Mini reviews of Television seasons old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. Occasional bunnies.

Friday, September 6, 2019

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Fifth Season (2012)

NOTE: I KNOW IT SAYS 'NO SPOILERS' AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE, BUT THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS FOR SEASON FOUR.
🙈🙉🙊 -

The fifth season of TSJA is both the shortest and the last of them. It's not because the series was losing its audience or appeal, but because the actress that played the title character, namely Elisabeth Sladen, sadly passed away before it could be completed. Of the planned twelve episodes, just six were made.

Luke (Tommy Knight) is still at university, but Sky (Sinead Michael), the young girl that Sarah Jane and her team rescued at the end of Season Four, is still around, bringing the number of human helpers the reporter has back up to a comfortable three. Well, four, if you count the times when Luke is back on Bannerman Road. He gets paired with Sky in the season's final two-parter, The Man Who Never Was.

They're both Sarah Jane's 'adopted' children, so it makes a kind of sense that they'd end up side by side. And it works well; the duo, despite their differing backgrounds and ages, have things in common (such as not being human, for a start) and they've a wonderful brother/sister chemistry, as believable as the bond that formed between Rani (Anjli Mohindra) and Clyde (Daniel Anthony) in the previous years.

Thematically, the short season includes musings on identity and upbringing (e.g. we can't choose our parents at birth, but we can choose to be not like them as we grow). The issue of homelessness is given some attention, it's slight but may well be enough to make a youthful audience notice its existence in the streets around where they live. It even touches on how relationship break-ups can leave a hole.

As an adult viewer it was pleasing to see the inclusion of something that's often overlooked: Sarah Jane's journalistic skills aren't just useful for researching aliens, they're also what pay the bills. I'm sure Mr Smith costs more than a penny to run.

I'll genuinely miss the series; I loved the opening music, the creepy stories, the sonic-lipstick jokes, and, of course, Elisabeth, who brought to the role a distinctive level of sincerity and gentleness that was all her own. The final episode ends with a moving montage of moments that give credence to that feeling. The Doctor Who franchise will endure for as long as there's money to be made from it, but I feel that the extended universe will be lessened without Elisabeth Sladen's presence.

6 episodes, approx 27 mins each.

3 galactic coincidences out of 5

Thursday, September 5, 2019

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Fourth Season (2011)

Sarah Jane's son Luke (Tommy Knight) features prominently on the cover art, but the character is only in the fourth Season occasionally, and mostly it's from the other side of a webcam chat. His absence is used to highlight the kind of feelings that a parent may experience when their only child leaves the nest, and the sense of abandonment and fear of further separation that a small but close-knit group of friends can feel when one of their members is no longer present.

In one of the two-parters, within a dream scenario (the subject's first, incidentally) lurks an Elm Street / Pennywise-esque creature that preys upon self-doubts and anxiety, which is something that the youths have much of at that time. It has a creepy nursery rhyme jingle, too, which is often a plus in that kind of scenario.

Additionally, looking at the same situation from a different angle, it shows how we can draw courage and strength from trusted friends when we need it most.

Rani (Anjli Mohindra) and Clyde (Daniel Anthony) have always worked well together, both as characters and with regards the actors' onscreen chemistry, which is just as well because with Luke absent the duo are required to step up and fill multiple roles. One such situation has them running ragged while trying to save the entire Earth from ultimate destruction - so, no pressure, then.

Throughout the series there's commentary on how we are frequently influenced and inspired by our family and friends, the latter being something that I was reminded of very recently in my personal life. (If you're reading, TYVM.)

There's another welcome Doctor Who connection, which plays a role in the season's best two-parter (Eps 5+6), a story dealing with the death of a loved one, with subsequent denial, and how such unfathomable change can make us appreciate those we still have; it contains a superbly written and admirably concise explanation of grief, one that a young person could understand. Also, it has lots of stuff from Who's past, for fans who enjoy both the old and the new.

And finally, for this review, at least. there's a time-travel episode that reminded me of the wonderful Sapphire and Steel (1979-82) TV series.

12 episodes, approx 27 mins each.

3½ enduring echoes out of 5

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Third Season (2010)

Bannerman Road's most famous resident continues the good fight. With the aid of an extraterrestrial super-computer housed in the attic, Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and her three young companions hold the line against all kinds of alien nasties that want to inhabit earth for various nefarious or profitable reasons.

The word 'alien' has negative connotations, but while it can be prudent to keep in mind Virgil's 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,' it's unwise to judge on appearances, so the idiom 'don't tar all with the same brush,' is an equally relevant one.

Events in season three go back as far as 1665 and forward to 2059, with the immediate present playing a crucial role in one of the more notable two-parters, The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, which has a very special guest star.

Her travels with the Doctor(s) and much of her life since has been filled with the unknown, but something she never thought she'd have to deal with is motherhood. It's a challenge at any age, but having a son that's an artificial human created by the Bane makes it a little more difficult still. Luckily, Luke (Tommy Knight) is learning to stand alone against the odds, which he proves more than once.

While all of the stories would classify as 'Adventures', some of them do a much better job with important themes than others do. Some of the better ones include, but are not limited to, the destructive affects of jealousy; being careful what you wish for, especially in anger; the pangs of regret; the desire to feel appreciated and fit in; and the healing power of second chances. Yes, it's still a children's TV show, but that doesn't mean it has to compromise on subtextual depth.

Threats include nanotechnology and a not-too-bright but very determined Judoon police officer, but what I'd run from most are Rani's (Anjli Mohindra) parents, adults who are somewhere between sit-com and soap opera - a useful combination when the script calls for an adult annoyance, but damned aggravating when it doesn't.

6 two-part stories (12 episodes), approx 27 minutes each.

3½ broader horizons out of 5

Thursday, January 3, 2019

Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger (2013-2014)

Manually published on the date of the Type Jack leak for Smash Bros. Because reasons.

 
It pays to know about Miu (i.e., Go-On Silver), before reading this.
Come back once you do.


Kyoryuger came remarkably close to delivering the first female Sixth. But, they didn't. Yayoi (Kyoryu Violet) is alone in the cockpit of Plezuon, as a robo, in battle, in the show itself, for exactly 0 seconds. The nanoseconds long fight at the beginning of Brave 48 has her grandfather, Doctor Ulshade, simply stepping out of frame. He does not leave. As such, she is completely invalidated as a Sixth. She never pilots what is supposed to be her mecha, as a robo, by herself. Would you care to argue that an equal number of people saw the Come Back special, as did the show? That a scant second of footage, seen by a small few, is something worth celebrating? Toei doesn't.

She exists as a weird half-Senshi, similar to ZyuOh Bird, having only used Plezuon as a dinosaur, for a few seconds. Most of which see her being knocked out of the sky. Which, matches her being knocked out in Brave 23, instead of debuting as a Senshi, at that point, as she should have. And, in Brave 35. Brilliant job shuffling her off the board. It's not subtle, in the slightest, and you even left the curtain completely open, by having Torin pantomiming/piloting with the main team in Gigant Bragi-Oh, before he became a Senshi!

It's wild that Yuuko, Shinya, and Dantetsu fared equally, or perhaps even worse, in terms of mecha-usage, having never piloted theirs, at all. Ramirez and Tessai did so once. Doctor Ulshade and Torin were treated the best, of this group of second-class Senshi. The first two were only Senshi in the final two episodes. Dantetsu had a couple more to his name, similarly to Doctor Ulshade.
 
It's what happened to Yayoi and Torin (specifically in Brave 35) that bothers me the most. Typically, when a Sixth joins their team, in a few episodes time their Sixth Combination will debut. This sees them all formally uniting, to take down a threat that neither the Sixth, nor the team could defeat, on their own. Except that, in Kyoryuger, Yayoi and Torin became Senshi only AFTER their Sixth Combinations were debuted. They're used by the main team (which, because of how the mecha system is designed, does also include one of the Sixths, Kyoryu Gold).
 
Reds and main teams using the mecha of Sixths is actually, strangely, a consistent practice in Dino-series. In Zyuranger, Geki inherits Burai's. Fair enough, I suppose, even though it could have stood to have been written differently. In Abaranger, AbareKiller decides that one attack is reason enough for him to retire, the day of the team's dedicated movie, when any other day, we all know that would undoubtedly spur him on. But, for some reason, he lets TopGaler and Stegoslidon decide if the current threat is relevant enough to all of their interests to justify them helping out the main trio, without him. To my knowledge, this type of thing did not occur in RyuSoulger. Good for them.

The only rationalization I could scrape up is that they want to give agency to the mecha themselves, in dino-series. That's commendable, but it can be done without shortchanging the human/humanoid Sixths. Agency is not a limited commodity, Toei.
 
There is merit to the six characters comprising Kyoryuger's main team. A damn decent amount, but I'm not sure there is enough in the world to justify the stark division that is placed between those six and the other eight. Daigo using Plezuon and Bunpachy in Yayoi's debut fight is INCOMPREHENSIBLE. It goes against something so fundamental about the franchise that it should have never had to have been said aloud: A Senshi pilots their mecha.

Do you see how alien and ridiculous it sounds to have to actually state that? They would never have a male Senshi train to pilot their Dedicated Mecha. Daigo is a newbie Red; did you see him training at the beginning of the series? Even if he had, and even when other Senshi have trained to pilot Auxiliary or Super Mecha, it's been shown ON-SCREEN. Training is a plot point to be shown, not an excuse for
someone not being present in every episode, after their debut. Or, especially, an excuse for other people piloting their mecha, in their absence.
 
It's just inexcusable and mind-breaking to come THAT FUCKING CLOSE to actually having a female Sixth, only to have that gift horse's neck broken mere moments after its birth. Then, to have the corpse shuffled out onto the stage intermittently, in a farcical way.

I have been in denial , off and on, for a decade.
I have been insanely angry, and probably always will be; it's part of who I am.
I have bargained with myself, that it's okay because it's the closest I am ever
going to get.
I have been depressed.
But, I'm going to have to accept it. There has been no sign, whatsoever, in the past
decade, that Toei is going to actually deliver one.
 
It's ridiculous. There was no justifiable reason for Daigo to use Plezuon, past Yayoi becoming a Senshi. Marketing and sales revenue are NOT justifiable reasons for destroying a character, or piece of fiction. If you aren't going to do something properly, don't do it at all.

I'd rather every Sentai series be Sun Vulcan, than for Toei to continue presenting
ladies as equals to their male counterparts, only to fail so badly in delivering on
that.
 
The same is true for non-humans, non-binary characters, and foreigners. Why you
gotta do Shou Ronpo, J., and Robert Baldwin like that?


There is no genuine storytelling to Yayoi, or motivation. She wants to be a Kyoryuger…because she wants to be a Kyoryuger... She exists for the sake of Daigo, ultimately in regards to the symbolism of SpinoDai-Oh. In respecting that he wants to be with Amy, she precludes the rest of the team from being present with him, for the final battle. Yes, they do send the Zyudenryu up to destroy the Frozen Palace, and (unbeknownst to them) save him, thus keeping their part of Daigo’s promise. However, this is Kyoryuger’s manifestation of Riku Sanjo’s problem of placing individual love above THE MISSION, and it requiring him to resurrect, or miraculously save, a character to make it all work out.

The above paragraph rightfully makes me ask, ‘What is this? Rider?’

The way that Yayoi was invalidated was a laser-precise process. It’s infinitely clear that Toei didn’t REALLY want to change the show, in a significant way, based on the fact that many of the videos they solicited of fans dancing to the ED included girls. Toei already knew full-well that the girls who watch toku, watch Sentai. Go find another franchise that consistently includes multiple female heroes. In the wake of that notorious producer's comments, they likely wanted to simply include another lady, in spite of previously having only one lady on each dino-team. Why they decided to make a tradition of that, and go right back to it with RyuSoulger, is beyond egalitarian thought-processes.
 
The weird thing is that they could have added another lady in a simple, non-financially-risky way. In fact, they likely could have made a bit MORE money, given that Plezu-Ohs were ridiculously cheap, for a window of time. How? Have Yuuko take over for Ramirez, in Brave 24, instead of Brave 47. People LOVE Ayumi Kinoshita. Ankydon would likely have seen a bump in sales, and all they would have been on the hook to do was deliver an episode where Amy and her use Kyoryuzin Macho.
 
I am fully aware of the individual who pushed to have Yayoi become a Senshi; please forgive me for not committing his, or the producer's names, to memory. Though, I genuinely feel like while the germ of this idea was probably well-intentioned, it ended up being a decision with incredibly unintended consequences, once it had to be pushed through the Corporate Machine. I buy that everyone involved wanted to make a concession in the wake of the controversy, but ultimately, what Toei absolutely didn’t want to do was actually deliver a female Sixth.
 
Consequently, what they delivered was the most passive-aggressive and insincere piece of fiction that I have ever come across.
 
‘You want this? Sure, we’ll pretend to give you this.’ 
 
Again, for such a long time, I’ve felt like I was looking a gift horse in the mouth, even though I’ve known for ages that she wasn’t ever really real, to begin with.

You just made her up to hurt me. And, it worked.

Yes it did~

(x)

Saturday, December 22, 2018

Hammer House of Horror: Volume 4 of 4 (1980)


The Thirteenth Reunion
Ruth (Julia Foster), a reporter for a small newspaper's 'women's section' goes undercover in a weight-loss clinic to find out if their unusual methods work or not. So far, so normal. But the clinic is up to something shady, so Ruth digs deeper.
The amateur sleuth vibe that you'd expect to accompany that kind of story is almost completely absent - whether by fault or design, I don't know. What remains is a woman who's out of her depth but determined to get the story, in the hope of helping her career. It's not a very engaging 50 mins, for the most part, only really coming alive in the last third. — 2½ virtues of necessity out of 5 —

Carpathian Eagle
Inspector Clifford (Anthony Valentine) investigates a series of murders in which male victims had their heart cut from their chest. At the same time an author (Suzanne Danielle) is researching a Carpathian Countess who did some grisly things in her spare time. The gathered evidence suggests supernatural means, but the sleuthing detective explores the psychological side, too. Not the typical Hammer Glamour model, the seductive murderess nevertheless successfully adds a touch of sexy class to the production. It also features Siân Phillips as a descendent of the bat-shit crazy Countess. — 3 jobs for the ladies out of 5 —

Guardian of the Abyss
If GotB was an attempt by Hammer to create something that feels like another Dennis Wheatley adaptation, then they succeeded, with bells on. It's not a carbon copy of The Devil Rides Out (1968), but it does have similarities; i.e. black magic rites, a private individual carrying out a time-sensitive investigation, and an initiate (Rosalyn Landor, who played Peggy in the aforementioned film) on the run from a hypnotising occultist. It's familiar thematically but still manages to hold its own in the TV medium. Overall, great stuff. — 3½ horror scopes out of 5 —

Growing Pains
A comfortably rich research botanist named Terence Morton (Gary Bond) and his diplomat wife Laurie (Barbara Kellerman) adopt a young boy named James (Matthew Blakstad), a replacement for the son they tragically lost. James is a polite youth, but his arrival brings with it some very strange happenings.
It's an average end to the short-lived series, but the acting is generally good and the predominant theme is well-explored. The ending, despite having some avoidable flaws, is also pretty dramatic. — 2½ living proofs out of 5 —

4 episodes, approx 51 minutes each.

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Kamen Rider W: Hidari Shoutarou's Hardboiled Delusion Diary (2009-10)


These shorts were included as extras on W's myriad DVD releases. Because the plot points that are mentioned in each delusion don't always line up with the Dopant suits that appear, I recommend viewing these post-series for the sake of ease. If you absolutely insist on risking it, just don't watch number 11. It contains a catastrophic spoiler for the endgame. You've been warned.

12 shorts, ranging from 3-5 minutes, apiece.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Hammer House of Horror: Volume 3 of 4 (1980)


Rude Awakening
Denholm Elliott stars as an estate agent named Norman Shenley who gets stuck between a nightmare and a fantasy. On one side is Emily (Pat Heywood), his wife of many years, while on the other is Lolly (Lucy Gutteridge), the young, sexy secretary that he has eyes for. Norman's life is thrown into chaos when he's asked to survey a neglected manor house filled with fake cobwebs and accusing voices.
Directed by Peter Sasdy, whose Hammer credits include Countess Dracula (1971) and Hands of the Ripper (1971), the story plays around with what's real and what's imagined, hiding truths in the line between the two. — 3 bed roles out of 5 —

Charlie Boy
A timely windfall helps middle class Graham (Leigh Lawson) out of a financial pickle, but it comes with supernatural baggage; i.e. a hideous fetish statue - that's the totemic/juju kind, not the 'ooh, baby, spank me!' kind. Thereafter, we're treated to tragic events with ominous build ups that may just be coincidence but most likely aren't, because that would be boring. — 2½ travelling violations out of 5 —

Children of the Full Moon
A rather shocking opening scene (in any era, not just 1980) sets the tone for an entry that is by turns standard drama, creepy, gothic-esque, feral, and disquieting. The differing styles each serve a purpose and don't clash too much, thanks in part to the director (Tom Clegg) and the actors, including great work by Diana Dors.
It's an altogether classier piece than the previous episode, despite having a threat that's equally as overused in the horror genre. — 3 mutton broths out of 5 —

3 episodes, approx 51 minutes each.