Tag: TV

Xena Reboot: Yes! No! Maybe?

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xenaWell, it was a glorious 24 hours of hope, while it lasted. On Monday, the Hollywood Reporter wrote that NBC were “in the extremely early development stages” of preparing a reboot of the much-loved action-heroine series, which originally began in 1995. Producers of the original show, Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi, were reportedly involved, continuing a partnership which had also brought us Spartacus and the upcming Ash vs. Evil Dead – both of which included roles for Lucy Lawless, a.k.a. Mrs. Tapert. There was no firm word as to whether Lawless would have been involved in the reboot, but based on that track record, it would seem likely. Albeit not as the heroine, the piece saying “the new Xena would have to have the charisma and charm of Lawless and the smarts of The Hunger Games‘ Katniss as producers are said to be looking for a sophisticated and smart superhero for a new generation.”

This was certainly something Lawless had been keen on for quite some time. Just earlier this month, while appearing at San Diego Comic-Con to promote Ash vs. Evil Dead, she said: ” I’m pitching my ass off to make it happen, whether it’s with me or not… It’s about who’s got the rights. But that’s a piss poor excuse anymore… Freakin’ pay it. It’s better to have 80 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing. Don’t waste this opportunity. Reinvigorate that franchise… They’re fools not to bring it back.” Judging by the reaction in the media, Lawless is right: the demand for a Xena revival is clearly still there, and it wouldn’t be the only piece of fondly-remembered nineties television, with the Fox revival of The X-Files already being one of the most eagerly anticipated shows of 2016.

But, not so fast, those of you already strapping on the leather corset in preparation for the cosplay contest at XenaCon next year. For no sooner had the seed been planted, then the earth on which it was sown was strewn with cruel salt:


Pardon me, if I sob gently into my Gabrielle-shaped pillow for a bit. :) Though it’s kinda odd, because the Reporter piece definitely seemed like it was a good deal more than a “rumor”, with meat on its bones, though did acknowledge the development was still in the extremely early stages. One wonders whether the story was, perhaps, a trial balloon of sorts, sent up to see whether the public were enthusiastic about the potential, or whether it was greeted with derisive rolling of the eyes. That question seems to have been answered in the positive, and it would certainly fill a niche for action-heroines on network television, which right now appears virtually to begin and end with Agent Carter and Covert Affairs. But let’s not forget, NBC are also the network which got as far as the Wonder Woman pilot, with Adrienne Palicki, and that never even (officially) aired. There’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip.

If the idea does progress, the issue could then become one of casting. There is, obviously, a strong groundswell of support from the existing fanbase to have Lawless and Renee O’Connor [who has been quiet on the whole thing] reprise their roles, even though they are aged 47 and 44 respectively. While not “past it” – Vin Diesel, say, is 48, or the Rock is 43 – this is a full two decades older than they were when they started the series. Lawless has acknowledged this, saying she thinks it’d be funny for the reboot to have a “middle-aged Xena in a muumuu with a bad attitude and a smoking habit.” Hmm. It might be funny as a one-0ff, but not sure there is exactly much staying power in that idea! Who I would like to see take over, and it would also provide a nice sense of continuity, is Zoe Bell, who was Lawless’s stunt stand-in in the show. Performances in the like of Raze have shown her capable of holding her own on the screen; and think of the money they’d save in doubles…

We’ll see what develops. I’d like to see it, but have to say, my re-viewing of the series has been a bit like binge-watching Monty Python: yes, there were some absolute classics, but your brain kinda forgets all the filler and other, lower-quality stuff in between those gems. The potential is there, sure, yet also the potential for a fond memory of my younger days to be shredded. For an example, look no further than the Charlie’s Angels reboot? Enough said.

Agent Carter: Season one

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★★½

“Well short of Marvel-ous”

agentcarter01I read somewhere, that this was Marvel’s 20th media entry, between films, TV series, etc. and the very first to feature a female lead. To be blunt: it shows. Just because your series is set in the forties, does not mean it also has to perpetuate the attitudes of the time: the tagline for the teaser was “Sometimes the best man for the job…is a woman”, which is about four decades past its expiration date. Another example: right the way through to the end, the opening, “previously on” montage included a clip of Carter being told to answer the phones, even though it was entirely irrelevant to proceedings. But it does showcase the attitude present through the entire show, which felt almost apologetic about the entire concept. The series itself was basically a throwaway, feeling like a token gesture, given not even half of a regular order, being given a mere eight episodes to be shoe-horned into the schedules while Agents of SHIELD was on winter hiatus.

Given this short run, you’d think the makers would have wanted to trim all the excess fat off their storyline, especially since the period setting should free it up from the tiresome apparent need to tie all contemporary Marvel features into the same “universe”. Ah, but no. Instead, we get a lengthy thread, particularly in the first half of the series, focusing on Tony Stark’s dad, to the extent that Carter felt like a supporting player in her own show, just as she was in the Captain America films. Really, as someone who is not a “Marvel fan”, who can take or leave their product [The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy were both forgettably alright, and I bailed on Agents of SHIELD after a few episodes], I could give a damn. I was looking for a standalone story, not one that spent half its time apparently trying to tie itself to the apron-strings of other media entities. This may help explain why the show’s ratings plummeted, losing about 30% of its live audience by episode four.

That’s a bit of a shame, because it did actually improve over the second half. We got less of the “Hey, look! It’s a woman! In the forties! Doing stuff! Isn’t that just amazing!” attitude, and she actually got to investigate a genuine threat, rather than helping Stark’s butler bail his employer’s ass out. This uncovers a Soviet plot to train young girls as sleeper agents for embedding in the United States, which leads in turn to a plan to release a poisonous gas which induces murderous psychosis in those exposed to it, back in Times Square. This was much more interesting and entertaining, and it’s just a shame the show didn’t get there sooner, while the short order meant it ended abruptly thereafter, with nothing except a coda that I presume was some kind of inside reference. making sense to those familiar with the inhabitants of the Marvel universe. Which would not be me, so the only reaction it provoked was “It’s the Dream Lord from Doctor Who“, and I imagine that was not the intended effect.

The main reason to keep watching the show was Atwell, who fit the lead character like a white leather glove. She brought an immense degree of likeability to the role, and not having seen her in the Captain America films was not a problem at all. D’Arcy, as Stark’s manservant, Edwin Jarvis, also brought the right sense of outraged propriety to his role, and the pair had a decent quality of chemistry together, without the show needing to shoehorn in any unresolved sexual tensions. [Indeed, the lack of any real romantic interest for Carter was a plus, even if it was mostly because she was still pining for the missing Captain America] But beyond those two, and Bridget Regan as Dottie Underwood, a strong female antagonist, the supporting cast was largely forgettable. All the men with whom she worked at the SSR were basically interchangeable suits, and even Lyndsey Fonseca, who was Alexandra Udinov in Nikita, was given nothing much of significance to do in her role as a waitress who befriends Peggy.

agentcarter02The action, as you’d expect, was also very solid: particular highlights I remember include an excellent brawl in a diner, and a thrilling chase aboard a truck loaded with an explosive chemical. Atwell more than held her own in this aspect, showing why her colleagues’ relentless and repetitively dismissive attitude of Agent Carter rang false. But whether there will be a second series or not remains in doubt, with ratings that were short of the show for which it was standing in. Despite not having enjoyed this one very much, I’m still pulling for it, because there’s a severe shortage of action heroines on television at the moment and luke-warm success is better than nothing at all.  Though I desperately wanted to love this, I couldn’t, and can only hope for better from A.K.A. Jessica Jones, due to premiere on Netflix later this year. Perhaps Marvel will learn from the missteps here, and present us with a heroine truly worthy of the name.

Star: Hayley Atwell, James D’Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, Enver Gjokaj

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Sukeban Deka: season one

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★★★★
“String theory for beginners.”

sukebandeka4Probably the only TV series ever with a credit for “yo-yo coach” – Masaya Taki, should you be concerned about such things – I must confess to having thoroughly enjoyed this. It is, of course, a concept that’s entirely idiotic, but it’s executed with such serious intent that you can’t help but be swept along with the earnestness of the production. There are no sly winks to the cameras here: everyone, but in particular Saito as Asamiya Saki, is deadly straight-faced about their mission. And that’s absolutely the only way this kind of melodramatic soap-opera (“Who is Saki’s father?), crossed with high-school angst and not-exactly realistic martial arts should be played. A moment’s acknowledgement of Otherwise, it would collapse under its

To start by filling you in on the background that took place before the show starts, Saki’s mother was sent to death row, after being framed for murder. To save her from being executed, Saki agrees to become “Sukeban Deka”, which roughly translates as “Delinquent Girl Detective”. Under the supervision of Jin (Naka), she goes into various educational establishments over the course of the 24 episodes that follow, uncovering malfeasance by those in charge and, not infrequently, the pupils too. But what distinguishes this from 21 Jump Street, say, is Saki’s weapon of choice: a yo-yo that pops open to reveal her official badge, but can also be used to knock people out, disarm them and even, courtesy of the string, as the equivalent of a pair of handcuffs.

For instance, the opening episode takes place at St. Anna High, where poor students are being bussed in to raise the school’s academic grade – but are then being forced to sit examinations on behalf of rich students, who are the ones that make the school profitable. Some subsequent stories demonstrate surprising social awareness for 1985, covering topics like bullying, competitive pressure and corporate bribery, but there are also more outrageous or exploitable elements, such as black magic, student-teacher relationships and high-school swimsuit models. Saki, however, doesn’t care, facing them all with the same expression of grim determination. Most of the episodes in the first half take place at Takanoha-Gakuen High, Saki’s old stomping ground, where the new queen bee is Miyako Yumekoji, who doesn’t take kindly to her predecessor’s return.

sukebandeka2In the second half, however, the structure changes. From about #11 on, instead of individual stories, there’s an increasing emphasis on a story arc involving a trio of girls, the Mizuchi sisters – daughters of a legendary Japanese industrialist. Initially, the girls seem intent merely on taking over Takanoha-Gakuen – though have no qualms about shooting Saki when she gets in their way. She initially manages to turn them back, but they then call big sis Remi (Takahashi), back from the United States, and she becomes the Big Bad for the rest of the first season. Saki has to survive a stint in reform school, and also deal with disturbing hints dropped by the patriarch of the family, that he had a close, personal relationship with her mother. [Remember the “Who is Saki’s father?” plot thread mentioned – that’s what we have here] Our heroine succeeds in taking him down, by broadcasting a conversation he doesn’t know is being recorded, and happiness beckons for Saki – unfortunately, Remi is having none of that.

Obviously, if you’re expecting anything like Go-Go Yubari from Kill Bill, you are going to be extremely disappointed. This is a television series, likely aimed at the contemporaries of Saki, and needs to be viewed as such. However, given that limitation, it’s remarkably engrossing, and does a very good job of telling a complete story inside little more than 20 minutes, as well as developing its characters. Sure, Saito will never be confused with Rina Takeda, but she gives it all she’s got, whether engaging in yo-yobatics, or spitting out her trademark introduction (something that, sadly, is also discarded during later episodes – even if it makes sense, given the longer story arc means she doesn’t need to introduce herself) with wonderful intensity.

The passage of this delinquent Asamiya Saki: what path of ruin do I follow? Now heading into the age of decadence. If I could laugh, I’d rather laugh. However, bastards like you, who don’t think anything of making students take exams illegally in the name of money… My soul ain’t sunk that low!

It takes a special level of deadpan talent to be able to unleash a slice of ripe Cheddar like that, and sell it with enough conviction that the reaction in this viewer – not exactly the intended teenage, Japanese, girl target audience, remember – is more “You go, girl!” rather than a derisive snort. It’s an interesting contrast to later entries, which had more of a team quality about them, with multiple yo-yo wielders. Here, Saki is a lone wolf, almost on her own: she has no parental guidance and Jin is interested only in practical help, furthering the success of her mission, rather than offering any personal support. The nearest thing she has a friend is schoolmate Sanpei Nowaki (Masuda), and he spends most of the show in a state of blithe ignorance about her real purpose. But I was particularly impressed by the final episode, which manages to kill off a surprising number of major characters, and leave even the fate of Saki and Remi uncertain. Subject to contract negotiation,. I imagine.

There are certain questions that remain opaque. It’s not quite clear how Saki becomes such a mistress of the flying cylinders either, or even why such a weapon was chosen. It doesn’t appear standard for the department, as another special agent shows up in one episode, and he’s entirely yo-yo deficient. Maybe such things are explained better in the 22-volume manga series by Shinji Wada on which this is based. It’s the kind of show where you need to have a willingness to accept such things for what they are, and if you go with the flow that results from the (admittedly, fairly barking-mad) idea, everything else will seem perfectly natural. While it’ll probably be a while before I get round to the second season, it’s something to which I am looking forward.

Dir: Hideo Tanaka
Star: Yuki Saito, Koji Naka, Yasuyuki Masuda, Hitomi Takahashisukebandeka3

She Spies

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she spies
★★½
“Spies Unlike Us”

Cassie: What a day, huh? Parachuting into a cemetery because the perimeter was guarded and it was our only way in, and exposing a deadly double agent who was trying to elude capture by faking his own death and being buried with an oxygen tank, only to be dug up later.
D.D.: We knew all that, you know.
Cassie: I know. I’m just saying it for anyone who might’ve been wondering why we’re going through all that trouble.
Shane: Who’d be wondering?
Cassie: I don’t know, anyone. Look, I’ve never told you guys this, it’s kind of embarrassing. Sometimes I get the weirdest feeling like people are watching us, like they’re listening in on every single thing we do or say.
Shane: Yeah, I get that feeling, too.

This series came out in the wake of the Charlie’s Angels movie which rebooted the franchise in 2000, and shares much the same combination of action escapades and tongue-in-cheek, self-referential (and often self-deprecating) humour. However, sustaining this for 90 minutes is a much easier proposition than doing so over 20 episodes, each three-quarters of an hour or so without commercials. What seemed like a deliciously frothy concoction in the opening episode, juggling the elements with some skill, eventually ground down to tedious repetition. Chris, in particular, hated the show with a passion, which is a little odd, since she’s a big fan of the similar Chuck. Mind you, since I can’t stand Chuck, I’m not really able to argue, especially since my arguments in defense of She Spies became more like token gestures by episode 20.

shespiesJust like Charlie’s Angels, this focuses on a trio of butt-kicking babes: in this case, liberated from prison by Jack Wilde (Jacott), who puts them to work in a quasi-governmental organization that hunts down bad guys while exchanging witticisms. They also share a house, which makes things very convenient for any of said bad guys, who want to take them out. The trio all bring their disparate, somewhat dubious skills to bear on the situations that result: there’s con-artist Cassie McBaine (Henstridge), computer hacker Deedra “D.D.” Cummings (Miller) and master thief Shane Phillips (Williams). The first episode is a fairly accurate summary of the basic idea: they’re assigned to protect a former politician turned talk-show host from an assassination plot, and have to go undercover at the studio to reveal the culprit [and given the target’s former and current occupations, there’s no shortage of suspects].

What the first episode does brilliantly – and what the rest of the series never consistently recaptures – is not so much breaking the fourth wall, as riding a wrecking-ball into it, repeatedly. For instance, the three ladies are introduced by Jack on a literal game-show, with him as a host. Does this make any sense? Of course not. But it doesn’t matter, since we are already on a show about, to quote the introductory voice-over, “three career criminals with one shot at freedom. Now they are working for the feds who put them away. These are the women of She Spies, bad girls gone good!” Take the suspension of disbelief that requires, added to the cast and crew clearly being in on the joke, and you can potentially manipulate proceedings in any direction you want, the more ingeniously whimsical the better. The universe is your plaything.

Too often, however, the opportunities this offers are squandered rather than exploited, and the plots became tedious rather than springboards for the imagination. Though there were still occasional moments of surreal genius, such as the trio pretending to be Swedish – which worked rather better for blondes Henstridge and Miller (“I like toast!”) than African-American Williams. Most of the time, the episodes largely have to skate by on the personalities of the leading ladies: that’s not a bad thing as such, since they all do credibly, with Miller likely faring best. There are also some very entertaining guest stars, beginning with Barry Bostwick as the talk-show host mentioned above; also in the first season are Claudia Christian, as the original She Spy, and Jeffrey Combs. However, there’s only so much emptily witty banter I can take, and the script-writers’ well ran painfully dry, the deeper into the series I went, for instance with the increasingly obvious use of money-saving flashback sequences.

The last edition of season one was particularly bizarre. Shane bumps into a former boyfriend who is planning to have himself cryogenically frozen so that he can be with his dead fiancee, and uncovering a plot by the facility to harvest body parts from their subscribers, in order to keep a billionaire away. I’d like to have been at the planning meeting where that idea got green-lit, simply due to the copious quantities of drugs which much have been ingested there. It possesses a darker tone, which is jarringly at odds with the ironic approach of the series as a whole, and supports the impression, generally escalating as the series went on, that those involved in creating the show had more or less given up and were phoning it in. I do exempt the four leads from this criticism, since they bravely struggle against the snowballing tedium of the scripts until the very end.

shespies2Even the action becomes relatively muted, and to be honest, it was never very good to begin with. And that is comparing the show to its contemporaries on television – say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer – rather than the Charlie’s Angels movie, which had the SLIGHT advantage of action choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping. This is the area where Miller is probably the weakest of the three, since she looks less like a brick-house, and closer to one built of straw, vulnerable to anyone on-set sneezing in her direction. While Henstridge and Williams fare better here, it’s still generally clear they are more effective in the scenes requiring flexibility and grace, than at portraying strength and power. All three sometimes suffer also from painfully obvious stunt doubling, though since this is the bane of TV action generally, it’s par for the course.

In the end, it’s a difficult path to tread, because the show [at least the first season watched for the purposes of this article] could never appear to decide whether or not it quite wanted to be taken seriously. Zap2It.com describes She Spies as “Alias meets Austin Powers” and, while that certainly isn’t inaccurate, those are almost contradictory and mutually exclusive genre entries. It’s very hard to be taken seriously, when you are constantly undercutting yourself with cool, ironic asides or acknowledging the silliness of the scenarios being depicted, and you probably shouldn’t even try. In reviewing the Angels movie, the conclusion I reached was “It works beautifully, despite its flaws, but it wouldn’t bear frequent repetition.” Twenty episodes of She Spies largely proves the truth of this.

The first four episodes in September 2002 were planned to screen on NBC, before the series was then bumped from network to syndication [while this was always the plan, it is snarkily referenced in a later discussion about She Spies action figures: “You wind them up and they dare you to find their time slot”]. but it only lasted three before being yanked. At the end of the first series, Jacott left proceedings, and the second run of episodes also abandoned much of the self-referential approach, playing things straighter. However, the new approach failed to catch on any better, and the show was not renewed beyond its sophomore season. Below, you’ll find the first episode in its entirety – all forty have been up on YouTube for more than three years, so seem to have at least tacit approval. But it’s largely downhill from this first show, folks.

Star: Natasha Henstridge, Kristen Miller, Natashia Williams, Carlos Jacott

Cleaners: season two

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★★★½
“Holidays in the Sun: Sex and Pistols.”

cleaners-season-2-posterWhile twice as long as the first series, at 12 episodes rather than six, I can’t say it’s actually any better. Indeed, I think the dilution of the main element which was so much fun the first time round – the relationship between the two, disparate hitwomen, Roxie (Osment) and Veronica (Chriqui) – leaves this season less entertaining. Yes, it’s bigger and more exotic: but it feels spread thinner, to the detriment of the core aspects. The story takes up shortly after the events of the first series, with V+R in the Caribbean, waiting to get their share of the money from Eileen (Missi Pyle) and Mother (Gershon). But instead, an assassination squad is sent to get them, kicking off a reunion with Veronica’s “parents”, a deranged killer who thinks Roxie is his dead wife, a rogue CIA operative who sends Frank Barnes (Arquette) after Mother, and so on. It builds to a climax where Veronica, previously injected with a lethal nanobot virus that’s about to go off, takes part in an underground death match at a cockfighting arena, to prove her love for the deranged killer. I shit you not.

It’s nice everyone from the first season apparently wanted to come back. But it wasn’t necessarily in the show’s best interests, especially with all the other angles being thrown in. Eileen, in particular, is entirely superfluous, adding nothing to the plot but occupying an inordinate amount of screen-time, which could have been better used, say, on better developing the thread of Veronica’s background. Much the same goes for Barnes, who is shoe-horned back into the plot, through frankly implausible circumstances because… I dunno, because Arquette fancied a vacation in Puerto Rico? It’s a shame, because some of the other stuff is potentially interesting. Discovering Veronica was brought up, almost from birth, to be a trained killer (perhaps inspired by Naked Weapon), was an intriguing concept, and I’d like to have seen more of that, rather than Eileen’s party girl antics. The most interesting new character of note is Mathilda, the last pupil at Veronica’s alma mater, who looks not unlike Uma Thurman, though the name would appear a nod to Leon. She provides a quiet, but no less-lethal, counterpoint to Roxie’s mania, and allows for a few Charlie’s Angels-esque riffs.

The action remains plentiful, as Roxie and Veronica are tasked with bringing down a local drug-lord, as well as dealing with the killer on their trail, and it’s a show that’s easy to binge watch [you can do so at Crackle.com, and it’s probably better there than through a device like Apple TV, which inflicts unskippable commercials, that get very old the tenth time you see them]. I’m sure everyone had a fabulous time making this; however, for me, it didn’t capture overall the same spirit, of not giving a damn, that made the first such an enjoyable surprise. It probably comes over as more self-indulgent than anything else – but still kicks ass harder than just about any other action heroine show this year.

Dir: Paul Leyden
Star: Emmanuelle Chriqui, Emily Osment, David Arquette, Gina Gershon

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Modesty Blaise (TV pilot)

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★½
“Modesty blasé“

modestyblaise1982It seems that around every two decades, someone decides it’d be a good idea to adapt Modesty Blaise. First up, in 1966 was a wretchedly camp adaptation, so bad I can’t bring myself to watch it again, starring Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp. In 2003, there was My Name is Modesty, which was a good deal better, but appears to have been a quickie intended to allow Miramax to hang onto their rights to the character. In the middle, dating from 1982, ABC took a shot at creating a TV series inspired by Peter O’Donnell’s anti-heroine, but it never went further than this 50-minute pilot. In it, Modesty (Turkel) and her trusty if no longer Cockney sidekick, Willie Garvin (Van Bergen), rescue a student from an attempted abduction. Turns out, she’s the last piece in activating a cryptographic device, that Debbie DeFarge (Seymour) intends to use to crack the stock-market. Federal intelligence agent Gerald Tarrant (Curtis) requests Modesty’s help to recover the device, so she and Willie head down to Mexico to stop DeFarge’s evil plan.

I think the kindest thing you can say about this is, maybe it made more sense in 1982. This certainly isn’t the Modesty I imagined, one whose history on the streets may be in the past, but is never entirely buried beneath the surface. Turkel is striking enough visually, and I was amused to see her rip open her skirts, the better to fight villains, but she doesn’t have any kind of edge or darkness to her character. That’s somewhat understandable – after all, American network television in the early eighties was hardly renowned for pushing the envelope – but, why bother adopting Modesty Blaise if you want something so utterly bland and neutered? Van Bergen is even more mis-cast: when writing the script for the original film, O’Donnell said he was thinking of Michael Caine as the ideal actor for the role, who is about as far from Van Bergen as imaginable.

After the moderately exciting opening, there is an awful lot of sitting around and chatting, whether it’s in Modesty’s house, or after they’ve been captured by Defarge’s minions (including renowned pro wrestler, Professor Toru Tanaka). The final five minutes sees a brief flurry of activity, as they try to stop the computer from executing Defarge’s buy and sell orders – though the computer in question resembles, in shape and size, a washing machine rather more than anything you’d see in a finance house these days. The cutting-edge technology shown here has not aged well either, with Blaise able to rescue the Western financial world by picking up another phone connected to the same line, thereby disrupting the device’s ability to communicate. Yeah, that degree of planning is not exactly going to get Defarge honored by the Supervillains Academy. Wikipedia claims Sparks wrote the theme song, but that definitely isn’t them on the pilot, and I suspect their version was for a different, unconnected attempt to adapt the show.

Should you be interested, I’ve embedded a video copy of the show below. Not great quality, but I can’t say even watching this on Blu-Ray would make it bearable. Roll on 2021 or so, and the next scheduled adaptation. We know Quentin Tarantino’s a fan, and Neil Gaiman as well, with the latter having written an unmade script based on I, Lucifer. Maybe the fourth time will be the charm.

Dir: Reza Badigi
Star: Ann Turkel, Lewis Van Bergen, Keene Curtis, Carolyn Seymour

Queen of Swords

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qos1★★★
“Leather, whips and lace – gotta love the type.”

In 1817, a young Spanish aristocrat, Tessa Alvarado (Santiago), returns to Spanish California after the death of her father and finds her home in ruins, her father’s manservant reduced to stealing. The town where she was born is run by militaristic governor Colonel Luis Ramirez Montoya (Pelka), who abuses his power, resulting in the miscarriage of justice and the poor living conditions of his subjects. Upset about the state of her birthplace and the murder of her father, Tessa’s path is revealed to her in a mysterious dream where her father comes to her and talks of his murder, his hidden gold, and of his “Avenging Angel”. She will take up arms to protect the people from the town’s governor and to avenge her father’s death. Tessa will do this in disguise behind a mask, becoming that “Avenging Angel”, The Queen of Swords.

Synopsis shamelessly cribbed from Wikipedia, but why re-invent the wheel? That seems to have been the approach taken by the makers here anyway, for their show which ran a single season from October 2000 through June 2001. The obvious, if unacknowledged, inspiration here is Zorro, in which another member of Spanish nobility, adopts a secret identity in order to defend the downtrodden populace from corrupt officials, etc. etc. Indeed, so close were the similarities that Sony sued Fireworks Entertainment, the producers of Queen of Swords, asserting that there was a breach of their rights. The resulting decision was murky: the court initially ruled the character was in the public domain, but later vacated that decision, and the suit was settled out of court, but it’s certainly possible the legal wrangling contributed to the decision to pull the plug on the show, after only eight episodes had aired.

qos2Certainly, in terms of quality, it’s by no means a disaster, and I enjoyed this more than other, recent shows which were yanked as fast, e.g. Killer Women or the Charlie’s Angels reboot. Of course, the central premise requires quite some suspension of disbelief: the concept that putting a little lacy mask on somehow transforms Alvarado and renders her completely unrecognizable by anyone, is nonsense. It’s not as if the town is full of similar-looking women, and she doesn’t even bother to change her voice. Still, if Superman can put on a pair of glasses to the same end, I guess we shouldn’t pick on Queen of Swords. What does work, is the interesting range of characters. Montoya is a bastard, always out for himself, but he’s quite a clever bastard with it, aided by captain of the guard Marcus Grisham (Lemke). On Santiago’s side, she assisted by her gypsy maid – who, like all gypsies, has psychic powers (I think it’s genetic) – and also by the local doctor, Robert Helm (Wingfield), who also has secrets of his own. These are all well-rounded characters whose interaction is fun to watch.

The action work is a bit of a mixed bag. Santiago was found at an open casting call, and underwent two months of training under swordmaster Anthony De Longis, who also plays Tessa’s fencing tutor in the opening episode. However, portraying the character required cobbling together a patchwork of Santiago with stunt doubles and other replacements, including Natalia Guijarro Brasseur, Roberta Brown, Gaëlle Cohen, Mary Gallien, Mary Jose, and even the occasional male for particularly difficult stunts. Again to quote Wikipedia, this “is exemplified in the Queen’s run up the hill away from the soldiers in Death to the Queen. Mary Gallien started the run, Roberta Brown performed the medium shot duel with swords on the hill, Tessie Santiago performed the spoken parts and was in the close-up, and Natalia Brasseur fell off the cliff.” The results are hardly seamless, and fall more into the category of competent than anything else, with the occasional moment that either impresses, or is painfully obvious in the doubling.

The shows did have some decent guest stars. Among the most memorable was perhaps Bo Derek, who played retired pirate captain (!)  Mary Rose, who is intent on seeing her son escapes a murder charge. She could, at least, do her own horsework, being quite an accomplished ride. David Carradine also appears, getting to wield a sword some years before doing so in Kill Bill, and Sung-Hi Lee plays another action heroine in a later episode, The Dragon, where she plays a member from a temple of Japanese warrior-priests, whose master (Burt Kwouk – not Japanese either!) is killed, and seeks vengeance on the Queen after being told by Montoya she was behind the attack. Elsa Pataky also has a regular role, playing the wife of a local landowner, who is having an affair with Grisham. Other guests in the series include Simon MacCorkindale and Ralf Moeller. Oddly, given the setting, there’s a high percentage of British actors in both the regular and guest cast, led by Pelka who, despite his accent, was actually born in Yorkshire – his exotic name is Polish, rather than Hispanic…

A few random other thoughts: I grew to despise the theme song, which sounds like a low-rent version of something by the Gypsy Kings. But the lack of over-riding romantic entanglement works in the film’s favour. While there’s a sense Tessa and Dr. Helm have an attraction, unlike certain shows I could mention, the storylines never gets bogged down in this ‘shipper drivel. I reached the end with a feeling of sadness that the show never quite did well enough to merit further season. If far from original, and not even the first female version of Zorro [which would be Zorro’s Black Whip], it was generally entertaining, with performances that were better than I expected. Even now, the legal status of Zorro remains undecided, and until that is resolved, I doubt anyone will head down the distaff version path again. Episode 1 is on YouTube.

Star: Tessie Santiago, Valentine Pelka, Anthony Lemke, Peter Wingfield

Cleopatra 2525: season one

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cleopatra2525a★★★
“After the apocalypse, crop tops will fortunately not be in short supply.”

When Hercules: The Legendary Journeys ended its run in January 2000, producers Renaissance Pictures looked to replace it, but instead of going with another hour-long show to follow the hit Xena, took the unusual step of making two, 30-minute action series. This was a break from normal practice: half-hour comedies were standard, but for shows like these, it was a format which had not been seen since the seventies. The second was Jack of All Trades, starring Bruce Campbell as Jack Stiles, a wisecracking spy for the US at the turn of the 19th century. The first was radically different: a SF saga, set 500+ years into the future, when robots have driven humanity, literally, underground.

Waking up here is Cleopatra (Sky), a 21st-century exotic dancer who got frozen after a boob-job went wrong. She’s rescued by Hel (Torres, who’d go on to cult stardom in Firefly) and Sarge (Pratt), part of a team fighting the robots, which are known as ‘Baileys’, their human-imitating agents called ‘Betrayers,’ and dealing with the anarchic and dangerous life beneath the surface, guided by a voice in Hel’s head, that organizes the anti-Bailey resistance. [In the original pilot, that voice was Lucy Lawless, but she ended up being replaced by Elizabeth Hawthorne] Cleo gradually becomes part of the team, being the viewers’ voice in the dystopia of 26th-century life, while Hel and Sarge represent the brains and brawn of the team.

cleopatra2525cAll three, however, were clearly selected as much for their visual appeal, and the 25th century is not short of beautiful people – it’s also quite warm, going by the ah, flimsy clothing worn by the trio. Cleo and her former profession fit right in. But taking any of this seriously would largely be doing the show a disservice, because it’s clear it doesn’t take itself seriously. There isn’t really time for that kind of thing, with each episode barely 20 minutes, excluding opening (theme song sung by Torres, a funked-up and lyrically altered version of Zager and Evans’ one-hit wonder, In the Year 2525) and closing credits. There isn’t much time for anything, in fact: both characterization and plotting remain about as scanty as the outfits. Hel is thoughtful but can be distant; Sarge likes shooting things first and asking questions later; Cleo, to be honest, is mostly irritating, coming over as both whiny and rather vacuous.

At least in the first series, the storylines don’t focus on the Baileys as much as I remembered. The heroic trio also find themselves taking on evil clown Creegan, against whom Hel has a personal grudge (for good reason), or psychic Raina, who can not just read your mind, but implant suggestions in it. The latter was a personal favourite villainess, played by Danielle Cormack, who is a veteran from Xena, having played Amazon Ephiny there. That’s true for much of the cast: Sky read for the part of Gabrielle, but also ended up playing another character, Amarice, while Pratt was Cyanne, the Queen of the Northern Amazons. Torres was on the show too, though not as an Amazon. Perhaps more confusingly though, she played Cleopatra – the Egyptian version, not the stripper one.  There’s also a considerable overlap of directors who worked on both shows.

Cleopatra is generally more consistent in tone: that may not necessarily be a good thing, as one of the joys of Xena was seeing it swing from mass crucifixions to musical numbers. It does make Cleo less suitable for binge watching, because the episodes exhibit a certain sameness that grows somewhat repetitive after a while: three was about my personal limit, so not much more than an hour, before the titular heroine started to grate on my nerves. But in the show’s defense, it wasn’t created to be viewed like that, and in 20 minute chunks, generally manages to be energetic and action-packed entertainment. Outside of the Raina episodes mentioned earlier, I particularly enjoyed Run Cleo Run, a take on one of my most beloved films, Run Lola Run, that somehow manages to be even more hyperkinetic than the original – though with a less kick-ass soundtrack.

Star: Jennifer Sky, Gina Torres, Victoria Pratt

"In 20 minute chunks, generally manages to be energetic and action-packed entertainment."
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Agent Carter gets her own TV series

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Agent-CarterSomewhat following up on the news from February that Black Widow will get her own film. Marvel Entertainment and ABC announced that the comic book company’s Agent Carter, will get her own 13-episode series this summer. It’ll be screened when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. goes on hiatus, before returning for its second season [we tried it, but gave up a few episodes in; our son remains a fan though]. Here’s the official blurb on the new show.

Marvel’s Agent Carter, starring Captain America’s Hayley Atwell follows the story of Peggy Carter. It’s 1946, and peace has dealt Peggy Carter a serious blow as she finds herself marginalized when the men return home from fighting abroad.

Working for the covert SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve), Peggy must balance doing administrative work and going on secret missions for Howard Stark all while trying to navigate life as a single woman in America, in the wake of losing the love of her life–Steve Rogers. Inspired by the feature films Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, along with the short Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter.

Starring Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter, Marvel’s Agent Carter is executive produced by Christopher Markus, Steve McFeely, Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Jeph Loeb.

AgentCarter2It’s largely inspired by the Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter short film, included as a bonus feature on the home release of Iron Man 3, though as the blurb notes, Carter also played a significant role in the two Captain America films. But her character dates all the way back to May 1966 (making her virtually the same age as me!), first appearing in Tales of Suspense #77. In her comic incarnation, Carter joined the French Resistance, fighting alongside Captain American and falling in love with him, before suffering amnesia and being sent home.

The film – and presumably TV – version is rather different, having Carter as a British agent. Atwell says of her, “She’s an English soldier through and through, although she always looks fabulous. She might stand there with a machine-gun shooting Nazis, but she’s obviously gone to the loo beforehand and applied a bit of lipstick. She doesn’t need to be rescued. That’s exciting to me – her strength.” The period setting is interesting, not something often seen in network shows, though cable’s Mad Men shows that it can be highly successful. If Carter gets renewed, one suggestion is the show will probably move forward a couple of years with each season, up until the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’ll cover the gap in Carter’s life between the events of the two America movies, the first set during World War 2, the second during the present day.

It’s also interesting to note that the series will be helmed by two female showrunners, Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, who created Reaper, and just finished a stint working on Resurrection [which we did watch, but vastly preferred the French take, Les Revenants]. However, perhaps most relevant to this site, they were writers and consulting producers on Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku, which certainly had a decent quota of ass-kicking heroineocity. I must confess, I haven’t see the Marvel One-Shot as yet, but this news has certainly inspired me to see if can track it down. Below, you can find a quick clip, to whet your appetite for what is to come on ABC this summer.

Cleaners: season one

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Cleaners★★★★
“Girls, guns and cars. Well, one car, anyway…”

Crackle is the streaming content subsidiary of Sony – it has been around for a while, but we only became aware of it last December, when a new widget popped up on our Apple TV. Think of it as a little like an advert-supported version of Netflix; you can watch for free, whenever you want, but you have to “pay” by sitting through commercials (during which the FF option on your remote is disabled. Bastards!). The library of movies and shows offered is based around that studio’s library, and has a number of entries for action heroine fans. Bonus points, not just for having Run Lola Run, but in the subtitled version; they also have Ultraviolet: Code 044, the anime spin-off from Milla Jovovich’s action-horror film, though that is only available dubbed. We’ll get to that later, I imagine, but the first thing to leap out at us was this original series, about a pair of female assassins. It’s certainly not to be confused with the Samuel L. Jackson movie or Benjamin Brett show.

The two heroines are Veronica (Chriqui) and Roxie (Osment, straying far from her Hannah Montana roots). Both are hit-women, working for “Mother” (Gershon), but that’s about all they have in common: Veronica is serious and almost OCD about her work, while the much younger Roxie is a party animal who shoots first and asks questions… Well, almost never. Mother insists they work together on this case, much to both their chagrin. This particular mission involves the repossession of a classic car from its current thuggish owners. The car is then to be driven to Point B, without stopping for any reason. Naturally, that doesn’t quite work out, and they discover an autistic boy, unconscious in the trunk. Turns out, locked in his brain is the key to $57 million dollars. Mother wants him. His dad, currently serving 20 years, wants him. FBI agent Barnes (Arquette) wants him. His mother (Missi Pyle) wants him. Now, they all have to go through Veronica and Roxie to get him.

Cleaners2There are six episodes, but they’re barely 20 minutes each, discounting adverts, and by the time you remove the credits, and “previously/next time on Cleaners” sections, it’s basically a single feature. Maybe I’ll get round to editing it together in exactly that fashion. There’s a hint of Tarantino in the fast-paced dialogue, as the characters snark back and forth at each other – my favourite line was Roxie’s response, after Veronica had expounded on some topic: “Jesus! What did you have for breakfast? Wikipedia?” Leyden throws on large helpings of style, which is something of an acquired taste: in the first episode, it seemed more of a chore than a pleasure, but as the show wore on, he either restrained himself better or we grew used to it.

The episodic approach doesn’t leave much opportunity to pause for breath, each part having to fit in advancing the storyline, developing the characters and, typically, an action set-piece, involving guns or hand-to-hand combat. For instance, the first episode has Roxie tricking her way into the thugs’ house, and opening the back door so Veronica can join her for a full-out assault. It’s a structure which makes for a copious volume of action overall, and these are both well-shot and assembled – the art of editing fight sequences is something I think is often overlooked. It looks like Chriqui and Osment both handled more of their own work than I’d have expected, though credit should also go to Osment’s stunt double, Mandy Kowalski.

However, it’s the characters which engage the viewer and keep them coming back for more. The two leads have a nice chemistry, bouncing off each other, and there’s a real sense of development as the show progresses. Initially, the pairing feels like Grumpy Cat being forced to socialize with an energetic puppy, but they both come to appreciate the other’s strengths, and the marginal tolerance becomes more based on respect. It’s a similar dynamic to the one we saw in Violet & Daisy, almost a big/little sister relationship. I do have some doubts about the plotting, which has too many convenient coincidences to be convincing. For instance, I sense that any such series of events with the massive body-count depicted here, would get a lot more traction than the solitary FBI agent who appears to be on their trail. However, this never destroys the energetic, pulpy and B-movie feel which permeates proceedings, and by the time the sixth episode finished (in a hail of gunfire, naturally), we were sad to discover, that was all there was.

For now, anyway. Because, the good news is, another series has been commissioned, and started shooting in January, so will hopefully be out later this year. I say “hopefully,” since Sony abruptly shut down Crackle in the United Kingdom at the start of last month. Fingers crossed that this isn’t an indication of wider problems for the company, because this is definitely a show that deserves a wider audience. You can watch the show online at crackle.com; it was apparently also released on DVD through RedBox, but a quick search of Ebay failed to locate a single copy. [Plenty of the Jackson/Brett versions….]

Dir: Paul Leyden
Star: Emmanuelle Chriqui, Emily Osment, David Arquette, Gina Gershon