Fargo

“Whatcha got there, Margie?” seems like a strange choice for the most memorable line from the 1996 film, Fargo.  A lot of crime goes on in that story, all against the backdrop of the snowy Minnesota landscape, but it’s the charming local accents and the banal interest in what people are having for their meals that has stayed with me to this day.  That said, I only saw the film during my university years in the early 2000s, during a period in which I felt the best way to round out my terrible personality was to make sure I had seen all those classic films people talk about.  Back in the days of DVDs, Fargo was easily procured from a now-defunct online rental company, viewed on a laptop intended for academic support, and sat through with an attention span that now seems alien as these were also the days that predated smartphones and their irresistible whispers of distraction when you are trying to concentrate on absolutely anything at all.

Fast forward to 2014 and, a mere 18 years after the film’s release, a TV spin off emerges.  I’ve chosen the word spin off, as it really cheapens the programme, making it clear where the quality lies in this originator-progeny relationship.  Pah, I thought to myself, I shan’t ever be watching that.  But join me, if you will, in 2021.  More advanced in age, with greater maturity and self-assurance than my student self from decades before, I was no longer pursuing self-betterment through lists of must-see movies.  Oh no, I was looking at the IMDb list of top-rated television programmes.  And this is called growth.  There, at 38 (rankings may change over time) and with a score of 8.9/10, was the previously ignored Fargo TV series.  Well, this omission needed rectifying.  What kind of wildly successful TV blog would this be if, while having sat through the vast majority of top scorers (don’t worry, they’re all covered here, guys, from Rick & Morty to Our Planet) I allowed this oversight to continue?  And lo, thanks to Netflix, three quarters of my neglect has been rectified.

From my vantage point of having seen three of Fargo’s four seasons, I shall now offload all my thoughts and opinions for you to read.  Unfortunately the fourth series emerged while I was otherwise preoccupied and I haven’t been able to track it down on a platform, so we’ll just pretend we don’t care (though I truly do as it looks like a ripping period production with casting that finally offsets Fargo’s overwhelming whiteness).  But what I can say is that those first three outings of this boxset are cracking viewing to put in front of your face – how wrong I was about not expecting much from the TV version of a film.  What’s more, the stellar cast just goes to show how far TV has come in taking on cinema as the home of the big acting name or indeed of the quality production.

Each episode of Fargo is exquisitely crafted.  From the first frame, care and attention has been taken over every detail, as if all of it is a pilot that wants you to like it.  It’s how telly should be.  This is made all the more impressive by the fact that so much of it is shot in temperatures below freezing, as I can only imagine cameramen wanting to get out of the cold and therefore not really caring a toss.  I also like to think of everyone slipping over in the ice during the outtakes.  Not because I wish them ill, but because I am the sort of person that slips in ice, so I might as well assume it’s a universal quality.  One curious feature of our storytelling is that every instalment is preceded by a statement that the events are based on a true story, but that names have been changed to protect identities.  There’s no way of checking this as I simply cannot be bothered to type it into the internet, so again, we can just sit with it, wondering if we believe it, wondering if it matters, before moving on.

It’s pertinent, though, as the plots in Fargo are delightfully far-fetched.  To me, this is proof of veracity.  Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up.  Right?  Each series tracks over its ten episodes a wholly different storyline.  This means you’ll need to jettison an old cast and get to know a new one.  Gradually, hints of how these worlds and timelines connect are revealed, with series two’s seventies setting engendering an aftermath that plays back into the first series, which in turn has repercussions on the third.  May I one day know how this comes to bear on the fourth.

Playing out over the real towns of Minnesota and the Dakotas, our cast is often split into three camps.  We have heroes, often nice folk with above-average yet underappreciated ability in their jobs, normally law enforcement, who have to put up with the nonsense that swirls around them.  These are our Margies, carrying a torch of affection over from our original film.  Then we have our malcontents.  Their morals are often dubious, yet we can’t resist rooting for them.  They’ve faced hardship and come out stronger, but their drive and effort often lead to their own downfalls.  And then we have some great straight-up baddies, doling out evil willy nilly, creating the murderous rampages and bloodstains in the snow that are required to propel much of the plot forward.

I’d venture to describe Fargo as gently soothing, even though it’s awash in ultraviolence.  Somehow, the gruesome gore is easy to forgive, maybe because it’s framed in a higher art form.  We have a top-notch ratio of intrigue resolution to new curiosity establishment in each episode, as well as exemplary season finale crescendoing that resulted in my own patented viewing strategy: episodes nine and ten of each series had to be back-to-backed simply because I would get so excited (what a sad little life, Jane).  I typically only ever watch one instalment of a drama at a time so it doesn’t become wallpaper, but don’t worry if you have an alternative approach – it just means I am better than you.

So come all and feast upon this ensemble masterpiece.  You’ll revel at whatshisface off that film once and whoshername that used to be in thingy.  Not everyone masters the accent as successfully as others, and all the “oh yah”s and “ok then”s are a crucial part of our charm requirements, but each player has a great time with their character.  There’s bold storytelling as far as the eye can see, and dusting everything else in snow covers a variety of other flaws that I simply didn’t notice.  So take a trip via your screen of choice to this slice of the USA and treat yourself to some of the nicest murder stories ever known.

I Hate Suzie

Something terrible happened towards the end of last year.  As a liberal hipster, my easily distracted thumb was pottering around on the Guardian app and I came across an article counting down the top 50 TV shows of 2020.  Like you, I did wonder for a moment why I hadn’t been asked to write it, but then realised I am not actually a professional journalist.  But, as an amateur connoisseur of boxsets, I quickly clicked it and read it, anxious to see whether I could nod in reassuring agreement or reel dramatically at their choices.  Naturally, in first place we had I May Destroy You.  Well done me; I had watched this.  But, at number two, was I Hate Suzie.  For shame, I had never found the promos of this show appealing.  I had in fact ignored a friend’s recommendation to try it, even though he was the same rascal that turned me on to my beloved Industry.  With lockdown going on forever, I made my way through its eight episodes on Sky Boxsets.

Billie Piper is as much a part of British culture as xenophobic newspaper headlines and voting in comedy prime ministers.  A massive popstar when I was in secondary school, she purveyed pop songs so cheesy and catchy that we laughed derisively about how uncool she was.  We were much cooler, being obscure, untalented children and all.  Until recently, though, my household did contain a CD single of Honey To The Bee, an underrated subsequent release of hers that almost references my surname.  It might still be around here somewhere.  But, thanks to my own perception of her as a singer, I never engaged with any of her acting up till now.  Secret Diary Of A Call Girl was a mainstay of pre-Love Island ITV2, but not of my viewing schedule.  Yet my friend, and the Guardian write-up, promised something worth investigating.  As a sufferer of FOMOIEOYCRL (fear of missing out in end-of-year cultural ranking lists), the completionist in me was prepared to embrace Billie and welcome a bit of Piper back into my life.  Because I wanted to.

Our premise is eerily similar to Piper’s own real-life trajectory.  She plays Suzie Pickles, a national sweetheart shot to fame on a reality TV singing show (hello X Factor) before transitioning into a TV actress.  She’s one of those people in the magazines and on the gossip websites and just doing this now.  Only the last thing she’s just done, putting at risk her entire career, is suffer a leak of private, explicit photos to the media.  Sadly, the shots are not a solo performance and her accompaniment comes in the form of an extramarital phallus, so there’s all that to deal with as well.  Each whirlwind instalment focuses on a single one of the eight stages in Pickles’ response to the trauma.

In the process, Piper and co-creator (and full writer) Lucy Prebble (as previously collaborated with on Secret Diary Of A Call Girl) use the unfolding disasters to provide deliciously inventive commentary on a huge number of our daily staples: the treatment of women, motherhood, fame, disability, loneliness, sexuality and so on.  From the audible diarrhoea-induing first discovery of the pics to a proliferation of meltdowns, via awkward family events (the wedding of Pickles’ sister is outrageous and universal at the same time), frustrated self-loving (for more or less a whole episode) and the ripest sending-up of celebrity culture, Piper’s performance is everything.  The camera often just gives us all that face and it becomes our anchor in the madness, trapping us with Pickles in her nightmare.

Yet more intriguing is her agent and best friend, Naomi (Leila Farzad).  The dynamics of their relationship creak under years of irreconcilable imbalance until we scream at Naomi to respect herself and prioritise her own needs.  Naomi gives one of the best ever shutdowns to casual, micro-aggressive racism I have ever seen, but her wronging by men knows no end (that train journey).  Pickles’ husband is himself human collateral in the fallout.  Daniel Ings (one of the joys from W1A) is exasperated as Cob, eagerly weaponizing their deaf son to his advantage yet less than keen to lose the perks of having a famous wife.  Even with her success, it is he, as the man, who expects to be more important in everything that happens.

I admit to lacking patience with some episodes, but I am learning to love this freewheeling style (as seen in I May Destroy You) where creativity and storytelling gang up not to care about what you’re expecting.  By the final scene of the final episode, my sympathy for Suzie Pickles was at its peak.  I had never hated her and I don’t know who did.  Having it all is simply another thing to feel lonely in spite of, only it emphasises the unjustifiability of that loneliness, so you feel even lonelier.  Does Suzie’s preoccupation with herself drive others away, or do they give up on her when she doesn’t give them what they think they need?  I still can’t work it out.

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.

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.

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.

Travel Man: 48 Hours In…

While some parts of modern life are returning to a semblance of normality, particularly if you already avoided all human contact, one area of sunshine in our otherwise pointless existences has come back with an added layer of jeopardy.  What used to be called going on holiday, but is now defined as a hobby under the smugger term of “travelling”, is fraught with the risk of your foreign destination falling foul of arbitrary quarantine rules mid-sojourn.  It might have been officially safe to go there, but you could end up coming back from somewhere dangerous, required to submit to an honesty box-enforced personal lockdown of two weeks, just for burning your skin and eating full Englishes in Marbs.  Luckily, TV has many options when it comes to vicarious holiday-making.  I’ve already covered Cruising With Jane McDonald, much to the ambivalence of my loyal reader(s).  But this week I’m going to be telling you all about my recent obsession with Travel Man.

Everyone loves Richard Ayoade.  He was crucial to the charm of The IT Crowd and has gone on to make a living as a professional silly sausage, which schtick is only enabled by his conversely erudite true nature.  For those of us whose lifestyles are more than a little inspired by the teachings of Asperger, he’s a ruddy hero.  Like me, he’s guilty of the approach to travelling where, on the day you’re required to leave, you’d do anything to be able to stay at home instead.  Once away, you may well have a lovely time and forge treasurable memories, but you’re never gladder than the moment you cross the threshold back into your own abode again.  An entertaining choice, then, for a travelogue series.  Let’s run through, to borrow Ayoade’s own frequent references, the format points:

Travel Man always goes with a pal

Each episode focuses on a different predominantly European destination, to which Ayoade is accompanied by a predominantly comedic companion.  It’s a who’s who of British televisual light entertainers, though some Hollywood heavyweights do steam in, introduced to us with all their hyphenations: writers, actors and, ubiquitously, broadcasters.  But what really is a broadcaster?  Am I broadcasting now?  I don’t know.  The show has been opened with a madcap monologue where Ayoade soliloquises from multiple incongruous locations on the pitfalls of modern weekends away: what if it’s a bit rubbish?  The showbiz pal then sets us up for the second earful, demanding to know why they have been brought to Porto/Bergen/Athens etc.  Cue a street jive-inspired yet still deeply ironic beginner’s outburst to the place in question.  The guest tourists are often reduced to foils for Ayoade’s self-confessed glibness, with any showing off swiftly halted, but there is always enough chemistry for the viewer to yearn for an accompanying ticket.

Travel Man is on a budget, a massive one

Prices for sundries and excursions pop up in jaunty bubbles onscreen, with an overview of the cheapest possible trip to our destination given early on.  However, this is often run roughshod over in the very next scene when inordinate funds are spaffed on the most extravagant of hotels.  It’s wasted on Ayoade, who cares only to toss his retro luggage on the king size before dashing off.

Travel Man is tight on time

There’s a lot to be forced into 48 hours, ideally three activities either side of the break plus travel and extra filming time.  As such, Ayoade is constantly badgering his co-voyager to hurry up, resulting in a trail of unfinished drinks and food being left in their wake.  I always find this funniest when his celeb pal wants to chill in the hotel on arriving and Ayoade must insist upon them meeting him downstairs immediately in order to stick to their itinerary.  Relaxing this ain’t.

Travel Man can’t be arsed with the food or indeed any other affectation

Whether trying odd local dishes, or sitting through a 14-course Michelin-starred tasting menu, Ayoade is ever the everyman in only ever being able to assess things as “fine” or “OK” – he’ll often refuse additional bites if he deems one mouthful sufficient for analysing flavour.  Fuss and fancy are instant turn offs, often dismissed on the spot, much to the disappointment of obsequious wait staff and barkeeps.  I unknowingly channelled this approach on a media jolly to San Sebastián when I inadvertently told the maître d’ at Arzak that I didn’t like the monkfish.  Whoops.

Travel Man is nourished by facts

Our guest follows Richard on a schlepp to the city’s nearest highpoint, using a bird’s eye view to orientate themselves and discuss Ayoade’s vertigo.  Before, during and after, they are showered with openly Wikipedia-procured nuggets of varying relevance, often responding with their only viable reaction: bemusement.  On occasions, even hired tour guides seem to know less than our Richard.  It’s all deliciously awkward.  Of note is when UNESCO World Heritage Site status is pointed out, as we do realise at one point that nobody knows what this means.

Travel Man has other foibles

He makes outrageous sartorial choices.  He has a real passion for funiculars (and you will too).  He finds it outrageous when artisanal workshops do not conclude with appropriate certification.  He is vivid in his descriptions of tummy bugs.  He treats guides facetiously by asking them to stay in touch.  But most of all…

Travel Man gets travel sick

Across the nine series and counting, the producers push Ayoade into every mode of transport imaginable, from speedboats to helicopters, from camels to toboggans.  Each and every one triggers his motion sickness.  As a fellow sufferer, I identify with this more than I can convey here.  In fact, I have developed sympathy sickness which comes on whenever Ayoade looks queasy.  Which is often.

Nevertheless, this show is now a firm favourite of mine in light of its lightness and entertainment.  I feel as though I’ve been on a farewell grand tour of my beloved EU with a host of new pals.  Its irreverent tone really takes the gap yah out of someone else’s holidays, transcending the traditional tedium of online showing off by never taking anything that seriously.  Best of all, its brutal honesty really peaks at the very end when Ayoade is itching to get home and shut the doors.  Should they have come?  It doesn’t matter if you have speedy boarding.

Succession

People are always telling you what you should do.  You should stay two metres apart from each other.  You should work from home.  You should watch Succession.  Sometimes, it’s good to ignore people.  If you’re being selfish with space around the eggs in the supermarket, I’m only going to give you a matter of moments before I invade your two metres for my Burford Browns.  I don’t want to work from home anymore because the office has air conditioning and my flat is now the inside of a hair dryer only without any air movement whatsoever.  And I didn’t really want to watch Succession.  It looked like rich white people arguing while being unattractive and there was too much sexy and exciting TV to be getting on with.  Episode one only confirmed my apprehension.  There were so many characters, none of them likeable.  They talked quickly and oh-so-wittily, making references where I lacked context.  There were lots of suits, lots of greys, too many office interiors (even though this has become my dream destination).  Episode two was more of the same.  I itched with the desire to distract myself.  The crossing and double-crossing felt distant and irrelevant.  I still hadn’t picked a horse to back and, more specifically, I didn’t want to.  What should have been humorous just felt weird and in poor taste.

But everyone had been so insistent.  They had told me I really would like it.  And then, episode three happened.  I crossed a threshold.  I was hooked.  I don’t know what did it.  It was like a penny dropping.  Suddenly, Succession was the absolute treat of each evening.  I even felt like a grown up watching it.  My phone discarded out of sight, full focus on the screen, I got more and more into it, eventually unable to resist the urge to binge through the remaining episodes of the second season just because I had to know what was going to happen next.  And now I can’t bear the wait for more.  So maybe I should listen more to people telling me what I should do.  Either way, I’m now going to commend the living daylights out of Succession, but I’ve bucketed the commendations into handy themes for easier digestion, helping you, the reader, to manage your entrance into an exquisite, intelligent boxset that stretches the very limits of what you thought was possible on television.

The spot-on and terrifying exposition of a media landscape

You won’t have heard of Waystar Royco, nor the Roy family who own most of it, but both might strike you as uncannily familiar.  Succession deals with this media conglomerate (which also includes cruise lines, theme parks and a scattergun array of ill-advised ventures in other markets) and the unanswerable question about who is next in line to take on its captaincy once the paterfamilias (I’ve always wanted to use this word) steps down.  While this intrigue ensures endless tension, the interplay between the family’s right-wing news channel (ATN) and their political ambitions would be ludicrous if it didn’t mimic real life so closely.  Financing, acquisitions, cover-ups: there’s dirty trick after dirty trick, with Shakespearean levels of backstabbing and betrayals.  Yet the boardroom melodrama is so plausible you could buy this as a genuine documentary.  You just need to accept that there is nobody to root for.

The first ever portrayal of accurate adult sibling relationships

Lining up to inherit the vast fortune and power of the company, three brothers and a sister represent the future of the Roy family.  Eldest son, Connor, has dialled out of the race, but his abuse and misuse of his own (his dad’s) wealth reveals him to be a threat to the real world, if a non-contender in the Roy battles.  Kendall, our heir apparent, is having the worst go-to-work-with-dad day that anyone has ever experienced, only it’s his whole career.  Pouring all his energy into the company, at the expense of everything else, his fractious paternal relationship is the source of unending and delicious plot twists.  Jeremy Strong shifts effortlessly between conniving shark, office square as trend-missing douchebag and downtrodden underling.  Meanwhile, Kieran Culkin brings so much to what are already most of the best lines as Roman Roy, the rebellious one who can’t get taken seriously but who also doesn’t take anything seriously.  Then there’s Shiv (an outrageously good Sarah Snook), the daddy’s girl striking out on her own, trying to rise above the wheeling and dealing but always getting suckered back in.  I’ve spent too long enumerating the Roys, when the emphasis is on their relationships.  What I really buy is that these four grew up together.  Their childhood fisticuffs even persist into maturity (Shiv and Roman).  Their bickering is no longer about sharing toys, but manipulating dad, running companies (into the ground) and willing each other to look as bad as possible, all while forming occasional united fronts whenever it suits.  Needless to say, you can’t build a case to become CEO of a global megacompany when you’re blaming your brother or sister for your own mistakes.

The use of Brian Cox

Now we’ve done the kids, let’s look at the dad.  Logan Roy is our rags-to-riches self-made man.  We might be in a time when we acknowledge that plenty of screen time has already gone to white old men, but Brian Cox consistently delights in this role.  Even my pet hate of being able to tell how much he’s enjoying himself in his performance doesn’t get activated because his performance is so convincing.  It’s merely my assumption that he gets to have a great time as an actor, whether suffering the after-effects of his stroke, or reacting to his kids’ betrayals.  It would be worth working for Logan Roy just to get fired in a blaze of abuse.

The swearing

Which leads me to Logan’s potty mouth.  Never has the expression “f*ck off” sounded so satisfying.  This is how he concludes most dialogues, whether with his leadership team or his own children.  He hits the K with real back-of-throat disdain, his words literally causing the recipient to acknowledge they have no other choice but to f*ck right off.  Now that’s power.

The passive aggression

We don’t always resort to effing and jeffing though.  Plenty of the dialogue sparkles with outright cusses semi-shrouded in manners or corporate jargon.  When the wordplay moves from artful cleverness to explicitly rude insults, it’s somehow all the more delightful.

The money

Not only do the cast splash their cash, but so too does the production.  Choppers seem to be on standby, and no location seems too remote to receive a full shooting unit, whether Dundee or obscure stately homes elsewhere in Britain, or US ranches, or indeed a yacht in the Mediterranean.  I would like to work on the show just so I can try out the inflatable slide on the back of Logan’s mega vessel.

The supporting cast

The Roys have become everything to me, but every character in their orbit enriches Succession.  Hiam Abbass (Logan’s wife Marcia) revels in her scenes as the conniving stepmother, while my softest spot is reserved for the company’s general counsel, Gerri Kellman (J. Smith-Cameron) who seems to work every hour of the day, mostly while wearing ball gowns, but can be an absolute boss when required.  Special mention of course to Cousin Greg who is pure joy in his naivety, never more so than when being mistreated by Tom Wambsgans (an incredible Matthew McFadyen).  I even enjoy Willa.

But this is enough commending – there’s only so much I can say before we start running through plots and spoiling surprises.  From a sceptical viewing, pressing play under pressure from TV connoisseur friends, I’ve become obsessed with Succession.  You really should watch it.

The Witcher

It’s not easy keeping up with Netflix.  In fact, I can’t do it.  Here I am, finally posting about The Witcher, weeks after pictures of Henry Cavill in his Lucius Malfoy hairpiece appeared all over the Netflix user menu.  Oh well, at least the passing of time has allowed an array of discussion of this show to take place in my real life, both in the office and on the ski slopes/lifts of France, as it appears I wasn’t the only one unable to resist Cavill’s face.  When I grow up, I’m definitely going to have a jawline like that.  So let’s proceed to work out what this programme was all about, safe in the knowledge I wont be completing any new boxsets for the next few weeks while my evenings are occupied with more Love Island and another series of the wonderful Sex Education.

The first question you’ll ask yourself is this: what is a Witcher?  I can safely say, even after all the episodes I’ve watched, that I don’t really know.  I’ve been a Witcher watcher, sure, but I’m assuming it’s just a sultry man with bright white hair, unusual coloured eyes and a penchant of slaying monsters and such.  Turns out, though, that The Witcher is actually based on a series of video games.  Now, this never really bodes that well for a piece of content in the TV or film world, but it’s a fact I’m just going to ignore completely.  It’s my blog and I can do whatever I want.  Besides, I’ve never really played video games, unless you count a Gameboy I got free with my Halifax Young Person’s Account many many years ago or a misspent summer spent addicted to PC classic Rollercoaster Tycoon.

It’s the world of the Witcher that’s more interesting than its joystick-inspired origins.  Our action plays out in a mythical land called the Continent.  There are various kingdoms, a bit like Westeros, and a league of wise mages appointed to each, a bit like Westeros, as well as an array of fantastic creatures that don’t hold back in lettting you know where to find them, a bit like Westeros.  It follows, then, that The Witcher is good watching for anyone needing a Game Of Thrones fix.  (I will eventually cover this show, as soon as series one reappears on Sky).  And like that show, there is a fair amount of bonkbusting, though the nudity is mostly reserved to the female cast members.  Some might say the display of boobs is gratuitous, particularly the episode where Yennefer seems to be without a top for the majority of the time, but if you’re looking to titillate (quite literally) video games fans, then lady nipple counting is sadly par for the course.  Fans of man-mountain Cavill won’t be disappointed either, though, as he does have a few baths you can watch him doing.

It’s all good, sexy fun.  But, primary among the conversations I’ve found myself in is the slight gripe that the narrative unfolds across the eight episodes with little regard to chronology.  It’s not a spoiler to say this, but it is fun to compare among other viewers at what stage the realisation dawned that we weren’t watching our Witcher in sequence.  As such, the best viewing technique is a meditative state.  Don’t worry about what’s happening when, and just focus on it happening.  Afterwards, your brain will rearrange everything.  Similarly, the confusion can be compounded by the enormous cast of creatively named characters, not to mention the various allusions to kingdoms, geographical features, monsters, other races, spells and histories, all of which enrich the programme if you manage to resist worrying that you can’t remember what any of it is about.

The truth is, it is about stuff, and it comes closer and closer together before leaving the ending open for more Witcher watching.  Alongside our narrative around Cavill’s character (Geralt of Rivia) which gradually unpacks the questions of: who is he, why is he so grumpy, and how come he’s growling all of his lines (nobody knows), we also have Yennefer (she of sometimes no top) who suffers in all sorts of unnecessary ways while performing a crucial role in the destiny of the Continent.  And then third in are trinity of leads is Ciri, a young princess who basically runs about causing trouble (while seeming inconsistently affected by cold temperatures) and is, therefore, kind of annoying.  All are linked (surprise!) but they’re about to find out it’s not so easy doing the right thing in the Continent (this is an obscure South Park reference by the way).

Despite this rinsing, it’s a double-thumbs-up, watch-this-right-now recommendation for The Witcher.  You’ve got great production values, an imagination-rich world and mythology, a novel approach to storytelling and a decent narrative that you want to find out more about.  The world has shown a huge appetite for this kind of fantasy fare, so this is a welcome contribution to the canon.  Just like Cavill’s Witcher won’t ever be able to slay all the monsters, you won’t ever be able to watch all of Netflix.  But get this boxset completed and you’ll be in good stead for the standard office question: “Watching anything good at the moment?”