How do I love thee, teevee show?
Let me enumerate the ways ...

It has been noted before, by me and many others, that we live in the Golden Age of Television. My personal honour roll includes such singular creations as Orphan Black, Atlanta, Rick and Morty, Treme, The Wire, Community and, most recently and especially, The Expanse.

No doubt, your list will vary — perhaps Deadwood is on it, or Strange Empire, or The Sopranos or Mad Men or Game of Thrones or ...

Or, or, or ... Those far-from-exhaustive lists are very much the point. Only a few years after it seemed "reality" shows would be the death of scripted television, there has been an explosion of good — or at least ambitious — stuff.

But for my money, The Expanse is the gilding on our Golden Age. It is a science fiction program that doesn't (hardly) cheat on the science; that presents three societies (Terran, Martian, and Belters) that are, each of them, complex, with multiple factions and vision and interests; that features full-blown people as its principles, each with back-stories, motivations and neuroses that are only sometimes in sync with their friends and lovers.

It is, in short, far more than the sum of its (excellent) parts. Allow me to enumerate a few of them.

1. The writing | This is a show that moves. Some have complained that things sometime happen a little too fast. I disagree. The Expanse is a program that has a story to tell; this is Game of Thrones, where after a couple of seasons it became pretty clear that the creators had not particular end-game in sight, and so more and more came to rely on soap opera plot devices and soap opera pacing to keep viewers involved. (I confess: I think I gave up on that show the season of "The Red Wedding".)
   
   The Expanse moves fast, because a lot happens in it. And that's a good thing.



2. The Women | It is not quite unique for science fiction to offer female protagonists as fully-realized human beings, but it's far from common. And in my experience only Orphan Black can rival The Expanse in that department. But the former was much more constricted in its canvas. Where Orphan Black offered a multitude of clones, The Expanse gives us a middle-aged diplomat cum politician; a brilliant young engineer running from an unhappy past; a young, idealistic Martian marine; an all-too filial daughter bent on revenge for her father's downfall; a married Reverend with a thirst for adventure that threatens her calling and her family; a fierce rebel fighter in a struggle to lead a revolutionary army ...
   
   And those are just off the top of my head.



3. The Diversity | Did I mention that the diplomat is of south-east Asian background? That the engineer and the Martian marine are black? That the filial daughter is oriental? That the fierce rebel is an Ojibwe Canadian in real life? Or that many of the other people we come to know over the course of the program's three seasons (so far!) are also, well, not white?
   
   For that matter, even the white people on this show are seldom the blue-eyed blondes so common on American television. And, while we're on the subject of looks, one might think that the casting directors set about to not include any actor with standard (American) "good" looks. This show's diversity is more than skin deep. It goes to wide, flat noses, to women with flesh, to men with wiry black facial hair. I could go on. And I could, perhaps, withdraw my suggestion that the show-runners were deliberately trying to subvert standard American television looks, in favour of the possibility they simply tried to pick the best actors for the roles.
   br /> Regardless, the cast of The Expanse doesn't look much like most American television, but comes at least somewhat close to what any big, multicultural city street looks like.



4. The Relationships | First of all, they vary. A lot. But I will take a brief look at the relationship between Naomi (the aforementioned engineer) and James Holden, the ship's (it's a science fiction program; of course there's a ship!) captain and the closest we have to a full-on protagonist.
   
   James and Naomi start off as distant colleagues, thrown together by bad luck into an intimate working relationship that, slowly, becomes a love affair. But Naomi, as a character, is never "the love interest". She starts out as, and remains, a protagonist in her own right. (Indeed, one of season three's main plots concern the repercussions Naomi faces from Holden and the rest of her crew for a decision she made at the end of the second season. Her "betrayal", and her eventual reconciliation with both lover and friends is a master-class in writing that respects all of the characters as people, not roles.
   
   Naomi may be Holden's lover, but it is always clear that that relationship does not define her.



5. The Newtonian Physics | I want to say the show doesn't cheat on the physics, but it's not really true.
   
   50 years after 2001: A Space Odyssey blazed a silent trail it remains the road less followed; The Expanse joins the Star Wars crowd in ignoring the fact that there is no sound in a fucking vacuum!
   
   Le sigh.
   
   So, engines roar, bullets shriek and metal groans when it's punctured or torn. It irks me, but the rest of the show is so good, I'll forgive the trope and pretend the sounds are a form of background music.
   
   Where it excels in providing at least a verisimilitude of Newtonian physics. In reality, space is (to crib from Douglas Adams) quite big, thank you, and The Expanse provides us with the sense that it takes a lot of time to get from point A to point B. A voyage from one asteroid to another takes time; even a missile fired from one ship to another, takes time.
   
   I imagine a physicist doing the necessary calculations would find all sorts of signifcant errors and outright cheating, but for a civilian viewer, The Expanse offers, as I said, verisimilitude. No Luke Skywalker hopping from one solar system to another in a fighter unequiped with a warp drive (or whatever they called faster-than-light speed technology in that franchise).
   
   All that is a welcome change, as it the fact that the show remembers that there is no gravity in space; characters wear magnetic boots, they suffer under acceleration, they sometimes float in zero G. Quite a lot for a television show with what one presumes is a relatively small budget. (The special effects are not first-rate, but they are very good examples of second-tier work; no danger of one's suspension of disbelief being broken by laughable visuals.)



6. The Politics | I mentioned earlier that there are three main factions depicted on The Expanse. But none of them are monolithic, and all of the various sub-cultures harbor misguided ideas about the other(s). In the world(s) according to The Expanse, individuals matter, they can affect things — even change things — but so too do groups, from small cabals to a mindless mobs. No one is in full control, of anything.



7. The Humour | The Expanse is a high intensity drama whose characters are forever chasing events at least partially beyond their control. But it is not an action adventure (though when there is action, it is invariably really well done). The characters are given time to breathe; viewers are given time to care about them, about their motivations and their backstories. (That quiet moment when strong-man Amos explains why he knows how to walk in heels is a priceless example.)
   
   And part of the way we come to care about these people is through their senses of humour. There aren't many jokes on The Expanse, but there are a lot of chuckles, and no few laughs. As in real life, there are quips, there are bon mots, there is humour in contextual repetition. In short, and to repeat myself, the show is rich with deeply-etched characters.



8. The Action | There aren't a lot of action sequences in The Expanse, but when they happen — where as ship-to-ship or hand-to-hand combat — they are invariably well-directed.



9. The Villains | Even the show's most reprehensible characters are portrayed as something more complicated than just evil. There are thugs and sadists on the show, but even they are depicted as telling themselves stories that make their villainy necessary. We get the sense that even Dr. Strictland — torturer of children — thinks he is a good guy, doing horrible things for the greater good.

There is a one hell of a lot more to be said in praise of The Expanse. The acting is of an almost BBC level of craft; the broader story evinces what a friend called an "optimistic outlook on humanity without being schmaltzy or unrealistic" — and, I will add, while facing up to some of the worst that humanity has to offer as well.

And, as with the best "real" science fiction, it provides us with that ol' sensa-wonda in proverbial spades.

If you have been watching The Expanse I'd be delighted to know what you think of it; if you haven't been, I hope to hell what I've written is enough to convince you to check it out.

In the Forest of the Blight

Here we go again: interrupted for a couple of weeks by an influx of competence, Steven Moffat's Doctor Who is once more circling the black hole of creative bankruptcy. Moffat's name isn't on "In the Forest of the Night" — the official blame goes to one Frank Cottrell-Boyce — but his fingerprints are all over it.

Child in peril? Yup. Magic child in peril? Yes and yes.

Lots of expository dialogue? Oh, yes.

Completely implausible reactions to extraordinary events? You know it.

Magic Reverso-Babble ^TM to ensure story has no lasting consequences? Why not? We're in Moffat-land!

Truth is, there is so much wrong with "In the Forest of the Night" it's hard to know where to start — or where to stop. I made every effort to be parsimonious in my critique, to prune away the dying limbs the better to reach the rotten heart of the tale, but did I succeed?

You can judge for yourself by reading In the Forest of the Blight. Snark, spoilers and baffled vitriol behind the link, as usual.

Little care from The Caretaker

The short version?

I really enjoyed "The Caretaker" when I watched it late Saturday night and into Sunday morning.

I'd been awake almost 20 hours when I hit Play, had worked 11 of those hours at the day-job and spent nearly two more riding to and from there on my bicycle.

I was tired, and I admit cracked a beer or three as I live-tweeted my first reactions.

To my regret, those tweets were an enthusiastic tailings pond spill I wish I could take back. But they do represent as "real" a reaction as my subsequent re-evaluation. And since I don't believe in censoring reality, they will stay on my Twitter timeline and live on also as a sidebar — pre-commentary, if you like — to my review.

The short version is that I thought the episode pretty awful when I watched it by sunlight. To paraphrase the blogger Patches365, it was a mean-spirited "tragedy of blunders" built on — not one — nor two, or even three — but four idiot plots. And it was an episode that tossed aside its best performer in favour of the cheapest of cheap laffs.

The long version? The long version lives on my site, of course, along with spite, spoilers and some thoughts on patterns as we reach the half-way point of what we can only hope will be Steven Moffat's farewell turn as Captain of the foundering ship Doctor Who.

Click here for Little Care — Take Two. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Watching "Listen" (again)

The first time I watched "Listen", home after an 11-hour shift that followed an early rise, I wrote, "I definitely enjoyed it, definitely want to watch it again." I also wrote, "It sounds silly when I type it out, but [the story] gave me the shivers ..."

Well, hell. I did watch it again and now it seemed silly when I watched as well. There were no shivers to be found.

What was there was a mixed bag of an episode, combining Steven Moffat's still-effective skills at atmospheric scenes, with a show-runner's determined but mis-guided need to further place his singular stamp upon Doctor Who's cannon of mythology and back-story, and proof (as if any more were needed) that as a writer, he gives not a single damn for story-logic.

You don't have to read my review if you don't want your fun spoiled, you know. You really don't. Spoilers (in both senses of the term) ahoy!

A girl's own adventure

14 year-old girl fights child-welfare authorities
in quest to sail solo around the world
waves goodbye at age of 14

Adventurers have long held a special place in the public's imagination. Brave and determined or selfish and monomaniacal, according to one's tastes, they are larger-than-life figures, accomplishing impressive — if arguably pointless — feats. Climbing the highest mountain, sailing the widest ocean, risking (and often losing) life and/or limb and leaving wives and children behind to wait, to wonder, and to mourn.

Why do it? we stay-at-homes might ask. Why trek from one coast of Antarctica to the other after failing to be first to the South Pole? Why try, not once but three times to be the first to scale Everest?

There probably isn't a better answer than George Mallory's laconic reply to a reporter before he died on that third attempt to climb Mount Everest: "Because it's there."

We certainly don't get any more a revealing answer from Laura Dekker, who at the age of 16 years, 123 days, achieved her years' long dream by becoming the youngest person to ever sail, alone, around the world, but Jillian Schlesinger's documentary, Maidentrip about her voyage is a moving and fascinating film despite its lack of firm answers.

The bare facts make for quite a story, and though its subject has disavowed the resulting film, if there is a young woman in your life who could do with something other than a Disney princess or a Kardashian as inspiration, click here for one hell of a girl's own adventure.

The good, the bad and the Doctor

I feel dirty, like I awoke alone after a night of passion to realize my inamorata's clever words were lies, that her body had stained my sheets and her gentle caresses had left indelible, greasy streaks all over my body. Though I cannot deny the passions I had felt in the dark, with morning's light comes the fear that my wallet, and even my closet, may be empty.

I liked "Into the Dalek" when I watched it the first time. I really did. Even enjoyed it when I watched it a second time. Yet, when I began writing about it, started to think about what it was that had entertained me, the flaws shone ever brighter, like stars appearing one by one after the sun has slipped below the horizon.

"Into the Dalek" is the kind of episode that seduces with surface charms, then laughs at our pleasures, mocks our innocent hopes. Slick enough to entertain in the moment, the story shrivels under the the light of critical consideration.

Sorry, folks. I really thought this would be a positive review for a change. I was only when I began to write, and to really think about what I had watched, that I realized I had been fooled again. After all, The only good dalek ...

'Steaming like raw meat dropped onto a hot stove'

It's not news that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I have a soft spot for space opera; I confess, the big space base (which I initially mistook for a starship of some sort) adorning the cover of Neal Asher's novel, The Departure, helped sell me on it.

As it turned out though, The Departure hardly qualifies as space-opera and only squeaks by as science fiction pretty much the way Superman does: on technicalities only.

Though it's set in the future and some of the action takes place in orbit and on Mars, the book is really just a narrated first-person shooter dressed up in some SF tropes — a corrupt and incompetent world government, artificial intelligence, robotic weapons and a transhuman genesis.

But all that is only window-dressing. That spectacular cover is a gateway to lugubrious dialogue, sophomoric libertarian philosophy, hackneyed world-building and, especially, to one pornographic blood-bath after another.

The Departure is one of the worst books I have read in a very long time. More boring than Atlas Shrugged (which I reviewed a while back), it drips with just as much contempt for ordinary human beings. Unlike Rand's John Galt though, Asher's superman does much of his killing at first-hand.

Does this novel have any redeeming qualities? The short answer is "no". The long answer lives behind this link.

Flawed redemption still a happy anniversary

 

It was 1978 or 1979. I was in grade 8 and quite liked my home-room teacher. Mr. Pritchard also liked me, the bright, nerdly kid who had made the school's "newspaper" his own, contributing articles, editorials, cartoons — and (yes) even reviews.

One afternoon after class, as I watched over the Gestetner machine chunking out its blue mimeo pages and Mr. Pritchard watched over me, I mentioned I was looking forward to Saturday, when another episode of Doctor Who, this British television program I'd recently discovered, was going to be broadcast, right before the hockey game.

Mr. Pritchard looked up and laughed, his moustache bristling his delight. "Really!" he said, "Is that still on the air? I used to watch it when I was your age!" He was probably about 30 then, meaning I had barely been born when he was my age!

Learning of that long continuity delighted me as much as — and maybe more than — it did Mr. Pritchard. And now that 15 years of the program's history has become 50, and my personal continuity with it is twice what my teacher's was, the fact that Doctor Who is still on the air delights me even more.

All of which makes me doubly-pleased that the program's 50th anniversary episode, "The Day of the Doctor", exceeded my (admittedly, low) expectations by a wide margin. While not without some significant flaws, Steven Moffat's long-awaited 2013 series finale (of sorts; the upcoming Christmas special will probably mark the real series end, as well as the transition to the next) was a well-crafted entertainment, that balanced humour, drama and nostalgia and, even, pathos, without getting bogged down by the Enormous Anniversariness of it all.

Though some nonsensical elements demonstrated yet again Moffat's tendency to confuse plot with story and maguffin with plot, structurally, "The Day of the Doctor" was a happy anniversary present for this jaded and weary viewer.

Certainly it was the most entertaining multi-Doctor special to come down the pike since, well, forever. I really did laugh and I really did cry, on both first and second viewings — and it's been quite a while since a Moffat-scripted episode of Doctor Who hit me like that.

As usual, my full review is liberal with spoilers. And yes, I spend quite a lot of time exploring those "significant flaws". If you don't want your pleasure challenged, I recommend staying away; if you want in read on click here for The Day of the Doctor: The Bad, the Good, and the Meta.

I loved Kick-Ass (and reviewed it a while ago here) not despite, but because of it's over-the-top brutality, its profanity and especially because of its sense of humour. Well, and also because it was extremely well-done, a lunatic action movie with heart and brains, both.

I loved the original enough to drag myself out to a theatre, despite the fact neither the original movie's director and writer Matthew Vaughn, nor co-writer Jane Goldman were anywhere to be seen.

Sadly, the sequel is a pale shadow of its predecessor, not horrible, but certainly not very good either.

My full review lives on my site.

Patterns of abuse

I know a lot of you enjoyed "The Crimson Horror" and, in comparison to the previous week's travesty, you had every right to.

Nevertheless, what you enjoyed was still pretty lousy television and I guarantee that, unless you make a real study of it, you won't remember a damned thing about it a year from now.

Don't believe me?

Read "Carry On Up the Tardis!" to find out why it was the idea of "The Crimson Horror" you liked, and not the show itself.

As usual, both plot- and fun-spoilers abound, so enter at your own risk.