Power

In and amongst the various quality boxsets (Watchmen) and trash series (Love Island USA) I might have on the go at any one time, there’s always a background show that I’m getting through at a more leisurely pace.  For the last one hundred years, this has been Power.  I forget when I finally relented to Netflix’s constant algorithmic suggestion that this was a show I might enjoy, but somehow I’ve got through its six series of at least ten (sometimes fifteen) one-hour episode.  Let’s be clear: I’m here to say I’m a fan of Power.  But, crikey, it’s been some tough going.  How easily and how often I’ve been distracted by shinier (Euphoria), cleverer (I May Destroy You) programming.

Firstly, let’s categorise the show.  It belongs in a group that I have previously christened: a whole lot of f*cking.  Alongside Elite and, let’s be honest, Game Of Thrones, Power viewing comes with the risk of sudden sexually explicit antics filling your screen.  Episode one barely throws out a few establishing shots before our sexy leads are not just cavorting in their marital bed, but properly having a right old go at some serious slap and tickle (I definitely heard scrotal slapping).  You don’t need to use your imagination, because nothing is left to it, but you might want to ensure your 55” telly screen isn’t overlooked by neighbours with young children and you haven’t yet sorted out curtains for your floor-to-ceiling French windows.

So, who are these people whose close-up intercourse is essential to the plot development?  Power is all about James “Jamie” St. Patrick, an NYC kid from the wrong side of the tracks who, after amassing a fortune from large-scale drug dealing, is trying to turn himself into a legitimate businessman.  Played by the exquisitely goateed Omari Hardwick, this is a character we root for no matter what terrible things he does, clothed or otherwise.  And if he happens to interpret legitimate business as opening up seedy nightclubs that are dogged by violent crime, then so be it.  What we rarely see Jamie doing is going to the gym, despite the fact he is stacked beyond all belief.  There’s some intense jogging in early seasons and he does visit a prison weights room later on (albeit briefly and bloodily), but I find it hard to believe he’s not constantly repping out some big lifts and counting his macros, in between trimming his beard, dealing drugs, shooting people, surveying his night club from a raised walkway or being an absolute sod to his long-suffering wife, Tasha, (Naturi Naughton).

Tasha St. Patrick is the heart of the show, often called upon to channel her inner boss to protect her family (with mixed success) or to ward off threats.  She and Jamie are often found in their swanky penthouse where the lift opens straight into the lounge, and it’s here they’re often visited by our third lead and Jamie’s childhood BFF, Tommy Egan.  I vowed I would never troll anyone on this blog, but Joseph Sikora is the hammiest actor I have ever seen.  It takes a real scenery-chewer to know one, so we can accept this is coming from a place of being a ham on stage myself, but you eventually develop a charmed affection for his idiosyncrasies – he is simply another layer of camp in the outrageous proceedings that almost never seem to end.

As we’ve noted before (Narcos, Narcos:Mexico) a career in drugs can be a touch stressful – I don’t think they even get to work from home during lockdown.  Drama dogs Tommy and Jamie at every step, with each season introducing a new array of dastardly dealers looking to steal their patches, take their connects and generally indulge in anti-competitive business practices.  Instead of litigation, recourse is taken rather to ultra-violence, with the body count exceeded only by the nudity count.  Whenever a fresh character is introduced, you’re hard pushed to guess whether they’ll die before they get naked or get naked before they die, or do both at the same time by dying naked.  As a homebody, the worst part about their chosen industry is the constant galivanting about town.  The endless texts and calls between the characters predominantly showcase them demanding to meet each other in person all over New York.  Once you factor in a journey time of more than 45 minutes each way then suddenly the millions of pounds earned from selling cocaine to yuppies don’t seem worth it at all, and that’s before the FBI start tailing you.

Despite being sexy and sleek, a certain bleakness with Power can take things out of you.  Sure it’s a banging soundtrack that accompanies the, er, banging, but everyone behaves like angry children and it can only really go round in circles as they cross, double-cross, triple-cross and shoot at each other.  It’s made me want to go back to New York, but I’m not currently allowed in case I bring the sniffles with me there or take it back with me afterwards.  For fans of 50 Cent, you’ve got 50 Cent, so I suppose that’s something, as he really does play an absolute shit.  Most galling for me was, being very close to the end, I inadvertently caught an advert for the spin-off series which spoiled the ending of Power completely, so all the hours of viewing became slightly redundant, resulting only in these few hundred words of poorly structured prose.  I’m about to search for GIFs to pepper in here and I’m a touch afraid about what I’ll see but, assuming you’re not pulling together an indulgent blog on your viewing experience, you can’t go wrong with a bit of Power’s sexy gangster mayhem.  And with Lockdown Two ruining lives near you soon, you’ll have plenty of time to get through it all.

Love Island USA

In a roller coaster year of dizzying highs and terrifying lows, I’m going to point the finger at ITV2 for being both the cause of and the solution to a large number of these peaks and troughs.  As we all know, the calendar year is built around Love Island.  Normally those wonderful weeks of coupling up each night with an hour of guaranteed good telly (apart from the oddly unengaging Saturday night highlights/unseen shows) synchronise with our British summers of torrential downpours and sticky sticky heatwaves (both of which give everyone a first-hand experience of our climate crisis future), but 2020 got off to a great start with an absolute glut of Majorcan madness thanks to the inaugural series of winter Love Island.

But then, as we all know, pandemic pandemonium took hold and nobody knew how to make a show about cracking on if contestants had to remain two metres apart, not to mention the indecipherable lottery that foreign travel had become.  With a shrug, the whole series was cancelled and my life was ruined.  Then, it was divulged there would be no further winter edition in 2021, meaning it was over a year till the next UK series.  I can cope with supermarket queues and remote working under the threat of redundancy, but this was a major gut punch.  Naturally, I blamed Boris.  Naturally, he blamed immigration.  Surely Love Island 2020 could go ahead if everyone claimed they were testing their eyesight?

ITV redeemed themselves by screening Love Island Australia and, even though it was an old series, it was the vape to the cigarette of my Love Island addiction.  But then someone had the bright idea of taking Love Island USA and giving it to us in real time, allowing a glorious watch-along with our American brethren – it turns out our special relationship extends beyond a catastrophic covid response and being led by privileged petulant blonde fatties.  Of course, I stopped for half a second to wonder how on earth the States were going to run a reality dating show which involves the liberal exchanging of bodily fluids (orally, mostly) in the midst of a world health emergency.

Apparently, the islanders quarantined before entering the villa, ensuring a negative test for the virus.  More importantly, while a luxury island was out of the question, the perfect solution was found in a Las Vegas rooftop.  Offering hot weather and the constant background hum of downtown traffic (interspersed with sirens), the producers had struck gold.  In fact, so much of Love Island’s much-needed escapism comes from its almost complete refusal to engage with the outside world.  There were some initial comments about lockdown, but our couples soon became the truly insular islanders we would expect.  Sure, we’re all sick of corona, but the absence of a single mention of Black Lives Matter among a group of diverse young people seems like a missed opportunity.  Even Justine opening up about her family’s time in a Kenyan refugee camp barely warranted more than a few seconds of screen time when I could happily have watched a one-hour special on the subject.

But, if to Love-Island is to act as if the outside world doesn’t matter, then this series of Love Island USA is serving up pure escapism with our perception of reality deliberately removed.  The pandemic doesn’t matter.  The centuries of racial oppression don’t matter.  The climate crisis doesn’t matter.  All that matters is finding a boyfriend or a girlfriend, as being single is the greatest travesty of all.  But, whereas 2019’s season of Love Island USA made the competition to couple up all too obvious, taking the more American approach to reality TV (ruthless game-planning), this new version has realised that a lot of the format’s charm lies in sticking closely to the silliness of the UK original.  At last, we have an irreverent voiceover, mocking every single thing our island young folk get up to.  A glamorous host wonders in on the odd occasion with bad news.  People shout out “got a text!”  The ridiculous challenges have been shipped over and acted out blow by blow (literally), while Casa Amor was a resounding triumph, descending quickly into explosive orgiastic debauchery and creating great telly.  I shall hand it to the Americans – they are TV naturals.  Unlike the Brits, they take themselves a touch more seriously and are better at articulating their emotions, and they will never shy away from a cheesy Hollywood moment with no sense of irony, but the senses of humour are there, alongside the budding friendships you want to join in with.  Of particular note this season is the island girls’ predilection for slipping suddenly into outrageous British accents to ask each other: “Are you alriiiight?”  This contrasts delightfully with their otherwise as-apple-pie American accents and is a healthy reminder of how stupid British people must sound abroad.  And at home.

Of course, the teeth are whiter, but the bikinis and trunks are no tighter.  Some bits are different, some are the same, but it’s enough to tide me over in my lockdown (will we, won’t we) viewing.  Sometimes it’s nice not to hear the T word (Trump) or to see human beings experience social contact without a curtain-twitching neighbour tutting.  And if you’re looking for pure joy, I recommend Cely from this year’s cohort.  Her constant ray of positivity starts every morning when she jumps out of bed with glee while her co-islander squint and groan, before she goes on to tackle every challenge and tribulation with laughter and good humour.  As the final approaches it will be interesting to see what American viewers make of her relationship with Johnny and whether they rate it over the slower and steadier Justine and Caleb.  All I know is I’ll be sorry again when it’s all over, but maybe there’s another international version of Love Island I can distract myself with.

 

Watchmen

Right, you can stop the pandemic now.  I’m not playing anymore.  Granted, I’ve only got prosecco problems when it comes to coping with covvers (the mask makes my beard itch, I want to go to the theatre, I could lose my job etc), but as a lifestyle trend it would be really great if we could move on to something new.  Such is the extent of my fatigue that I actively avoid almost all news, as it’s mostly just white male Etonians blustering about the perils of young people and other such evils.  But, my clicks were recently baited by reports of the Emmy Awards.  Sure, there was no ceremony, but this was a normal annual thing that was almost happening.  I’ve harped on here about incredible pieces of TV that have kept me glued to my sofa and, of course, there were those top shows among the nominees – you know, your Euphorias and your Successions.  However, among the winning boxsets I was proud of completing, there was one that had passed me by: Watchmen.

I got the first episode cued up, but it wasn’t until a Friday evening when I was taken by the mood to delve into the story.  We all know I’ve no time for superheroes.  I’ve even been underwhelmed by attempts to subvert the genre (The Boys).  Nevertheless, I had thoroughly enjoyed the film version of Watchmen when it came out in 2009.  Oddly plausible, artfully stylised and with a story I can no longer really recall (which wasn’t helped by a second viewing that I mostly slept through), the film gave me an underlying confidence that I wouldn’t be subjecting myself to mindless Marvel’s punching by numbers.  This would be something better.  And how right was I?  And the Emmys?  And also all the people that watched it when it came out last year and told me then that it was worth a watch?  My whole subsequent weekend was consumed by a need to finish the nine episodes, desperate as I was to solve the mounting mysteries and witness the conclusion of the very complicated plot (unlike the last episode of Dark that I am too scared to watch).

We’ll run through now how watching Watchmen checks off a lot of my boxes when it comes to a good, er, boxset.  First up, we’ve got the alternative reality, last seen blowing my mind in the third series of The Handmaid’s Tale.  In Watchmen, the Vietnam War has gone a bit differently, cars no longer use petrol, interdimensional squids are an ongoing hazard and, in Tulsa, the police are required to wear masks.  If you’re finding this disorientating, then I’ve come some way to approximating the experience of watching the first episode.  Initially, Watchmen doesn’t care if you’re clued up on what’s happening or not.  Somehow, I was thrilled by my own stupidity and electrified by the need to keep up.  Filling the gaps became a desperate urge, mostly because these important elements of context were only ever alluded to in passing, thus making the later expositions all the more plausible.  I was completely sold.

One alternate the Watchmen reality keeps the same is racial tension.  A prominent catalyst to the show’s events is the Tulsa race massacre, something which, to my shame, I had never heard of.  If Watchmen’s only achievement in this world is to make more people aware of the 1921 destruction of a prosperous Black neighbourhood by white supremacists, then for that alone I would doff my hat to it.  Throughout the present-day narrative, the threat of racists remains and looms large.  It’s given an all-the-more-terrifying edge by the way these thugs mask their beliefs with respectability, making us blind to their blind hatred, while they are deaf to reason.  I won’t reduce racial tension to a plot device – Watchmen unapologetically puts America’s issues with race front and centre – but it brings to life a good-versus-evil jeopardy that means so much more than generic white man hero battling generic supervillain.  And on that note, Watchmen revels in its championing of actors that are normally side-lined.  Reams and reams of glorious dialogue proceed without a white man in sight.

My final point to stress is Watchmen’s deft stretching of narrative tension so that each episode thwarts as much as it solves, carefully creating the coming crescendo which forms the mini-series’ climax.  Once enough intrigue is set up, the revelations come thick and fast.  Regina King is our (badass) anchor as we navigate each blow to the psyche, and don’t worry if you at first think that Yahya Abdul-Mateen II doesn’t have enough to do (see The Get Down and Black Mirror for evidence of his range), but around this central couple assembles an array of characters you can’t help but feel desperate to know more about.  I craved more of Jean Smart’s Agent Blake while Hong Chau’s Lady Trieu maintained the perfect level of moral ambiguity until just the right moment.  I won’t spoil things by saying one or two minutes of the finale got just a touch too Marvel-y for me as everything else was a sublime televisual experience.

If we end up confined to our homes again, then Watchmen is the closest you can get to the visceral real-life experiences we have been lacking in 2020.  Maybe we do need heroes after all, but Watchmen’s heroes aren’t preening about in Spandex demanding attention for selective philanthropy.  Instead, they’re driven by their own hatred of systems and belief structures that hold humankind back.  They’re compelled to act against what is wrong, no matter the cost, and this is quite rightly what Watchmen presents as heroism.  Anyway, we seem to have strayed into some very uncharacteristically earnest territory for Just One More Episode, especially when we’re all here for passive aggression and sarcasm.  But what can I say?  Here is a boxset that transcends all the blue willy comments it’s left itself open to.  If only all storytelling could be this good, and this important.

W1A

This week, nobody has been asking me the following question: what other hidden gems in the world of comedy have you uncovered since you wrote so passionately about Crashing?  Nevertheless, I do need to tell you that I have gone and done it again.  I’ve come across a show whose existence I was completely oblivious to and now I’m going to harp on about it like I invented it myself.  It was probably huge at the time and is therefore already beloved by millions, but this is my blog and I can do whatever I like.  Something else people never ask me is how I decide which shows to feature in my self-indulging prose.  Well, there is no method to this madness.  I do have a longlist of shows I ought to get around to and this week’s programme was in fact on there – something I didn’t even realise until I had finished the third and (hopefully not) final season.  Anyway, preamble aside, we’re doing W1A this week.

Now, regular readers will be aware of my increasing despair when it comes to how awful we British our proving ourselves to be.  The dangerous yearning to return to a post-war peak from 75 years ago threatens everyone’s present-day opportunities.  Nevertheless, alongside the sinister jingoistic gymnastics, there are British traits that, conversely, feel as comforting and familiar as saying sorry to a stranger who’s bumped into you.  One of these is always suspecting we will make a mess of things.  Our trains can’t run in the snow, our trains can’t run in the heat, our breweries have hosted poorly organised piss-ups.  Back when we won the 2012 Olympics, everyone rolled their eyes in anticipation of ensuing shambles (when it was actually a recent national peak, inequality riots aside, and I’m not just talking about me dancing in the closing ceremony…).  So little faith did London’s wonderful liberal elite have in the organising committee than an irreverent sitcom was conceived: Twenty Twelve played on our suspicions surrounding how petty office bureaucrats would arrange and execute so much sport.  Sadly, I never saw this show and can’t find it anywhere, but W1A is its successor, following on with the adventures of Ian Fletcher (that lovely Hugh Bonneville off that lovely Downton Abbey) as he takes up a new post at the BBC.

Aha, you say, another institution we can deride for being a bunch of silly sausages.  How dare they make pensioners pay for their licenses when they of course deserve everything for free?  How dare there allow two women to dance together on Strictly?  How dare they pay female staff less than men?  (Guess which of these three is my actual opinion).  But, this is a BBC production, brilliantly sending up itself and our perceptions of the pencil-pushers who make it tick.  Fletcher serves as our guide in this institutionalised institution, stumbling through Old and New Broadcasting House trying to make sense of how things are done as the new Head of Values while slowly coming to accept that everyone is either incompetent at what they do, or they don’t do anything at all.  It’s at this point I must stress that the whole thing is laugh-out-loud funny.  I giggled my socks off in every single episode, so let’s count down which comedy creations scored the most LOLs on my chuckle-o-meter:

One: David Wilkes, played by Rufus Jones

As a development exec responsible for evolving potential show formats into ratings winners, Wilkes channels a new level of incompetency.  In any meeting, he expertly absolves himself of blame for every action and inaction of his.  He’s there, behind the fridge door, ready to steal your idea and take all the credit.  He interrupts discussions to tell everyone he can’t believe it and prefixes the name of anyone they are talking about with the adjective lovely: “Lovely Izzy, lovely Lucy.”  He’s frequently told to shut up and this generates in me the purest of joy.

Two: Siobhan Sharp, played by Jessica Hynes (seen in The Royle Family)

Another overspill from Twenty Twelve, Sharp is the PR guru who is incapable of listening to anyone but herself.  She is soundbites, mixed metaphors and statement jewellery, the very definition of having nothing original or useful to say.  Her response to every crisis is to blow things up on Twitter.  Her voice is supremely smug and she’ll announce that she’s “good with that” despite nobody requiring her approval.  I get the sense that whoever created her had some axe to grind after spending one too many meetings with members of the PR industry.  I can’t think why.

Three: Will Humphries, played by Hugh Skinner (seen in Fleabag)

“Yeah, no, hi, ok cool.”  Like everyone else, Will rarely says what he means, but he doesn’t know what he means anyway so it doesn’t matter.  He’s the awkward intern who’s overstayed his internship, but Skinner’s facial expressions show the perfect perplexity as Will screws up the simplest of tasks.

Four: Anna Rampton, played by Sarah Parish

As Head of Output, Rampton’s inability to move her top lip marks her out as a serious woman in business.  By repeating “yes, exactly, yes” she falsely portrays an air of decisive action while never doing anything.  Her catchphrase wears out slightly in later series, but she is at her funniest early on refusing every requested refreshment that is brought to her: “No, I don’t want that.”

Five: Simon Harwood, played by Jason Watkins

Harwood is that colleague we all sadly have.  The saboteur who wanted your role.  Non-committal, but always prepare to play his hand as a self-claimed confidante of the Director General (with whom he might enjoy the odd morning muffin), Harwood’s passive-aggression can be seen from space.  He’s constantly telling people he has no idea how things work (because they should) and that they will know how they want to play things (because he’s sure as hell not helping), before emitting one of his frequent exclamations of “brilliant” no matter what’s been decided.

I could go on.  There’s the for-once palatable David Tennant narrating, inserting the odd word to render all action ridiculous (particularly the Ministry for Culture, Media and, also, Sport).  You’ve got Tracy Pritchard beginning every criticism with “I’m not being funny but…”  Ben and/or Jerry bring a surreal element to the incredible pacing of every Damage Limitation meeting.  Layer upon layer of farce is dolloped out in rich scoops, crescendoing into ill-fated launches.  But it’s almost too close to home.  Some of the meetings feel like they were taken directly out of my life.  The curious inability of each and every character to communicate clearly makes wondrous use of two of the English language’s most abused words: yes and no.  Never seen alone or with certainty, W1A is strewn with oodles of “yes no” and lashings of “no yes” and then further fleshed out with generous portions of “yes no yes” and “no yes no.”  Playing out in a corner of London where I’ve worked for the last ten years, I look for myself in the background of scenes were Fletchers cycles into the office on his terrible Brompton (which bikes’ super-naffness is played for miles as laughs).  I’ve even been in the offices of Siobhan Sharp’s Fun Media on many occasions.

Get on the sofa and consume this immediately.  And then tell me if I was right or wrong about its brilliance.  Fair play to the Beeb for being such a good sport, lampooning itself for comedy (though never mentioning its news coverage’s right-wing leanings).  It’s not perfect – some exasperation at increasing wokeness has dated slightly.  Characters start to repeat their catchphrases too much and the freshness of the surprise wears off.  There’s an inevitable love triangle involving Ian Fletcher that doesn’t ring true, while the relationship between Izzy and Will remains effortlessly more charming.  We might not be able to organise a Brexit (so let’s stay) or a pandemic, but we sure can organise a silly sitcom about people who can’t organise things.

Kingdom

This week, we’re looking at a drama that answered a question nobody at all had been asking: why isn’t there a scripted television series about mixed martial art fighting?  Running between 2014 and 2017 and potentially never showing on a UK broadcaster (that I had access to), all three series of Kingdom appeared on Netflix at some point in the recent past.  At first, I had to overcome my confusion about whether this was a further instalment of harrowing period Korean zombie fare, Kingdom (킹덤), but then it became apparent that I have now watched so many boxsets that we’ve reached the inevitable point when the names start to repeat themselves.  Nevertheless, with every episode now under my belt, I still don’t know why this show is called Kingdom.

I don’t think it’s the setting, as this is Venice Beach, a seedy-ish Los Angeles neighbourhood that is half vegan breastfeeding and half Camden Market-on-sea.  As a viewer who loves a strong sense of place, this locale gives Kingdom a raw feel to its sex appeal, with the sweaty, toned and tattooed bodies of the various fighters belonging to an array of what can only be described as white trash.  Meet the Kulina family (who again don’t seem to have anything to do with the programme’s title).  Our leading man is Alvey Kulina, owner of the successful Navy Street gym and a former champion fighter himself.  We can see he knows fighting as, when strutting through his empire, he’s got a technique cue for every grappling extra he passes.  It’s not all protein shakes and heavy sets; Frank has plenty of demons.  Three of them are the other members of his family.  Ex-wife Christina is a victim of addiction, funding her habit through her pimp’s less-than-ideal employment arrangement.  Elder son Jay is the loosest of cannons, veering on and off the rails and, no matter his alcohol consumption, he manages to maintain a body fat percentage of 0%, something the producers never allow us to forget through his constant states of undress.  Then we have Nate, a more introverted character (pop music’s Nick Jonas – saw him on Broadway once… no big deal) who lurks mostly in the shadows with problems of his own.

Both Alvey’s sons are fighters in their own right and, according to Kingdom, this involves enduring frequent cuts to make weight ahead of whichever bout they have signed up to.  As well as crash dieting, there’s a predilection to dress in plastic and sweat out as much weight as possible, pound by pound.  Joining the Kulina boys in this is fellow brawler Ryan Wheeler.  Guess what he’s got.  That’s right, demons of his own.  He spends season one transitioning out of prison, but you’ll find yourself more interested in halfway house roommate Keith, whose mental health episodes prove a laugh a minute.  Matt Lauria, of Friday Night Lights fame, plays our Ryan, but the two shows have little in common when it comes to how they portray their respective sport.  For some reason, each fight scene fails to feel like a climax.  The stakes don’t feel as high as a high school football game in Dillon, Texas (or Last Chance U).  In fact, while there are many touching and exhilarating moments, Kingdom on the whole seems to bumble along.  This happens, and then that happens, but it never feels like part of one overall narrative that is going anywhere.  Maybe this is intentional.  Maybe I’m an idiot.  The storytelling is almost purely psychological, so expect lots of lingering shots of welling-up eyes while people deal with the unbearable nature of life.  They don’t care about their black eyes but they’re sad their fathers never really showed them love.

It’s probably down to too much expectation on my part.  I’ve been spoiled recently by super-taut boxsets where each side eye and exhalation contribute to an overall juggernaut of tense storyline propulsion (I’m looking at you, Succession, and missing you every day).  I’m craving structure, but instead Kingdom has endless gratuitous footage of cocaine being snorted or breasts being fondled or arms being injected or faces getting punched or more cocaine being snorted (leading me to suspect they borrowed the prop team from Narcos).  I always wonder if the actors are really hoovering up real powder and risking septum deviation.

Meanwhile, the characters are constantly sustaining injuries.  As an athlete, you don’t want this to happen, whether in the ring or outside of work brawling with your pals.  Somehow, though, my viewing of Kingdom coincided with my own breaking of bones.  A freak Crossfit accident smashed my fifth metacarpal, leaving me with a bulky cast for the last three weeks.  I hope everyone appreciated my painstaking typing of the last three entries with a left hand alone, though I suppose the most recent one was dictated using software that made me realise what a dick I sound as I compose each sentence.  A ruinous moment for me, it allowed me to identify with the characters on a new level.  Ryan’s hurt knee stops him training, just like my busted hand meant all of the following tasks became nigh-on impossible: cracking eggs, scrambling eggs, washing up, blowing my nose, any form of chopping, in fact all cooking, using cutlery, taking out contact lenses, putting in contact lenses and many many more.

Enough about me.  The hand is back in action and we’ll crack on, then, right up until the two hundredth post of this nonsense, even though the start next month of a part-time creative writing MA could result in less time for me to produce this drivel.  That said, that same instruction might actually improve the quality of what you’re currently reading.

So, if you like violence, there’s a certain charm to Kingdom.  You’ll become part of the fighting family, enjoying something unique, ambitiously shot and fairly decently sound-tracked.  The fact that it became a bit of background viewing for me speaks more to my own distractions than the show’s quality.  Yes, I was making a lasagne while the final episode played, but I did tear myself away from the white sauce several times to join in with the emotions playing out on screen.  I’ll miss you, Kingdom, and may I never find out why you got your name.

Crashing

A lot of people have been struggling in lockdown due to the absence of sufficient new comedy/drama from Phoebe Waller-Bridge.  I think we could all do with another series of Fleabag but, as we know, in the long tradition of quality British sitcoms, we will never have as much of it as we want.  It's been proven many times that the UK cannot have nice things (EU membership, competent government, peace in Northern Ireland).  I know there was another series of Killing Eve that I don't think I will watch after falling slightly out of love with things in the second series, and I also don't think Waller-Bridge is involved.  There's literally no way of checking though.  But then, what should I stumble across on Netflix, but an old Channel 4 sitcom from 2016 called Crashing?  Well, I thought to myself, this has been recommended to me several times as a great example of some of our Phoebe's earlier work and so, this week, I'll be telling you all about how smashing these six episodes really are.

We will just pause for a moment to dwell on my seething jealousy of Phoebe's exceptional achievements.  Not content with having two outstanding shows to her name and securing a very well deserved spot in my list of national treasures (alongside Michaela Coel of Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You, and my beloved Julia Davis of Nighty Night and Sally4ever), Waller-Bridge also has Crashing.  I innocently embarked upon the first episode expecting to see a new comic writer honing her craft, trying a few things out, and scoring some gentle laughs in the guise of a rough diamond with limited experience.  How crushed was I to unearth the fact that Crashing is one of the funniest things I have seen in a very long time?  And it's not just playing for laughs; the humour is clever, built around relatable and likeable characters, and it propels the very neat plot forwards.  Either way, I laughed out loud so loudly at some of these jokes that I was worried about disturbing my neighbours.  They may already think I am a madman.

The theme of the show is property guardianship.  There's nothing terribly sexy about this and, to the best of my knowledge, it's not an area that has been mined for comedy gold before now.  That's because there's nothing that funny about young-ish people who cannot afford London rents opting to squat-with-permission in dilapidated vacant buildings.  In this case we have a big old hospital, with the various wards serving as individuals housing units, and shelves falling off walls at inopportune moments.  But the setup is really just a tool to bring together our gang of main characters; it's the Central Perk to Crashing's Friends, only with more electrical hazards.  Our entry into their world is through the eyes of Lulu, played by Waller-Bridge, who has come down to London with her ukulele under the seemingly innocent ruse of catching up with platonic best pal, Anthony.  The will-they-won't-they saga between the two of them forms our central narrative, much to the irritation of Anthony's fiancée, Kate.  But around this there swirls further relationship complications that link the rest of the residents together.  From Melody's obsession with painting Colin to the intense bromance between Sam and Fred, each episode draws you in to a charming romp up and down the hospital stairs while these people make a hilarious mess of their lives.

Even beyond the world of the hospital, Waller-Bridge creates a richly observed comedic universe.  You will giggle at the silliness of the restaurant where Anthony works, We Don't Give A Fork, themed as it is around the concept of insisting that its diners eat without cutlery.  Lulu's stint as a receptionist at Kate’s office, Something Events, had me in stitches, particularly when it comes to the office flirt (see Cardinal Burns for details).  Every few minutes we are treated to a devastating line that sums up the pointlessness of millennial life – in turn, I think it a crying shame but this script isn't more widely quoted in real life.  This is a show that deserves to be lauded in its own right, but given what comes after it, it's testament to Waller-Bridge’s talent that it was so quickly eclipsed.  Nevertheless, this is one of the cutest British comedies you can treat yourself to on Netflix while wondering if the government will ever let you out of your own house again.  I don't mind staying in if I get to watch stuff like this.  In fact, I might wait in until they agree to make a second series.

What We Do In The Shadows

My regular readers and fact fans will notice that this is Just One More Episode’s fourth foray into the world of vampires.  Like any normal adult man, I’ve talked about my enjoyment of The Vampire Diaries, graduating to the more sexually explicit world of True Blood, while my writing on seeing things from the opposite perspective (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) remains one of my most read instalments (though it still trails Love Island and, er, Naked Attraction).  Following on from a pal’s successful recommendation to open myself up to the life-enhancing entertainment quality of Succession I’ve taken the lad up on his ongoing insistence I would really enjoy What We Do In The Shadows.  And I did.

It’s a mockumentary sitcom, but make it vampire.  Spun off from a film I’ll never get around to seeing, the show’s genesis can be credited to Flight Of The Conchords’ Jemaine Clement who, along with Taika Waititi, asked himself that age-old question: wouldn’t it be LOLs if a load of vampires had to live together as housemates?  Wouldn’t it be even funnier if they were centuries old and therefore constantly at odds with modern life?  What if they had been sent to conquer North America from the old country but had only got as far as Staten Island?  Well, I can tell you now: it would be a right old chuckle.  So, let’s meet our line-up of co-tenants:

Nandor The Relentless

Head of the household thanks to his seniority in age, Nandor has moved on from pillaging and marauding on behalf of the Ottoman Empire (you never hear much about them these days, do you?) and now cultivates a more sensitive soul, calling house meetings to recap on hygiene standards.  His accent is everything, with Kayvan Novak elasticating his vowels beyond all recognition.

Laszlo Cravensworth

Matt Berry serves up a hearty portion of delicious Matt Berry as this lascivious, yet limited, Laszlo.  Toast Of London intonation is channelled throughout, so I always raise an eyebrow whenever he shouts bat as he transforms into a bat.  For a brief spell, he is Jackie Daytona, and it is wonderful.

Nadja

Billed third because the world still hates women, Nadja is actually the funniest vampire in our coven.  Her eurotrash accent elevates her every outburst to a new level of farcical indignation, thanks to Natasia Demetriou’s vocal dexterity (which also makes her one of the top guests of all time on The Adam Buxton Podcast).  Every time she slags something off with English that is ever so fractionally non-idiomatic, the linguist in me thrills at her silliness.

Guillermo

The vampires’ human familiar, this poor lad acts as a household slave while waiting (ten years and counting) for his chance to fulfil a lifetime ambition (prompted by Antonio Banderas) of joining the clan of Nosferatu.  Contrasting with how little his masters appreciate him is a growing realisation that his calling may be complicated by his genetic heritage (and I don’t mean his Hispanic roots) which leads to some hilariously clever slapstick action.

Colin Robinson

A different strain of vampire that can walk in the daylight, Colin is a pure bore because he feeds on human energy rather than blood.  He’s the office creep stealing your time with tedious chatter, draining you of your life force in the process.  As a comic creation he is genius and his workplace scenes are my favourite, especially when he encounters a worthy adversary in the form of an emotional vampire.  I love how much he annoys the other housemates, even from his dreary basement bedroom.  When he learns to online troll as a form of remote energy drainage you start to question how fictional he really is.  In fact, I think we’ve all worked with a few Colins.

A platter of comedic big names crop up across the two series, but Beanie Feldstein deserves a special mention as an outrageously naïve college student who gets caught up in Nadja’s manipulations.  Throughout, the classic tropes of the genre are mined for comedy, from staying out of the sun to wooden stakes, via garlic, silver and countless occasions of hissing like cats at each other.  Luckily, there seems to be US dosh behind the special effects, with no expense spared on CGI shenanigans.  That said, I’m always most transfixed by the backstories whenever these are expanded upon, as the supporting illustrations that scroll by look like genuine historical artefacts, reminding us all that medieval religious art is whack.  My only slight frown, as a vampire purist, is that I’m not sure how I feel about the genre’s lore being played for laughs when it normally takes itself very seriously.  But, as always, silliness wins out, making What We Do In The Shadows a rollicking gothic romp of a contribution to the fangs-on-fangs canon.