Tag: TV

Police Women of Maricopa County

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★★★★
“More Mums with Guns.”

The second series of TLC’s “mommy cops” reality series struck close to home, centered as it was on Phoenix. It didn’t come as much surprise as our local sheriff, Joe Arpaio, is infamous locally as a media whore, who wastes no opportunity for self-promotion, and is a sharply-divisive figure locally, adored and loathed by about equal parts of the population. We wondered how long it would take before Joe slimed his way onto the screen: six minutes into the first episode, we had our answer. Fortunately, this was more of a blip, and our fears of an Arpaio-centered show proved largely unfounded [see the execrable Smile… You’re Under Arrest for how bad this could have been].

The series was an improvement on its predecessor, and not only because of the thrill of seeing local places [though we soon realized the editors played fast and loose with geography, consecutive shots often being miles apart]. The Florida show was actually quite depressing in many ways; seemed like the majority of crimes were a) drug-related, and b) ethnic. Here, there’s a good deal more variety: it seems like the sheriff’s office spent as much time serving warrants to deadbeat dads as anything [this is one of Sheriff Joe’s tactics to pad his crime numbers and make him look good, because those are piss-easy warrants to serve, compared to those involving real criminals. Again, see S…YUA]

As notable as what is shown, is what was not included. The MCSO are notorious for “crime sweeps,” which are much about illegal immigration, a massive hot-button political issue in Arizona, as any other offense. However, these have come in for criticism from civil liberties groups, and there was not a mention of these high-profile activities on the show. The only real coverage of the topic was in chasing down “coyotes”, those who smuggle illegals across the border. On the other hand, whiny, liberal media outlets such as the Phoenix New Times bleat “Can’t The Tourism Board Shut This Show Down?” Actually, I like the New Times in general, and we’re good friends with one of their reporters, but the paper’s politics are a different issue entirely.

But outside of the the “Ooh! Been there!” local interest, I think the characters here were generally a slightly more personable bunch. As before, it centres on four women – again, mostly single moms, which makes me wonder whether the job attracts them, or leads to marital stress. There’s Deputy Amie Duong, who is the “Shelunda” of the series – when you see her arrive, you know a domestic dispute isn’t far behind. There’s Deputy Kelly Bocardo, the token minority representative, whose three brothers (among her 14 siblings, apparently!) also work for the department. And there’s Detective Lindsey Smith, whose accemt appears to drift, chameleon-like, depending on to whom she’s speaking.

Finally, there’s Detective Deborah Moyer (right), who is completely marvellous, and the main reason to watch the show. A 19-year veteran, we’d be entirely happy if the show was 100% about her. While the other women occasionally seem very scripted when they are talking to the camera, that isn’t the case with Moyer: there’s a definite sense that what you see is what you get with her. While her policing style may not be “by the book” – in one episode, she basically arrests a teenage girl for failing to hug her father – her reactions are entirely natural and certainly had us nodding in approval more often than not. She just comes across as being very normal: when she encounters a young perpetrator, she tends to think about her own kids of the same age.

But all the police here are more interested in “justice” rather than the letter of the law. That’s in contrast to the Broward County show, where there was far too much entrapment going on: I don’t think the police should be involved in creating crime. It was also notable that the cops in Arizona seemed to have much more discretion. If you were respectful and polite (the New Times would no doubt say “subservient”), you stood a much better chance of getting off with a warning than if you gave them attitude. I’ll file that away for the next time I encounter law-enforcement here, though one speeding ticket in a decade hardly makes me a habitual offender. Still, if we got to meet Detective Moyer as a result, we might considar a life of crime!

What the show did best of all was make us appreciate that, behind the grandstanding, publicity-seeking nonsense of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, are a number of dedicated, hard-working officers who have a very difficult job to handle. They’re not Robocops, and so are both imperfect and fallible, but law-enforcement personnel are human, just like you and me. Being reminded of this fact is something that is never a bad thing.

Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles

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★★★½
“Could do with some more action, yet still more than acceptable.”

The double-pilot. Probably deserving of a place on the FAQ is, “Why don’t you include Sarah Connor?” The reason is simply that she was a supporting character in the first two Terminator films; one essential to the plot, that’s for sure, but clearly over-shadowed by her male counterparts in both movies. The TV series finally moves Connor (Headey) front and center, and also adds an additional action-heroine dimension, in the shape of Cameron Phillips (Glau), a schoolmate of John Connor’s who turns out to be a new model of Terminator, sent back to watch over him. The show starts in 1999, a couple of years after the events of Terminator 2, but soon shifts to the present day; it thus largely ignores the timeline of Terminator 3, in which Sarah Connor was reported to have died of leukemia in 1997.

The concept, as explored in the first two episodes, is very familiar: Sarah must protect son John (Dekker), so he can lead the human resistance after Skynet declares war on us. Skynet sends its unstoppable robotic henchmen back in time to take him out, but she also has an unstoppable robot of her own – this Terminator is more advanced than Arnie’s, being capable of ingesting food. However, there is further development, with the interesting idea that the future John Connor has sent back other humans, to provide a support network for Sarah in her struggle. It is only brushed against in the opening two hours, but may be developed in further episodes. There is also an FBI agent (Jones), who has been hunting Connor since her escape from the mental asylum, and her former fiancee, on whom Sarah bailed.

Glau and Headey both have action experience, from their roles in Serenity and 300 respectively, and they bring the necessary resilience to the role. Glau has a balletic grace and flexibility which helps make up for her obvious lack of size, and while there is clearly some body-doubling done, it’s mostly well-handled and the editing of the fight sequences is above-average. We also liked the deadpan portrayal she brings to the role. Headey does not yet exhibit the ferocious passion which Hamilton brought to her role, so that’s something we want to see develop, and we also hope they do not get bogged down and become a ‘Terminator of the Week’ show. It seems that time-travel may be a significant part of the story, and this would open up an almost infinite range of possibilities. This was a solid, entertaining opening, and fingers crossed the rest of the series can build on the potential.

The rest of the series If there’s an unfinished feel to the show, that would be because it was. Thanks to the writer’s strike, the final four episodes never made it to the screen, and the storylines will be incorporated into the upcoming second series, confirmed by Fox in April. While not perhaps the makers’ fault, it undeniably had an effect, basically leaving us to turn to each other at the end [which involved a car-bomb] and go, “Is that it?” The rest of the series, however, wasn’t so terrible, though it did feel somewhat stretched. The main plot threads were extensions of the pilot: a) the Connors trying to stop Skynet from becoming active, in particular through locating a chess computer called The Turk, and b) evil Terminator Cromartie trying to stop them. There’s also c) an FBI agent (Jones) who is trying to piece together the pieces, trailing both parties, and d) the arrival of Derek Reese, the brother of Kyle and therefore John Connor’s uncle.

The extra time available to a TV series does allow for expansion, perhaps most notably that Skynet does more to try and affect the past than just send back Terminators – it is supposed to be a super-intelligent system after all. On the other hand, the action elements are significantly reined back, perhaps in association with budget restrictions. However, I particularly liked the SWAT assault on Cromartie in the final episode, set to Johnny Cash’s The Man Comes Around, which I’ve loved since they used it in the opening to the Dawn of the Dead remake. Needless to say, that goes about as well for the SWAT team as you might expect. Glau is particularly good, with her character actually developing in unexpected ways, such as discovering a taste for ballet.

However, there has been a fair bit of sniping regarding Headey, comparing her physical presence unfavourably (the word “weedy” gets used a good deal) with Linda Hamilton’s. Said one such critic: “There are two issues here: having a toothpick-thin, feeble-looking Sarah Connor is a crime against the iconography of the character; and presenting a clearly emaciated actress as a heroine is a crime against women.” Headey’s response was blunt and to the point: “It’s a TV show, for God’s sake!” – and I’m inclined to agree. We’re dealing with a series about time-travelling robots here, folks. If you seek role models for your body here, there’s probably no hope for you. Here’s to the second series, especially if there’s more ass-kicking from Headey and Glau.

Dir: David Nutter and others
Star: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau, Richard T. Jones

Women of Ninja Warrior

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★★★★
“Proves that action heroines come in all shapes and sizes.”

With somewhere north of two hundred cable channels to surf through, a show has about ten seconds to grab our attention. When we spotted Ninja Warrior on G4 Tech TV, I thought it would probably be one of those anime series. I couldn’t be more wrong. It’s actually a sports entertainment series from Japan, where competitors go through four assault-course type stages, of increasing toughness. It’s pretty brutal; in the decade the show has been on the air, only two of the 1,800 entrants have made it all the way to the end. However, it’s presence here is due to the spin-off for female competitors, which is being broadcast, also on G4, as Women of Ninja Warrior; the Japanese title Kunoichi translates, more or less, as “female ninja.”

It’s gone through six tournaments since its 2002 debut. Most participants in WoNW are Japanese, obviously, but Kyra Gracie, member of the famous Brazilian fighting family, plus Romanian Olympic gymnasts Catalina Ponor and Oana Ban, have also entered – with mixed results, shall we say! It plays almost like a straight-faced version of MXC. The original Japanese commentary is sub-titled, albeit badly: even non-speakers can tell it’s often out of synch or poorly-translated, and sometimes reveals the fate of a contestant before it happens. The vast majority clearly take it seriously – though perhaps not quite as seriously as the men, where it appears half the contestants have built replicas of the obstacles in their back-yards, in their quest for glory.

The tests here, however, are aimed more at agility than strength, such as Domino Hill (top, right) a precarious test of balance on increasingly-unstable block. They certainly remain extremely challenging: the first tournament was so brutal, that only two competitors made it past stage one, and neither survived the first obstacle on stage two. Only one woman has ever completed the course, the “Queen of Ninja Warrior”, G-Rockets dancer Ayako Miyake, and she has done it an incredible three times, despite adjustments made after each tournament. That’s hasn’t stopped Miyake, who has whizzed up the final stage (bottom, left) without apparent problem, netting her the grand prize of two million yen (about $20,000) per show, and making the tiny (5’2″, 90-pound!) dancer something of a celebrity. She’d be great as Kei if they ever did a live-action version of Dirty Pair Flash.

As a show, it is simply phenomenally watchable, especially for such a simple concept. You just get sucked in, cheering the competitors on as they give their all, struggling against the fiendish contraptions to avoid being dumped into the icy waters at Mt. Midoriyama – literally, as the contests often take place in December, with the second enduring snowy outbursts! It’s such genuine emotion and exertion on view. Okay, some of the wipeouts are spectacular, in a “F___ me! Rewind that!” kinda way, but while that may lure you in initially, you eventually find yourself rooting for them not to fail, which is where it differs from MXC. High-fives were exchanged when Miyake cleared stage four for the first time, and we realised that we actually cared. Few TV shows – and even fewer “reality” ones – have ever had that effect on us.

Charlie’s Angels (original TV pilot)

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★★½
“Once upon a time, there were three little girls…”

I suppose my main surprise is how pedestrian this was. Action? Hardly anything to speak of at all, despite the credit sequence which shows them training as police officers. The story has them going undercover at a vineyard, whose owner vanished seven years ago, and is about to be declared legally-dead: his ex-wife (Muldaur) and the sleazy foreman will clean up…unless the daughter, also missing, shows up. Of course, the Angels play both a fake daughter (Smith) and the ‘real’ thing (Jackson) – the former is designed to be exposed, in order to get herself involved with the wife and foreman, and reveal what’s going on. Quite cunning, really.

Cunning, yes – exciting…not so much, unfortunately. It plays mostly like the TV movie it is, and is never more than fluffy, warm-hearted entertainment at best. It’s somewhat interesting to note the presence of David Ogden Stiers as another of Charlie’s henchmen, a role later dropped for the actual series, where Bosley was deemed sufficient for all normal purposes. However, the biggest shock is perhaps an unknown Tommy Lee Jones, playing a childhood friend of the heiress, who threatens to expose the Angels’ plot. He probably gets more screen time than Fawcett-Majors, who is barely used at all in this episode: she gets one real scene of note, an entertaining performance as a backwoods bimbo luring the bad guys into buying her land, on the basis they think it’s loaded with oil.

Otherwise, it’s hard to say why this became one of the most successful series of its time, running for five seasons and 110 episodes, as well as spawning [albeit twenty years later] a pair of Hollywood motion pictures. Even those expecting a full-on jiggle-fest will be very disappointed, as the costumes here are more functional than anything: the most skin is shown by whichever of Charlie’s babes is handing him a drink – and I have to say, the whole concept of women unquestionably accepting orders from an unseen Father-figure seems more creepy and patronising than anything else. The 1970’s were a different time, however, and it’s not really fair to judge work from another era by our own standards of morality. On the other hand, this is only sporadically entertaining and slowly-paced, and that seems an entirely reasonable criticism.

Dir: John Llewellyn Moxey
Stars: Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Jaclyn Smith, Diana Muldaur

Alias: season five

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★★★
“And they all lived happily ever after. Except for the ones who didn’t.”

Our once-favourite TV show walks off into the sunset – literally – and we are confirmed in our belief that it is very, very hard to keep interest in a series going past the third season. Especially if you’re creator JJ Abrams, who was missing, presumably making the very Alias-like Mission Impossible III; he didn’t even return to write or direct the season finale. It was, on the whole, a credible stab at trying up loose ends: Rambaldi, the question of whether Sloan was good or evil, Syd’s relationship with her mother, and the real identity of Vaughan, about to be revealed at the end of season four, when he and Sidney were in a car-wreck. This led into the main arc of the series, a hunt for ‘Prophet 5’, a shadowy organization intent on the usual things shadowy organizations want. As opposed to, say, the Alliance, the Covenant, K-Directorate, SD-6, etc…

There was also Garner’s pregnancy, which was written into the show, but obviously interfered hugely with any action sequences. Gone were the days when every episode would include Sydney running; in the first half of the series, we were lucky to see her in any kind of motion at all. As an alternate, we got Rachel, in a similar position to that once occupied by Sydney – believing she worked for the government, but actually not; she got sent on assignments in Syd’s place. With Vaughan also out of action for most of the series, another new agent, Thomas Grace, joined the team, but the kindest thing you could say about either was that they were forgettable. The aim was, presumably, to have them replacing S+V, but with the show ending, they became irrelevant.

Rather more successful was Renée Rienne (Élodie Bouchez), an interestingly ambivalent freelancer who straddled the line between working with Sydney and opposing her. We were also pleased to see the return of Anna Espinoza, a classic enemy from early on who, in an unsubtly rehashed plotline, gets turned into Bad Sydney. Enthusiasm for the show wasn’t helped by a long hiatus after Thanksgiving, but things rebounded as the show galloped towards its conclusion where the bad guys largely got their come-uppance. We’re sorry to see the show end – it leaves primetime TV without an action-heroine show – and there will be a little void in our lives as a result. But we’ll always have the DVDs of Series 1+2.

Star: Jennifer Garner, Michael Vartan, Victor Garber, Ron Rifkin

Bad Girls: season four

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★★★★
“Back behind bars, and back on track.”

badgirls4The real strength of Bad Girls is the almost limitless possibilities of the scenario; if ever things are in danger of getting stale, it’s easy to lob in fresh characters to get the pot stirred up and create whatever angles you want. Exhibit A: new governor, Neil Grayling (Gadds), whose arrival gave the show a whole new direction, at least among the staff – and particularly Jim Fenner, who discovered a whole new viewpoint of sexual harassment. Not that it really made him see the error of his ways, of course.

Obviously, within the general prison population, life went on as before. Well, that’s if “as before” means murder, suicide and escape attempts, a birth… And – with the departure of Helen and Nikki at the end of Series Three – new lesbian couple, Cassie and Roisin, though their whining grew increasingly tiresome as the series went on. Truth be told, there also wasn’t a great deal of light in this season; after a while, you yearned for something to take the weight off. Even the two Julies seemed on a downward spiral.

However, the strongest point of the show this year was the full-flowering of Yvonne Atkins (Henry), who has become the focus around which the series revolves, and one of the best female characters in any TV series. It started with her being set-up for murder, but by the end, we were aware there was much more to this fabulously complex character, underneath the hard shell. Every scene with her in it was a delight to watch, and kept the show a shining jewel in the crown of British television. The cliffhanger at the end (who lives? who dies?) had Chris scurrying immediately for Ebay, and series five.

Star: Linda Henry, Jack Ellis, James Gaddas, Isabelle Amyes

Alias: season four

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★★★
“Fourth verse – same as the first.”

Poor Alias. Shunted from its Sunday slot to make way for Desperate Housewives – which proved successful beyond SD-6’s wildest dreams – this season felt as if JJ Abrams was more devoted to his second child, Lost (again, the owner of bigger ratings). By the end of the season it was Sydney, Jack, and their associates who found themselves both lost and somewhat desperate in TV-land, despite much-improved viewing figures – largely a result of following Lost, which got about 30% more audience.

Replacing the arcane beauty of Rambaldi and complex plans from the middle ages, was what seemed like an endless string of long-lost relatives and associates from the more recent past. Careless of Sydney to lose all these, wasn’t it? And somehow we went back to Season One: Sloan running operations, with Sydney sure he’s up to no good somehow. Abrams said it was a return to the core concept of the show, but it felt more like a shortage of ideas.

Not to say there weren’t moments; most tied to Sonia Braga, Isabella Rossellini and Lena Olin, a triumphant trio of femmes fatales whose scheming reached Shakespearean levels. [spoilers!] Sophia framed Irina for putting a hit on Sydney, and got ex-husband Jack to shoot Irina – only, was it really her? [end spoilers] In lesser hands, this could have been one step above “and it was all a dream”; these three magnificent actresses undoubtedly saved the day.

What the series lacked was any real enemy for Sydney, up until the later episodes. Anna Espinosa made a welcome return, but the show felt like it was marking time at best, with a final “twist” that seemed to have been made up at the last minute, and showed little evidence of advance thought. Plus, all the action scenes continue to be infected with the jump-cut editing that made it impossible to tell what is going on.

There was, however, just enough to keep us around for season five. Perhaps the biggest surprise – and the one with most potential – was the deft touch showed by Garner behind the camera; the episode she directed was one of the series highlights. Given the disappointments which have been her movies to date, might this show a possible direction for her future career?

Star: Jennifer Garner, Michael Vartan, Victor Garber, Ron Rifkin

Sky High

  By

★★★★
“Life’s a bitch, then you die…then life’s a bitch again.”

Combining elements from Dead Like Me and Ghost, this still manages to come up with something unique, especially given its origins as a prequel to a popular TV series. It is designed to explain how Mina (Shaku) got the job as Keeper of the Gate, where murder victims must decide whether to forgo revenge and pass on, return to Earth as a ghost, or seek vengeance at the price of eternal torment. She ends up there after having her heart torn out on her wedding day by insane billionaire serial killer Kudo (Osawa) who will stop at nothing to save his one true love, currently lying in a coma. Trust me – it all makes perfect sense, and it’s a particularly nice touch that Mina’s fiance, Detective Kohei (Shosuke) is equally driven in his actions by love.

What’s of particular note is the continuous parade of strong female characters. As well as Mina, who starts off cowed and shy, but ends up wielding a sword with enthusiasm in her new role, there’s the existing Keeper (Eihi Shiina, the piano-wire wielder in Audition); Kudo’s secretary-come-hit woman (Uotani Kanae), who kills for him so that his soul remains pure; and medium Shuho Kamiina (Yumi Kikuchi), Keeper in a former life, who remembered her previous existence and retained the fighting skills. Any one of these would make the film worth watching; put them all together, and it’s a shame the film is only two hours long.

The resulting swordfights are longer on style than substance, with much posing before and during the battles, while the plot does rely too much on convenient coincidence, such as the photographer who just happens to be able to take ghost snapshots. It also seems that every other person has been a Keeper in a previous life. However, the longer the film goes on, the more engrossed you get in the characters, and the ending is genuinely quite touching. I really doubt the TV series could live up to this, but I’d certainly be prepared to give it a shot.

Dir: Ryuhei Kitamura + Norio Tsuruta
Star: Yumiko Shaku, Shoshuke Tanihara, Takao Osawa, Toda Naho

Annie Oakley (TV series)

  By

★★★
“One of the first TV action heroines; for 50 years old, better than you might expect.”

This TV series was Gene Autry’s idea; he wanted to give little girls a western star of their own, and created a show based on the character of Oakley, the most famous sharpshooter of all time. In his version, she lives in Diablo with her brother Tagg (Hawkins) and keeps the town safe along with deputy Lofty Craig (Johnson) – the sheriff, Annie’s uncle Luke, was somehow very rarely around… It ran for 81 episodes from January 1954 to February 1957; two DVDs, with five first season stories on each, have been released by Platinum –  you can get the box set of both for $5.99, which is a steal.

Given its age, it’s no surprise that this is certainly a little hokey, but is by no means unwatchable. The writers cram a lot into each 25-minute episode, and Oakley is a sharp-witted heroine, in most ways years ahead of the usual portrayal of women (though still afraid of mice!) – she’d probably be a better deputy than Lofty! It certainly helped that Davis, a mere 5’2″, was a skilled rider herself, and did most of her own stunts. However, this being a 50’s TV show, there are limits. Annie never kills anyone, preferring to shoot the gun from their hand, while fisticuffs are left to Lofty, though at least one ep (Annie and the Lily Maid) has an unexpected mini-catfight.

Perhaps the best episode on the DVDs is Justice Guns, where an ex-marshal with failing sight seeks revenge on the man who shot his brother. Annie has to try and solve the situation, and while you know she will survive, the lawman’s fate is much less certain as the four o’clock shootout approaches. In a series that is, even I will admit, often sugary and predictable, this has genuine tension, and that’s something which five decades haven’t changed one bit.

Star: Gail Davis, Brad Johnson, Jimmy Hawkins

Kim Possible: The Secret Files

  By

★★★½
“A semi-random grab-bag of bits and pieces. Coherent – no. Amusing – most definitely.”

This compilation puts together four episodes – three from the first season, plus another at the time exclusive to the DVD. It’s hard to see who this is aimed at: if you’ve not seen the series, novices may find elements, such as Ron’s naked mole rat, kinda bizarre (trivia note: the rat’s squeaks are by Nancy Cartwright, who also does some loser called Bart Simpson). On the other hand, fans will have seen almost all the material, and would likely far rather have seen a complete Box Set rather than semi-random episodes. They’re not even particularly highly-regarded ones: the TVTome viewers’ poll ranks only one in the Top 20. However, it’s still the smartest thing on the Disney Channel, and easily kept the GWG viewing panel (ages from 19 to forty-coughhackwheeze) entertained.

The first episode, Attack of the Killer Bebes, is the best, I’d say. Ron wants to be a cheerleader, while Kim’s dad is kidnapped by the evil Dr. Drakken, who has built three fem-bots in order to…er, do something. It illustrates the central idea of KP – Kim’s Sisyphean struggle to balance home, school and fighting evil – with beautifully surreal moments, such as Drakken’s quest for a phone-book to prove that Possible is a common surname. Downhill, the second ep, works less well; it’s too group-huggy, teetering on the edge of sickly. But the concept of D.N.Amy, a toy collector and crazed bio-geneticist intent in making live version of her plush pals, is enough to keep things interesting.

Third is Partners, where Kim is paired with the class genius for a science project, while Drakken and D.N. Amy team up, with the following immortal exchange:
D.N.Amy: ”But I’m all about cute and cuddly!”
Dr. D: “Have you ever tried vicious and bloodthirsty?”
D.N.Amy: “Do you think I’d like it?”
Finally, tucked away in the special features, there’s Crush: how it all began, though with surprisingly little insight into Kim’s origins as a superheroic teenager. She springs, fully formed, taking on Drakken’s giant robot and asking her crush, voiced by Breckin Meyer, to the dance. Overall, it’s a cute package, but you’d probably be better off starting with A Sitch in Time, and waiting (hopefully…) for that Season One box set.

Star: Christy Carlson Romano, Will Friedle, John DiMaggio, Melissa McCarthy