TV Meview 18.1.2009

Wow!

This is actually my first review post since the turn of the year. TV must be baaad!

Actually that's not far off true, but as new series come back in the next few weeks then I should have more reaction to post.

Christmas telly was awful though and I got used to playing on the PS3 to pass the time, unfortunately that meant neglecting my writing, but there's no way I could focus on that with all the kids around. I hoping to schedule in a few more posts in the coming week though.

So, where are we?

Saturday?

Must be X-Factor!

It's gone?

What's there instead?

Demons!

oh.

I have to say that Primeval seems to have set the bar for ITV genre efforts. Alas that means its only slightly better than BBC's Bonekickers.

There just doesn't seem to be any love in my heart for these shows, maybe I'm just jaded by by the Hollywood production levels of US network shows, but it's not just that. There's some kind of atmosphere or spark missing.

Maybe there just isn't the depth that some US shows have. I'm used to these kinds of shows being about more than just running around fighting monsters. In that sense it's just a glorified kids show. The episodes need to be about something. Look at the comparison with Life on Mars.

Each episode of Life on Mars took an issue and showed the different approaches to policing and life in general between now and then, allowing us to see how things have changed. In the middle of that they had an ongoing mystery about the main character and also had great supporting characters such as Gene Hunt. That was good writing. They put effort into getting a format that allowed them to squeeze the most out of the players they had on the table and the budget available to them.

With Demons however they seem to think that its enough to just have a couple of young, trendy looking characters and a mentor figure with an American accent chasing monsters and being put in peril each week. There are some heavy-handed attempts at characterisation, but nothing showing a deft touch or an understanding of people. I mean even Doctor Who, which is actually aimed at kids, had Rose's Mum get in on the secret because she wasn't stupid and noticed her kid was involved in some wierd stuff. Keeping a 'secret identity' is old hat. It's done to death.

Shows looking for an edge need to be brave enough for main characters to have their immediate family drawn in. Especially this story. I can imagine the emotion the Mum would go through when her little boy tells her he and his father's secret history. Yes, it may make it harder to write, but if I'm expected to give a hour of my life to some TV programme it at least needs to have the integrity of telling a story worth paying attention to.

A classic example of the difference between British and US shows is Eli Stone.

We ended up watching this last night as we missed the first showing on Tuesday. The second season started with a possible new direction for the characters as they moved on from the initial season's reactions of disbelief to Eli's visions. The good feelings still abounded though as people began to believe that they could make a difference.

It's well acted with top people in each role and great guest stars (my wife tells me that this was apparently Sigourney Weaver's only ever appearance on a TV show). I think there's an element of the show being a bit too luvvie, maybe, with the opportunity for big stars to do things they wouldn't normally get a chance to do. It takes its potshots at easy targets in order to create clear moral dilemmas, but occasionally they do throw in those storylines where the line is a bit greyer (it is a law show after all).

The actual storylines that stood out for me in the first season were the family trying to get their Mum to leave the army and the baseball player accused of murder. They were interesting plots in their own right, but also served to move on one or two of the main characters.

Now comparing this with Demons, the story itself was kind of secondary to the development of the characters. None of the people in this episode of Eli Stone were in the same place as they were at the beginning of the first series and yet they still felt like they were true to those people you were introduced to. Each episode or story pulls in the casual viewer whilst developing the main cast to reward longtime viewers.

Maybe its a handicap that UK shows suffer from. They tend to only have 6-8 episodes for budget heavy shows like these. Our TV economy doesn't really support productions like the US can where shows commonly get 22-24 episodes. That said Eli Stone, as good as I think it is, didn't do well in the US and only got 13 episodes per season as it never got picked up for the second half of its run. So an unsuccesful show in America is still better produced and better written than a UK counterpart? Sad, but true?

There's a temptation to say 'Well, let's lower the standards a bit and just enjoy what we can get.' I'm sorry though, but shows like Survivors and Life on Mars show that you can squeeze a lot more out of the short format series, unfortunately they seem to reserve the best efforts for mature audiences rather than giving us a well-written family show.

X-Factor? No, that's finished now remember?

Oh, you mean that!

Of course there is one other 'X-factor' in the equation. It does actually entertain the kids and introduces them to classic horror themes in a not-so-scary way (intentionally?). Does that justify its existence?

Well, I guess things can only get better for them.


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