Weird.

So in the main it was disappointing, but at least it has generated some mystery and questions to make tuning in weekly more essential (because if it had kept up the standalone format for much longer I think it would have been far worse than the drip-feeding of intrigue presented here). The question of what is in the box is certainly interesting (and suggests that the Sixers departed Terra Nova in such a hurry they couldn’t collect all their things). My best guess would be that it is some means of communication, or potentially even travelling back, to the ‘present’ day of 2149. Or else it's a key of some fashion, something that Sixers needs to enable whatever it is they are out in the jungle getting up to!

Mira stated that there were people from their original world that were not happy about Taylor, but then if that’s the case why not send someone through the portal when it’s next opened that has the might or the authority to overturn Taylor’s rule? Is it because Taylor is running things in a way that was not intended (presumably so, he was the first guy through and must have been tasked with something but perhaps disregarded that)? Maybe the Sixers were the means to overturn what Taylor had disregarded and they are out in the jungle getting stuff done – Leah did mention they travel around a lot. It’s definitely got mileage, when written out and considered like this, the trouble with Terra Nova is communicating this sense of fascination on screen.

More tangible is the mystery of who the spy in camp is. Since there’s only a few key characters outside of the Shannon family and Taylor then the suspects rapidly dwindle. It’s surely not the female Lieutenant Washington, since she had a fairly rough battle with the Sixers at the start of this episode (maybe that was a staged bluff but it didn’t look like it). More likely is the young man attempting to woo Maddy, Mark Reynolds, since he does seem improbably involved in everything that goes on.

The other major candidate is the scientist Malcolm, whose manner and quick opposition to Taylor’s dictatorship certainly mark him out. Outside bet falls to the guy with no legs being the spy, though how he gets messages outside of the compound is anyone’s guess (why is the idea that the spy could be using telecommunications not taken more seriously as opposed to them having to be someone physically meeting the Sixers?). There’s always Skye, not present this episode, but there’s literally nothing about her to lend credence to that as presented so far.

Right now I’d plump for Mark Reynolds to be the spy. It would at least make his sappy romance with Maddy have some edge to it.

Strangely deflated episode, then, considering it’s the one that’s generated the most for me to discuss. The best scene in it, for me, was the moment where Jim Shannon got caught in a trap and was left dangling whilst a dinosaur (I’m tempted to say Raptor but I think the species presented in this show aren’t quite sticking to known dino breeds) attack him. It was an eye-catching situation to be clipped into a trailer and I felt like they really could have tacked on an extra minute or two and made it a truly nasty, desperate predicament for Jim to hopelessly try and extricate himself from before it looked like he was done for.

Instead the Sixers arrived and ended the scene and took Jim away, diffusing the tension and moving things along to a more ‘safer’ vibe. Shame. Sometimes a show doesn’t realise when it’s onto a good thing, and a scene like that could have been really protracted and eked the most out of to deliver a properly memorable, tense sequence. Missed opportunity for that scene, but in general this is a step in the right direction for the show.

What was the best part?

As stated, Jim in the booby trap. Despite it not quite reaching the potential I could have imagined for it, it was still the best part in an episode otherwise laden with mystery and mawkishness but little in the way of visceral thrill. (Kudos for the smackdown at the start with Washington and the Sixers, though – more of that and she’ll become a cooler character.)

What do I think will happen next?

Hopefully they’ll get to work on opening that box and not just leave it in the safe. And also they’ll dig further into the Sixers (rapidly assuming a vibe not dis-similar to The Others in Lost as an enemy tribe that hold more answers than our heroes) and quite what it is they’re about. Right now I’d be happy to ditch the Shannons and Terra Nova for an episode and hang out with the Sixers, but I doubt that’ll happen.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep 01 – What Lies Ahead

What happened?

Rick is leading the group to Fort Benning where he hopes he will find survivors living in protected safety. However, on the freeway, their transport needs repairs only they are forced to hide when a horde of the walking dead shuffle by. However, when they are seen by a few zombies, little Sophia makes a run for the woods forcing Rick to give chase. He kills the pursuing zombies, but Sophia is missing.

The group then remain searching for Sophia, coming across a church whilst looting cars as the search continues. Shane announces that he is going to be separating from the group as he cannot stand to see Lori and Rick together. He and Rick stick together to continue searching, also with Rick's son. In a potentially tragic turn, however, Rick’s son is shot when walking towards a deer they see by an unknown hunter.

Thoughts

The Walking Dead is back, picking up where it left off with the dwindling survivors heading away from the destroyed CDC building and instead going for Fort Benning. It was good that Rick still continues the discipline of leaving radio messages for the guy he met in the very first episode – whether or not this guy will ever appear again is almost moot as it’s a narrative convention that allows Rick to explain to the watching audience what he is doing, what the plan is, without it being intrusive.

It will be a nice moment if we do ever meet that father and son again, though.

Someone else that lingers from season one is Daryl’s brother, Merle, who cut off his own arm and scarpered with a serious grudge against Rick. He’s another one we can’t really be sure we’ll ever see again, but it’s worth holding on to the memory of him because he feels like a candidate for most-likely-to-return, and I’d expect it to happen right at the most inconvenient moment.

This was a really strong first episode, particularly from the moment the walkers showed up shuffling along the freeway. There was the mild suggestion that there was something odd about them, like they were moving like a herd. Possibly there's ideas being seeded here that the walkers might be being motivated in some way, or operating under more influence than the haphazard, random nature of their shuffling around has previously suggested. Right now it's not an idea I am really going to spend too much time on, but I did think it was interesting. (I also think of the curious manner by which those few zombies were sat in church. Arguably the suggestion is that these undead are acting under the same instinctive behaviour they exhibited in their regular lives - but maybe there's some hint here that there's a semblance of consciousness developing in their undead heads?)

When Rick realised that the approaching herd weren't going to be taken out by a few well aimed sniper shots I’m not sure that getting under cars was the brightest move (why not just head straight into the forest to begin with and hide there at the side, waiting for them to pass?) but it made for a sustained, tense sequence that really got me on edge and hooked me straight back into the atmosphere of the show.

Like that creepy zombie that got into the caravan and started trying to get the suicidal woman Andrea, The Walking Dead makes its living dead look disgusting and fresh, and it’s nice to see that the show hasn’t gone soft on the gore. If they’re not poking zombies through the eyeball there’s Rick slamming them in the head with a rock, and then there’s Daryl gutting one open and slicing into its stomach sac to see if its last meal was a little girl!

Daryl is so cool it’s brilliant. He just about retains that sense of menace about him, that he could turn on the group if it serves his own interests, but whilst he’s on their side he’s a hell of an asset. Stabbing zombies with his crossbow rather than shooting it to save ammo, he’s the coolest and most capable undead killer in the group and I enjoy any scene with him. They do well to keep him used to a minimum – less is more with that guy. If Merle ever did show up then his reaction would be crucial to how well the group manage.

The semi-triangle of love with Rick, Shane and Lori works well, principally because of the performance of Shane. Rick and Lori are rather one-dimensional, but Shane maintains a conflicted, anti-hero quality about him. I don’t like the guy despite all the good he has done and yet I can completely understand his situation, and especially his need to get away from the gang. (That Andrea wants to join him is a tough call – on the one hand she’s kinda hot and might make good company but, on the other hand, she’s also suicidal so not really the type of person you’d wanna get stuck with!)

The mystery at the end of the episode was who fired the shot (surely intended for the deer). Rick’s son is certainly not going to be in good condition, having been hit by a round from a hunting rifle, but I’d be amazed that even a show as brutal as The Walking Dead can be will go so far as to have Rick and Lori lose their son. I have my doubts that Sophia will be found dead. Potentially the show might make the wrench to have her never found, but that will be hard viewing for when the time came to abandon the search and keep moving. As for who fired the shot, I’d have to figure it’s someone we’ve not yet met – perhaps a new character that’s going to be a big part of this season. Whoever it was, I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes!

Triumphant return, then. I know this season is double the length of the previous one, so the big question is can the show sustain itself over a longer period? I think it can. I know there’s plenty of source material from the original comic book it is spawned from but, mostly, it’s because The Walking Dead is about the characters. Whilst it may have to work a bit harder to make some of the people that aren’t Rick or Lori or Shane become more vital to proceedings (and, for sure, shading Rick with more self-conflict and Lori with less of a holier-than-thou attitude would do wonders) I’ve got a lot of faith that this is a well-crafted, solid show and it’s going to have to really go off the rails to go stale.

What was the best part?

No question it was the whole sequence from when the zombies appeared on the freeway and caused everyone to go and hide and hope for them to pass. It feels like it’s been a long time since I sat watching a television programme that got my stomach tightening and my senses on red alert. I absolutely loved it. If the show produces anything better in its entire forthcoming season I’ll be overwhelmed!

What do I think will happen next?

I’m not entirely convinced Shane will leave the group – possibly the injuries to Rick’s son will prompt him to have to change his self-centred plans. I imagine the shooter will turn out to be someone we’ve not yet met – for some reason I envisage them as a single person, living by looking after themselves. Rick’s son won’t die. That’s the one thing I am most sure about! I’d also expect them to find Sophia, too. Maybe the shooter will turn out to have found her already and have been keeping her safe – that would be something to ease the hostility he (or she!) is sure to face.

An Idiot Abroad: S02 Ep05

What happened?

Karl was presented with the opportunity to travel to Uganda to see mountain gorillas in their natural environment. Before then he was given something of a small tour of South Africa and Africa, to once again be presented with bungee jumping, to seeing a house where a hippo is kept as a pet, to be a children’s teacher and to build a new hut for a poor family as well as cook for a king.

Thoughts

I really feel like this show has settled down a lot more into itself, almost as though it’s comfortable with itself and what it’s about without having to try too hard. The first episode tried too hard for me and, slowly, over the course of things, that sense of forced amusement and stunt pieces has given way to a more flowing vibe and it’s really helping the show along.

Take Karl taking a visit to the school and then to the mass maze of hut homes in South Africa. Now this was an eye opening place (and credit for the high definition views, some of the shots this show captures of the world are quite amazing and something An Idiot Abroad doesn’t get particularly noticed for). But whilst it was amusing to see Karl struggling to teach children about risk there was the undercurrent of what their life is really like when they were asking about the risk of getting pregnant at just thirteen years old.

Same for the building of the hut. The guy whose home they knocked down and rebuilt was lay ill by the side, and whilst Karl quipped and later bickered with Stephen Merchant about the futility of his actions (genuinely touching, just hearing Karl’s exasperation at how his efforts were so miniscule in making a difference to the overwhelming problems of the area) the programme was also showing us what conditions these people live in are like. It did it without patronising or ramming the message home – it showed us a world of need and deprivation and still made us chuckle at Karl.

I guess what I am saying is that An Idiot Abroad does have the potential to be justified and vital, and not just a show about putting Karl Pilkington through as much shit as possible and then sticking a camera in his face to record his expression and see what he has to say about it.

There was something near-justified in presenting Karl with another opportunity to do a bungee jump which he subsequently declined, it kind of makes it into a running theme during the series since it was something he also failed to do during the first episode. That he lied about it to Ricky was amusing, but better was the last reveal that Karl had got one of the crew to do it for him and was going to pretend that was him – only the hat had fallen off the guy and so revealed a head of hair that Karl patently does not have.

Again, what made this reveal all the better was seeing Karl discuss it on the phone with Ricky and laugh about it. Again, Karl laughs! It’s better that the show allows him this – isn’t afraid to occasionally drop his dead-pan, morose demeanour to let us see there is a sense of humour and fun beneath.

The show is, of course, called An Idiot Abroad and it’s perhaps worth me remembering that before I get all irritable about the actual end, where Karl was presented with gorillas, and seemed to become utterly bored with it. Maybe it’s just because it’s one of those things that I would have been fabulously fascinated by (far more than boring old whales from the last episode) but his grumbling all the way along the trek to find the gorillas and then near-tedium once he was there just rubbed me up the wrong way.

As I said, I suppose I ought to remember that he is the ‘idiot’ that is abroad and, as such, I ought not to be too surprised when he behaves in a manner I deem idiotic! Good episode all round though and, you know, I think this series is actually shaping up to be stronger than the first one.

What was the best part?

I really liked the part where Karl was being a teacher. His flipping between being stuck for what to say to becoming incredibly agitated, like when they thought he shaved his head and he adamantly announced that he was in fact bald, were very amusing. But the bit where he mentioned that he didn’t have children despite having a girlfriend for seventeen years, and then having to clarify that she wasn’t seventeen years old was laugh out loud funny.

What do I think will happen next?

Karl is off to travel Route 66 in America, which might prove to be mightily entertaining or it might be one of those episodes where a lot more gets set up along the way and so loses that fluid, impromptu quality the series has been developing. I’ll continue to hope for the best, and the good news is that Karl will at least be able to communicate better with the people he meets which might mine more comedy gold.

Fringe: S04 Ep04 – Subject 9

What happened?

Olivia is being terrorised by a strange energy force that appears with increased frequency and ferocity. Walter fears that it may be caused by another Cortexiphan subject and so leaves the lab for the first time in 3 years to accompany Olivia in finding this person. Walter also wants to validate himself as sane enough to not be taken back to the mental hospital – a decision that rests with Olivia.

Walter and Olivia find ‘subject 9’, Mark Little, and though he possesses magnetic powers he is not responsible for the energy force. He can, however, repel it – and so he is taken to channel his powers against the energy when it next appears. Just before he does, however, Olivia stares into the energy and believes she sees the man that has been appearing in her dreams.

When the energy force is apparently destroyed, over at Reiden Lake Peter pops up out of the water. Fringe division quickly claim him due to his knowing so much he really ought not to. He asks to see Olivia and, though he is pleased and relieved to see her, she has no idea who he is.

Thoughts

Curiously, I’ve read a couple of reviews to this episode already and they all generally come out with a sense of disappointment and negativity. And I’m surprised. Because my reaction to this episode was entirely the opposite – I thought it was great and the best of the season so far.

Naturally the big take-home point was the arrival of Peter and all along it felt rather obvious that this strange force that was terrorising Olivia was Peter trying to break through. Yet for all that it still managed to be creepy – this strange, faceless ball of malevolent energy. The scene where Olivia woke with it in her room was good, but better was the ‘attack’ in the bathroom, preceded by Walter seeing it before it happened on his monitor, that made it feel like a kind of supernatural poltergeist assault.

The look on Olivia’s face to Astrid before the bathroom door slammed was really haunting, and that scene for me was one of the most intense Fringe has ever shown.

The episode really focused on the relationship between Olivia and Walter. It was explained that Walter did conduct his Cortexiphan trials, and Olivia was one of his subjects. We were also told that the instance where she set her room on fire occurred, so much of what we knew from the ‘former universe’ events is true here.

Olivia running away from the trials perhaps accounts for why she’s not quite as bitter towards Walter as you might expect her to be but it also seems that there hasn’t been any investigation into other subjects, considering Massive Dynamic (a more mercenary, immoral company in this universe) has held the files for twenty years. This in turn suggests Olivia has never really delved into her ‘powers’, nor have other Cortexiphan subjects been used to enable a crossover to the other universe to occur (as in the Season 2 finale). Since there was no Peter to go ‘over there’ to rescue I suppose that all makes sense.

Compared to the hostile and damaged Mark Little, Olivia is balanced and understanding and patient with Walter. His flip out in the hotel room saw her decide to stay awake with him and there they were, in the café, almost like a grandfather and grandchild, with him teaching her how to drink her ice-cream beverage to get the most flavour.

Perhaps more striking was Olivia’s relationship with Nina, which here seemed far more familiar and almost mother-daughter like. They shared a quick joke, one that displayed Nina knew much about Olivia’s life, and that one exchange was all that Olivia needed to settle herself. Very interesting. I also really liked how animated and irritable Walter was towards her, too – clearly there’s a lot more antagonised history between them. Maybe in this universe she’s like Yoko Ono to Belly’s Lennon!

Walter really stole the show for me in terms of emotion, though. I’ve never wanted to give the mad bastard a hug more than when Olivia was trying to leave him alone in his hotel room; the unsure smile and the fidgeting demeanour masking the tirade of nervous tics and neuroses vying to explode was heartbreaking. Walter has always been a lovable monster but more because of his quirks and irreverence – here his frailties and broken functionality illicit sympathy.

The red herring plot of ‘subject 9’ was perhaps the weakest element of the episode. Considering it seemed plain enough that he wasn’t responsible for the force then anything to do with Mark Little just felt like filling in time before Olivia and Walter realised the same thing and progressed on to what we really wanted them to see. And retreading the path that Walter had a lot to answer for because of all these children’s lives he messed up was, perhaps, an important point to clarify for this universe but it did also feel like a well-worn plot we’ve seen and heard about many times before.

Can’t help but wonder what would have happened had Mark not ‘defeated’ the energy force and instead listened to Olivia commanding him to stop. Quite what did occur in that moment to then result in naked Peter appearing in (of course) Reiden Lake was totally glossed over. I doubt Fringe will really bother explaining it. The basic point, I think, was that Olivia had made a tangible connection with Peter through the force of energy and then Mark ‘popped’ that energy away and, thus, Peter was ‘born’ into the universe (naked, in water, at the spot where ‘he’ died; your standard baptism/rebirth!)

As I suspected, Peter here retains all of his memories from the ‘former universe’ whilst this universe has no idea who he is. That’ll mean he has to try and rebuild the relationship he had with Olivia (and, perhaps, if she’s not inclined maybe Fauxlivia will lure him to her side?) but quite how Walter will deal with the thunderbolt news that this is his son is going to be very interesting.

Same goes for Walternate, too, who we still haven’t seen! If anything is going to draw him out maybe it’s to stake a claim on Peter for himself. . . This could start another battle between the two sides all over again, which would present a certain kind of plot echo where Peter is, once again, the key cause to a great rift.

What was the best part?

So many great scenes, but I think the diner scene was the best of the bunch. Shifting from the intimate and honest exchanges between Walter and Olivia to the energy force emerging, sending people running, was a good surge of excitement. And Olivia quickly shooting out the glass to make their escape, finishing with the skidding car dully thumping against the energy force to extinguish it just looked and played out really cool.

What do I think will happen next?

Peter will surely tell Olivia who he is, where he came from. How easy a time she has accepting that and what she does with that information may dictate how things are taken from there. If we’re lucky we’ll also be treated to Peter getting the chance to tell Walter who he really is, too. If we’re really lucky the next episode will also let us in on seeing how The Observers will react, knowing that September disobeyed the order to remove Peter from existence entirely (as previously stated, this may provoke them to try and take matters into their own hands and prompt a whole different kind of conflict).

Terra Nova: S01 Ep03 – What Remains

What happened?

A team at a research outpost have gone offline, so Liz is sent along with Nathaniel Taylor to check the place out. There they discover the people were infected with a virus that caused them to lose their memories and briefly shift mentally to some time in their past before catatonia set in. It’s not long before Liz and Nathaniel are affected.

Worried for his wife, Jim goes there with Malcolm, and whilst Malcolm suffers from the same malady it transpires that Jim is immune due to his cold. Whilst a cure his hastily put together Nathaniel, believing he is a soldier in Somalia, returns to Terra Nova and attacks some of his people but is knocked unconscious and cured when Liz and Jim return.

Thoughts

Another episode and one that very much played it safe with a plot that anyone dropping in new to the show could pick up and watch. Aside from the ending scene, which offered prospects of ongoing dramatic development with Josh being used by the Sixers, there wasn’t anything here that would particularly alienate a brand new viewer, and nor was there anything here which made you feel like you needed to have seen this episode in order to keep up with the show.

I suspect it’s intentional, in order to try and attract new viewers to the show that might not have got there right at the start. Fair enough, I can get that. But what’s not clear now is whether or not Terra Nova is going to stick to this formula of having episodes that function mostly on their own terms or whether it will eventually become a more serialised affair.

If I was forced to choose, I’d plump for it sticking to the more standalone format. It’s expensive and it wants to try and keep viewers and attract new ones. As I said, it’s understandable, but of course the problem is that for people like me that are prepared to stick around we are poorly rewarded for our loyalty. What we get are what feel like a lot of filler episodes with the odd bit of plot progression and peeled away layers of mythology tacked on at the end or paid brief lip service during proceedings.

This episode was OK if taken on its own merits. The structure was similar to last week in that the build-up and execution of the main threat was nicely handled and then the too-easy resolution felt unearned. I mean, really, Jim just happening to catch a cold turned out to be the only cure to this deadly, genetically-produced virus? That’s rather fortuitous to say the least!

Keeping Malcolm in the mix was good, although I thought that they could have played more on the idea that he was faking the symptoms of memory loss when he was making his moves on Liz. It seemed to transpire that he really wasn’t faking after all when I’d have hoped for a tad more ambiguity, or even genuine duplicity, to have injected a little bit more edge.

I also didn’t really buy the chemistry between Jim and Liz, here. When she had forgotten who he was, the news that she was married to him, with kids, was delivered and accepted with little fuss. Then, before long, she was passionately kissing him – even though to her this was a man she had never met before in her life and had not so long since held at gunpoint. Again, it just felt a little rushed, a little lacking in the willingness to not take the ‘nice’ route.

Taylor’s mental breakdown offered the darkness Liz, Jim and Malcolm’s plot lacked. Going all Colonel Kurtz with warpaint, holding Josh at knifepoint, when he was informed his wife was actually dead and this was news he was yet to be reacquainted with the speed at which he was set to slit his throat was startling. Sure it was probably a slight contrivance just so Washington got to save the day and, at last, make her mark on the show, but it’s nice to hope that there may be turmoil beneath the austere surface of leader Nathaniel Taylor that suggest he's not the ideal leader for this brave new world.

The plot with the Shannon kids was largely negligible, particularly the romance part. Josh and the smuggler just set things in motion for the last scene – though the conversation with the Sixers did reveal that they can communicate with the ‘future world’ when the portal opens, too. I have to trust that this issue of what can be communicated, and how, gets explored much more in future instalments because it’s a big piece of the show that’s been glossed over so far.

I don’t know how long the show will be able to sustain itself with these types of episode. Not quite standalone enough to be able to go into syndication and shown out of order (and thus generate lots of revenue) and not quite driven with continuing plot threads to support an ongoing dramatic arc, Terra Nova can perhaps survive a few more episodes like this before it’s in danger of becoming extinct.

What was the best part?

I liked the part where Jim and Malcolm were dragging the unconscious soldier and the raptor appeared at the open entrance port. It was just a cool little sequence, injecting a dinosaur into the thick of things at close quarters, to create an instant and deadly problem that required some quick thinking to resolve. If Terra Nova has a big ace up its sleeve, its that it has dinosaurs. Kudos, too, to the bit where Taylor drove through the legs of the Brachiosaur. Badass or idiotic: you decide!

What do I think will happen next?

The plot by the Sixers to use Josh via the smuggler will perhaps take further shape so we can gain a better indication about what it is they intend to use him for. Right now I can only imagine that they intend to somehow get Josh to make Jim get them guns and ammo, the commodity they seem to value. Or, possibly, they may even try to get Josh to join with them. . .

An Idiot Abroad: S02 Ep04

What happened?

Karl was discharged to Alaska to fulfil the once in a lifetime event of seeing whales in their natural environment (although he didn’t realise he’d be doing this from the vantage point of a working fishing boat). On the way he stops off to see parts of the Arctic circle, with Inuits to eat frozen chopped whale, to trek through wilderness in deep snow and to be pulled by huskies across a frozen lake.

Thoughts

I don’t judge the quality of an episode of An Idiot Abroad by how funny it is. Funny is good, but my enjoyment of the programme isn’t based on how much I laugh. It’s a mixture of amusement and interest and seeing something refreshing. Following Karl, we invariably get taken to poke around in quarters of the world most travel documentaries don’t bother with, or overlook, or put a nice gloss over. Karl will turn up at an Insuit’s house and be hospitably treated and only remark about how he’s being given cold food when they have an oven there they don’t seem to be using.

And what other show will let the viewers know about the “honey bucket” system, which is basically a bucket that the locals use as a toilet and then stick into a plastic bag to be emptied and returned, just like we have refuse collectors. (The poor guy that was desperately holding out for a replacement honey bucket also made for priceless TV!)

Sure, Karl’s perpetual moaning does sometimes feel a little over-egged. When he was roaming the snowy wilderness, in a barren, frozen desolation, his complaining about how there was nothing to see and the sun was making him go blind felt unbalanced against what must have been an incredible sense of wonder. He’s not that much of a Philistine and the natural world is one that interests him so, even if for a little while, I don’t doubt that this man who craves solitude and peace must have found something rather marvellous in his journey North.

The guide Ricky and Steve initially hooked him up with was a joyously irritating find. He even had a high-pitched laugh of mocking delight like Gervais’; the irony was rich. And after chugging through deep snow, dragging an abundance of provisions on a sledge, the final resting place being a cold hut with no toilet (just go outside and wipe yourself with a frozen hunk of a snow afterwards!) was a perfectly miserable start.

For the most part, though, Karl seemed in good-humour. He had enough hubris to dryly remark about how this was all “things to do before you die”, like when he was charged with chopping up dead fish on a boat that was making him seasick. And his bemused chuckle when chatting with the truck driver who merrily informed him the last place he’d go to was exactly where Karl was headed. It’s all the touches like that which make the show flow more enjoyably for me than all the big contrived stunts that seem to want to force through humiliation and attempt to mine laughs.

That being said, the highlight of the episode had to be when Karl was being dragged (I’d like to say riding along with, but that wouldn’t be an accurate reflection) by huskies. His swearing, his tight grip, the brief moments of downtime to chat to camera about how the frozen river was tough terrain and the huskies just did not obey commands and the brakes didn't work, they all added up to a great section of the show that certainly did have me chuckling out loud (and at the time of watching the show I was riddled with a horrible aching flu and felt like shit so that was no mean feat).

As is becoming something of a motif of the show, the actual ‘thing to do before you die’ was an anticlimax, although this one felt rather more poetic than just straightforward disappointment. Suffering aboard the fishing boat, chopping octopus, nausea overcame Karl so that by the time whales were spotted surfacing in the waters he was stifling the urge to vomit. He hauled himself over to catch a few glimpses but, cruelly yet typically, his lot would have it that he missed the best things on account of himself – barely able to keep his eyes open let alone stand and get a clear view.

To be fair, aside from the odd flipper or tail, it didn’t look like he was missing much.

What was the best part?

Easily the husky drag, which did look like a lot of fun though I can well see how, hanging on to the back of the sled being dragged uncontrollable across a frozen lake, it would well have felt very treacherous. What made the sequence great was Karl’s out and out anger and frustration, from cursing at the dogs to yelling at the people with him about how long this was going to go on for. You'd never see that with Palin! Terrific viewing.

What do I think will happen next?

Next stop Africa, I believe, from the preview at the end of the episode. As said, I was rather ill when I watched this so I can’t actually remember what the ‘bucket list’ event is for the next one. The fever was taking hold. I’m sure I can stand the surprise!

Fringe: S04 Ep03 – Alone In The World

What happened?

A strange fungus appears to have formed a psychic connection with a small boy. However, this rapidly-growing fungus is killing those that come into contact with it and so it’s down to Walter to break the psychic link between the boy and the organism before Broyles orders it to be destroyed. Walter eventually realises that it is the boy that is in control and, clearly confused by thoughts of the young Peter he lost, he endeavours to save his life and does so.

Still seeing visions and hearing voices of Peter, although he doesn’t know who he is, Walter believes he is going crazy and to prevent being sent back to the asylum he attempts a lobotomy on himself. Olivia arrives and stops him and then reveals that she too has been dreaming about this same person, placating Walter’s fears for his sanity and forging a resolve in him to find out who he is.

Thoughts

Apart from the terrific last scene (Fringe is rather good at producing last scene kickers to sign off its episodes with) this wasn’t the kind of episode to write home about. The main plot of the boy and the fungus brain thing was bizarre, even by Fringe standards. It started out well, I thought. The intrigue surrounding the organism and the boy was good, mainly because the boy had a slightly otherworldly feel about him that created a sense of mystery. And when Lincoln and Olivia were shining a light on the fungus, and getting ready to burn it, and the kid was freaking out, there were moments where I was rather excited about what the eventual explanation would be.

Turned out there wasn’t much of an explanation at all. A rather boring story of a miserable child finding an emotional connection that needed to be broken wasn’t particularly inspiring. But more baffling was how this strange organism thing even came to exist in the first place. Broyles and everyone else were quick to want to get rid of it without questioning where on Earth it had come from!

If, indeed, it did come from Earth!

Really it was just a bit of a lame Macguffin to get Walter in cahoots with a little boy so he could peel back some layers and confirm this universe’s history of Peter and the tragedy in his life that had damaged him so. It was detailed that Walter did lose his original son, and then crossed over to the other universe and snatched Peter. The different with this universe, and what was supposed to happen without Observer September’s intervention, was that Peter fell under the ice and drowned at Reiden Lake.

It’s straightforward enough, and as I had figured it (although for some reason I had it in my head that Peter must have died in a car crash into the icy lake – which I seem to recall now was actually the cover story fed to Peter to explain his dim memory of nearly drowning).

I think I said this from the last episode, too, but I don’t see anything to suggest that when Peter is eventually recalled there will be a fundamental change to the universe as it is shown now. This world is here to stay, it’s just that Peter is likely to be dragged into it as a strange ‘foreign’ object that really ought not to be there but exists anyway. A living paradox. It’ll be interesting to see if what he has to say prompts the likes of Olivia and Walter to have better memories of their former lives, though. . .

The ramifications of what might occur should Olivia and Walter and others realise this universe wasn’t the ‘original’ version remains to be seen – potentially this is a dynamic that could form the arc for this season. Potentially Peter’s return could make this universe unstable so that it becomes essential for things to be ‘reset’.

I hope not. I’d much rather prefer Peter was brought back, fully aware of his former life, and this universe and people had to try and wrap their heads around it and then move forward. The question then is: move forward to what? Where is the next dramatic conflict coming from? Potentially it could be from The Observers themselves who would seek to eradicate Peter themselves, and thus it would be our heroes versus these strange bald people!

Outlandish stuff, I know, but then you have to figure The Observers will have to be brought into the fold more at some point. I haven’t yet got any kind of idea about how the ‘first people’ thing from last season will be integrated into the grand scheme of Fringe. Let’s just take one big idea at a time and see where it gets us.

So Walter’s crisis with the kid making him relive his fight to save Peter in this episode felt a little heavy-handed, though it at least served the purpose of making it clear to everyone exactly what the situation with Peter’s history was. Fringe does sometimes feel clumsy in how it always needs to link in the current case story as a parallel to ongoing character drama – I know it helps forge the line between standalone episodes and continuing the serial drama but it does sometimes clunk like dropping bricks.

Credit to John Noble as Walter, though, who at least helped sell how bereft and undone he is compared to the man that we once knew – the man that had saved Peter and had him to help rehabilitate him. This Walter had no such solace in his past, and no crutch in his present, and it really comes across at how he clutches to a sane reality by his fingertips with only Astrid and Olivia there as his safety net to keep him in check. Whilst this universe may remain the same with Peter’s return I have to wonder if perhaps the ‘old’ characters that Walter and Olivia used to be might re-surface along with their awareness and, perhaps, memories of Peter.

For all of its clunking plot beats the episode served a purpose. It’s got Walter and Olivia united in a common cause of trying to find Peter. I kicked myself at the end for not being more suspicious of Olivia at the beginning. I knew she had been searching for Peter’s face on the computer and yet for some reason I just rationalised it as her having been given the description by Walter and she was just checking it out for herself. It didn’t occur to me that she was searching for her own purposes, even though she blatantly kept it a secret from Lincoln!

That’s just sloppy attention from yours truly, but it at least meant the end scene held a little more impact when she revealed she’d been dreaming of Peter so Walter could quit drilling into his brain and get on with figuring out who this ‘ghost’ really is!

What was the best part?

The best parts were really all about Olivia’s revelation that she too was sharing visions of Peter. I particularly liked the little scene where she was searching the facial recognition database for his image, a moment that registered with more impact only at the end (at least for me) when she revealed that she had been dreaming about this man and drawn his image so that she might figure out who he is.

What do I think will happen next?

Hopefully the search for Peter will now begin in earnest. With Walter dispensing with the paranoia that he is going insane, and with Olivia also on board now, I can well envisage the next episode really focusing on getting to the bottom of this mystery. I did predict that Peter would return within about four or five episodes so it seems about the right time for Fringe to cut the foreplay and get on with the main event!

Terra Nova: S01 Ep02 – Instinct

What happened?

The Terra Nova settlement area has a problem – the area they settled in is the migration point for reptilian birds that have come home to roost as part of their cycle. Coming in dribs and drabs at first, they attack and kill various settlers. Whilst Liz Shannon works with a man she knew in college, called Malcolm, who is also responsible for requesting her to be there, it becomes clear that thousands of these birds will descend on the compound and decimate the place unless something is done.

A plan is conjured where the pheromone scents the birds are attracted to is manufactured and relocated to a point further away. Terra Nova is saved once more, though during the operation Jim has become aware of Malcolm and his possible intentions towards his wife and has issued a warning to steer clear.

Thoughts

This ‘proper’ first episode outside of the pilot episode perhaps demonstrates better what kind of show Terra Nova is. And, by the looks of it, it’s rather old-school sci-fi with modern day effects. There is something distinctly old-fashioned about it; I have actually wondered if the tale of The Shannon family in prehistoric times might not harken back to the old shows like Land Of The Giants and, in particular, Lost In Space, high-concept shows that week by week stick with the same core characters through various adventures.

There was really nothing about this episode that pushed ahead with anything like a sense of progression in the drama. Ostensibly birds attacked Terra Nova until our heroes figured out a means of resolving the situation. Status quo resumed. That's not really a put down, mind. It was actually rather good in delivering a decent build-up, a credible threat and a decent set piece in the main attack on the Shannon household. The resolution was a bit lame and thus the only real weak point - it's hard to imagine a species would be so easily-fooled into a new breeding ground by the dispersal of manufactured pheromones elsewhere.

Actually, the dialogue was interspersed with a lot of cheese. If Terra Nova wants me to take it more seriously as a credible drama show then it needs to take itself more seriously.

There was promising future drama in the introduction of Malcolm, the scientist who clearly still holds a torch for Liz (don’t blame him, she’s smoking). This antagonism did at least allow Jim to stop being quite the douche about the house for a minute or two when he got to play alpha male regarding his wife. Hopefully that’s a side-edge that will continue (though if it goes down the route of Jim getting paranoid and jealous over really pathetic schemes by Malcolm I’m going to get annoyed – it’ll be better if Liz genuinely becomes conflicted between the two of them).

There wasn’t much else, character-wise, going on. The story involving the migrating birds did unsubtly parallel their quest to get down to some action alongside Jim and Liz getting some one-on-one time. To be fair to Jim he has spent many years in a prison with absolutely nothing so, frankly, how he hasn’t ravaged Liz before now is hard to fathom.

I did think that those Terra Nova homes didn’t exactly scream privacy. Those poor Shannon kids are going to grow up to the sounds and silhouettes of their parents at it. That’s unfortunate. Though the two eldest siblings already have their respective romances burgeoning, though Sky and the soldier-boy one (so bland I haven’t even identified his name) were hardly given much to do other than hang around the Shannon’s. Honestly, what did they do before they arrived?

It’s the tone of Terra Nova that was most prominent here, though. And I very much got the sense that it was a more family-oriented, early-evening kind of slot that this show is aiming at. If it weren’t for the gory, scratched-out eyes of one of the victims this would have been Doctor Who standard family viewing. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think that's exactly where Terra Nova is aiming to be. As it is, with the blood, this isn’t exactly a show for kids. So the tone is a little bit of a concern, unless it’s a show that’s starting off light before it goes into darker territory.

For the moment I’m still enjoying the show, in the sense that it’s more interesting than most television, but it’s nowhere near got me hooked or gripped. If it’s aiming to be light and enjoyable, then it needs to up its game. If it’s aiming to be mysterious and thrilling then it needs to cut through the froth. There’s time yet, and to be fair I think the show does need to spend time with the characters and the world of Terra Nova before it heads out into grand territory, but my early instincts are telling me that this doesn’t feel like a show that’s got the legs to last longterm.

What was the best part?

It was a brief moment, but the wide shot showing the masses of gathering reptile birds spiralling into the sky before they made their attack, watched on by Jim, was good stuff. It reminded me a lot of the movie Pitch Black, an effect that was probably intentional.

What do I think will happen next?

I can only assume that the introduction of Malcolm will also introduce complications between Jim and Liz, and meantime I expect the other Shannon kids will further blossom their romances with their paramours. In terms of the wider mythological drive of the show, however, there was little forward momentum in that regard to make further speculation.

An Idiot Abroad: S02 Ep03

What happened?

This week’s bucket list charged Karl with being sent off to Australia to swim with dolphins. However, he was sent to Thailand first as a stopping off point to see ladyboys, visit Monkeytown and fight in a blind Thai boxing tournament. It was only when he arrived in Australia was he informed “swimming with dolphins” had changed to “swimming with sharks”, and Karl was placed into a cage and lowered in to the water with the deadly fish.

Thoughts

It was good to see An Idiot Abroad feel like it was back on form with this week’s episode. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and perhaps it was telling that the actual ‘bucket list’ event of the episode was the least engaging part of it. Better was the bulk of the episode that followed Karl in Bangkok and, as usual, participating in stuff and witnessing things that other travel documentary shows shy away from.

It was very strange seeing Karl dressed up as a woman by the ladyboys. They actually did a good job in making him look feminine! If they could have persuaded him to shave his beard off then he might have actually made you look twice. Of course, the genuine ladyboys were practically indistinguishable from regular women, and it was fun to see Karl confronted with it and then question his own sense of gender. I’m sure Suzanne his girlfriend would be thrilled to hear that if he found out she was a guy all along then he’d probably stay with her anyway – albeit demanding that she participate in more heavy lifting!

This episode certainly did make me laugh and chuckle pretty frequently. Karl getting put through his paces by the Thai boxing instructor, and looking like he was genuinely getting angry and stressed out by the physical endurance and being harassed by a dog at the same time. The blind Thai boxing part did succeed in making Karl look silly, but I’m glad they didn’t dwell on it.

It was good that Karl actually (well, seemed to) go out and see something that he wanted to see. Going to Monkeytown was just bizarre. Monkeys are those kinds of animals that are cuter in idea and perception than they are in reality; they are smelly, scavenging and pretty wild. That there was this entire area called Monkeytown that was given over to the monkeys (and, naturally, the tourists) just boggled my mind.

Karl has been synonymous with monkeys for quite some years, for anyone that ever heard the podcasts or watched The Ricky Gervais Show, he was regularly reading out ‘monkey news’. Clearly he has an interest in them, and so to see him broken down and disappointed, lamenting ever meeting his heroes, was pretty funny.

I did think Karl was in very good form here, and it’s his mood that can very much make or break the show. He really seemed to go with the flow in Thailand in good humour – from the moment he turned up there to be fired at with water and paste, trundling into his hotel looking like a refugee, he got involved in everything that was thrown at him. Kudos as well for remarking how picturing a naked Rupert Murdoch in his head made him think of a turtle without its shell!

When the climax of the episode came, the swimming with sharks bit, I just didn’t feel it. I think the editing of the piece did its best to make it look exciting but, really, it was just Karl in a cage looking frantically around him as, occasionally, sharks came near. Can’t really expect more, of course – I am not suggesting I would only have been satisfied had his cage been attacked like he was Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws – but I did wonder if maybe the original plan of swimming with dolphins might have produced a genuinely good, golden moment.

It wouldn’t be in the spirit of An Idiot Abroad to have Karl enjoy something and have it be wondrous, but coming at the end of a gruelling episode and journey I don’t think anyone would have begrudged him a joyful experience at the close.

What was the best part?

I thought Monkeytown was the best part, purely because it was a fascinating place to see anyway. But watching Karl being accosted by monkeys crawling over him, snatching food out of his hands, amidst this strange little area of Bangkok was something I found interesting and entertaining.

What do I think will happen next?

Karl is being sent off to some frozen wastelands to see whales, by the looks of the clips at the end of this episode. Should be interesting, actually.

Fringe: S04 Ep02 – One Night In October

What happened?

There have been a series of murders by brain-freezing Over There, but a break in the killer’s identity have posed the notion that they can get his counterpart from Over Here to provide insight into who he is, and more importantly where he is. Olivia takes Dr. John McClennan to the alternate universe, working alongside her counterpart Fauxlivia and other members of Fringe division there.

The investigation does lead them to find the killer Alt-John, whose deep unhappiness went unaddressed in comparison to Dr. John McClennan who had more love in his life. Unable to cope with his new sense of conscience, the killer commits suicide, but having performed the brain freezing technique on Dr. John his memory has been irreparably damaged (and thus his awareness of the alternate universe erased).

Meanwhile Walter has taken to covering all reflective surfaces and playing loud music to try and block out Peter. However, alone at night in his room, Peter’s voice can be insistently heard, telling Walter he is right there with him.

Thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. There was an assurance about the whole thing that really shone through – from the acting to the pacing to the themes being explored. For what fundamentally amounted to mostly a standalone episode, too, and early on in the new season as well (when most shows usually trot out their weaker stuff) it was quite the pleasant surprise.

I really liked the dynamic between Olivia and Fauxlivia. The previous episode set up the antagonism between the two of them, but it was good to see that it had shifted by the end of this episode. Olivia’s more serious manner and rare smiles were more understood by Fauxlivia upon hearing that she had been abused by her stepfather and then subsequently killed him.

When the two of them are together on screen it’s easy to tell them apart, even if they have the same clothes and the same hair colouring. Anna Torv’s performance(s) are excellent, with her Fauxlivia’s cocksure ease with a smile and relaxed posture making her the more ‘fun’, but she’s not quite as ‘good’ as our Olivia. (I liked the bit where Olivia’s photographic memory trumped Alt-Astrid’s 13-hour analysis!)

I also liked how anatagonism between Over There and Over Here wasn’t quite as pervasive as the interactions between the two Olivia’s in the previous episode might have suggested. Both Broyles and Lincoln are alive in the other universe, and were far more accommodating and accepting of Olivia. Indeed, I got the impression that Alt-Lincoln and Olivia may be on course for some romance of their own.

Astrid made a remark to Olivia about their Lincoln being cute, which Olivia fired down. That might turn out to be ironic. But it was Lincoln, who we know has a major thing for Fauxlivia, making his remarks about liking blondes that felt loaded with potential. Considering that Fauxlivia in this version of the universe remains with Frank then it puts her off-limits; Lincoln certainly seemed friendly enough with Olivia and I can’t help but feel that this was all deliberate.

This is what I mean about how the episode had a confidence about its execution; comfortable with this array of characters. Barring a little bit of exposition from Walter at the beginning about the history of this universe to fill in one or two gaps Fringe has just got on with telling its story, sure that the audience will be capable of going along for the ride without having every detail painfully signposted.

The plot of the episode, as they tend to do in Fringe, fed back into the themes at play. John McLelland the killer was a man that had suffered as a result of what had happened to him as a child, but we could see from his alternate what a difference some love and compassion could make. (I’ll be honest, though, some of the memory flashbacks we saw in the barn totally went over my head. Either I missed something or it was badly edited.)

Clearly there’s parallels to be drawn with everyone and this world where Peter no longer played a part. Whilst for the likes of Alt-Broyles and Alt-Lincoln it’s worked out well (they’re alive!), Olivia is detached, Walter is a mess, and Olivia’s baby is non-existent. There is some give and take between what has been gained and what has been lost, but it seems to me that there are plot threads being picked up here (like Alt-Lincoln and Olivia’s potential romance) that suggest this universe, the one we are seeing, will be one that persists even after Peter returns.

The way I see it, Peter ought to eventually ‘pop’ back into existence, and although he will have full memories of the other universes, the other history, everyone else won’t. Peter could very well, once more, be a man out of place in the world. His voice at the end was certainly stronger, almost like he was able to see Walter. Is he only able to contact Walter? So far that seems to be the case – or it might be that Walter is the only one that is receptive to the loss so much that he alone is the only one wrestling with what no one knows they once had.

Two last points to make. The first, I am liking how Lincoln Lee may assume the role of new ‘wrong name reference’ from Walter. It used to be Astrid – getting called all kinds of things that weren’t her name. Now Walter, it seems, may refer to Lincoln by different kinds of presidential names other than, of course, Lincoln. It’ll be amusing to see that take shape (and, again, is another seed being planted to suggest this is a universe that is here to stay for a while).

Last point: I have absolutely no idea what the episode title means. By the time you’re reading this I’ll have probably read other stuff and found out but, right here and now, I don’t have a clue.

What was the best part?

A strong episode for Olivia and Fauxlivia leads me to conclude that the best part of this episode was their little chat in the car. For one it showed that Fauxlivia had softened her exterior a little to try and understand Olivia better since she was the one that offered her the ride and, by the end of the journey, I think it’s fair to say that her impression of Olivia has been suitably altered. There’s a reason Olivia is colder and more uptight – childhood abuse, killing her own stepfather, not to mention the Cortexiphan trials! I don't think they're going to be best friends, but the antagonism should certainly have eased.

What do I think will happen next?

Walter has surely got to start seriously investigating ‘Peter’ rather than trying to hide away from it. This might mean him reaching out to Walternate to aid him? Seems unlikely, considering how vocal he is in his dislike and distrust. But then I figure that this initial hatred will be part of his character arc and must surely soften and lead to acceptance as the season progresses in a similar manner to Olivia and Fauxlivia.

I also expect Alt-Lincoln to start making moves on Olivia. This will surely complicate matters further between those two, Fauxlivia and Peter (when he eventually shows up!).

Terra Nova: S01 Ep01 – Genesis Parts 1 & 2

What happened?

Earth in the 22nd century is over-polluted and oxygen-deficient. The Shannon family have contravened the laws that state only two children per couple, and the father Jim Shannon is locked away as a consequence. However, his wife Liz is granted passage to Terra Nova – a colony set up from a discovered crack in time and space leading to Earth 85 million years earlier. The Shannon family manage to all escape together to Terra Nova, and there set up life in the prehistoric compound.

Liz Shannon is enlisted as a doctor, whilst Jim Shannon is at first given agricultural duties before his instincts as a cop prompt Terra Nova founder and leader, Nathaniel Taylor, to give him a badge and a gun. He needs it when he is called out to rescue his son, Josh, and a bunch of other kids that ventured outside the fence and got caught up with Sixers (a rogue faction of colonists that splintered from Terra Nova) and attacking dinosaurs.

Everyone is brought home safe, though the kids all discovered a secret that Nathaniel would rather remained unknown; an area of diagrams and equations that the Sixers believe was written by Nathaniel’s missing son, harbouring information about the truth of Terra Nova.

Thoughts

Ah, that tricky first episode. Carrying the burden of introducing new characters, a new world, a new concept, and having to make the whole thing quickly appealing, engaging, but also providing fertile ground from which the show can grow and develop. It’s no mean feat, and as such, so long as a show keeps my interest, I am prepared to overlook other deficiencies at first on the basis that with time the actors, writers and crew will all settle down into understanding what their show is, what its strengths are, and grow into itself.

Terra Nova definitely has room for improvement.

Main character Jim Shannon was rather problematic for me – I didn’t really take to him. He basically came across as a bit of a dork. That would be fine if that was his character, but instead he’s supposed to be straddling both the everyman and action man role (which he does also manage) so these douche-elements aren’t blending well.

His wife Liz fares better (helped by the fact that she’s gorgeous) in terms of her credibility, but she doesn’t escape the trap of being rather one-note. It’s a fate that the Shannon family share. Son Josh does petulant, the geeky daughter is really unsubtly sold as being brainy (much of the exposition falls to her but her shoehorned in dialogue ain’t as pretty on the ear as she is on the eye) and youngest daughter Zoe has little to do but look cute.

As stated, this is just the first episode so there’s time for these people to be fleshed out. And Terra Nova did do the smart thing in focusing on them for the majority of the time rather than deluge us with an extended cast. Keep it simple, let the complex stuff come later.

The only other non-Shannon family characters to get any kind of exposure were founding father, Nathaniel Taylor and hot girl with balls, Sky. The relationship between Sky and Josh felt rather unlikely (Sky’s group were altogether way too trusting of the new boy with their secret booze and rule-breaking exploits!) but that one moment where she looked over at Josh being hugged by his parents, given she had been orphaned, was a bittersweet moment that did more for her as a person than all of her previous screentime.

Nathaniel Taylor was the real star of the show. It was perhaps hard to shake off Quaritch from Avatar (gruff man in charge in a foreign environment!) at first but, eventually, his founding father role was slowly earned. However, shows like Battlestar Galactica and even the ill-fated Outcasts, which have dealt with similar premises of a small pocket of humanity forging a new civilisation, generally involve more political and social structure emphasis. I don’t see Taylor as being realistically capable of maintaining law, order, social structure, government as well as defending the camp – but whether the show really gets into other authoritative hierarchy is another matter (they do tend to get a bit boring and perhaps Terra Nova would rather avoid the political aspect).

The CG-effects were a major talking point of the hype for the show, mainly because any show that is attempting to have dinosaurs as a fundamental part of its world is going to have to work hard to not make them look dreadful. Whilst the dinosaurs themselves looked decent (not exactly Jurassic Park standard but better than your average television effect) in a pilot episode with a lot of money thrown at it, I would expect either the quality to diminish or there to be less direct dinosaur action on the scale of, say, the brilliant cars versus Carnosaurs sequence during the regular episodes. Hopefully my cynicism will prove unfounded as there’s no question that dinosaurs are cool and some top notch man vs monster action will go a long way to cover plot holes and bad dialogue!

Steven Spielberg’s presence as executive producer kind of worries me, especially because the show seems to be favouring a safer, more wholesome feel than the opening scenes on Earth might have suggested. Hopefully I am wrong, because what Terra Nova really needs is to retain some kind of raw edge to compensate for the cheesy dialogue and lack of genuine peril. (Was anyone under any illusions that any key character wouldn’t survive?)

There’s promising plot threads trickling through to give the series somewhere to go. Nathaniel’s long lost son was one, with the strange markings he was leaving that hint at a truth about Terra Nova clearly being pencilled in early to pave the way for big mysteries and revelations to come. The key question would be to challenge the validity of the claim that Terra Nova is in a different “timestream” to the Earth they left. Just because that’s the official story doesn’t necessarily make it so.

I’d be willing to bet there’s a good chance that they really are part of Earth’s history and the potential effects of that are yet to be revealed (like, for example, why they can’t go back!). Failing that, they may not even be on Earth at all. So far there’s been nothing to substantiate that ‘given’ (admittedly they would therefore have to be on Earth-like planet that also has a moon similar to our own, so the odds of this being an alien world are pretty remote!).

So Terra Nova opened with a fairly predictable ‘kids in danger’ plotline to get our heroes outside of the compound and face-to-face with dinosaurs, and Sixers. It was eventful, served as a good introduction but did nothing particularly daring or groundbreaking. Again, with a show that cost this much money, you have to wonder how ‘risky’ it’s willing to go (in its favour, there were some moments of violence and gore that were stronger than I might have expected).

Terra Nova survived the test of the pilot episode in that it kept my interest throughout and has done enough to keep me willing to come back for more. Fingers crossed it gets better because I am intrigued to see where it’s going.

What was the best part?

As good as Terra Nova looked, and as exciting as a couple of the dinosaur attacks were, the most arresting sequences were back on Earth. The Shannon family hiding their daughter, the advertising boards and smoke-filled air, and then the walk towards the portal – these all had atmosphere and drama that loaned proceedings a sense of edge. Once the family were at Terra Nova that level of jeopardy just wasn’t present; it was entertaining but it felt safe.

What do I think will happen next?

I would anticipate that the next few episodes probably won’t look too deeply at the ‘bigger’ mysteries of the show, and will hopefully instead concentrate on the characters and everyday life in Terra Nova. I would also expect the Sixers would retain their presence, if only to create conflict, but maybe we’ll get to see them in a more sympathetic light and uncover why they split and what they’re all about. Mostly I expect exploration of both family and new world in the immediate few episodes, and I think that is precisely what the show can afford to spend some time on.

An Idiot Abroad: S02 Ep2

What happened?

Karl was sent to experience the Tran Siberian Express; one of the longest train journeys on Earth on a train that contains the most opulent and fantastic standards of travelling alongside third-class levels. En route he is taken to experience zero-g effects at a Russian astronaut training facility, meets a man that can stick metal to his body and finishes up in a Chinese dwarf village.

Thoughts

Well, it was better than last week’s! I felt like Karl was given a little more licence and freedom and there was less pre-arranged stunts or events for him to contend with. Again, like the bungee jumping last week, the one genuinely amazing experience put in front of him (of going up in the plane to experience true weightlessness in zero g conditions) he elected to wangle his way out of.

I know it’s his character, and he is being absolutely true to himself in not going ahead and doing stuff he resolutely doesn’t want to do just because he’s on television, but at the same time it’s plain annoying to watch. I don’t find it funny. I don’t find myself on his side. I find myself disliking him for squandering these amazing opportunities.

I never felt like that watching the first series. Throughout that one I was always sympathetic to his plight but, for series 2, this idiot abroad is only really being idiotically resistant. So instead of him on the flight we had to settle for a bag of Revels being flung about in zero g in his stead. That’s not good entertainment.

More entertaining was Karl being made to wrestle for the honour of some Mongolian tribe. Not only did he look ridiculous but his fed-up reaction to it was terrific. The difference here was that he actually did get on with it. He stayed with the people (joining in with their chanting singing!) and practised the wrestling and then turned up and competed. As he said, there was no surprise in that he didn’t win but at least he gave it a go! So long as he does that the show works – it’s when he just turns his nose up, folds his arms and refuses to play does it get frustrating.

On the plus side there was a lot more of this episode that felt like the first series, and was better for it. His arrival in Moscow, with the most grumpy taxi driver ever, was amusing. But better was the look on his face when he went into the bar and spotted a bunch of guys sat at a table wearing only towels; just that glancing expression of disbelief to camera when he had passed them was priceless.

It was also interesting to see him aboard the Tran Siberian Express, particularly when we followed him being moved through the train, down the class levels, into the nightmarish conditions of third class and his bed that was little more than a shelf. It was utterly contrived but made for good viewing, seeing him perched up there hating every second of it.

Where this show actually succeeds is in being a kind of anti-travel show. Normally such shows will seek out new places and far off lands and show them in the best light. In the first series of An Idiot Abroad the strength and freshness of it was in having Karl turn up at the pyramids and remark about how scruffy the place was, or arrive at the Great Wall of China and fail to see the wonder in a wall that had been patched up and re-built in the modern age. This episode had touches of that down-to-earth, this is how it is viewpoint with the unflinching look at how crap the third class conditions were; this is where the show validates itself and was something last week’s jungle-based expedition completely lacked.

Maybe it’s just the joke is wearing thin. It’s not a concept that can be spun out for much longer. Maybe. I’m not completely down on it because there was plenty to chuckle at and enjoy. Like the dwarf village was fascinating and weird, and it was a nice touch to have Karl contact Warwick Davis and discuss it with him. That Karl was, for once, positive about something that Warwick could see nothing positive about was typical: Pilkington remains a man forever at odds with popular perception!

What was the best part?

For all the centrifugal machinery and dwarf villages, the best part of the show is Karl being Karl. As such the best part of the episode for me was, having met the man that could stick metal to him, Karl was asked what kind of power he would like to have. The following little monologue about how he’d be ‘bullshit man’, turning up and remarking “bullshit” wherever anyone was talking crap, was absolutely genius.

What do I think will happen next?

Next week Karl is to go swimming with sharks. If there hadn’t been some clips with him actually in the cage, in the water with the sharks, then I’d have worried it would be another case of him being presented with another experience he’d refuse to properly take on. I still doubt how much of it he will do, but we’ll see. The episode does have the potential to have more contrivance, though, so my hopes aren’t particularly raised.