Two new US dramas: dismissed



This was rubbish.



And so was this. That's a relief. We've got enough things to watch as it is.

. . . There will be people out there, perhaps a great many, who will think of you as a hero. I just don't for a moment want you thinking I'll be one of them.



Friday night gives you Wings

Green Wing, Channel 4, 9pm
The West Wing, More4, 10pm
A purely coincidental constellation of programmes, but both leaders in their field: a British comedy that's original and addictive and way too long, and a US drama that's impeccable and intelligent and doomed. Episode 2 of Green Wing was a massive improvement on last week's shaky first. Though some plot percolates - Caroline's unrequited love for Mac, Sue's covert self-impregnation with Mac's sperm, Martin's romance with Karen - it's the interaction of the characters that keeps it ticking over. There is no narrative arc with Boyce's baiting of Dr Statham, but it continues to entertain. (Incidentally, Mark Heap provided some tip-top physical comedy this week when confiscating Boyce's "potty putty" - harking back to his physical cabaret roots in the Two Marks, who used to juggle and unicycle in the old school Arts Council style.) I know it's not to everyone's taste, but the sheer stupidity of Sue wearing a large squirrel head reminds me of the penguin wandering the corridors in Gregory's Girl and that can be no bad thing.

The West Wing is, of course, dying before our eyes, playing out its final series in grand style. As Bartlett's presidency winds down and his hair whitens, the Santos campaign takes centre stage. This is OK, but it leaves me, as a big fan of Will and CJ and Toby and Margaret and Kate and even Annabeth, with little to hang on to, which is why last night's episode, the melancholy number 5, Here Today was a tonic. More White House-based, it was all about the revelation of who leaked the NASA story to the New York Times (deliberate shades of Plamegate). If you don't want to know the answer (and they dummied me), LOOK AWAY NOW . . .

It was Toby. They handled it brilliantly, by whom I mean writer Peter Noah and writer-turned-director Alex Graves (who really threw some shapes, framing simple stuff like Toby and Babish in an incredibly dramatic way, with deep focus throughout - you never really notice the direction, it just moves along at a lick and never misses a corner, but this episode had a real Hopper-esque beauty, if that doesn't sound too pretentious). I was actually starting to nod off midway through, thanks to a general grief-linked tiredness, but when Toby was summoned, against counsel's wishes, to see the President, I sat bolt upright. How will we live without this magnificent programme? I may have to start watching it again from the beginning.

The Apprentice: Week Seven

[SPOILER ALERT! . . .]

I'm remembering the visceral excitement from last year when you get down to the last eight. Sharon and Michelle, once almost an interchangeable double act, were split up, on account of Michelle not having been Project Manager. In a neat piece of choreography for the fashion task, she and Tuan (the only other PM virgin) were made captains, with the team of three getting to choose who they'd most like to work under, putting Michelle in charge of my-personal-favourite-again Ruth, the all-too-genial Ansell and plank-walking Samuel.

Meanwhile, smooth-talking Syed, ineffectual Tuan and cocky Paul got to patronise Sharon, even though she was the only one with fashion experience. They sidelined her when choosing their lines for the Top Shop sell-off, and Tuan's negotiating genius ensured that they somehow managed to allow Ruth to take exactly which lines her team wanted (the catwalk-hot "Gothic" and "Admiralty", a word very few of them could actually say), while he came away with seconds. Now that's what I call sleight of mouth. (To use the correct pronunciation of his name, it was a case of, "Tuan" - "You certainly have been".) This put Sharon into a sulk, which Syed complained was bad for morale, and when they finally got to the shop floor, she quite understandably took her ball home and refused to make any fashion decisions for useless Tuan. "I don't know" - that is his catchphrase.

Treats from the task itself included Michelle skiving off in the VIP area and selling a thirty quid skirt to three timewasting French tourists after an hour and a half of buttering them up and feeding them miniature bottles of champagne; Ruth once again proving her licks in the cold, hard act of selling shit to people; Syed ogling a seemingly willing female customer in the pink changing rooms; Ansell and Samuel in their New Romantic scarves (that is so not a good look!); Syed annoying Paul with his "fucking skinny jeans"; toad-like Top Shop boss Philip Green gracing the shopfloor and asking for a hundred quid's worth of outfit - while Ansell fucked about, Ruth admirably came up with one and was then criticised because it only came to sixty-six quid. This bit was worth the price of admission just to see Sir Alan in a state of awe in the presence of the retail king.

Again, a few quid separated the two teams in the final count, and Michelle's team lost. The victors went off to a country house hotel for hot tubs and clay pidgeon shooting, a prize presumably tainted for Sharon, who must surely despise every one of the three blokes she had to spend it with, despite Syed's pathetic attempt at peacemaking, his toast conceding that she looked very glamorous in her dress. (Actually, for a fashion "expert", poor Sharon looks quite horrible in most things she wears and needs Trinny and Susannah to sort her out.)

Michelle should obviously have taken Ansell and Samuel back in to the boardroom for the kill, but, in an overt play for Sir Alan's sympathy, she took his advice and let Ansell off the hook in favour of her mate Ruth (whom he had pilloried mercilessly just because she didn't impress his boyfriend Philip Green). It was never going to be Ruth. As long as she's selling shit, Ruth is the only truly competent female apprentice, mirrored only by Paul. If one of these goes in the next few weeks, it will be a miscarriage of justice. I have even learned to like Ruth's boardroom bulldog scowl. We're in the groove of Sir Alan's sense of drama now, and if he gives one of the three a lengthy dressing down, usually the PM, it's always one of the other two who gets fired. Today, after a beating for absentee-manager Michelle, but with every justification, it was Samuel, whose catchphrase, "Can I just finish speaking?" was finally answered. Yes, you can finish speaking. In the cab.

There are still too many makeweights left. The non-micromanaging Michelle did herself no favours today. Tuan likewise. Syed, like a wounded and frightened animal, has stopped the flipchart bullshit and resorted instead to swearing. He'll take on any fucker in the house. He may have to.


Previous reviews:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six

Martin, formerly drummer with The Wonder Stuff, has died after a motorbike accident, aged just 41. In what is already a sad week, I feel upset about this, as I spent a lot of quality time with the band in the early 90s, on the road in Europe and America. Martin was a gentle soul, who was brave, sensitive and singleminded enough to consent to be interviewed specifically about his wife, Penny, and son, Barney, in Select in 1993. I don't think the rest of the band thought it was such a good idea, but Martin was his own man. Our thoughts are with his family.



You can post condolences here

Chilli
1996-2006




















I don't want to go into any detail. Suffice to say, we loved her, and we will always love her. God bless you, my sweet.

Two DVDs with an Eastern European theme


Night Watch
The most expensive film in Russian history, released there in 2004, where it broke all box office records, and in the rest of the world in 2005, thanks to distribution by 20th Century Fox. It's a cross between Lord Of The Rings and Blade Runner, a vision of the present in Moscow based on the notion that a centuries-old truce between Light and Darkness is about to be broken. It's visually arresting, with more camera trickery and strange editing than Green Wing, and the look of a graphic novel (even though it's based on a non-graphic novel), and you can't help but be awed by some of the showboat stuff, like the sequence in which the camera follows the downwards trajectory of a single rivet, popped from the panel on the side of an airliner, as it descends to earth and plops down an air vent, only to end up in a coffee mug. Sadly, such wizardry does not necessarily a satisfying narrative make, but it's a good ride. The DVD offers a dubbed version as well as a subtitled one. The latter has to be preferable, as what's the point of watching a Russian film and not being able to savour the crunchy sounds of the language?


Everything Is Illuminated
Not a Russian film, an American one, directorial debut of actor Liev Schreiber, but one that's set in Ukraine, as novelist, vegetarian and "collector" Jonathan Safran Foer (played by the big-eyed, upside-down-eyebrowed Elijah Wood) travels there, in his suit, to discover who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Actually, I've found out that it was shot in the Czech Republic, but the effect is the same: endless arable land, high sunflowers, dirt roads disappearing into the horizon, great fields of wheat, reminding me of that great Woody Allen speech in Love And Death: "The crops, the grains. Fields of rippling wheat. Wheat. All there is in life is wheat. Oh, wheat! Lots of wheat! Fields of wheat. A tremendous amount of wheat!" It's a road movie, and one that doesn't quite hang together, but nevertheless throws up some poignant and funny moments, thanks to the performance of Eugene Hutz, lead singer in real life with Gogol Bordello, who recently passed through the 6 Music Chart, as Safran Foer's translator ("Many girls want to be carnal with me as I am such a premium dancer").

Didn't get to the end of this film as we were tired out.