Tag: TV

Furies: Season one

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★★★½
“Hell hath no Furies…”

Not to be mixed up with Furie, The Furies or even Furies – the last of which also showed up on Netflix recently. Confusion seems almost inevitable (and I’m not helping, by largely recycling the tagline for Furie). However, those three are all films – two Vietnamese, one Australian – while this is an eight episode TV series from France. It begins with Lyna Guerrab (El Arabi) living a fairly idyllic, and certainly well-heeled life, with no bigger issue than whether or not to marry her cop boyfriend Elie (Nadeau). Things get upended in no uncertain fashion, when her accountant father is assassinated. Turns out, he kept the books for certain criminal organizations, and someone wanted him very dead.

Lyna vows to find whoever was responsible for her father’s demise, and make them responsible. That opens up a whole can of worms, as she has to venture into the domain of the Parisian criminal underworld, which is far more expansive and influential than expected. To a degree, it feels like the system shown in the John Wick franchise, with six crime families, working in different areas, e.g. prostitution, robbery, etc. who govern things and make sure nobody does anything that would upset their highly lucrative apple-cart. As their collective enforcer is a woman, Selma (Fois), known as the Fury, a hereditary position, passed down the matriarchal line, and she has the skills to keep everyone else in line.

Or does she? Because as Lyna enters the game, it becomes apparent that someone is out to disturb the balance of the system. Coming under the Fury’s patronage, as a possible successor, may not be enough to save her from the war which is becoming increasingly inevitable. As well as John Wick, there are quite a few elements here which feel inspired by Luc Besson in one way or another: the world-weary assassin who takes on a feisty young apprentice, for example, could be straight out of Leon. The fight scenes are well-crafted, slick and hard-hitting: I vaguely recall action director Jude Poyer as part of the Eastern Heroes crew in London, back in the nineties, so nice to see him kicking professional ass.

It does sometimes feel too over-stuffed, trying to juggle too many threads and characters. The script solution to any problem seems to be, throw in another subplot. The makers also deserve a demerit for ending on a horrendous cliffhanger. The streaming service have made no announcement regarding a second series: the show seems to have done reasonably well, but Netflix gonna Netflix. If that doesn’t happen, you should whack off a full star, since the way it ends is definitely not satisfying. But there does remain a good deal here to admire. I particularly liked the performance of Foïs, who brings a lot of nuance to a character that initially seems one-dimensional. The extended duration allows her to develop, though all told, it might have been better as a two-hour self-contained Besson flick.

Creators: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Jean-Yves Arnaud, Yoann Legave
Star: Lina El Arabi, Marina Foïs, Mathieu Kassovitz, Jeremy Nadeau

C.A.T.S. Eyes

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★★★
“The not-so Gentle Touch”

This was a sequel to hit series, The Gentle Touch, which had finished its run after five series in November 1984. Police detective Maggie Forbes (Gascoine) has quit the force, but had been recruited by Nigel Beaumont (Warrington) to join a somewhat unofficial Home Office group called Covert Activities Thames Section a.k.a. CATS, along with two other women. Their cover is the “Eyes” detective agency – hence the show’s title. They investigate various crimes and cases, mostly but not exclusively those which pose a threat to British national security. It ran for three series, covering thirty episodes, from April 1985 through June 1987, and was apparently fairly successful in the ratings. 

The obvious inspiration is Charlie’s Angels, in that you have a female trio, of different styles, solving crimes under the loose supervision of a man. However, the differences may be more significant than the similarities. While they do have different personalities, the clearest distinguishing trait in the British show is class, rather than hair colour. There’s working class Fred Smith – short for Frederica (Ash) – middle class Maggie, and upper class Pru Standfast (Rosalyn Landor), replaced after the first season by equally posh Tessa Robinson (Ward). It’s more grounded as well. Although the trio here do sometimes go undercover, it’s not an excuse for cheesecake, with them taking on the roles of women in prison, roller derby girls, etc. The CATS ladies are more likely to be barmaids or hotel workers in the line of duty.

You can also play “Spot the British actor”, with a near-constant stream of guest stars who you might recognize from other places, past or future. As well as Warrington, who’d go on to be the Caribbean commissioner in much-loved Brit-show, Death in Paradise, they include Ray Winstone, Lionel Jeffries, Charles Gray, Marina Sirtis, Peter Capaldi, Anthony Head, James Cosmo, Alan Ford, Ronald Lacey, Penelope Wilton and Alfred Molina. The last-named actually ended up marrying Gascoine in 1986, after his appearance. So that’s nice. The episodes are a bit more of a mixed bag. Some do a good job of capturing the murky world of intelligence, where expedience determines outcomes as much as justice. Other seem frankly implausible. 

Unlike The Gentle Touch, where the work/family balance was a key part of proceedings, we get very little about the trio’s life outside their work. That may be for the best, since Gasgoine is the most effective actress of the three, and things elevate whenever she gets the chance to do her dramatic thing. Action wise, it’s… reasonable. The sponsorship of the Ford Motor Company is kinda obvious, in that almost every episode contains several unnecessary scenes of them driving to or from places, but it’s certainly more credible and genuinely liberated than Charlie’s Angels. While certainly a time-capsule of the eighties (not least the hair!), it has generally stood the test of time reasonably well, and indeed, some aspects may have more resonance now. We watched the show on Sunday mornings, and that may be the best way to approach them.

Creator: Terence Feely
Star: Jill Gascoine, Leslie Ash, Tracy Louise Ward, Don Warrington

Griselda

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★★★★
“Calor blanco”

This is far from the first time we’ve covered films, series or documentaries about Griselda Blanco, the drug boss who ruled Miami with a lead fist in the eighties. There was Colombia narconovela La Viuda Negra. Lifetime TVM Cocaine Godmother, starring the not exactly Colombian, Catherine Zeta-Jones. And there was factual retelling, Queen of Cocaine. Now, we get the highest-profile version, made by Netflix and starring probably Colombia’s best-known actress. Albeit best-known for her role in long-running sitcom, Modern Family. We saw her here previously in the underwhelming Hot Pursuit, but this is a very different kettle of fish. Concern was understandable. Would she be up to the dramatic lifting required for such a heavy and complex role?

Yes. That’s the short answer. She does a fine job of depicting a character whose defining trait, in this rendition, is single-minded determination. It’s an aspect apparent from the start, where she flees her abusive husband in Medellin. Griselda arrives in Miami with her three kids, and little more than the clothes on her back. Oh, and the kilo of top-shelf cocaine, swiped from her spouse. Through sheer refusal to take no for an answer, she finds a buyer and convinces him to give her a shot [she meets him in Miami’s Mutiny club – Chris was actually a member there back in the day!]. When he stiffs her, she reels in a Colombian supplier, convinces him to front her 100 kilos, then creates her own market and network of dealers.

It’s kinda inspiring, weirdly. Early on, the series can be seen a twisted version of the American dream, where an immigrant can come to America, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and anyone can achieve success if they work hard. The reality is, Blanco didn’t arrive in Miami seeking asylum from domestic abuse, but fleeing increased law-enforcement heat for drug trafficking in New York. Not exactly what Vergara described the show as, depicting “How beyond all odds, a poor uneducated woman from Colombia managed to create a massive, multi-billion dollar empire in a male-dominated industry, in a country that was not her own.” You go, #girlboss! #slay!

Often literally. For her chosen profession here is thoroughly illegal, and the hard work involves ordering brutal violence against your rivals and enemies. This might be a cause for concern. But who are we to quibble? The makers have said they didn’t want to make a hero(ine) out of her. Neither did Brian de Palma, and yet, you can buy Scarface T-shirts. The market decides for you, and the way it depicts the violence for which Blanco is responsible seems more like an attempt at plausible deniability. It’s the usual double standard of Hollywood: making disapproving noises, while also depicting Griselda strutting glamourously out of the Mutiny, blood spattered on her cheek from a recent victim. 

Griselda has a strict zero-tolerance for anyone who thinks she is a soft mark because she’s a woman. Especially in the early part of her career, was quite willing to wield a baseball bat or gun to that end. Later on… well, she had people for that sort of thing. But as we head into the second half, things get progressively darker. Griselda starts to become paranoid, suspecting the people around her – an attitude not helped by her taste for smoking crack. She believes there’s an informant in her circle, and takes brutal action against those who she thinksit might be. Things peak at a birthday party for Dario (Guerra), her third husband. It ends in Griselda letting loose with her gold-plated MAC-10 (top).

The irony is, there’s no informant: just good police work. For on the other side of the law, the series gives us June Hawkins (Martinez, bottom), intelligence analyst and detective in the local police force. She was also a real person, one who played a significant role in the pursuit and capture of Griselda, being one of the first to realize a woman had taken over the drug trade in Miami. I suspect her role was likely inflated somewhat, in order to act as a counterpoint to her target: co-creator Doug Miro admitted about the character, “There’s a fair amount of artistic license.” That applies to the whole series, though I’m not inclined to complain.

It is a fairly straightforward rise-and-fall, charting first Griselda’s path up to the top, when she was earning $80 million per month. This is followed by the slow but likely inevitable collapse, as her business rivals and law enforcement catch up with her. We know how the story eventually ends – in a pool of blood outside a Medellin butcher’s shop. The series doesn’t bother going all the way to the end. It finishes with Blanco released from jail, sitting on the beach. But it’s not a happy ending, having just been told that she has lost almost everything for which she worked: three of her four sons have been murdered. Conventional morality wins out in the end.

In terms of production value, this is definitely several slices above the other efforts, even if Los Angeles stood in entirely for Miami (the latter no longer resembling what it was at the time). Of particular note is the make-up work on Vergara. It must have been a challenge, because events unfold over a significant number of years: your lead is, obviously, more or less fixed at a point in time. Initially, there’s little of note, but it gradually builds up, in a way that’s so subtle you might not notice. Until, by the end, you suddenly realize the character no longer looks like the actress. Though still rather prettier than the real Griselda.

I highly doubt this will end up being the final or even the definitive version of the Griselda Blanco story. The last surviving son, Michael Corleone, filed suit against Netflix, and reports indicate he has his own version of the family story he would like to tell. For now, however, this is the best adaptation of her life. If obviously skewed towards a questionable message of feminist “empowerment” which the makers wanted to send, Vargas’s strong performance holds the strands together and makes for a captivating experience. 

Dir: Andrés Baiz
Star: Sofía Vergara, Alberto Guerra, Martin Rodriguez, Juliana Aidén Martinez

Wolf Creek: season one

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★★★★
“The dark side of Crocodile Dundee.”

Here is a confession: I have never seen the acclaimed two Wolf Creek movies (2005 and 2013 – a third movie is planned). The reason was simple: I just didn’t care for ultra-cruel slashers from Australia. After watching this TV-spin off I might revise my opinion and catch up with them; if they are as good as this TV series I definitely want to see them!

So, what’s the story? The American Thorogood family is on holiday in Australia. Unfortunately for them, their young son is swimming in a crocodile-infested lake (who goes swimming in Australia? Don’t we all know their waters are full of deadly animals?). Fortunately for them, Australian animal hunter Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) arrives, right on time, to shoot the crocodile before it can attack the boy. Unfortunately for them, Mick is a psychopathic sadistic serial killer who kills them all before the evening is over, including daughter Eve (Lucy Fry). Or so he thinks, because Eve survives. As she is slowly nursed back to health, and answers the questions of the police, she comes to the realization that the authorities won’t be able or willing to catch the killer.

She decides to hunt Mick herself and take revenge for the death of her family. Eve is originally innocent, and carries feelings of guilt, since her family was only in Australia because she was recovering from drug addiction – she used to be an athlete. She has to learn to get along in a hard, merciless country by herself, and avoid or defeat the criminals, thieves and would-be-rapists there who pose a threat during her journey. Eve is pursued by the police, as she herself has broken the law, and also by a well-meaning policeman who wants to help her. Not to mention Mick who – happily slashing his way through unpopulated areas – has realized that someone is pursuing him and starts to play a cat-and-mouse-game with Eve…

I have to say that this series really surprised me. I had bought it based solely due to the cool cover photo and didn’t expect much more than a probably over-gruesome third-rate slasher, I mean, is Australia really famous for great serial killer psycho thrillers? Though there is the very good Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis thriller from 1981, Road Games. As a matter of fact, this short (six episodes) series blew me away with its astounding quality. When you read the above, you might be forgiven for getting the impression the whole thing will come across as a bit cheap in its storytelling, or the motivation of its characters – a bit schlocky in general.

But… it isn’t.

The best way I can describe the show is with the word “unpretentious”. That might sound strange. Yes, it is, at its core, a revenge story. And, yes, people are tortured and killed in cruel ways: when someone has an infected hand, you see him cut it off with a saw. But I never got the feeling these scenes were gratuitous or to make the blood-thirsty gorehounds happy. Quite the opposite: things like this are carefully integrated into the narrative of the story, and have a meaning that goes above mere shock value. I would almost call this story, about a serial killer tracking his prey across desert hunting grounds, decent and yes, even tasteful – considering how different this narrative could have been presented.

Most surprising for me was, though big game hunter Mick is always looming in the background, it’s mainly Eve’s story. In the beginning I wasn’t too impressed with her. She seemed like a bland, pale character, just a victim who survived a catastrophe. I was half expecting her to become the usual superwoman, who knows it all and can do everything better than every male – thanks, mister! But the filmmakers were smarter than your average Hollywood screenwriter and producer, who nowadays seem only to be able to create one-dimensional, flawless, conveyor-belt manufactured heroines. Eve does not know it all, she can not do it all alone, and makes mistakes – some really terrible. She fails and learns from it. She falls and has to stand up again. It alone makes the character better than almost 95% of today’s female protagonists in American movies or shows. Kudos for that!

Also, there is a second season, which I have not seen yet (it isn’t available in my home country). Given it has everyone’s favourite killer from Down Under again, but not Eve, I began seriously to worry about her fate. You really start to sympathize with her. Running away from the police in the beginning might be anything but rational, but as the series develops, so does she. You start to understand who she is, and she gets a backstory: she is not a random female character out for revenge anymore. She has these understandable feelings and more than once I thought: “Gosh, this could be going different, girl. You should be working together with the police. There could be common ground if you were not so stuck on the idea that you’ve got to do this all on your own!”

Then there are moments when she realizes herself she is way over her head, fighting insurmountable odds. She gets better at it, slowly, and the point in a way is about self-discovery. It becomes an odyssey for oneself, where the protagonist has to question when reaching the nadir of life: What am I standing for? Why do I do what I do? Is it really worth all that? Could I choose a different life? There are moments that indicate that Eve might give up her hunt. The series repeatedly contrasts her persona with other characters who have lost themselves, who may have been destroyed by this vast open country where you seem to be far from civilization or God.

Eve is repeatedly confronted by these criminals, or wanna-be-rapists who see a normal dressed woman as an offer, and experiences family tragedies that actually form the core of the narrative. She is not without help though. As well as the policeman on her trail who reluctantly starts to cover-up for her, there is a criminal whom she meets in the desert, an old Aborigine who fits into the classic mentor role, a colleague in a bar and she even gets a canine companion. Though the question always lingers while watching the show: Will she get her revenge? What will she do when meeting the man who killed her family? Does she even have a chance against an experienced, sadistic killer like Mick?

So, yes, I applaud Lucy Fry’s performance in the role. Thanks to an excellent script, it made me believe she – albeit slowly- becomes a potential threat to the seasoned serial killer. But also John Jarrat, playing this role for a third time, is incredibly good. Mick Taylor is a nightmare of a character, superficially charming, but essentially a disgusting sleazebag. Though it’s great even he has been given a backstory. While he kills the way other people drink their morning coffee, we get to know enough about him to deduce how he became that way. An episode tells us in flashback about a key event in his childhood that may have been the catalyst for his murderous doings. If this is believable is up to the viewer, I think. I like it they gave him more than the “Well, he’s insane” explanation so many movies and shows tend to give their killers nowadays.

Having Eve faced with what can only be labelled as a devil in human form, touches an even more ambitious question. It’s a theme that classic The Hitcher (C. Thomas Howell and Rutger Hauer) dared to ask. How much of your own humanity do you have to leave behind, to be able to fight the devil? I think it refers to the age-old Nietzsche-ism “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” I’m not saying how this “psycho thriller” ends, but I really, really recommend this show. Every episode had me glued to my TV, and I got much more enjoyment out of this short Australian TV show than I imagined. Also, I think it’s far superior to your average American product playing in the same genre pool.

I really feel I should get my hands on season 2, even though the main actress won’t be back. Also, I look forward to the third movie – and I wish you happy hunting! 😉

Creator: Greg McLean
Star: Lucy Fry, John Jarratt, Dustin Clare, Jessica Tovey 

Against the Ropes

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★★½
“More soap than opera.”

In one of the odder remakes I’ve seen in a while, this is a repurposing of the French 2013 film, Les reines du ring, which translates as “Queens of the Ring”. The core concept is retained, but the location is changed from France to Mexico, and the idea is expanded to a ten-part series. These changes make for a bit of a mixed blessing. Pro wrestling is certainly a more well-established part of the cultural landscape in Mexico, where lucha libre is extremely popular. On the other hand, the multiplication of the running time a factor of about four, leads to the necessary injection of superfluous storylines, which definitely reduced the entertainment value as far as I was concerned. It’s less a wrestling soap-opera, than a soap-opera with wrestling in it.

It begins with Ángela (Sánchez) getting out of jail, after a largely unwarranted six-year sentence for drug possession. While she’s been in jail, daughter Rocío (Santiago) has been living with her grandmother, but has been spending increasing time with her father, Lalo (Jimenez). He runs a local wrestling arena, and his girlfriend is the woman’s champion, Candy Caramelo (Gruber). Rocio has no interest in re-connecting with her mother, and Ángela ends up breaking out the old family business; her long-gone father was a star. She secretly becomes masked wrestler Novia Negra – the Bride in Black – to win back Rocio’s affection. But Candy is not impressed by this new rival, in either the ring or her family life.

If this had been it, I feel things would have been entertaining, though I admit it would have been tough to stretch that plot-line out over eight episodes. The makers prefer to throw in a slew of additional storylines, of varying effectiveness. Ángela seeking for the truth behind the knapsack which got her sent to prison. Rocio’s trouble at school, with bullies and a boy she likes. Hell, even Ángela’s mother gets a subplot in which she finds romance with the owner of the bridal store for whom her daughter works. There are times when it feels like there’s barely a mention of lucha libre over an entire episode. GLOW did a much better job of striking a balance between character development and sports entertainment.

This is a shame, since there are some interesting quirks here. GLOW never pretended wrestling was anything but predetermined. This show firmly keeps “kayfabe” – the illusion that what goes on in the ring is real. I don’t mean that Candy and Ángela are pretending to dislike each other: that’s genuine enough. But the battles between Candy and Novia are not carefully choreographed spectacles of athleticism, they’re presented as “real fights”. I’d love to have seen more exploration of this, and considerably less of Rocio’s pre-teen angst. To be frank, who cares if she has had her first period? I know I didn’t. Wrestling has been described as “soap-opera on steroids.” This show feels in need of an injection of PEDs.

Showrunner: Fernando Sariñana
Star: Caraly Sánchez, Scarlet Gruber, Alisson Santiago, Cuauhtli Jimenez
a.k.a. Contra las cuerdas

Who Is Erin Carter?

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★★★★
“Discipline isn’t an issue in Ms. Carter’s class.”

Okay, I will admit that this strained credibility on a number of occasions, to the point that buttons were popping off its shirt. But I don’t think the makers were exactly going for gritty realism, and the bottom line is: I enjoyed this a lot. Certainly, more so than Special Ops: Lioness, another limited series which we were watching concurrently. To at least partially address the question posed by the title, Eric Carter (Ahmad) is a supply teacher working in a Spanish school. She lives with her partner, Jordi (Teale), and their somewhat disabled daughter, Harper (Watson). But at the supermarket, Erin foils a robbery in order to save Harper, and it becomes very clear that her skills are not limited to the arena of education.

Turns out, Erin has a past, and the publicity resulting from her impromptu heroism brings it to visit. She finds herself embroiled in murder, organized crime and police corruption, as well as more normal familial drama, such as neighbourhood jealousy and whiny pre-teen nonsense. One of the seven 45-minute episodes is entirely in flashback (unexpected Jamie Bamber!), explaining the reason she changed her identity and moved to Spain, as well as why those from her history are keen to catch up with her. Even the spectacularly unobservant Jordi begins to realize that his other half is not quite as claimed. Her original explanation of a relapse into alcoholism doesn’t exactly explain all the sudden absences, injuries and unusual behaviour Erin is now exhibiting, as she tries to manage the escalating situation.

As you can see, you will need to suspend your disbelief, not least in the reveal of the big bad, who turns out to be a remarkably coincidental person, already in Erin’s life. But there’s a lot to enjoy here, such as the sardonic comparison between “Mommy life” and Erin’s violent and deceptive past. She can go from swapping bitchy comments with a school colleague, to punching throats, in what feels like the blink of an eye. I was also impressed with the combat scenes, which tend to have Erin using anything she can find around her, and possess an impact considerably greater than most TV series. Ahmad, who was in Les Filles du Soleil, possesses a terse fighting style that’s effective.

I admit to largely hating Harper, who is almost a cliche of the bratty, narcissistic and somewhat precocious little girl – admittedly, that may be the point. There are hints she has violent tendencies of her own, albeit this angle is never developed in the first series. The show escalates nicely, until a final episode where Erin and an unexpected ally end up going on the offensive, and things are wrapped up in a reasonable manner. The show did well, topping Netflix’s English-language chart in its week of release, and is still #3 at the time of writing. I’d certainly like to see another series, with this unexpectedly having become my favourite new show of 2023 to date. Though I’m still not sure of the answer to the title’s question.

Creator: Jack Lothian
Star: Evin Ahmad, Sean Teale, Douglas Henshall, Indica Watson

Special Ops: Lioness

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★★★
“Crossing the Lion…”

If 2023 has been underwhelming on the theatrical front (to put it mildly), the various streaming services have certainly had no shortage of entries to keep us occupied here. This one comes to us from Paramount+, and stars Saldaña – already known around these parts, most likely for Colombiana – as CIA operative Joe McNamara, who uses undercover operatives against terrorist groups around the world. Her most recent mission does not end well, and she needs a new operative. She finds one in Cruz Manuelos (De Oliveira), a young woman who finds herself literally falling into the Marines, as a means of escape from a tough life and an abusive relationship. After acing boot camp, she becomes part of McNamara’s team.

The mission involves adopting the identity of a young Muslim woman and befriending Aaliyah Amrohi (Nur), daughter of a very rich Arab. The CIA believe her father is a major source of terrorist funding, but he is very hard to find. Aaliyah is engaged to be married, and her father seems certain to turn up at the wedding. So it’s up to Cruz, in her new identity, to insert herself into Aaliyah’s circle and get invited to the nuptials, so that the target can be neutralized as appropriate. Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that. In addition, Joe has familial issues of her own, as well as having to handle political manoeuvres among the alphabet soup of federal organizations, all with a finger in the pie.

I feel the characters work better than the scenario, which leans too heavily on cliched elements, such as Cruz and Alliyah falling for each other. I rolled my eyes quite hard at that, though it does lean into the “men are bastards” narrative occasionally present here. Hey, it applies both to American and Arab males, so that’s balanced, right? The scene where Cruz got drink-drugged also provoked ocular rotation. Though I was amused when the would-be date-rapist realized he’d bitten off rather more than expected, when a bunch of pissed-off Special Ops people showed up to rescue their comrade. I also enjoyed Wagner, former ditzy co-host of game show Wipeout, playing someone who looks like she’d give Vasquez a tough fight.

The action stuff is certainly well-staged, with De Oliveira giving a good account of herself through the selection process. And, when necessary, as part of her mission – leaving her with some injuries that required a bit of explanation to her new friend. The finale severely ramped up the stakes, especially when the groom-to-be ran Cruz’s face through facial recognition software. It all got… a bit messy thereafter, shall we say. Though it escapes me quite why he never alerted the large security contingent present about the Marine in their midst. If a lot of this doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny, the cast – also including Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman – give it their all, and if there turns out to be a second season, we’ll be down for it.

Creator: Taylor Sheridan
Star: Laysla De Oliveira, Zoe Saldaña, Stephanie Nur, Jill Wagner

The Gentle Touch

  By

★★★★
“Touched by an angel.”

British television was rather late to the policewoman party. The first such American show, Decoy, had aired in 1957, and been followed in the seventies by Get Christie Love! and Police Woman. But the UK had to wait until the eighties for their first home-grown series. The Gentle Touch just beat Juliet Bravo to the title, beginning its five season run four months earlier, in April 1980. It centered on Maggie Forbes (Gascoine), a Detective Inspector who worked out of the Seven Dials station in central London. The show began with the murder of her husband, also a police officer, leaving her to raise teenage son Steve (Rathbone), despite a strong devotion to her career in law enforcement.

To be honest, it’s more character- than action-driven overall, yet that’s its strength, since it does a great job of creating people who feel “real”. Nobody here is perfect: everyone has flaws, and struggles to cope with life’s ups and downs. Maggie is the focus, having to operate in an era when casual disregard for a woman’s talents was the norm. Not least by her Scottish colleague, Bob Croft (Gwaspari), though he eventually came to appreciate her many talents, such as Forbes’s fierce devotion to justice. Fortunately, her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Bill Russell (Marlowe) always had her back, even if his approach means cutting her no slack either. But every episode seemed to have one or more great performance, taking advantage of the vast pool of top-tier British character actors.

If you’re familiar with British films and television of the time (and I basically grew up with them!), you will see a lot of recognizable faces. Josh Ackland, Enn Reitel, Joanne Whalley, Art Malik, David Kelly, Ralph Bates and even Floella Benjamin – now Baroness Benjamin, then playing a high-class call-girl! The show also covered a lot of social topics not often seen on eighties television, from racism to porn, yet generally managed to do so without feeling like it was delivering a lecture. There’s no denying its success at the time. This peaked with the ninth episode of season three, in January 1982, which was the fifth most-watched TV program of the year in the United Kingdom, seen by almost a third of the entire population.

The odd episode does perhaps teeter on the edge of implausibility, such as a largely ineffective cliffhanger at the end of season four, where a woman walks into Seven Dials station, armed with a hand-grenade, and threatening to blow herself up. Such excesses seemed positively… well, American. I felt the show was better when staying safely British: you could have a good drinking game, based off people offering each other a nice cup of tea. Speaking of which, Gascoine must have had a sponsorship deal with artificial sweetener company Hermesetas: Chris noticed the way she inevitably dropped a couple of their little tabs into her cuppa. Yet I was surprised how well it generally stood the test of time. Its age only occasionally shows, and most of its 56 episodes proved highly watchable, thanks to the solid characters and performances.

Creator: Terence Feely
Star: Jill Gascoine, William Marlowe, Brian Gwaspari, Nigel Rathbone

Decoy: The first American policewoman

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“Down the line, you name it, we’ve done it. Today, tomorrow, next week, we’ll pose as hostesses, society girls, models – anything and everything the department asks us to be. There are 249 of us in the department. We carry two things in common wherever we go: a shield, called a potsie, and a .32 revolver. We’re New York’s finest. We’re policewomen.”
   — Patricia Jones, Episode 1

If you asked people what was the first American TV show to feature a policewoman, I suspect not many people would get the answer correct. Some might go with Cagney and Lacey. Others might be able to dig a little further back into their memories, and come up with either Get Christie Love! or Police Woman. Maybe some would include The Mod Squad. But the actual pioneer dates back more than fifteen years before Angie Dickinson began patrolling the streets of Los Angeles. The honour goes to Beverly Garland, the star of Decoy. While now largely forgotten, the show ran for 39 episodes on syndicated television, from October 1957 through the following July. It was also one of the first shows to film on location around New York, and the footage of those scenes is a remarkable time-capsule of life in that era.

Garland was already a well-established actress, her career having started with a role in 1949’s noir classic, D.O.A. She was Emmy-nominated for for her work on 1955’s Medic, and  around the same time, was employed on a number of occasions with B-movie legend Roger Corman. Two of those films have already been covered here: Gunslinger and Swamp Women. I will not, however, be covering their work together on It Conquered the World… She later said of Corman, “Roger was always very professional, except when it came to putting us up in a good hotel or giving us a decent meal.” On that basis, the humdrum tedium of a television series might have come as a welcome break, albeit with a punishing schedule that offered little slack. She fell ill one week, during the filming of episode “Across the World”, and rather than pause filming, the script simply was rewritten to minimize her involvement.

With a lot of voice-overs, the style feels reminiscent of Dragnet, which had been a very popular show for most of the fifties. Each episode opens with a stern reminder: “Presented as a tribute to the Bureau of Policewomen, Police Department, City of New York,” and centre on the cases worked by Patricia “Casey” Jones (Garland). As the title suggests, most of them involve Jones going undercover in some guise. That covers an extremely broad range of assignments, from a photographer to a junkie, a nurse to a blackmailer, a high society girl to a prisoner. However, some of the episodes do not require such subterfuge, though there is a tendency for these crimes she is given for investigation to be fairly gynocentric, e.g. trying to find a delinquent father.

As well as the voice-overs, Jones would quite frequently break the fourth wall and address the audience directly – the quote at the top of the article is one such monologue. It feels quite groundbreaking, and is definitely helped by Garland’s commitment to delivering lines which, in other hands, could potentially seem cheesy. I was also genuinely impressed how gritty and, on occasion, dark the stories were, especially considering the era. Death is a frequent visitor, and the topics concerned get heavy, including drug abuse, mental illness and domestic abuse. While everything more or less ends up all right in the end, in that the guilty receive their just deserts, there is considerably more moral gray than I expected. Considering each episode is typically only 24 minutes long, they pack a lot in, and still manage to achieve a considerably emotional wallop on occasion.

Outside of Garland, there were no real “regulars”. The IMDb lists the next most frequent actors, such as Frank Campanella, who played Lieutenant Cella, as appearing in only three episodes. However, there were a lot of faces who made guest appearances, that would go on to more significant roles later in their careers. Those include Ed Asner, Peter Falk, Larry Hagman, Diane Ladd, Al Lewis and Suzanne Pleshette. They helped the show receive warm reviews, Billboard praising Garland in particular: “Aided by a versatile acting range – and a camera-soothing face which combines the high-cheekboned femininity of Greer Garson with the sexiness of Sophia Loren – she manages to be simultaneously a convincing New York City cop and the kind of girl who would make a charge account at Cartier’s worthwhile.” They proclaimed, “Not since Marilyn’s famed walkaway in Seven Year Itch has the camera ogled such a distracting New York pedestrian.”

It’s difficult to be sure whether or not the show was a success, operating as it did outside of the traditional network in the syndicated marketplace. The pre-sales appear to have been brisk with one bulk pre-release sale covering half of the $1.2 million cost for the entire 39-episode run. However, in May 1958, as production was drawing to a close on the first season, the plug was pulled on further episodes, allegedly because producers lacked sufficient funds to continue. The concept of a series about a policewoman would go back into the vaults for years, but Garland would continue her career over the coming decades, both in television and movies. She eventually became the go-to actress when a mom was needed, filling that role in My Three Sons, The Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

Her legacy in this show stands the test of time surprisingly well. While it may feel dated in a number of aspects (there’s so much smoking!), the character of Casey feels decades ahead of its time. There’s no fluff, in the sense of romantic liaisons: indeed, we know very little about Jones’s life outside of the force. The short-form approach just doesn’t have time to mess around with extraneous filler like that. While it frequently deals with moral issues, the show doesn’t use itself as a platform to lecture the viewer: you’re left to draw your own conclusions. Certain recent works could learn a thing or two there. She’s respected by her colleagues, and it’s no surprise Garland would say that women often told her she inspired them to join the police force. It’s a show that deserves more recognition than it has received, and with many of the episodes in the public domain, is ripe for rediscovery.

Wentworth

  By

★★★★
“Sheilas behind bars.”

Back in the eighties, there was an Australian women-in-prison soap opera called Prisoner Cell Block H. [It was called Prisoner on its home turf, but was renamed in the UK and US, to avoid confusion with The Prisoner] It ran for eight seasons, totalling 692 (!) episodes, and achieved a fair bit of cult status, mostly through late-night screenings on TV. Much of its reputation was based on “so bad it’s good” elements, such as the wobbly sets; a review calls it, “one of the most bizarre, violent, lesbian-fetishy-heart-warming dramas ever created.” The show concluded its run in 1986, but was never forgotten.

More than 25 years later, the concept was rebooted in 2013 as Wentworth, and enjoyed a renaissance. While also running for eight seasons, rather than trash (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you!), this version proved to be remarkably well made. It likely helped that the remake’s production schedule here was rather less frantic, ending at exactly 100 episodes last October. The show is currently ranked by the IMDb in the top 250 TV series of all time, and was sold to over 90 countries, achieving a worldwide audience, thanks in part to its distribution on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

It spawned local remakes in a number of countries. The Dutch was the most successful, running for four seasons, but Belgium, Germany and Turkey also took the show and recreated it. [Here is as good a place as any to mention that back in 1982, there was a male spin-off of the original show called Punishment. Though it lasted only one season, the cast included some guy called Mel Gibson…] Indeed, the Turkish one, known on Netflix as The Yard, was reviewed here in August 2020. That review began, “I really must get round to reviewing Wentworth.” And eighteen months later, here we are…

It’s a show I’ve thought about covering on a number of occasions over its run, but now that it’s finished, I feel I can finally do it justice. I definitely can’t argue with the acclaim it has received. For Wentworth features a slew of extremely strong female characters, including one of the most memorable villainesses in TV history, and maintained a high degree of dramatic quality from beginning to end. That’s rare for a series; even classics like Buffy dropped off after a certain point, with commercial motivations typically surpassing artistic ones. Not so here, with the eighth series virtually as strong as the first.

One element, which it does share with its predecessor, is that the setting is the “star”, rather than any performer. I think this certainly helped contribute to its longevity, and sustained the show’s freshness. If one of the actresses began to feel jaded, and wanted out, their character could be replaced by another. The prison scenario meant there were always new arrivals potentially coming in, and scope for departures too, without excessively disrupting the overall structure. If you look at many of the ultra-long running shows, e.g. Dr Who or the many incarnations of Law and Order, they have a similar ability to rotate their cast seamlessly.

Not to say there weren’t main characters – many of them with the names and/or backgrounds as their “ancestors” in Cell Block H. But they tended to have arcs across three or four years; few lasted the full eight, mostly on the guard side. This timeframes was long enough to allow for fulfilling development, without getting stale. The first such was Bea Smith (Cormack), who arrives at Wentworth after attempting to murder her husband, following years of abuse. She becomes involved in the struggle for “Top Dog” status – the role of the most powerful prisoner – between two existing inmates, only to end up becoming Top Dog herself. However, it’s a lonely position, where you always have to watch your back, and allies can suddenly become enemies.

One such was the character mentioned above: Joan Ferguson (Rabe), known as ‘The Freak’ (left). She joined the show as the new governor of Wentworth in season 2, and was, to be blunt, a clinical psychopath, devoid of empathy and incredibly manipulative. She was also very smart, a lethal combination. However, it’s not enough to save her from ending up a prisoner in the jail herself. The first episode of season 5, where Ferguson is released into the general population was, for me, peak Wentworth, and one of the best 45 minutes of television I’ve seen, in any genre.

Remarkably, she didn’t just survive this reversal of fortune, but thrived. She took over as Top Dog. until an escape plan misfired, ending in her being buried alive by long-serving prison officer Will Jackson (Robbie Magasiva)). But you can’t keep a good villainess down, though it appeared the trauma led to amnesia, with Ferguson subsequently using a different name and with a completely different personality. Was this genuine, or another of her ruses? I couldn’t possibly reveal that. What I will do though, is laud a glorious performance by Rabe, who at six feet tall, has a remarkable physical presence, backed up by ferocious intensity. She’s Cersei Lannister on steroids. And without the incest.

In general, it’s perhaps less exploitative than you might expect, with nudity only when genuinely necessary to the plot, rather than for titillation purposes. On the other hand, the show does not soft-pedal the brutality of prison life, with violence and death a common occurrence. Inmates tend to handle their own infractions internally, the Top Dog having the ability to impose punishments for theft, deceit or, perhaps the worst offense of all, “lagging” i.e. talking to prison authorities. It would definitely be rated a hard R, purely for its authentically no-holds barred language. Boy, do the Aussies love themselves a good c-bomb – even more than us Scots!

There were, admittedly, times where the story-lines seemed to get away from the creators. A few threads did appear to be ended, rather than properly resolved. But considering the 70+ hours of television the show represented, such misfires proved remarkably few. The writers definitely had a talent for juggling multiple plot threads and keeping them all moving forward simultaneously. In the end though, it was the actresses (and actors) who made this show what it was, and which kept us coming back for the best part of a decade. If not our favourite show ever on Netflix, it’s definitely up there with the very best.

Creators: Lara Radulovich and David Hannam
Star: Danielle Cormack, Pamela Rabe, Kate Atkinson, Katrina Milosevic