TV

Waking the Dead: Series 5, Episodes 3 and 4: Black Run

Written by Raymond Khoury; Directed by Ben Bolt

Back when Waking the Dead’s fifth series was first beginning to air, in September 2005, Sue Johnston gave an interview with the Radio Times in which she said that the nice thing about the new series was that it focused exclusively on the characters of Boyd, Grace and Spence. At the time, I thought this was a rather unkind dig at her other co-stars, but, in retrospect, I see what she was getting at: while three of the two-parters in Series 5 are what I would term conventional Waking the Dead cases, with the team solving them in their capacity as detached (personally if not emotionally) professionals, each of the other three focuses on a past case of one of the three remaining members of the original team. Black Run is Boyd’s turn to have his dirty laundry aired, and oddly enough it turns to be the weakest of the three.

The story: former police officer Eddy Vine (David Hayman), rotting in prison with terminal cancer, convicted of murdering his partner, Tom Palliser. Pending an appeal for his early release on grounds of ill health, Vine summons Boyd, the man who succeeded in securing his conviction a decade ago, to offer him forgiveness. Vine’s manner, however, is enough to plant a shred of doubt in Boyd’s mind, leading to him unofficially launching a re-examination of the evidence and witness testimony. Gradually, the rest of the team begin to suspect that Boyd may have coached some of the witnesses, causing them to question just for whom Boyd has re-opened the case. The worst is yet to come, however, when Boyd is suspended after putting a biker in a coma after seemingly being drunk at the wheel while in the company of Palliser’s widow, Sheryl (Diane Parish)…

Actually, this is a rather interesting episode for one very specific reason: the part of Eddie Vine is played by David Hayman, best known as DCSI Mike Walker in rival series Trial & Retribution. Seeing him going head to head with Trevor Eve is like some sort of weird crossing over of two different worlds - think The Flintstones Meet the Jetsons, only less crappy. Their scenes together don’t really have the sort of intensity I was expecting, in part because Hayman is putting on a less than convincing Cockney accent, with his regular Glasgow dialect occasionally slipping through the net, but it’s also because there’s something rather contrived about it all. The basic idea is that Boyd is set up for a massive fall by the vindictive Vine, with him pulling the strings from inside prison. Simply put, there aren’t enough scenes between the two characters, and the identities of the individuals that he manages to manipulate into screwing Boyd over are a little on the far-fetched side. Trevor Eve certainly acquits himself with applomb, as always, but, because the show’s producers would never allow him to commit a cock-up on as grand a scale as the one he is accused of here, the outcome is never in any doubt: Vine must be guilty, and Boyd must have been justified in coaching his witnesses to ensure that he went down. Vine is ultimately revealed to be a deeply unpleasant individual, corrupt to the core, but the programme ultimately ends up sending out the rather less than savoury message that it’s okay for the police to bend the rules to ensure a conviction provided they’re convinced their suspect is guilty. It’s actually not entirely surprising that the script comes from Raymond Khoury, best known for his affiliation with Spooks, a programme which frequently revels in glorifying this “bending of the rules” by authorities who seem to be allowed to operate above the law. The series of events in which Boyd becomes embroiled also greatly demeans the character, turning into a screaming, slavering idiot who by rights should have had his status permanently revoked. This is arguably the character at his absolute worst, and comparing this episode with something from, say, Series 1, provides a clear indicator as to just how much he has (d)evolved since the show’s beginning.

The other point of interest is that this storyline introduces Mel’s permanent replacement, Stella Goodman (Félicité Du Jeu). Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to warm to this character, primarily because she seems so contrived. Without giving too much away, she is brought into Series 5 to serve a very specific purpose, but once that purpose has been served, the writers of Series 6 and beyond allow her to remain, but end up taking significant liberties with her characterisation once her original raison d’être is gone. Du Jeu tries hard, but she’s always in the shadow of the rest of the cast, who are more experienced and have the benefit of better-developed characters. Stella’s input in this episode is fairly minimal, so she is less irritating here than she would later become, but she still makes me wish they had just kept Georgia Mackenzie on instead.

Waking the Dead: Series 5, Episodes 1 and 2: Towers of Silence

Written by Joe Cozens; Directed by Philippa Langdale

One of the nicest things about any show with a small, established cast is the depth of characterisation that it affords. Waking the Dead, as I’ve said before, has never really been about the personal lives of its regulars, but, by spending so long with each of them, you really get a sense of what makes them tick and develop a close attachment to them. The downside, naturally, is that, when one of these characters leaves, the show’s entire world is turned upside down. At the end of its fourth series, Waking the Dead lost not one but two of its five regulars, all of whom had been there since the pilot episode. The result is that, like it or not, the show can never be the same again.

In actual fact, Mel and Frankie weren’t the only ones to leave. The other departure, behind the camera rather than in front of it, was that of executive producer Alexei de Keyser, who died of a heart attack mere days before the broadcast of Series 4’s final episode. He was a producer on Casualty during its 13th series, and was promoted to series producer (in charge of the overall flow of the storylines and characters) for Series 14. When Barbara Machin left to do Waking the Dead, she took de Keyser with her, and I suspect that he, more than perhaps anyone else, was instrumental in establishing and maintaining the show’s tone. On the upside, producer Richard Burrell opted to stick around for a third (and final) year, and, although the rest of the writing staff was new, Ed Whitmore remained in place as head writer, again for one more series.

Of the two new characters brought in to replace those that left at the end of the previous series, only one is introduced in this episode. Unfortunately, brilliant name aside, Dr. Felix Gibson (Esther Hall) has “placeholder” written all over her. Although a valiant effort is made to establish her as having her own personality in this episode, throughout the rest of the series she gives the impression of speaking lines that were intended for her predecessor, Frankie Wharton. I’m not sure precisely when it was realised that Holly Aird definitely wouldn’t be coming back, but Felix’s characterisation leads me to believe that at least some of the scripts were written for Frankie and then hastily retooled for Felix. At least in this first episode, the writer differentiates her from Frankie, primarily by playing up to Boyd’s distinct discomfort around her, unnerved by her demand that he roll up his sleeves and help out in the lab (in contrast to Frankie’s “one woman army” ethic) and attempting to compensate for her rather cold personality by making incessant small talk. (In later episodes, Felix would drop the “cold fish” persona completely and become much more talkative, not to mention discover the same sense of black humour that made Frankie such an enduring character.) I never liked Felix quite as much as Frankie, but she definitely grew on me, partly thanks to Esther Hall, whom I’ve always liked as an actress (even in those cloying BT commercials that she is probably best known for, in which she plays Kris Marshall’s wife), and I was ultimately very disappointed that she only lasted for a single series, and was replaced by the interminably dull Eve Lockhart (Tara Fitzgerald), whom I’ll discuss further when I get on to Series 6.

One final note on the casting before I get on to the episode itself: filling in for Mel for this two-parter only is DS Andrea “Andy” Stephenson (Georgia Mackenzie - no relation to me, I hasten to add), which I always found rather curious. Why go to the bother of introducing a new character and integrating her with the team, only to replace her with something completely different for the next case? I suspect that, ultimately, it had a lot to do with a desire on the part of the writers’ to bring in someone with a strong resemblance to Mel, in order to accentuate Boyd’s angst, but at the same time not wanting to simply replace Mel with Mel 2.0, so only keeping her around ‘til she’d served her purpose. It’s a shame, because, from what little we saw of her, I liked Andy a lot more than Mel’s permanent replacement, whom I’ll discuss in my review of the next episode.

Anyway, finally getting on to the episode’s plot, the case the team are investigating this time round involves the discovery of a mummified body aboard a decommissioned cargo plane bound for an “aeroplane graveyard” in Arizona. Found sans hands, the body bears striking similarities to that of Nadir Mehta (Neran Persaud), an airport bag handler found by Andy at the top of a water tower in Kent six years ago when she was a PC. His brother, Sarosh (Emil Marwa), is currently in prison for his murder, but, suspecting that Sarosh is in fact taking the blame for someone else, Boyd mounts an undercover operation inside the walls of the prison. Their investigations reveal a trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals, a shady firm of private investigators, and an Indian police inspector who may not be who he says he is… and that’s only half of it.

It took me a few viewings to warm to this two-parter, and I’m still not sure I’m totally sold on it, particularly given the unsatisfying ending, and I hate the parachuting of David Walliams (one of the most irritating British “comedians” this side of Russell Brand, Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais) into the (mercifully brief) role of a high-ranking police official. However, looking back on it, there’s a lot to like. Admittedly, a lot of it is stylistic stuff rather than actual narrative material, but I can be engaged by good direction even if the script isn’t stellar. I particularly like the opening, which intercuts the discovery of the cargo plane body with shots of the deserted Cold Case Headquarters, the silence broken by brief snippets of dialogue between the original cast of five. I like our introduction to Boyd and Grace, visiting a shop so Boyd can buy a model aeroplane (the significance of this currently unclear). I like the ballsy decision to open the new series with only Boyd and Grace present at CCHQ, Spence having been frogmarched into prison for (at the time) unrevealed reasons. I like the moment where Boyd and Grace re-enact an event from the case using his new model plane and various other toys as props, with the scene going from light-hearted comedy to something more serious as Andy’s unexpected arrival causes Boyd’s semi-repressed memories of Mel’s death to simmer up again. I like the scene in which Mehta’s widow, Roshni (wonderfully played by Nina Wadia), realises that the counterfeit medication her husband procured for her actually led to the death of their young child - an extremely emotional scene, heightened by a beautiful piece of piano music that has been used a few times in the show, though never as effectively as here. I like the use of Zoroastrianism, which makes a nice change given how reliant television tends to be on the three “main” monotheistic religions when it wants to inject a dose of the supernatural. Oh, and I love Boyd’s nickname for the mummified body: Crispy Duck. He may be going to pieces over Mel’s death, but the man has not lost his dark sense of humour.

This was a long review, but that is, to an extent, unavoidable given the turning point that this episode marks in the show’s fortunes. Subsequent episode reviews shall, I expect, be considerably briefer.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 11 and 12: Shadowplay

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Andy Hay

The final episode of the fourth series, this two-parter marks what is very much the end of an era for Waking the Dead. Given that the events of this episode resonate throughout the subsequent series, I’m afraid avoiding spoilers is simply not going to be an option, so I’m going to be blunt: this is the episode in which Mel dies. Actually, it’s also the episode in which we see the last of Frankie, but people tend to forget about that because she doesn’t end up being thrown off a top storey balcony and pulped on the bonnet of Boyd’s car. In fact, Frankie doesn’t actually have an exit storyline at all: in real life, Holly Aird failed to give the production team sufficient notice about her desire to leave the show, and as a result there wasn’t enough time to write an on-screen exit for the character. Either way, though, this is the final time we see the entire original team together, and as a result I always find this storyline to be rather bittersweet.

For what it’s worth, it’s a very strong episode to cap off a very strong season. The case this time is that of a young woman with psychiatric problems who killed her family in an arson attack. Her claims that she was told to do this by a man calling himself “the Shepherd” arise interest in the team when they unearth two further examples of young women committing murder for the same reasons. Barring the similarities in the cases, there is a further connection: all three were patients of Dr. David Carney (Paul Kaye).

As suggested by the title, theme this time round is the Jungian concept of the shadow aspect: the notion that each of us has a repressed “other half” consisting of our fears and weaknesses, which we project on to others. The theme is given flesh in the form of David Carney and his brother Matt (James Larkin), whose highly competitive relationship is at the heart of the episode’s mystery. It’s threaded throughout both episodes not just in terms of the brothers’ relationship but also in the parallels between the various women that have been manipulated. The use of Jungian psychoanalysis is interesting and actually somewhat refreshing, given that media portrayals of psychoanalysis - Waking the Dead included - have a tendency to rely on the Freudian school of thought, boiling everything down to notions of penis envy and the so-called “primal scene”. I don’t claim to be anything of an expert, but from what little I know of psychoanalysis, I’ve always found the Jungian approach to be the more interesting of the two (although not necessarily any more convincing).

Anyway, psychobabble aside, what we end up with is a solid conclusion to what is, in my opinion, Waking the Dead’s strongest season. Given that it also effectively brings the first “age” of the show to a close, it can also be taken as a solid conclusion to that too. It’s cleverly written, artfully directed and emotionally affecting, and you can’t ask for much more than that. From here on in, it’s into considerably murky waters for the show as it is forced to get back on its feet sans two-fifths of its original cast.

PS. My apologies for not having posted more of these reviews. I’ve actually now watched to the end of Series 5, but other commitments have prevented me from actually doing write-ups for them yet.

Site update

It occurred to me today that, with all the Ren & Stimpy screen captures I’d been posting lately, my main news page had been getting pretty cluttered. More crucially, I’d imagine it was starting to take a long, long time to load all these images for people with slower connections. With that in mind, I’ve decided to make use of Movable Type’s “MTEntryMore” tag for posts with excessive numbers of images. Basically, what this means is that, in order to view the full post, you’ll have to follow the link to the individual entry page (e.g. this one for Ren Needs Help and Ren Seeks Help): on the index, category and monthly archive pages, you’ll just see the first few paragraphs of text followed by a clickable link to the individual entry. I appreciate that this might be a bit of a pain for visitors with faster connections, but it should lighten the load for those whose Internet connections aren’t up to the task of quickly crunching through over 400 jpegs.

I’ve edited all the Ren & Stimpy posts to take this new feature into account, and will be applying it to any future posts that I feel warrant it.

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If at first you don’t succeed

During the first couple of seasons of Ren & Stimpy, a number of episode ideas were either rejected by Nickelodeon’s story editors or simply put to one side as they didn’t work and/or their wasn’t enough time to do them. Towards the end of the Games run, however, the extremely punishing schedule of the final season necessitated a lot of what are best termed “cheater” cartoons (i.e. cartoons that could be churned out fast to meet the schedule). During the second season, Bob Camp directed a handful of “cheaters”, freeing up John Kricfalusi to direct the more ambitious ones. These generally placed Ren and Stimpy in generic situations - e.g. in the army, at a wrestling match, at the zoo - and were less concerned which characterisation than simply stringing together some funny gags to make an entertaining 11-minute short. By 1994/1995, however, it had become a case of simply digging up a story - any story - and turning it into an episode in order to fulfil the order for which the crew had been contracted. As a result, they ended up using a number of storylines that Nickelodeon had originally rejected.

One of these was Ren Needs Help, a John K./Richard Pursel concept in which Ren, after doing something unspeakably horrible to Stimpy, realises just how insane he is and decides to get psychiatric help. The Games interpretation, which credits Jim Gomez and Bob Camp as the writers, follows the basic premise of Ren seeing a therapist, but omits Ren’s feeling of guilt, instead portraying him as being forcibly institutionalised, in what seems to be a botched take-off of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The screen captures below are taken from the final scene of Ren Needs Help, in which Ren finally goes completely insane and ends up being lobotomised. There’s a gag at the end about him being dressed up to look like the president and sent to the moon to make a speech, which I’m assuming is some sort of in-joke that didn’t come across in the finished cartoon. (A lot of the Games episodes are like that.)

[Continue reading "If at first you don’t succeed"...]

Non-consensual happiness and triple buttock syndrome

Stimpy’s Invention was the final episode of the first season of Ren & Stimpy in 1991. Apparently, John Kricfalusi had to beg the Nickelodeon executives to let him make it (they hated the premise), and then held it back for an insane amount of time, forcing his artists redraw everything multiple times in order to make sure it was perfect. This resulted in what I believe is a strong contender for the single greatest piece of animation ever created for television. It’s a work of demented genius, with the most outlandish posing you’ll ever see in a cartoon and one of the most moronically catchy musical numbers ever written, “Happy Happy Joy Joy” (even if you’ve never seen an episode of Ren & Stimpy, you’ve probably heard this catchphrase in some context).

It also features a deceptively simple but surprisingly edgy story. Basically, Stimpy is upset by the fact that Ren is always angry and decides to resolve the situation by creating a helmet for Ren to wear that will force him to be happy. It works a treat, but at the expense of Ren’s free weill. Stinky Whizzleteats (named after the singer of the episode’s “Happy Happy Joy Joy” song) wrote a magnificent post about this episode on SpumBoard that I think describes the episode so perfectly that, rather trying to match it with my own words, I’ve simply quoted:

Stimpy’s Invention is not only my favorite R&S episode, but it might just be the greatest animated cartoon ever made. What this episode does, much to the contrary of the discussion above is something that only the rarest of popular artworks have achieved it breaks down the barrier between writing and images. Throuhgout the entire episode, dialogue, visuals and music trade roles, never merely explaining one another. “Don’t move - I’ll go get the stay-put hat and raincoat!” That’s a visual idea, in words. Stimpy explains how his Happy Helmet works, but it’s unintended consequences are purely visual. “I told you I’d shoot, but you didn’t believe me!” Stinky Whizzleteats (the character, not me) accidentally lets slip a past event which is probably related in someway to his need to be incessantly happy and inforce the same in others. He probably had his mind controlled, and so did every single one of us in the audience. At the exact moment that we hear this, Ren is preparing to remove the helmet by force. the visual aid illiustrates not how the shooting incident happened, but why Ren ought to disassociate himself from the process of dehumanization with which Stinky’s song is complicit. It’s a complex approach to matching words with imagery, but it doesn’t break from conventional storytelling.

John K. has said that this episode “doesn’t have an ending.” I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about - it has the most compelling ending of any cartoon ever made. Ren is angry again, meaning that he is no longer being forced to be happy. Therefore, he is happy? All of us get angry sometimes, but aren’t we lucky to live in a society where that’s allowed? where we can voice our dissatisfaction with authority and mobilize to change it? But wait - let’s not forget the most important part: Stimpy never understood Ren’s problem. His simple inability to get it and leave Ren alone drove him to create the happy helmet. The helmet was evil, but Stimpy made it out of the goodness of his heart. But wait - isn’t Stimpy just a little bit sadistic? Maybe he is, Look how much he enjoys manipulating Ren! Maybe we all are….

This has been called a complex cartoon before. Those of us capable of such an understatement must shave their moustaches with a guillotine.

Apologies to Stinky for pilfering his post, but if he would rather I took it down, I will.

Anyway, here are a selection of shots from the crucial scene in which Stimpy installs the Happy Helmet and forcibly alters Ren’s personality. I challenge you to find poses this insane anywhere else.

[Continue reading "Non-consensual happiness and triple buttock syndrome"...]

The knack to making disgusting things look appealing

Here’s another comparison between John K. and post-John K. Ren & Stimpy. The differences this time are slightly less pronounced than in the previous one, partly because neither cartoon is reaching for the psychotic extremes found in Sven Höek and Hermit Ren and therefore the character poses are less outlandish. Still, although more subtle, I think it’s clear that a definite shift has taken place. Both cartoons illustrate a similar scenario - Ren’s growing irritation at the sounds of Stimpy’s bedtime grooming habits - but one is executed with considerable flair and appeal, whereas the other seems to revel in being as gross as possible simply for the sake of grossness. A lot of people think Ren & Stimpy was just about being as disgusting as possible, but in my opinion part of what made the earlier episodes so successful was that they were able to combine the revoltingness of bodily functions and, at times, pain, with a certain type of appeal unique to cartoons. The first cartoon has this in abundance. The second… well, I’ll let you see for yourselves.

Here’s 1992’s Ren’s Toothache, directed by John Kricfalusi:

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The devolution of Ren & Stimpy

The Ren & Stimpy Show is one of my favourite television series of all time, if not my absolute favourite (if it’s not, though, I can’t think of anything else I would put in its place). For me, no animated series produced for television was ever as good or better than Ren & Stimpy at its best. For a brief period in the early 90s, it seemed that the classical principles of animation - funny drawings, beautiful paintings, cartoonists rather than scriptwriters in the driving seat, etc. - were going to make a comeback thanks to this show, and I suppose in a way they did for a short while, with the likes of Dexter’s Laboratory and Cow & Chicken on Cartoon Network, and to some extent Rocko’s Modern Life and SpongeBob SquarePants on Nickelodeon.

The funny thing, though, is that, although Ren & Stimpy ran from 1991 to 1995, the Ren & Stimpy that I love only lasted for a couple of years. As is now fairly commonly known, control of the show was unceremoniously yanked from the hands of its creator, John Kricfalusi, after less than two years. The reasons for this have been debated and called into question on multiple occasions, and I won’t go into them here. Suffice it to say, though, the quality of the series steadily plummeted without the guiding influence of its creator, with the result that, in the words of Dan Persons:

In two years, Nick[elodeon] has succeeded in taking a show that many expected to become heir to the Looney Tunes mantle, and turned it into a repetitive mess.

Below is a series of screen captures from the climactic scene of Sven Höek, one of the best episodes of Ren & Stimpy ever created and one of the last that Kricfalusi had full control over. (Some post production work was created after he was shown the door, but I’d estimate that a good 95% of the finished piece was supervised by him.) While it’s hard to get a feel of the genius timing, animation, voice acting and dialogue just from these pictures, hopefully they convey the sheer intensity and artistic skill that went into the staging and posing of this great cartoon.

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Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 9 and 10: The Hardest Word

Written by Doug Milburn; Directed by Philippa Langdale

The naked body of a man is discovered tied face down to a bed with the word “sorry” carved into his back, following a sex act. This looks like a case for the Murder Investigation Team, but Boyd, who has been investigating a murder with the exact same characteristics, succeeds in getting himself and his team involved in the inquiry, and they soon find themselves forced to work with the crude and abrasive Detective Superintendent Andy Bulmer (Phil Daniels) and his heavy-handed mob. Boyd, however, can’t seem to keep his eyes off psychological profiler Dr. Greta Simpson (Emma Fielding), drafted in to help with the inquiry. At Grace and Greta’s urging, the team begins to consider that the killer is more than likely someone who was abused him/herself at some point in the past and is now gaining sexual gratification by acting out his/her murderous fantasies.

As I rewatch these episodes, I’m coming to the conclusion that something I’d previously forgotten about Series 4 is how witty it is. Waking the Dead has always had a streak of dark humour about it, but it really comes to the fore in this series. In retrospect, I have a feeling that this may have been intended to make the tragedy that occurs in the final episode all the more horrifying. Anyway, much of the humour here comes from Boyd’s obvious infatuation with Greta, and Grace’s simmering jealousy. Many long-running series seem to end up featuring undercurrents of Platonic affection between certain characters, and Boyd and Grace are the obvious candidates in Waking the Dead. It’s considerably more pronounced here than in the later series, but the two characters often resemble an old married couple with their continual spats and reconciliation, and the combination of mutual respect for and irritation with each other.

When I wrote my original review of Series 4 for DVD Times, I described this two-parter as “the only case in the entire collection that comes even close to striking a bum note”, criticising its ending for being abrupt and not particularly satisfying. I was originally similarly critical of Series 2’s Thin Air but now consider it one of the best episodes of the entire series, and something similar appears to have happened with The Hardest Word. The conclusion is still far from satisfying, and the actual specifics of the killer’s relationship with his/her victims is a little hard to swallow once revealed, but in a sense I don’t think the ending was ever intended to be the sort that wraps everything up neatly. Throughout the episode, after all, the old “nature versus nurture” argument is continually brought up, coming down firmly on the “nurture” side. We are continually shown that abuse is a vicious cycle, with victims often becoming abusers themselves. As such, there’s no real end to it, and I get the impression that the somewhat ambiguous ending, which still leaves us unclear as to just how complicit one character was in the murders, is meant to reflect that.

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text:

Interestingly, barring the pilot, the second episode of this two-parter is the only episode not to conclude with the familiar Waking the Dead theme tune over the credits. Odd, that.

Beware of neo-Nazi teenagers and speeding paramedics

It really doesn’t seem that long ago that I delivered a fairly damning prognosis of Casualty’s 22nd series, and yet here we are once again, with Series 23 kicking off with a two-parter spread over the previous two nights (Saturday and Sunday). As ever, I made a point of not getting my hopes up too high, but, as with last year’s season premiere, I found myself enjoying the two episodes much more than I’d expected, and am now having to make a concerted effort to temper my anticipation for the rest of the series in case I end up being let down again.

The premise this time was a rather imaginative one, charting the events unfolding around a camera crew shooting a documentary about the hospital and its staff. Ably written by Mark Catley, who handled most of the best episodes in the previous series, and skilfully directed by Keith Boak (despite his over-reliance on the dreaded shakycam), the framing device of the crew interviewing the various regulars was put to great effect, frequently cutting away from the main action to provide an insight into their thoughts on the trials, tribulations and internal politics of the job. The main plot, meanwhile, followed the documentary team as they accompanied one of the ambulance crews out to the troubled Farmead estate, where they ended up trapped in a burning building after Sammy, a delightful teenage girl (choice dialogue: “Your breath stinks… is it coffee or are you sure you’ve not just been drinking shit?”) with neo-Nazi sympathies and a perpetual scowl on her face, set off some fireworks. Their last-minute escape from the inferno, however, was very much a case of “out of the frying pan, into the fire”, as the ambulance in which the camera crew were riding then ploughed into the aforementioned brat, the effect achieved using a dummy so obvious that it gave the killer’s death in Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling a run for its money:

Dodgy effect aside, it worked, and it also provided a segue into the second episode, where the local community, incensed that the emergency services had put one of their own into Intensive Care, began a full scale riot. Personally, I did have some trouble believing that seemingly the entire estate would erupt into anarchy simply because one girl, who we were initially shown to be an outcast who was hated by her peers and neglected by her family, was injured. I didn’t really buy it and thought it was a tad contrived. Still, what I appreciated about it was the way it conveyed the meaninglessness of the violence, how everyone was getting worked up about something that had happened to someone most of them probably didn’t even know. This was done, to some extent, in the Series 13 episode Trapped, which showed what happens when the police fail to enforce order and mob rule takes over. I also felt that the rioting scenes were somewhat reminiscent of Series 7’s Boiling Point in their depiction of complete and utter carnage with the emergency services trying to help people and finding themselves caught in the crossfire.

I still ultimately think that Boiling Point is the better episode (hey, it’s my third favourite of all time), but the cast and crew really managed to pull off a similar atmosphere effectively here, and I’m impressed that they were able to make it seem this intense and gripping. There is a point in the second part when a group of the show’s regulars venture into the midst of the carnage to look for one of their colleagues, Clinical Nurse Manager Tess (Suzanne Packer), who lies skewered like kebab on a stretch of waste ground (the result of a somewhat contrived series of events), and are set upon by an angry mob headed by Sammy’s brother. Normally, Casualty tends to be rather predictable, but on this occasion the encounter between the staff and the thugs was so tense that I actually found myself feeling concerned for their safety. (The last time I genuinely felt that connected to the characters was in the excellent two-parter written by Barbara Machin for Christmas 2006, when Josh (Ian Bleasdale) was stabbed and I actually didn’t know whether he’d live or die.)

Something else I really appreciated about these two episodes was the feeling of teem spirit that seemed to permeate throughout them. Although the raging fire in the block of flats in Part 1 and the rioting scenes in Part 2 provided a lot of adrenaline-packed action, my favourite moments were the interactions between the regulars. A major problem I’ve had with Casualty of late is how fragmented it has become. Whereas, in the old days, the team felt like an extended family who all got along despite their differences, in recent years I’ve felt that everyone was splitting off into their little groups and not really interacting with each other. Add to that the endless bickering, oneupmanship games and “who’s having sex with who” storylines, and you’d be forgiven for thinking you were watching an endless playground squabble. Here, just about everyone seemed to actually pull together and function as a single professional unit. I’ve never really liked Tess as a character so I can’t say I really cared whether she lived or died (I find her a flat, uninteresting cipher whose only purpose is to bark orders), but, when she was wheeled into Accident & Emergency, I really did feel the team’s concern for her. Unfortunately, I still got the feeling that certain characters were being forced out on to the periphery and weren’t really interacting with the others, a problem that also affected the previous series, but it’s early days yet, and given how much action was crammed into the space of two hours, I’m not surprised some characters were, to a degree, left by the wayside.

Overall, Series 23 has got off to a strong start with a really good pair of episodes, and once again I find myself crossing my fingers (without a great deal of hope, it must be said) that they aren’t just a flash in the pan. Last year’s My First Day and Charlie’s Anniversary are still the better pair of episodes overall, but this year’s two-parter was a lot better than I was expecting and I’m once again finding myself looking forward to next week’s episode. It does seem to prove that Series 22’s opening episodes weren’t just a flash in the pan and that the current cast and crew can continue to deliver the goods if all the stars are properly aligned.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 7 and 8: Anger Management

Written by John Milne & Andy Hay; Directed by Andy Hay

“Not now, Grace. I’m having a post-crisis depression.” - Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd

A curious episode, this one, and one which, particularly in its first half, adopts a rather unconventional structure, telling the story in a non-linear fashion and shifting back and forth between different time periods (in fact, the first thing we see is the last thing to happen chronologically). I wonder if this explains the crediting of the director, Andy Hay, as co-writer - the only time this has happened for a Waking the Dead script. I try to imagine the episode playing out in a linear fashion and do have my suspicions that this how it originally started out, with the material being re-ordered to spice it up.

Either way, the result is probably the best episode of the season, primarily because of the humour that ensues from Boyd finally going to see a therapist about his temper - something I’m sure we all agree has been a long time in coming. The therapist, played with acerbic glee by Kerry Fox, forces him to face up to his unpleasant behaviour:

Varley: “When you pace about, how do you react?”
Boyd: “I pace about, I raise my voice, you know…”
Varley: “Stamp your foot and say ‘I want it now’?”
Boyd: “Yeah.”
Varley: “That’s what toddlers do.”

Much of the humour comes from the fact that Boyd’s behaviour, as a result of bottling up his anger, becomes increasingly more absurd, making his team feel even more uncomfortable around him as a result. And, naturally, by the next episode, everything’s back to normal, but still, this slightly more even-tempered Boyd, while brief, makes for a nice change of pace.

The main case, meanwhile, focuses on the death of a man in a hostel, found with a bullet in his skull. The police assume it to be a suicide, but Frankie is convinced that the investigation has been botched and organises for the Cold Case Squad to take a look. Suspicion soon falls upon Sam Jacobs (Nigel Terry), a man who has just completed a stretch in prison for viciously assaulting a man who raped his wife. Sam claims to have put his violent past behind him, but, through a series of flashbacks and encounters with people from his past life, we soon come to learn that his acts of violence extend far beyond merely beating up a rapist.

Nigel Terry, the individual playing Sam Jacobs, is a gifted actor who shows up quite often in British TV series (you name it, he’s probably been in it) and, in my opinion, doesn’t get the credit he deserves. He was excellent in the opening two episodes of the previous series of Casualty as an animal rights activist whose home-made bomb unintentionally detonated in a crowded street, and, in Anger Management, he gives what I feel is his best performance that I’ve seen. Sam is a complex character, and, while there’s never any doubt that he has secrets to hide, the precise nature of these secrets remains unclear until the end, and he is portrayed in such a manner that, even when we learn the full extent of his dark past, it’s hard to lose sympathy with him. The dual nature of his life is nicely realised in many ways, among them a curious scene in which he and his family, despite being Buddhists, are shown to still bring in the Sabbath (their background is Jewish). Props also to the director for the rather inventive flamenco dance sequence which is intercut with a character preparing to break into CCHQ to retrieve some vital evidence.

DVD review: Spooks: Code 9

In a word, Spooks: Code 9 is shit. Not just run of the mill, take-one-look-and-change-the-channel shit, but oh-my-God-am-I-really-seeing-this shit. No doubt the brainchild of some jaded executive who saw the perfect opportunity to craft some exciting yoof TV and get down wif da kidz, the result is a bit like being locked in a room with Eugene Levy’s character from the American Pie films. In other words, cringe-inducingly embarrassing, very probably for both parties.

As the BBC continues its tradition of running successful brands into the ground with needless spin-offs, I review Contender Home Entertainment’s release of Spooks: Code 9, a youth-oriented spin-off of the successful spy series.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of August

• Afterlife: The Complete Series 1 & 2 (R2 UK, DVD)
• The Counterfeiters (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Doomsday (R0 USA, Blu-ray)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (R0 USA, Blu-ray)
• Spooks: Code 9 (R2 UK, DVD) [review copy]
   

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 5 and 6: Fugue States

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Ben Bolt

I have one significant complaint about this episode, and that’s the suspension of disbelief required in order to accept the massive coincidence involving one character and the revelations regarding his/her relationship with another. Otherwise, this is cracking story, one of the very best of the series, which sees the team investigating the disappearance of a twin brother and sister during the Notting Hill carnival of 1990. The case is reopened when a DNA check on a young homeless man injured when he steps in front of a car reveals him to be the boy, Jason (Joe Armstrong), but a bout of amnesia (real or faked?) prevents him from revealing where he has been for nearly 15 years… or the whereabouts his sister, Cindy. In digging into the circumstances surrounding Jason’s disappearance, the team uncovers a history of child abuse and dodgy dealings involving crooked goings-on with social services and an abduction conspiracy.

Any episode involving a missing child runs the risk of becoming repetitive given Boyd’s own experiences in this area, and yes, it’s true that he clearly sees Jason as something of a surrogate for his own missing son, becoming uncharacteristically protective of him (even turning down an opportunity to uncover further evidence as to where he has been because he is afraid it will traumatise him). However, the main personal thrust of this episode, unusually, falls on Mel’s shoulders, following the revelation that she was in fact born Mary Price and, at a young age, was forcibly removed from her mother (deemed mentally unfit to care for her) and placed with foster parents. (This in turn results in a noticeable continuity gaffe in the sixth series when the issue of Mel’s ancestry is raised, but I’ll cover that at a later date.)

I’ve said this previously, but I’ll repeat it here: I think Claire Goose is seriously underappreciated as an actor. Far from simply being a pretty face, she gives the characters she plays a degree of authenticity beyond what is on the page. When she was in Casualty, she gave what is in my opinion the best performance any actor has ever delivered in that show, in the episode Love Me Tender, and she does much the same here, imbuing the character with enough depth that, when she flies off the handle and acts impulsively, you don’t simply think she’s being self-centred and projecting her own personal situation on to the ongoing investigation. Here, she commits a horrific act that is purely the result of her heightened emotional state, resulting in her jumping to the wrong conclusion as to a suspect’s intentions, but she somehow retains our sympathy throughout.

Elsewhere, we get the usual witty banter between the team. I previously said Ed Whitmore’s scripts tended to be drier than, say, Stephen Davis’, but I should probably now take that back, as there are some absolute corkers in this episodes’ dialogue, some of them rather clever. It’s also, for once, reasonably coherent throughout, although I did find myself having to pause a couple of times to work out exactly what was going on in my head. Massive coincidence aside, it’s all pretty logical too. A solid entry and the point at which this season, after a slightly rocky start with In Sight of the Lord, finds its feet before going to enjoy a continuous run of high quality episodes until its end.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 3 and 4: False Flag

Written by Stephen Davis; Directed by Suri Krishnamma

This was Stephen Davis’ final episode of Waking the Dead, and it’s a good one, not least because it features the top brass finally doing what she should have done for ages now: commission a psychological report on Boyd. This is part of a rather interesting storyline which involves plans on the part of the Assistant Commissioner to either dismantle the Cold Case Squad or at the very least bring it under her direct jurisdiction. The catalyst for this is a breach of protocol in which Boyd admits to having entered a property without the appropriate warrant. As a result, the rest of the team feels that he has jeopardised their jobs. As later becomes clear, however, the culprit was in fact not Boyd but Spence: Boyd took the rap because he didn’t want Spence’s prospects of promotion to be affected. It’s little moments like these that help make the characters more multi-faceted, something that is particularly important given Boyd’s ever-increasing instability.

Like one of the writer’s previous episodes, Special Relationships, this one ventures into political conspiracy territory, beginning with the discovery of a man’s body in a car, a bullet through his head and an unexploded bomb strapped underneath. The body is identified as that of Gerald Doyle (Dan Morgan), a young man with decidedly pro-Republican views on the conflict in Northern Ireland, and his death is dated to the late 1970s, roughly coinciding with the assassination of Duncan Sanderson (Christopher Strauli), a prominent Conservative MP whose attitude towards Republicanism was nothing if not hard-line. Sanderson was killed by a bomb strapped under his car, and the similarity of the modus operandi between the two murders leads Boyd and the team to suspect a connection. Working on the hypothesis that Doyle was part of a Republican splinter group, they begin to uncover disturbing evidence suggesting that he and several other like-minded individuals were in fact assassinated at the behest of the British government.

As I’ve said before on numerous occasions, Waking the Dead is nothing if not a confusing programme, and, whenever they tackle high level conspiracies, things have a tendency to get really confusing. This is certainly the case here, and once again I found myself beginning to wonder if I’d lost my marbles during the final half-hour, but along the way there is some choice interaction between the team to keep the viewer engaged. Particularly choice are Grace’s attempts to build a profile of the uncooperative Boyd, not to mention a particularly delicious opportunity to watch the man squirm in which Frankie assures him she can defuse an unexploded bomb, before proceeding to ask him which colour of wire he thinks she should cut first. It all gets a tad muddled towards the end, and the denouement for the individual behind the killings is less than satisfactory, but it’s once again a strong episode and a nice swansong for a writer whose standard of episodes has been consistently high.

Holby connections: Peter De Jersey, who plays Dr. Chris Reed in this episode, appeared in Holby City as charge nurse Steve Waring between Series 3 and 5.

Ham and cheese

This morning, I received my invite for the ongoing online beta test for Electronic Arts’ Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. I’ve played a few matches so far (and received a royal whupping from my opponents on almost every occasion), and will be posting my impressions later, but for now I thought I’d share with you the deliciously dreadful trailer unveiling some of the “talent” that will be appearing in the game’s live action full motion video (FMV) sequences.

From hopelessly inexperienced no-names to reasonably familiar veterans signing on to embarrass themselves, the FMV sequences for the Command & Conquer franchise are always a laugh riot. It seems to be tradition that they be as unconvincing and over the top as possible, peppered with dreadful dialogue, extreme overacting and some of the worst production values this side of a television show commissioned for BBC3. With Red Alert 3, it really looks as if EA have outdone themselves, peppering their cast with a diverse array of talents and no-talents, including everyone from Tim Curry (doink hees best Rrrrrrussian accent, comrade) to Jenny McCarthy to some blonde woman out of Channel 4’s rubbish weekday soap opera, Hollyoaks (or, as the press release more grandly describes it, “the UK’s Hollyoaks”).

You can download the high definition QuickTime trailer from the official site, or, if that’s too much effort, just feast your eyes at some of these choice screen captures and try to keep a straight face. It’s much funnier in motion and with sound, though - if you can believe that.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 1 and 2: In Sight of the Lord

Written by Tony McHale; Directed by Andy Hay

Shortly after Waking the Dead’s third series had completed its initial run, it won an Emmy (oddly enough, for what I consider the weakest episode of that series, Multistorey). The result was that, for the fourth series, it received an extended run of twelve episodes, up from the usual eight. The same producer, Richard Burrell, remained on board, and he succeeded in securing the same key writers who had been responsible for the show’s growth.

Oddly enough, though, Series 4 starts with a storyline penned by an outsider. Tony McHale is the creator and current executive producer/lead writer of Holby City; he also wrote and directed several episodes of Casualty between Series 9 and 14. His scripts, particularly of late, have had something of an unhealthy obsession with religion, Christianity to be precise. In fact, it seems to be his goal to get as many storylines revolving around religion as possible in the show under his guidance. This episode of Waking the Dead is no exception, offering up a whole lot of cryptic biblical references in a storyline which involves a serial killer hammering nine inch nails into the skulls of various men who were formerly soldiers in a Second World War army battalion.

This two-parter is unusual in that whereas normally Waking the Dead’s storylines start off reasonably logical and then throw you for a loop in the final half-hour, it’s actually the other way round this time. That’s not to say that the episode is particularly difficult to follow, but, for the first hour and a half, the writing is rather choppy, lurching from one plot development to another without a clear sense of logical progression. Boyd and the team make several rather odd leaps in logic, and while the majority of them don’t end up playing out (such as Boyd’s seemingly out-of-the-blue suggestion that the victims could have been Communists and were therefore assassinated for their political beliefs), I get the sense that McHale knew where he wanted to end up but had a bit of trouble actually getting there.

Actually, of all the Waking the Dead storylines, this is probably actually the most giallo-like of the lot, not only in terms of the killer’s motivation but also his attire: he wears a black coat, black fedora and black gloves, and at one point even employs the sort of harsh whisper that many a giallo killer has been known to employ in order to disguise his voice. The director, Andy Hay, has clearly watched some Argento in his time.

Elsewhere, it’s business as usual. Boyd has sprouted a rather alarming amount of facial hair, which in turn seems to have done nothing for his temper (“I don’t give a shit about your rights!” he bellows at one suspect who has asked for his lawyer to be present). Meanwhile, see if you can spot how often Frankie is conveniently positioned behind a table or another character: the actress, Holly Aird, was pregnant at the time, and, as the series progressed, the production team had to resort to greater and greater lengths to conceal her ballooning stomach.

Waking the Dead: Series 3, Episodes 7 and 8: Final Cut

Written by Stephen Davis; Directed by Betsan Morris Evans

It’s always struck be that, apart from Boyd, the only character in Waking the Dead whose past we know anything about is Spence. He would end up being the main focus of the Series 5 finale, and here, two years earlier, his childhood comes back to haunt him in a rather convoluted storyline that also ropes in his mother and missing father. That’s about as personal as things ever get in this show, and it’s somewhat odd, given that I’ve always felt that Spence was the least interesting of the original line-up of characters (now, once the insufferable Eve arrives for Series 6, that’s another matter entirely…). I’m not convinced that the revelations of this episode do anything for the character of Spence, given that they are never referenced again and really don’t succeed in making him any more interesting, but at least his role is something more than functional in this episode.

Anyway, what follows is an extremely convoluted plot, even by Waking the Dead’s standards, which somehow ties together the Mafia, drug smuggling, an extremely violent movie, bizarre burial rituals in a black community, numerous dead bodies concealed in a derelict building, and Ken Russell as a foul-mouthed, booze-soaked director with an overinflated opinion of his own abilities (haha). I’ve seen this one three times now and I’m still not entirely convinced I’ve worked it all out, but at least I’m not completely scratching my head in confusion as I was with Walking on Water earlier in the series. As with that episode, the first part is better than the second, and I suspect that has a lot to do with the face that most of the confusion emerges in the final 30 minutes, but, that said, it’s a strong episode overall and an effective end to a series that has, barring the rather forgettable season premiere, turned out to be better than I remembered. Oh, and, to the best of my knowledge, it’s also the only episode to include a character using the word “fuck”. You rebels!

Holby connections: Camelia Baptiste is played by Sharon D. Clarke, who currently appears in Holby City as consultant Lola Griffin.

Just to prove that I’m capable of saying nice things too

Because it feels like I’ve been on a Holby-bashing binge lately, saying only negative things about the three programmes in the franchise, I only thought it fair to take the time to say some nice things about the most recent episode of Holby City, Eighteen and a Half. Not only did it feature some very impressive photography, proof that the programme’s production values have improved by leaps and bounds in the last eighteen months, it also provided Adrian Edmondson, an actor generally known for his comedy roles (The Young Ones and Bottom probably being the shows for which he is best known), with an opportunity to excel at some serious dramatic acting in the climax of a long-running storyline that has seen his character’s mental health disintegrate entirely as a result of events he witnessed in the Congo. Credit, therefore, to the director, Daikin Marsh, for putting together a visually striking episode with a strong central performance.

Casualty: Series 22 - we have a weak pulse… a very weak pulse

Well, it’s all over once more. Another tortuous and overlong series of Casualty wound to a close tonight, and in what has become something of a trend of late, it ended with a whimper rather than a bang. A friend of mine recently asked me why I continued to watch this programme when I had almost nothing positive to say about it, and I must confess I was at something of a loss to explain myself. I suppose the best answer I can give is that, every now and then, it throws something at me that makes slogging through hour after hour of poorly written, inadequately researched, at times frankly embarrassing mush seem worthwhile after all. These moments are rare, but they do come along every now and then.

Anyway, as befits something into which I have sunk a good 40 hours out of the last 11 months (each episode runs for 50 minutes), I’m going to treat Series 22 of Casualty to a mammoth post. You have been warned.

Ratings:

These are my ratings (out of 10) for each of the 48 episodes of Series 22. I’ve marked particularly good (8/10 or higher) episodes in bold and particularly bad (3/10 or lower) ones in italics.

22.01: “My First Day” (Part 1 of 2) by Mark Catley - 9/10
22.02: “Charlie’s Anniversary” (Part 2 of 2) by Mark Catley - 10/10 (best episode of Series 22)
22.03: “Meltdown” by Sasha Hails - 6/10
22.04: “No End of Blame” by Patrick Wilde - 8/10
22.05: “Sliding Doors” by Rachel Flowerday - 6/10
22.06: “Core Values” by Al Smith - 5/10
22.07: “Inappropriate Behaviour” by Michael Jenner - 7/10
22.08: “My Aim is True” by Jason Sutton - 3/10
22.09: “As One Door Closes…” by Stephen McAteer - 6/10
22.10: “Finding the Words” by Katharine Way & Mark Catley - 8/10
22.11: “A House Divided” by Daisy Coulam - 8/10
22.12: “Strangers When We Meet” by Jason Sutton - 2/10
22.13: “How Soon is Now” by Ian Kershaw - 7/10
22.14: “Inheritance” by Rachel Flowerday - 6/10
22.15: “Behind Closed Doors” by Mark Catley - 6/10
22.16: “Snowball” by Suzie Smith - 6/10
22.17: “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” by Gert Thomas - 8/10
22.18: “Take a Cup of Kindness Yet” (Part 1 of 2) by Sasha Hails - 6/10
22.19: “For Auld Lang Syne” (Part 2 of 2) by Sasha Hails - 8/10
22.20: “Broken Homes” by Steve Keyworth - 7/10
22.21: “Adrenaline Rush” by Stephen McAteer - 4/10
22.22: “Take it Back” by Rachel Flowerday - 5/10
22.23: “Where’s the Art in Heartache?” by Jason Sutton - 4/10
22.24: “Before a Fall” by Dana Fainaru - 7/10
22.25: “Sex and Death” by Mark Catley - 9/10
22.26: “Say Say My Playmate” by Abi Bown - 3/10
22.27: “Silent All These Years” by Laura Watson - 4/10
22.28: “Thicker Than Water” by Jason Sutton - 5/10
22.29: “Diamond Dogs” by David Bowker - 7/10
22.30: “Face the World” by Jeff Young - 2/10 (worst episode of Series 22)
22.31: “To Thine Own Self Be True” by Patrick Wilde - 7/10
22.32: “Bricks and Daughters” by Paul Jenkins - 6/10
22.33: “Someone’s Lucky Night” by Mark Cairns - 8/10
22.34: “Walk the Line” by Rachel Flowerday - 3/10
22.35: “The Great Pretenders” by Jack Kelsey - 7/10
22.36: “Love is…” by Sasha Hails - 5/10
22.37: “Saturday Night Fever” by Mark Catley - 7/10
22.38: “When Love Came to Town” by Jeff Povey - 8/10
22.39: “Opposing Forces” by Jason Sutton - 5/10
22.40: “Have a Go, Hero” by Martha Hillier - 6/10
22.41: “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” by Martin Jameson - 5/10
22.42: “They May Not Mean To But They Do” by Paul Logue - 7/10
22.43: “I Can Hear the Grass Grow” by Ian Kershaw - 6/10
22.44: “Salt and Sugar” by Jason Sutton - 4/10
22.45: “Paradise Lost” by Ellen Taylor - 5/10
22.46: “The Things We Do For…” by Dana Fainaru - 4/10
22.47: “This Mess We’re In: Part 1” by Daisy Coulam - 7/10
22.48: “This Mess We’re In: Part 2” by Sasha Hails - 6/10

Key writers: Jason Sutton (6 episodes), Mark Catley (5½ episodes), Sasha Hails (5 episodes), Rachel Flowerday (4 episodes)

What worked:

Season premiere: The two-part opener which began the series was everything I used to expect from Casualty and more besides. It may have set up unrealistically high expectations for the rest of the series, but at the time I was very happy indeed. In addition to dispensing with the soap opera element, these two episodes above all grounded the drama by focusing squarely on two characters, one new recruit (Toby) and one old stalwart (Charlie), and their reactions to the unfolding carnage. I wrote quite extensively about these two episodes immediately after they aired, and I direct you to my original post on the matter.

Scaling back the soap: Initially, the soap opera elements which blighted the last few years (specifically the Series 16-21 period) were toned down considerably in Series 22, to the extent that, for the first few episodes, they were almost entirely absent. Inevitably, they started to creep back in after a while, but I don’t personally have too much of a problem with that. While the “who fancies who” element doesn’t do much for me, particularly when I find it hard to care about either party, I’m certainly not about to begrudge it to those who do enjoy that element. It’s all about balance, and, provided the soap element doesn’t overwhelm the medical element, then I have no problem with it being there.

An increase in good episodes: While the output of this series has, on the whole, been very varied, with several weak episodes and a few truly awful ones, there were far more genuinely good episodes this series than in the previous one. In addition to the excellent two-part opener, Sex and Death stands out as an episode which, despite my reservations about the portrayal of the character of Ruth, was a solid achievement in terms of storytelling and jetisoning the Casualty formula. (You can read my extended thoughts on this episode here.) In addition, several other episodes, although lacking the “special event” factor of the ones I previously mentioned, nonetheless stood out as being solid efforts, whether because they managed to tell a standard storyline in an interesting way (in the case of the effects of addiction in A House Divided), or because of a standout performance from a guest actor (as with Aisling Loftus in Broken Homes), or for any number of other reasons. In the glory days, such episodes would have been considered the norm rather than the exception. These days, however, I’m sorry to say that I tend to be pleasantly surprised when I get something that makes me think or affects me emotionally.

The “film look”: With this series, Casualty finally abandoned the old interlaced video look that it had used since its inception in favour of a more film-like, non-interlaced appearance. While the colour grading and contrast tweaks that initially accompanied it seemed to largely be abandoned after the first three episodes (perhaps it was deemed to time-consuming to colour correct 50 minutes’ worth of material on an almost weekly basis, or perhaps they got too many complaints from fuddy-duddies), the show, as a whole, now has a more professional look than it had in the last few years prior to this change.

The removal of Harry Harper: While I thought the storyline involving his exit was eye-rollingly idiotic in the extreme, words cannot express how glad I am that this (to quote a friend of mine) “crass, overbearing, arrogant, insufferable, hypocritical, bottom orifice” was finally given the boot after blighting our screens for nearly six years. His arrival, towards the end of Series 16, seemed to coincide with the dismantling of what the show originally stood for, pushing out the ensemble element in favour of a one-man show about a pompous consultant and his adoring underlings (even his five-month hiatus last year seemed to be structured entirely around how everything was going to pot without him there to steer the ship), and, as the months turned into years, he become more and more insufferable. It doesn’t help that the actor playing him, Simon MacCorkindale, appears to have graduated from the School of Scenery Chewing, magnifying the character’s negative traits and ensuring that ignoring him whenever he was on screen simply was not an option. All in all, I was delighted to see this dreadful character finally hanging up his stethoscope, and I’m just sorry it took so long.

More Charlie: Charlie (Derek Thompson) is the only character out of the original cast to still be in the show, and for many people, he is the strongest anchor to what Casualty once was. He remains the most well-rounded character, and while the actor’s performance can be a little, erm, erratic at times, he continues to provide a strong anchor for the show, grounding it in some semblance of reality and serving as someone with whom the audience to identify. (He’s also an atheist, and there aren’t enough of them on TV.) In recent years, and particularly as the series have become longer, Charlie has had fewer and fewer appearances, and when he has appeared has done little of any value. There was something of a change this series, with two episodes (Charlie’s Anniversary and (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding) being shown entirely from his point of view. He played a far more significant role than he has for years, being at the centre of two of the longest-running storylines this series (although, given the overall quality of these storylines, I’m not sure this is necessarily something to be celebrated). By my count he appeared in 31 out of 48 episodes, including a straight 14-episode run at the end of the series, which is a first since… oh, Series 14 at least. That might not sound like much, but it’s an improvement on his 20 appearances in Series 20, and 25 in Series 21, and that’s despite a three-month sabbatical this year.

What didn’t work:

Scaling back the soap, part 2: For all the writers’ good intentions, the decreased emphasis on the soap opera element didn’t last, and, after a few months, they fell right back into their old habits. As the second half of the series rolled round, the soap became more and more pronounced, to the extent that, if things continue in this vein for much longer, I fear that we could be right back where we started again within a year.

Cast turnover: This series saw a grand total of 9 characters leaving and 13 new ones joining (two of the departures being characters who had only joined the show during this series) - a ridiculously large turnover that has not been matched by any previous series. While, for the most part, those who left were characters I either didn’t like or didn’t care about either way, there is one particularly egregious exception, and that is the departure of Josh Griffiths (Ian Bleasdale), a stalwart of the show who first joined way back in Series 4. Had his departure occurred about a decade ago, I would probably have been disappointed but would eventually have moved on, given that he would have stood a high chance of being replaced by a character who was decent in his or her own right. In any event, Casualty in the early days survived the departure of several mainstays thanks to the quality of the ongoing storylines. In recent years, however, the show has come to rely more and more on an ever-dwindling group of established characters, who have helped keep its head above water by countering all the inanities with a degree of normality. Josh was one of the last of these characters, and losing him was what someone described to me as “the penultimate nail in the coffin” (the final nail, of course, being the character of Charlie, who exited briefly at Christmas but mercifully returned three months later). Of course, it doesn’t help that, like virtually every other exit this series, Josh’s departure storyline was utterly daft (my thoughts on it here).

By the end of this series, only seven characters remained who had been introduced during previous series, less than half of whom had been with the show for more than two years. Worse still, two of the characters who were introduced this series were each brought in solely to fuel a particular storyline and were them promptly discarded as soon as it had run its course. And this leads us on to my next criticism…

Too many characters = not enough screen time: Casualty, as it currently stands, has a regular cast of 19 characters (although, given the end of series departures, the ranks will have been thinned a little when Series 23 begins), which, given that each episode is only 50 minutes long, is an absurd number and causes serious problems in terms of giving everyone adequate screen time. While I can certainly see the point of having a decent number of characters - each episode takes two weeks to film, which means that between two and three episodes are in production at any one time, necessitating the need for there to be enough actors so as not to require someone to be in three places at once - surely there’s a happy medium to be achieved? There were characters in this series who got to speak one or two lines per episode (for example poor Alice, pictured opposite, being used as a footstool by the producer… sorry, I mean a patient), provided they opened their mouths at all, while the main action seemed to be centred around a chosen few.

Quality of episodes: While, as mentioned above, there was an increase in the number of good episodes this year as compared to the previous series, the standard still fell way short of what I would have liked to see. The majority of the episodes were neither particularly good nor particularly awful. (Some episodes combined the very good with the spectacularly awful, such as Salt and Sugar, which was made watchable by an interesting portrayal of anorexia, despite the utter drivel going on around it.) Most were simply uneventful and unremarkable in every way, while others contained some good ideas but were let down by being mixed in with bad ones, or by ineffectual execution. As with last year, the biggest slump came immediately after New Year with a series of episodes that were either mind-numbingly boring or featured central concepts so flawed that they were impossible to enjoy. The biggest debacle during this period was the storyline involving Ruth Winters’ attempted suicide, which led Harry Harper to take action that eventually resulted in him being forced out. While this gave us two highly positive outcomes (the excellent episode Sex and Death and the removal of the most odious character in Casualty’s 22-year history), the actual storyline itself was not only fudged but also completely and utterly reprehensible from a moral standpoint…

Absurd storylines: For those who don’t know, Harry decided to read Ruth’s private diary while she was lying upstairs in a coma, and then took it upon himself to publish the aforementioned diary to “highlight the plight of junior doctors everywhere”. Words cannot express how moronic this is. Not only is it illegal to publish something someone has written without their consent, the contents of the diary made it blatantly obvious that the problem was not the system and its treatment of junior doctors but rather Ruth herself. But oh no, Harry was made out to be a righteous crusader for justice and was even greeted by a round of applause from the staff during his send-off. In reality, I suspect that the only storyline that would have remotely satisfied me in terms of an exit for this character would have been to have the entire episode consist of him writhing on the ground as every single person he had ever belittled, bullied, sneered at or otherwise demeaned in any way took it in turns to kick him very hard where the sun doesn’t shine. Come to think of it, such an event would probably require an entire season to be devoted to it so as to fit everyone in, so perhaps I should be grateful for what we actually got.

To be honest, more or less every long-running storyline this series was either botched in its execution (such as the aforementioned MIU storyline, which could have been quite interesting from an ethical standpoint) or a stupid idea to begin with (let’s introduce a new character purely so we can play out a pointless storyline involving an unidentified member of staff posting derogatory comments about his/her co-workers on a blog - hey, do you think the new guy who show up one episode earlier might be the culprit?). Oh, and let’s not forget when we were expected to forgive the actions of an internet stalker (who fabricated an identity and wooed a hospital employee for several months before getting cold feet and faking his creation’s death) because he turned out to know sign language.

Lack of continuity: There has been a really nasty habit throughout this series of ignoring past characterisations and events. Sometimes this can be fairly minor, such as a long-running character who has been shown in the past to know sign language conveniently losing this ability so that another character can come in and save the day. Other times, it’s far more damning, with basic aspects of a character’s personality being completely ignored in order to serve the ongoing storyline. Charlie, for example, a man of strong principles and a staunch believer in the NHS, was reduced, in the second half of the series, to a rambling buffoon who, in objecting to the establishment of a privately-funded minor injuries unit within the hospital, decided to turn his misgivings into a personal vendetta against one of its employees.

On a less severe but still incredibly irritating and stupid level, we got to experience the age-old soap opera trick of accelerating a character’s ageing process to a ridiculous degree, with Charlie’s son, Louis (born September 1996) mysteriously transforming into a stroppy, spotty-faced teenager (played by a 20-year-old, no less) purely so the writers could play out some half-baked storyline about him truanting and smoking pot. It’s at times like these that the powers that be demonstrate their utter contempt for their audience.

Age acceleration is something I’ve never seen Casualty do before, but continuity as a whole was a problem last year as well, and I think the blame can be attributed to two issues: the absurd length of the series (48 episodes - come on!), and the lack of attention being paid to characterisation by the script editors. In British TV, a script editor’s job is to maintain continuity from one episode to the next - a very important role given than many different writers are involved, most of whom are freelancers. Based on the total lack of consistency that has been demonstrated by Casualty of late, the script editors are completely incompetent.

Too many cooks spoil the broth: I’m a big believer in consistency, both in front of the camera and behind it. There’s a reason for my including the writer(s) responsible for each episode in the listing above, and that’s to give some idea of just how many different people had their ladles in the pan. In certain cases, these writers had already written for Casualty in the past, some of them back when the show was still good on a reasonably consistent basis (Patrick Wilde, Katharine Way, Suzie Smith, Jeff Povey), but for many of these writers, this was their first time contributing to Casualty, and more often than not this inexperience manifested itself in poor writing and characterisation. I realise that British TV shows don’t have a permanent group of staff writers like they do in the US (instead, each episode is essentially written on a freelance basis), but surely it makes sense to at least have the key episodes written by those who know the show and its characters instead of farming them out to some random person who has written a couple of episodes of EastEnders or Doctors (if that)? Casualty in its golden age boasted some pretty impressive writing talent - Barbara Machin, Bryan Elsley, Bill Gallagher, Peter Bowker, Ben Aaronovitch - but nowadays it seems that the only required criteria to qualify as a writer is to be able to hold a pen and construct some domestic strife. The death knell of any show is when you find yourself thinking “I could do better than this,” and I’m sorry to say that that is exactly what I was thinking on several occasions.

Best and Worst:

Top 5 episodes:
5. 22.17 “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” by Gert Thomas
4. 22.33 “Someone’s Lucky Night” by Mark Cairns
3. 22.25 “Sex and Death” by Mark Catley
2. 22.01 “My First Day” by Mark Catley
1. 22.02 “Charlie’s Anniversary” by Mark Catley

I think there may be a pattern here.

Bottom 5 episodes:
5. 22.26 “Say Say My Playmate” by Abi Brown
4. 22.34 “Walk the Line” by Rachel Flowerday
3. 22.08 “My Aim is True” by Jason Sutton
2. 22.12 “Strangers When We Meet” by Jason Sutton
1. 22.30 “Face the World” by Jeff Young

Well, that’s it for another four or five weeks. Now I just have time to recharge my batteries before doing it all over again with Series 23. I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment.