Fear The Walking Dead

If you’re going to watch a lot of television shows, it’s worth figuring out what sort of themes you like the most.  For some reason, I’ve never been able to interest myself in shows about solving murders.  I’m (probably) never going to murder anyone, so it all seems largely irrelevant.  However, any show with a hint of zombie apocalypse goes straight on my watchlist.  If I follow my own logic, then this should mean that I fully expect to live through humanity being killed off by the undead.  But then, I don’t think I do see this in my future.  Yet, it’s still feels more relevant to my life.  And this is most likely because half my days are spent in a zombie-like routine, catching the same buses, standing in the same spots on Tube platforms, thumbing through the same apps and repeatedly writing the same office emails.  It’s not quite apocalyptic, but its tedium is probably as painful as being eaten alive by cadavers.

Anyway, we’ve got distracted.  The point is, I love anything about zombies.  Ever since I was dragged to see 28 Days Later (actually about an infection), I’ve never found anything as compelling as working out what I would do in the same situation.  That said, I still don’t have a plan.  And so, with the eighth series of The Walking Dead hitting UK screens, it’s time to turn attentions to the spin off, mostly because I’ve just finished the second series.

With the democratisation of TV content, allowing viewers to pick their own schedules, a model that’s done so well for Netflix and Amazon, it was an absolute mugging off that BT did the worst thing ever with Fear The Walking Dead on its UK launch by holding it hostage on its paid-for channels in order to force people to sign up.  Instead, people simply resorted to pirating it, so go fudge yourselves, BT.  I have been a good boy and simply hung on for the episodes to come under Amazon Prime.

The show’s lack of ubiquity is a real shame, as its quality really is up there with The Walking Dead.  Sure, the gore maws your eyes sore, but having the fall of civilisation as a backdrop really makes a good character arc seem all the more compelling.  The action centres on LA in the early days of the outbreak, complementing The Walking Dead’s setting in the well-established future of the same apocalypse.  The tension that dominates the first series as the characters try and work out what’s going on while we’re fully clued up on their fates makes for epic viewing.

But, it’s actually very hard to like any of the characters.  The show still has you rooting for them to survive, but they mostly are a real bunch of bastards.  This continues into the second series and ties in with the theory that, while monsters may walk the earth, humans will always be the biggest bad guys.

Beyond describing the premise as following a band of survivors attempting to live out the end of days, there’s not much else you need to know.  Comparisons to The Walking Dead might be all we have.  While everyone in that show looks sweaty as balls in the Georgia humidity, Fear The Walking Dead plays out in the dry heat of California and beyond.  As someone who is almost always too hot and can barely keep any clothes on, my biggest concern is how someone can bear to wear jeans in a desert, not the fact that they are being chased by brain-devouring zombies.

The languages geek within me loves the fact that a good portion of the show switches between Spanish and English, and you’re definitely in for a treat if you like boats.  The Walking Dead’s zombie lore is well observed, though Fear The Walking Dead does rely a great deal on the fact that smearing yourself with dead people’s bodily mush disguises to zombies that you are still alive.  It’s a bit too easy.

Zombie-based dramas trump a lot of other themes, simply because any and all of the characters can die at any minute.  It might sound macabre to enjoy this, but what else can consistently provide such strong human drama?  In murder mysteries, the victim is already dead, lying there cold and inert in a chilly morgue.  In Fear The Walking Dead, the victims of death stalk the earth having a lot more fun (and doing that sort of breathy growling they enjoy so much).  Just don’t watch it straight before bed as you will be too tense to sleep, unless you have finally numbed all your emotions by watching too much of this sort of thing.

Bob's Burgers

While some TV show episodes drag into eternity, others are over all too quickly.  From Bob’s Burgers’ jaunty opening sequence to its production company’s endframe, every moment of viewing is just right.  I find myself sitting there expecting more quality entertainment, when all that follows are adverts or an awkward silence.

Whenever I meet someone else who watches Bob’s Burgers, I immediately try and launch into a conversation with them where we can compare our favourite quotations from the show.  But then I always get stuck on the fact I can’t remember any of them.  Yet, every time I watch it, I think to myself how clever and funny each line is.  But this might just be the beauty of the show.  Unlike a lot of animated series, it hasn’t had to rely on stock expressions to engage its audience.  Instead, it has built up individual characters over time.

As a fan of the Simpsons and Family Guy, it makes sense I would enjoy Bob’s Burgers, but I can’t remember at all how I first came across it.  As ever, it took a couple of series of dodgier animation and rougher voice recordings for it to find its feet, but now each episode is a mini masterpiece.  Most recently, it seemed to appear in my Sky Plus on Saturday mornings (assuming it’s getting recording late on Friday evenings) and it makes the perfect viewing accompaniment for me when I am eating porridge and scrambling eggs and drinking a mug of coffee after training.

Family is at the heart of the show, so I have ranked the Belcher family below in order of funniness, and, consequently, their place in my estimations.

Linda

She’s the matriarch of the brood, but probably the least sensible.  More easily swayed by doing what seems fun than by doing what seems important, it’s often her whims that launch the family into its adventures.  That said, she loves her ‘babies’ and her ‘Bobby’ almost as much as she loves dancing in front of an audience and drinking wine.  Everything she says is funny.

Tina

One of the perviest characters ever to grace animation, Tina is what my mum would call ‘boy mad’.  Unfortunate for her, then, that she is stuck in the awkwardness of pubescence.  Her romantic dreams are almost always hopeless, but we root for her because we have all been that weirdo teen.  Her strong moral compass is often at odds with Linda’s shenanigans, but Tina has incredible throwaway lines that pepper the show with an undercurrent of darkness.

Louise

An amazing character if only for the amazing voice of Kristen Schaal.  Louise never takes off her bunny ears (perhaps her one weakness) and takes a small-time gangster approach to most things.  Her cynicism and relentless drive give way only very rarely to the more tender feelings we would expect from a small girl.  Adults beware.  In fact, everyone beware.

Bob

Long-suffering, yes, but innocent, no.  Bob indulges just as much of his own childishness as any of the other Belchers.  The difference is that he is the slightly downtrodden father figure with a flair for fine burgers.  Voiced by H. Jon Benjamin (which will make Archer sound like Bob and Bob sound like Archer, depending on which show you start with), his voice of reason is easily ignored, which is great, as it would only get in the way of the comedy.

Gene

Is it wrong that I like Gene the least?  His voice is wild, his roll malleable.  He is the disgusting boy, but both his sisters can be more extreme without even trying.  Again, he is a champion of throwaway comments and the driving force behind the show’s semi-musical nature.

There’s also Aunt Gayle.  If I could add her into the main nuclear family, she’d be in third place.  This is not only because she is literally me in ten years’ time (lonely old cat lady) but also because her selfishness is exceeded only by her delusion – a recurring theme in many of my favourite comic characters (see Nighty Night).  In addition to both of these points, she is also voiced by Megan Mullally.  This lady could read out anything and it would sound funny.

As the show has grown, however, so has the cast of characters.  Indeed, their unnamed Long Island town is populated with a host of outlandish, yet strangely realistic, individuals: Marshmallow, the transgender sex worker, Speedo Guy, who skates around in a pink pair of pants and nothing else, Mr Ambrose, the sour librarian (also me now – see The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Jocelyn, the high school girl whose pronunciation is the most fun you can have with your mouth, or ears, or both.  I have to admit that I cannot abide Teddy.  His whole schtick is that he is desperate to be part of the family, but my skin just crawls each time he speaks, even though he is really a sweetheart.

Threaded through each episode is a touch of musicality, often driven by Gene’s attachment to his fart noise-producing keyboard.  Our closing credits are always accompanied by a reprise of whichever original song has been brought to life in the episode and a skit in the restaurant’s grill kitchen.  I’m always sad the episode is over.  But then, I can just watch another one.

Geordie Shore

Before I lived in a Sky household, this show was completely out of reach to me, yet I knew straightaway on its launch in 2011 that I would love it.  A UK version of Jersey Shore that had out-blowjobbed its predecessor by episode one.  These were young people who went out, and I was a young person who went out.  I finally found myself with access to MTV in 2013 and quickly caught up on old series while devouring the new one.  The cast were like better versions of me – in better shape, wearing better clothes, followed by a film crew (while nobody is interested in what I do).  The drama, the relationships, the epic nights out: its scandal was surpassed only by its entertainment factor.

As series 15 airs (despite multiple locations and switch ups to keep things fresh), I think I am slowly falling out of love with Geordie Shore.

It now seems so cyclical and repetitive that its charms are no longer working for me.  Each episode and series are made up of concentric plot circles that go along the following lines:

1.       Everyone gets excited about getting drunk, drinks drinks to get drunk, is drunk, drinks more drinks, is too drunk, loses all inhibitions to the extent that they ruin the night, wakes up the next day with remorse

2.       Everyone gets excited about going out, the girls spend ages doing eye make-up and making sure every part of their body is ready, often sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of mirrors to do this, emerging from a room that is an absolute bombsite looking pneumatically put together for the sole purpose of partying, the boys iron a t shirt and pop on some concealer, everyone has some pre-drinks downstairs in that weird house, everyone cheerses, Gary says get in the two minivans that have come to fetch them, they walk into their VIP area in the club and if you look carefully at the people in the background you can see the pure hatred/envy on their faces, rapidly edited shots show silly dancing and drink downing accompanied by housemate voiceover describing the drinks as ‘flowing’, the tunes as ‘banging’ and the whole night as being ‘great’.  Once things have gone too far, it’s Gary again who rounds them up and back into the minivans (the fact they don’t always vomit on the way home still baffles me – this actually only happens occasionally), before they are filmed jumping out of the minivans and storming into the house, with some of the girls weeing outside.  Of course.  Then the group devours all sorts of takeaway (I have no idea who supplies this to them but a full feast always seems to be waiting), throws some of the takeaway at each other and then starts drifting off to bed, subject to whichever argument has broken out.  Invariably, some attempt sexual intercourse which either fails due to drunkenness, vomiting or arguments, or succeeds, leading to footage of duvet twitching that is about as erotic as someone inserting their index finger into the other hand’s curled finger as part of the international symbol of shagging

3.       Boy meets girl.  Boy wants to sleep with girl.  Boy pursues aggressive policy of being flirty with girl.  Girl convinces self that she quite likes boy.  Boy is clear to girl that this is nothing serious.  Girl convinces self that she is fine just to be casual with boy.  Boy seals deal with girl.  Girl continues to tell herself that she is fine with this being a casual arrangement, as that’s what boy wants, after all.  Boy tashes on with another woman while out with girl.  Girl goes mental and realises she has caught feelings for boy.  Boy continues to mug girl off with cruel emotional manipulation until, three to four series later, girl has stopped hurting and only occasionally cries when boy flirts with other girls in front of her

4.       Cast member has incredible underlying rage issue that bubbles away unnoticed until an accumulation of any of the above triggers a huge outburst that results either in damage to private property (punched taxi window, kicked-in household phonebox door etc) or damage to other cast member

At the heart of the narrative tension for many series was the love story between Gary and Charlotte (see point 3 above).  Along with Tim and Dawn in The Office, I believe this is one of only two accurate portrayals on TV of real-life love.  Somehow meant for each other, their courtship was a series of missed opportunities and stung emotions.  But, when together, their chemistry shone through.  When Charlotte stayed at Gary’s one series and surprised herself with a fart during sex, she then laughed so hard so wet herself.  Throughout, all Gary could do was laugh too.  This is what I think true love is: being charmed by another’s (lack of control over their) bodily functions.

In fact, it’s the adjustments to the cast that have altered the show’s structure.  Geordies come and go, but Gary seems to be there for life (129 episodes and counting).  But because the show is filmed in advance, it feels like it’s not keeping up with the instant nature of celebrity that social media enables in this day and age.  Relationships portrayed in the show are known to be over by the time it airs.  And when cast members are axed due to bad behaviour, there is only rumour as to what they have done, rather than a full explanation which makes an example of them to the impressionable young viewers this is aimed at.  Questions abound: why don’t they have mobiles?  What’s the deal with pretending they are working for a business?  In fact, who is Anna and why on earth would she still take part?  Why aren’t there enough bedrooms?  Do they clean their teeth after eating takeaway before going to bed?  What’s happened to Now magazine, as they seemed to be involved in the early series, didn’t they?

Anyway, there’s something about these Geordie gasbags I can’t get enough of.  I can't wait for the carnage each time we roll their intros in the opening credits, which often cause me the following thoughts:

Sophie: “I could talk the back legs off a donkey.”

I don’t know what’s worse: the fact she has been given this to say, or that she is performing some 70s disco move while doing it.  Either way, I love her, and getting shoved out of the way by her in the VIP section of the Isle of MTV in Malta this year was a highlight of my pointless life.

Chloe: “I’m totally crackers me, like.”

This is a very accurate description of everything about Chloe.

Gary: “I [pause] should have a degree [pause] in pulling women.”

He should be chancellor of the university of pulling women, saddling young people with a lifetime of crippling student debt just for wanting to learn how to tash on.

Holly: “I’m fit, I’m flirty and I’ve got double FFs.”

I’m sure the producers have had nightmares trying to match Holly’s varying hair colours to the opening credits over the years.

James: “The hardest graft I’ve ever done is doing me hair.”

Such a lad thing to say.  James left the show a few seasons back after a very good run.  Like me, he got bored of the repetition and grew up a bit.

Now I’m no longer a young person who goes out, but an older person who barely drinks and can’t stay up past 10pm, my interaction with Geordie Shore’s drunken scenes has altered.  From identifying with them, I moved to a phase of living vicariously through them.  I could bask in the camaraderie offered by the fallout of a big night going out out.  But now I am in a phase where it appals me.  It’s not the behaviour, it’s the repetition.  A new bunch of girls are getting themselves mugged off.  A new bunch of boys are mugging them off.  And I’m wasting an hour a week mugging myself off by continuing to watch it.  And yet, I cannot stop.

The Crown

There was a month when this show was the talk of the office, which always puts me off slightly when it comes to delving into a new boxset.  However, one evening, my housemate’s girlfriend suggested she might like to watch it.  As chief user of the TV, I was very happy to grant this wish so I could alleviate my guilt at being the remote controller dictator (this cropped up when discussing Mr Robot here).  As a dual viewing occasion, it seemed like the perfect show that couples can watch together (something which we simulated for this experience by the simple fact we were one man and one woman and in no other ways a couple).  For her, there’s romance and dresses and jewels and that.  For him, there are important historical facts and jingoistic nostalgia for a bygone empire. But it’s 2017 and we are beyond telling people what they will like about a programme based on their gender, so please delete the last two sentences from your eyes.  I can’t believe I even typed them out.  Maybe they reflect a 2007 version of this country that still persists in certain regions outside of my central London media bubble.

The Crown is ambitious, to say the very least.  Each scene is formed from piles and piles of money.  Shot on location, the producers seem to think nothing of having countless extras and vehicles appear to pad out our sense of place (for example, Kenya), only for them to be in shot for just a few seconds before we drill down into the drama, normally behind some closed doors in the corner somewhere.  In this golden age of TV, Hollywood-level budgets reflect the increased quality of all other elements: concepts, scripts, cast etc.  The viewing experience is therefore sumptuous and we can luxuriate in it as if we were members of the royal family ourselves.

For that matter, The Crown isn’t simply Queen Liz: The Early Years, a blow by blow historical account of the world’s longest reigning monarch (who is also still alive; awkward).  If we remove the fact that it’s loosely based on real events, potentially even imagining that Great Britain is some mythical kingdom (just as we so willingly do with Westeros), then the tightly woven plot of power plays, intrigue and familial tension is enough to grip and never let go as we watch a young woman come to terms with the death of her father and the foisting upon her of an office greater than any individual could possibly be.  Once you add in the fact that these are all household names, you’re on to an absolute winner.  And think how this feels to older generations who remember these events for realsies.  I had to Google to check that some of the Princess Margaret stuff really happened, as it just seemed so implausible that it could have been only decades ago.

Even though these are real people, the cast’s portrayals are so much deeper than mere impersonation.  John Lithgow’s Winston Churchill seems at first to be cantankerous caricature, but as we journey into each layer of this profoundly complex being, he palpably comes to life and elicits inordinate sympathy.  The royals themselves seem enormous fun to play – you can see the knowing sparkles in Claire Foy’s eyes as she puts down Matt Smith’s Prince Philip (who is the best use of Matt Smith’s face I have ever seen).  Just to be able to deliver so many lines in such a plummy accent is surely every actor’s dream.

Needless to say, my housemate’s girlfriend raced through the series, but I saved them for Sunday evenings to fill the Downton Abbey void in my life.  A word of warning is that the episodes vary in length.  This is Netflix, so there is no slot in a commissioner’s schedule to stick to – the content can be as long as it needs to be.  Sometimes it’s over an hour, sometimes it’s under, but either way, The Crown is near perfect telly.

Nighty Night

After so many American boxsets, I really want to focus on a good old piece of BBC comedy.  And in high contrast to the whitened straightened teeth and sunny scenes of Hollywood’s finest comedies and dramas, Nighty Night’s darker-than-dark humour and parade of grotesque imagination is the perfect antidote.  No other show has inspired so many in-jokes or turns of phrase among groups of my friends.  Both series aired between 2004 and 2005, before I hammered the DVDs into obliteration following their home entertainment release.

But why is one obscure BBC sitcom so significant?  There must be many reasons, but I can’t really put my finger on any of them.  Instead, I will tit about with the things about it that I like, because I can do whatever I want.  Firstly, the setting.  Nighty Night is set in the worst place imaginable: a suburban British cul-de-sac.  Statistics I have made up show that over half of all middle-class Brits start their lives in these sorts of soulless wastelands, with the other half aiming to move into these sorts of soulless wastelands at a later point in their life journey.  So close to home was Nighty Night’s setting, that some of the outdoor scenes were recognisably filmed in Dorking, a crap town down the road from my own, Leatherhead, rated the crappest of all towns.  Take that, New York and other such glamorous locations.  Places I have been in have been on telly.

Secondly, the lead character is evil.  It’s normally hard to root for a baddie, but this one has a West Country accent.  Therefore, even the shadiest statements sound cheery and reasonable.  Julia Davis, who also created and wrote the show, plays Jill Tyrell.  You might recognise Julia from the background of loads of different British comedies, which is really bad as I only like it when she is at the front.  She was even in Gavin And Stacey (which I have never watched, purely because everyone used to watch it and that put me off, when normally it makes me want to watching something).  While the rest of us ignore or suppress our selfish side, Jill embraces hers.  So much so that, when new neighbours Cath and Don arrive, she wastes no time in making Cath’s life hell in order to live out her fantasy of seducing Don (or any of their sons; she’s not that picky).  I should point out that Cath has MS and is in a wheelchair.  I should also point out that Jill removes her own husband from the scene by checking him into a hospice for the terminally ill, despite him being fighting fit.  Nothing can deter Jill from her goal.  In fact, Cath’s inability to stop being British and polite is what allows Jill to walk all over her. 

And not just walk all over her, but drive her around until she vomits after hearing she gets travel sick, put on a meaty buffet despite knowing Cath is vegetarian, slam a door in Cath’s face leaving her alone in the garden while pretending someone has called her back in the house, “Pardon?”, have her dog jump all over her after finding out she had a run in with an Alsatian as a girl.  There is simply so much that going through it all here, while hilarious, would not do it any justice.  The main life teaching from this is that if someone lets you take advantage of them, then go for your life.  It’s their own stupid fault.

Finally, the supporting characters are worth their weight in gold.  From Ruth Jones’s asthmatic Linda, to an awkward Angus Deayton as loverat Don himself, not to mention Mark Gatiss as the repulsive Glen.  Jill horrifically manipulates each and every one of them in the cruellest way and in the vilest scenes, but somehow watching it is pure bliss.

Do not watch this if you are easily offended.  Do watch this if you need to cut loose from beautiful people in beautiful situations.  Do watch this is you can laugh at anything and live with the guilt, or better yet, not experience the guilt at all.  Do watch it if you want to be reminded of how risky the BBC used to be with its comedy.  My only warning for those that do watch it is not to do with the offensive content, but the fact that, after the dating agency scene, you will never be able to say “thank you” the same way ever again.