TV and anime | Thinking about books

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 22. Risk Management (2013)

May 17, 2013 David Marshall 2 comments

This review discusses the plot so, if you have not already watched this episode, you may wish to delay reading this.

I suppose we have to consider Elementary: Season 1, Episode 22. Risk Management (2013) the story of three women rather than as an adventure for the hero created by Arthur Conan Doyle. Let’s start off with the question of Irene Adler. As has been trailed for some weeks, this is the episode Natalie Dormer is due to appear. Opinion among the experts favoured the notion she would appear in the flesh and not by way of flashback. The explanation why she should have been involved in staging her own death is left to the final pair of episodes being run together as the season finale. Not unnaturally, the speculation is that she is Moriarty and that explains why Sherlock has twice been spared death. However, en route to the reveal in the final seconds of this episode, we’ve been treated to a despondent Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) eulogising the woman as the superstar of her gender. It seems she not only had the body of a sex goddess, but also possessed the aesthetics of an artist and, most usefully of all, a brain. On the receiving end of this definition of a paragon (except possibly the reference to a brain) is Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) who, as she forcefully points out to Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn), has not been blessed with a penis. She has to sit through this remarkably unromantic moment demonstrating just how self-absorbed Holmes is. Anyone with even a hint of empathy would hesitate before passing this message of perfection on to a woman who might just be interested in something more than a platonic relationship. That said, Watson seems to be holding up the reputation of her gender both with the work to show who had committed tonight’s murder and by refusing to be marginalised by Holmes — she clones his phone so she can follow him.

Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu before the breakdown

So far she’s doing her “stand by your man” schtick with considerable style. Whatever her actual strengths and weaknesses, Watson is determined to take the professional risks she thinks necessary to be the person she wants to be (not the person other people want her to be). Through her express role as a sober companion and now as an apprentice consulting detective, this Watson has become an emotional rock for this Holmes. She and Gregson are only too aware that this makes her a potential target for Moriarty. If she goes, the recovering Holmes could be thrown back into his pit of despair. Indeed, we see symptoms of collapse in the childish petulance Holmes shows when challenged by Moriarty to solve the case properly. So there’s an essential paradox in Watson’s role. Holmes fears losing her and, in a part of his mind, wants her to be safe and so seeks to exclude her from the danger zone. But the other part of his brain realises that, if she’s not there showing her mettle, she’s not earning his respect as a person. For all Irene Adler has been grated mythical status as the embodiment of all female virtue, she ran out on Holmes. Watson has refused to do that and is, at the very least, Irene’s equal — it will be interesting to see what motive the scriptwriters give Irene for leaving Holmes.

Which brings us to the third woman, Katie Sutter (Francie Swift) whom I find to be completely incredible. She has been in a relationship with Daren Sutter (J.C. MacKenzie) for more than twenty years and, for most of that time, he’s been depressed by the murder of his sister. As they approach the twentieth anniversary of her death, he becomes suicidal so this loving woman convinces him that a local man was the murderer. This framing of the victim is plausible. It would take the investment of significant time and energy to determine he could not have been guilty. Her husband does not feel the need to take the time. His drive for revenge is absolute and, when he has killed this man, the depression falls away from him. For the first time since his sister died, he feels at peace. Perhaps I lack a romantic spark but I don’t believe a successful business woman would arrange for her husband to kill a man just because it would make him feel better. Indeed, the entire murder element in this episode is perfunctory. I assume Moriarty wishes both the husband and wife owners of this detective agency out of the way and, wow, it just happens they have both planned a murder. How remarkably convenient and so lucky Moriarty can call on the services of Holmes to solve the case for him (after a little prompting, of course). It’s also nothing but a coincidence that the murder du jour is a moral message to Holmes on the practice of revenge. To say this is heavy-handed scriptwriting is an understatement. With on the question of the script, we should also note Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) had another line to speak this week.

Elementary: Risk Management sees Holmes relegated to sidekick status as his mind comes under pressure when tasked to solve a murder by Moriarty. I’m not sure the heroes of television shows like this are supposed to stop thinking clearly and turn into spoilt children. I agree with the scriptwriters to the extent that Holmes is a proud man, but the husband as killer in this episode seems a more credible character. Once aimed by his wife, Daren Sutter is completely energised and focused on achieving his revenge. Holmes is the exact opposite. He’s losing the chance to identify Moriarty until Watson solves the case for him. Oh wait. . . That’s the point, isn’t it. The two scenarios have been crafted as mirror images. Both men are weak failures. Respectively as a sober companion and a loving wife, these two strong women manipulate and “save” the men in their lives. The one so he can spend the rest of his days in jail — ironically an unhappy man because he now knows he killed the wrong man — and the other so he can be built up and knocked down by Irene Adler. If Irene is Moriarty, the canonical Holmes must eliminate her by going over one of the New York waterfall installations by artist Olafur Eliasson. Or Moriarty will kill her for real this time.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elementary, Francie Swift, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Risk Management, Sherlock Holmes

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 21. A Landmark Story. (2013)

May 7, 2013 David Marshall 2 comments

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Elementary: Season 1, Episode 21. A Landmark Story. (2013) and a red-letter day in another sense. This is the first case that doesn’t get solved in a single episode. One of the most serious problems with this series has been the perceived need for there to be a crime committed and solved within time available. Imposing this arbitrary constraint has led to some truly awful mysteries and solutions. Apparently, this is the first in a four-episode sequence forming the season finale which offers scope for some welcome complexity as Moriarty comes into the frame. This episode therefore lays the ground in a number of different ways.

Vinnie Jones is back as Sebastian Moran and obviously top dog inside the jail. His approach to ensuring no-one will pass on the contents of the conversation with Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) is pleasingly direct. No matter that he lacks real credentials as an actor, our retired footballer does manage to come across as magnificently thuggish. He sets the ball rolling by summoning Sherlock and passing on news of a murder dressed up as natural causes. Since they both want to catch Moriarty, this is the first crumb in the trail of breadcrumbs for Sherlock to follow.

We now need to reflect on the backstory. It’s been suggested that Irene Adler (to be played by Natalie Dormer in the final three episodes) was the emotional rudder to the Holmes ship. By removing her, Moriarty was neutering Holmes, sending him into self-destructive addiction. So if Moriarty is to pull the same trick again, Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) must have become his important other. This is not, you understand, a sexual relationship. But as an addictive personality, Holmes has partially built his recovery program around this woman. That’s presumably why we have this scene in the park. While staking out the killer bees, Sherlock says, “The thing that’s different about me, empirically speaking, is you.” Although we’re still at a level of platonic friendship, Watson’s reaction looks equivocal. As I’ve mentioned before, this is dangerous territory. If the show makes them a “couple”, this is likely to change the dynamic of the relationship for the worse. The whole point of the Arthur Conan Doyle model is that Watson was loyal but not always around. It’s also a relief to see Watson allowed a little more personal space. Even though she disapproved of the autopsy, she was nevertheless provoked into action by Sherlock’s apparent incompetence. Or perhaps Sherlock was just manipulating her. Despite all this, the renewal of this show for another season presumably means that Holmes and Watson will be back. Hence, Moriarty cannot kill Watson — a big killer of suspense.

Vinnie Jones and Jonny Lee Miller discuss the weather

F. Murray Abraham appears this week as Daniel Gottlieb, an inventive serial killer who, as an engineer, delights in solving assassination problems through the appliance of science. Hacking a pacemaker is interestingly alarming for all those with that small piece of electronics inside their bodies. Dropping an air-conditioning unit on a target from a great height has a Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner quality about it. While the attack of the killer bees is a genuinely ingenious way to attack someone with an allergy. It now seems Moriarty has twice spared Sherlock’s life. Gottlieb was due to administer a heroin overdose but the job was “cancelled” — the only time this happened. The second time is in the hotel room towards the end of this episode when the sniper could have killed him. So the game seems to be to challenge the mind rather than kill the body.

As to the investigation element, there was the now usual trail of breadcrumbs to follow from the pacemaker to the air-conditioning unit to the bees. I was onboard up to this point. Leaving aside the problem of how our assassin is going to spray the intended victim with a bee-attracting substance, he has to keep coming back to feed the growing hive. And kidnapping him is OK. But the next link in the chain is hopelessly incompetent. I hate it when our heroes have to trail after a suspect at night down empty streets without being seen. It also takes remarkable foresight to bring a camera with a long lens and shutter speeds to die for. The piecing together of the final picture is simply incredible given the circumstances in which all the shots were taken. This guy had to stand in the same position without turning his head while the train was passing. Like that’s going to happen. Any sane arrangement involves the contact person using his mobile phone to report back to the hypothetical Moriarty. Once again, if you blinked, you missed Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill). Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn) gets marginally more time. So although there’s a lot of good things about Elementary: A Landmark Story, it’s hardly rescuing the sinking ship.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)

Categories: TV and anime Tags: A Landmark Story, Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elementary, F. Murray Abraham, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Sherlock Holmes, Vinnie Jones

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 20. Dead Man’s Switch. (2013)

April 28, 2013 David Marshall 7 comments

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Elementary: Season 1, Episode 20. Dead Man’s Switch. (2013) had a better balance between narrative arc and individual mystery to be solved. Let’s start off with the general character development. The fact we’re seeing Alfredo (Ato Essandoh) for the third time is encouraging. If we’re going to be even remotely canonical, there should be several characters representing the Irregulars: those convenient urchins who know their city like the backs of their hands and can move around largely unobserved. This character is ideal for the purpose. As a car thief and recovering addict, he could be well-connected and supply lots of different services as required. We’ve already seen him teaching Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) how to break into and steal cars (an invaluable skill for an investigator). He’s also useful to sit outside places in his car and keep watch (or try to follow people escaping the scene in cabs and lose them which is hardly what you would expect from an expert car thief and driver). So as Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) comes up to the one year anniversary of his last fix, we’re into a mini-drama as to whether our hero will go through a ceremony to collect a small token signifying the achievement. Naturally, Sherlock views this as an entirely private matter. Alfredo points out that’s a typically selfish attitude. He should show addicts newly entering the program that it’s possible to get clean and stay clean.

Of course, being a man obsessed with details, Holmes is failing to admit he had a lapse and so has not yet reached the full one year. Having failed is deeply embarrassing to a man who prides himself on his strength of mind. Hence his unwillingness to go through the ceremony. The subtext of the episode is therefore whether he will tell the truth about his lapse. That he eventually trusts both Watson and Alfredo is a sign he’s consolidating the recovery by sharing the burden of “sobriety”. There’s hope for him.

Lucy Liu, Jonny Lee Miller and Ato Essandoh

As to the mystery element, we have Alfredo introduce a private client. This should be happening more often rather than leaving our hero waiting for a summons from NYPD with another challenging homicide to solve. Appropriately, this is a blackmail case and we’re quickly given the name as Charles Milverton, a blackmailer who features in The Return of Sherlock Holmes. As in the original story, one of this blackmailer’s victims shoots the villain and stamps on his face. However, apart from this significant borrowing, the story then veers away into rather unnecessary complexity as Holmes runs around trying to find the titular Dead Man’s Switch. As in all good blackmail schemes, there’s a failsafe: someone hidden who will release all the incriminating information should anything happen to the more easily detectable blackmailer. The convenience of the internet as a mechanism for releasing this information is a pleasing modern development. At just the touch of a mouse or pad, our back-up can punish all the victims for killing their blackmailer. Except, of course, this assumes only one victim. In this case, Milverton is a professional who has information on many so, if one victim takes revenge, all suffer.

At this point, I need to express frustration that this Holmes can find out so much information on people and events in America through Google and whatever else he can use to dig out data online. It’s remarkable and, by my standards, unrealistic. For example, he can produce a list of nuisance claims against service providers alleging discrimination on the ground of weight that were quickly settled. I know that the identity of litigants is a matter of public record once proceedings are filed in court, but Holmes is finding cases that would probably have been settled by the attorneys before going to court became necessary. The whole point of nuisance actions is for the targets to make them go away as quickly as possible. Anything settled in this way would be covered by confidentiality agreements and inaccessible. For Holmes to not only come up with a list of such litigants, but also to produce newspaper photographs of two of these claimants, is magical. As is Watson’s ability to recall the identity of an ambulance-chasing attorney from a few scattered details of description.

Put all this together and you have an episode with such a high death count among the actors, there was only one left to be the killer. Worse, the killer had an accomplice who never actually made it on to screen. We have to be told about this person’s essential contribution to the plot by the semi-triumphant Holmes and Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn) who does get to deal with a minor moral dilemma in this episode and comes out of it all looking better. The relationship between Holmes and Gregson also seems to be healing. If you blinked, you missed Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) who, in terms of dollars earned per words spoken and seconds on screen, must now be one of the highest paid actors on US television. He’s the most embarrassingly underused actor in a prime-time show. Would this treatment be given out to a white actor? I don’t think so. So put all this together and Elementary: Dead Man’s Switch is an average episode that moved us along in broad narrative terms but offered little of substance on the use of deduction to solve mysteries. Arthur Conan Doyle would not have approved.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ato Essandoh, Dead Man's Switch, Elementary, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Sherlock Holmes

Agatha Christie’s Marple: They Do It with Mirrors (2009)

April 16, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

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As Agatha Christie Marple: They Do It with Mirrors (2009) gets underway with this latest slice of Golden Age detective fiction, we’re suddenly transfixed by the appearance of a number of “old stalwarts”. Well, perhaps “transfixed” is not quite doing justice to the moment. I confess to being stunned and amazed Joan Collins is still going strong. Born in 1933, she contrives to look younger than Julia McKenzie and Penelope Wilton. For the record, both the book and this script require all three to be approximately the same age, having attended the same school. I’m not sure how she’s managing to preserve her youthfulness but, if Joan Collins could put it in a bottle, she would make millions more than her acting career has so far delivered. This only leaves the problem of her screen presence which is what you might might call idiosyncratic. I suspect she’s always been less an actor and more a personality. Even at the height of her popularity in Dynasty, there’s a magnificently artificial quality about her. In this performance, she’s definitely not in the business of acting “with” Julia McKenzie. They both just happen to be on the screen at the same time. There’s also something distinctly weird about the accent adopted by Penelope Wilton. Not only is it uncertain what she’s supposed to be aiming at, the goalposts keep moving as her voice trembles into a different variation for every scene.

So where are we with this adaptation? In terms of fidelity to the book, we’re fairly accurate with two variations. In the novel, a part of the mansion has been turned over to house delinquent boys, whereas in this adaptation, we see a compound in the grounds for the rehabilitation of adult offenders. The second is a redesign of the group scene when Lewis Serrocold (Brian Cox) and Edgar Lawson (Tom Payne) have their argument — the body of Christian Gulbrandsen being found almost immediately afterwards. On balance, I think this an improvement over the book. What actually works well on the page might not look quite so good on the small screen. Whereas this rather cleverly preserves the spirit of the original while making it visually arresting and spreading the degree of uncertainty about who might have committed the murder. The arrival of Johnny Restarick (Ian Ogilvy) is also pleasing, allowing us to see the outside of the mansion from his perspective in flashback as he approached through the early evening mist.

Julia McKenzie and Joan Collins as “old friends”

For once, keeping the ending the same also works well given this motive for the murders. There’s considerable pathos in seeing this acted out. However the other elements of the ending are definitely not even vaguely realistic. The failed marriage between Gina Elsworth (Emma Griffiths Malin) and Wally Hudd (Elliot Cowan) has been nicely shown. She’s shamelessly flirting with all and sundry while he stares morosely into his morning porridge. Then, miraculously she’s reformed and goes off to produce multiple babies to populate a house on the prairies. It’s wholly incredible. I’m also not sure about the character of Mildred (Sarah Smart). Even allowing for the fact her mother is shown as a complete failure in the parenting stakes, she’s grown up into an embittered religious fanatic, considered somewhat loopy by everyone. To have her reconcile with her mother and essentially become “normal” is stretching credibility. Finally, we come to the core “romance” between the Serrocolds. Given this version of the story, their relationship is supposed to be deeply loving where he would do almost anything for her. Frankly, I think these parts fundamentally miscast or the director is seriously at fault. Penelope Wilton comes across as almost completely self-absorbed with little or no empathy as a parent or wife. After seeing him play an endless sequence of villains, it’s fun to see Brian Cox try to appear somewhat more normal. But this performance fails to show any affection. Although couples who have been married for a few years can lack the more obvious signs of passion, this couple just seems to be sharing occupation of the house and an interest in rehabilitating criminals. They’re more like colleagues than lovers.

The result of all this musing is another failure. I’m still not convinced by Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple. She doesn’t feel proactive enough. When Joan Hickson was on the case, you felt a judge and jury had walked on to the screen to weigh the wickedness around her. For all her faults, Geraldine McEwan had a certain self-mockery about her performance, being fairly dotty and not averse to trying to matchmake when there was a young couple to push in the right direction. In this story, Miss Marple is supposed to walk into the household and take command to ensure nothing happens to her lifelong friend. Sadly, there’s absolutely no sign of that at all. So with all the weak performances and a fairly indifferent plot, Agatha Christie’s Marple: They Do It with Mirrors is showing every sign of continuing the decline of the series into oblivion.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Brian Cox, detective fiction, Golden Age, Joan Collins, Julia McKenzie, Marple, Miss Marple, murder, mystery, Penelope Wilton

Agatha Christie’s Marple: Murder is Easy (2009)

April 14, 2013 David Marshall 2 comments

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Well the first in this new series of Golden Age detective fiction gave us our first view of Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple but she was kept rather in the background. This adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Marple: Murder is Easy (2009) keeps the character front and centre, offering us a better chance to evaluate the performance. The experience here is somewhat like watching Doctor Who, a character played by many actors over the years. This was always faintly disconcerting because, as each regeneration came, we got major shifts in age and attitude. Miss Marple, on the other hand, must always be reasonably old although even this was slightly bent out of shape by Angela Lansbury in The Mirror Crack’d (1980). The perennial problem of how to portray her lies in understanding her methodology. Once people huddle together into villages, they get sucked into the communal life. One of the most consistent characters is the gossip. This person is usually female and she prides herself on being able to ferret out who’s doing what to whom and why just by sitting in small groups and listening. In many communities where privacy is more highly valued, village gossips are rather disliked and, in some cases, feared.

Hence, when it comes to presenting a gossip on the screen as the heroine of a long-running series, the temptation is always to make her more likeable. Yet to defang her is to reduce her capacity for investigation. As drawn by Agatha Christie, this is a woman of intelligence who has observed life. She’s usually full of anecdotes about what the butcher did with his thumb when weighing the meat, and how many others whom she has known engaged in different types of dishonesty. She can be a little fierce sometimes. And herein lies the problem with Julia McKenzie. I think she’s altogether to pallid. Yes, you have the sense she’s intelligent, but there’s a lack of steel in her. This is a more passive Miss Marple, lacking any kind of quirkiness or eccentricity. She’s not even bumbling. The very least she could do is drop her ball of wool while knitting except we’re yet to see her knit. How is she supposed to eavesdrop on people in conversations if she can’t disappear into the background by appearing to concentrate on knit one, pearl one? If she’s supposed to be able to wangle information out of people, she should be more quickly able to blend into a conversation. In the first two episodes, there are too many silences and moments of slight awkwardness as she meets and talks with new people. I’m not convinced this is a good version of Miss Marple. I still prefer Joan Hickson with Margaret Rutherford a close second.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Julia McKenzie making short work of the mystery

As originally written, this is not a Miss Marple mystery. It features a free-standing Luke Fitzwilliam (Benedict Cumberbatch) who’s returned from distant parts of the Empire where he was a police officer. After a casual meeting with a woman on the train, he’s the one who goes to the archetypal village to unmask the killer and fall in love. It’s one of these slightly wishy-washy stories in which mystery and romance go hand-in-hand through a serial killer case in a class-ridden village where there’s a faintly supernatural element in play — the local Lord is into sacrificing hens in pagan rituals. What we are presented with here is not simply a reworking of the story to introduce Miss Marple, but a wholesale revision of the story. This not only removes some characters and introduces new ones, but it also completely changes the motive for the murders — it even changes some of murder methods, e.g. from a hit-and-run car accident to pushing the victim down a long escalator on the London Underground.

I need to be clear on the basis for this review. I’m simply noting that this is nothing like the Christie original but judging the episode as presented on the screen. The first problem is in the number of men on display. If this is supposed to be just after the Second World War, most villages were predominantly female. Local land owners, being mostly Conservative in outlook and patriotic by disposition, had gone off the war. Many had failed to return. There were also not enough children in view. Babies were booming at this time as those men who had either avoided the call to duty or had managed to avoid death set out to repopulate the land. This version has Miss Marple, Luke Fitzwilliam and the local PC Terence Reed (Russell Tovey) combine to investigate. The presence of the PC gives a veneer of official approval for the investigation but, as written, there’s no consistency in the Constable who veers violently between being almost completely dim to being able to attribute a quote to Edmund Burke. As to the rest of the cast, it was pleasing in a good way to see Sylvia Syms and Tim Brooke-Taylor — I always fear old “friends” have died. Shirley Henderson does well as a younger version of Honoria Waynflete. Everyone else lurks in the background or keels over dead with the customary style. I was very surprised at the darkness of the motive for all the murders. It’s certainly not something that Agatha Christie would ever have introduced. I feel those adapting an old book for a modern audience have an obligation to keep motives consistent with the morality of the times shown. Although the biblical disposition of the child was not unreasonable, I’m not convinced the concealment of this set of circumstances would have led to so many deaths. In the original, the murderer was less than sane. The murderer in this version seems to have killed so many out of an excess of caution — something I find less than credible. So, overall, I find Agatha Christie’s Marple: Murder is Easy disappointing.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Benedict Cumberbatch, detective fiction, Golden Age, Julia McKenzie, Marple, Miss Marple, murder, Murder is Easy, mystery

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 19. Snow Angel. (2013)

April 10, 2013 David Marshall 4 comments

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Many moons ago when CSI: Miami was only three seasons old, we had an episode called Crime Wave. In this, our robbers were playing the long game by waiting for a hurricane but, when a convenient tsunami came along earlier, it was just too good a disaster to pass up as the means of stealing a large weight in gold. In the real world, disasters are quite commonly exploited by thieves except, of course, we call them looters after the citizenry has been cleared from the area in anticipation of the approaching storm, flood, volcanic eruption, etc. When policing become an arm for FEMA or some other federal or state agencies, this leaves a big window of opportunity for well-prepared criminals. In this episode, New York is being shut down as a major storm approaches. With the temperature dropping and the snow starting to fall, power is cut off and the city is at its most vulnerable.

So with Elementary: Season 1, Episode 19. Snow Angel. (2013) here we go with a hackneyed plot to steal millions of dollars in old bills from the federal agency responsible for shredding currency past its sell-by date. On paper, it’s a neat idea. If you can take the money on the way to the shredder and substitute bundles of shredded paper sitting beside the shredders, you have the perfect crime. No-one will notice the bundles do not contain currency. They will be taken off to the dump site with no-one any the wiser — this assumes the shredders work without power and the electronic records could be hacked to show the machines had been run. However, these criminals are out to demonstrate how not to organise a robbery. Rational thieves work months if not years in advance. They look at all possible targets around the USA so that, no matter where the next big storm hits, they have a potential place to rob. Then they quietly acquire blueprints, floor plans and any other source materials that will help them identify the vulnerabilities of the buildings and their various occupants’ responses to emergencies. They need to know how many staff are retained on each site, how they are deployed when the power goes out, and so on. Assuming they are proposing to steal heavy weights of money or precious metals, they also need a way of moving their loot through the buildings unobserved and then out of the city. This is not something you can work out last minute.

Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller wrapped up warm for winter

Yet here we have a crew that breaks into a firm of architects to steal old blueprints without any guarantee no changes have since been made to the building — these architects have these plans because, some years ago, they bid on work to upgrade the premises. And when do our thieves do this? It’s the night the storm is due to hit. So they have come to New York with all their equipment but without knowing how they are going to break into their target building. These are not professional thieves. Worse, they advertise their presence by shooting the guard to the building where the architects are based and, instead of disarming him, leave him with a loaded gun so he can shoot one of the robbers. Continuing their amateur performance, they leave the body of the guard to be discovered. They could at least slow down the response by hiding the body. When I look back at the episode of CSI: Miami (not a series renown for its sophisticated plots), the gold thieves were real professionals!

As to the rest of the episode, Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) grows irritating while Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) is actually allowed to show powers of observation. That he just happens to be in the right hospital out of all the hospitals in New York is just one of these felicitous coincidences scriptwriters love. Other than this, we get to see Clyde is still alive. I’m relieved. Or perhaps members of PETA threatened CBS and forced this brief proof of life appearance. Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn) also makes an appearance to justify his pay cheque. And finally, we have a Miss Hudson appear on the scene. Well, I use the words cautiously. Just as we have changed the sex of Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu), we’ve now gone even further out on a limb with a post-op transsexual. Of all the people to play the Hudson role, the producers selected Candis Cayne. One way of looking at this casting is to see it as a magnificent gesture to normalise society’s view of the LGBT community. Too often, they are the victims of prejudice and discrimination. So a role like this in a high-profile television show is a good first step to confront the phobic response. Except I fear this will be a one-off. Rather in the same way that Marcus Bell’s role is marginalised, I suspect we will rarely get to see this Miss Hudson. Why? Because Candis Cayne is too beautiful and successful in the transition. It’s unlikely we will see her in the background cleaning up after Holmes. She’s not a background person. I would have had faith in this gesture to gender equality if the person chosen to play the role was less successful and Holmes was, in effect, offering a sanctuary for someone who might be finding it difficult to survive in a hostile world. This woman is pursued by her lover. She doesn’t really need the help. I may be wrong but I’m prepared to bet we never see her again which is a shame. The LBGT community needs sensitive exposure on mainstream television. It’s an affirmation of their normality and the actors can become positive role models for people considering their own gender identity. I think CBS has blown a good chance to make a positive statement. So for all the reasons given, Elementary: Snow Angel is a very poor episode.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Déjà Vu All Over Again, Elementary, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Sherlock Holmes

Agatha Christie’s Marple: A Pocket Full of Rye (2008)

April 9, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

Perhaps I’m just getting old and so more often find myself out of sympathy with television representations of the times from my youth. Although I failed to arrange being born into a rich family with a large country estate, we were on the periphery of the county set and I observed many people of the type we see on display in these period adaptations. The book on which Marple: A Pocket Full of Rye (2008) is based was written and set in the 1950s and, as the title suggests, was another of these plots recycling nursery rhymes. At this point I need to distinguish between the source material and the most recent adaptation. I read this when it first came out in paperback around 1958 and, like many books by Agatha Christie, the actual characters are fairly irrelevant. They are the standard stereotypes who do what’s necessary to advance the plot. The basis of enjoyment lies in the rather nice construction of the puzzle. As is always the case when the reader is given a clue in the title, the question is whether the author is playing fair or the clue is actually a bluff. If it’s a bluff, whose bluff is it. The author could be setting out to mislead us from the moment we open the book or the murderer could be using the rhyme for a particular purpose. When I sat down to watch this, I confess I could not remember it. Many of the Agatha Christies have blurred together into a kind of generic lump of Golden Age Detective Fiction. Of all the authors who came to prominence in the 1920s and 30s, she proved to be the best at the mystery three-card-trick. You take a limited number of people, shuffle them around and then devise a set of circumstances in which a different person is the murderer for each book. It can even be everyone or the detective or, in one case, the first-person narrator. Everyone gets to play the part on the whim of the Queen of Crime. The result is there’s little memorable about the individual stories. What we tend to remember are the broad brushstrokes of the detectives and their immediate entourage, and occasional solutions which were outstandingly spectacular.

Ralf Little, Julia McKenzie and Matthew Macfadyen looking to investigate

So here we are with another actress drafted in to play Miss Marple (I suppose Geraldine McEwan was just a little too long in the tooth as she approached her 80th birthday). This time, we’re off with Julia McKenzie. For the record, Joan Hickson featured in an adaptation of this novel that was shown in 1985. So those of you with memories like an elephant or a comprehensive set of DVDs can compare interpretations. This strikes me a somewhat bland but, in part, that’s because she shares the detecting spotlight with Inspector Neele (Matthew Macfadyen) and his faintly comic sidekick Sergeant Pickford (Ralf Little). Perhaps if she was allowed the starring role, we might see her performance in a better light.

As to the plot, we start off with the murder of Rex Fortescue (Kenneth Cranham). Have you noticed how often Agatha Christie gets the ball rolling by killing a bullying patriarch? It’s probably terribly Freudian that these guys always deserve to die. They are usually slightly on the upper side of middle class, reasonably wealthy but ultimately convinced the rest of the world contains an inferior species. In this case, he’s somewhat loopy which is not a desirable mental state for a man running an investment bank. He’s been moving out of all the good, safe bonds into new derivatives and other casino style financial products. This has been driving his son Percival (Ben Miles) nuts. The family were watching their wealth go down the toilet but would the old boy listen? So they were rescued when someone poisoned the idiot and left the rye in his pocket. Naturally Miss Marple is not a little upset when her ex-maid is also slaughtered while hanging out the clothes in the garden. That just leaves the queen to die in the parlour and the rhyme is complete.

Rupert Grave as the black sheep of the family

The problem with this adaptation is that the characters are either the servants (the drunk butler and prickly cook) who are easy to spot, or generic wealthy middle class types, often with rather less middle class accents to show their feet of clay. Yes, wealthy people did marry beneath themselves in those days. A fact made embarrassingly obvious in this production by their low class accents and potentially boorish behaviour. And that’s what really depresses me about this adaptation. The class-based drama focuses on the pursuit of money and status. This unhappy shower may have acquired the money but they certainly have not acquired any manners to go with them. This is the noveau riche trying to live the life of the old money, upper class. Percival is the miser son, counting every penny. Lance Fortescue (Rupert Graves) flies in from Paris after his father’s death so he stands out a little as having a little more style. But then the black sheep of the family do tend to be charismatic.

Even though it relies on one person being extraordinarily stupid, I suppose the plot is one of the better ones with the way in which the evidence emerges staying true to the book. I’m going to reserve judgement on Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple. We just don’t see enough of her in this episode. So A Pocket Full of Rye is reasonably entertaining for a show of this type if you can stand being cooped up with this group of rather unpleasant figures for two hours.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: A Pocket Full of Rye, Agatha Christie, Ben Miles, detective fiction, Golden Age, Julia McKenzie, Marple, Matthew Macfadyen, Miss Marple, murder, mystery, Ralf Little, Rupert Graves

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 18. Déjà Vu All Over Again. (2013)

March 16, 2013 David Marshall 4 comments

television

Well, after another of these breaks in the transmission schedule, we have a lone episode poke its head above the barricade. Elementary: Season 1, Episode 18. Déjà Vu All Over Again. (2013) is supposed to keep us interested and excited as another two week gap looms. It’s most curious the schedulers are not trying to maintain momentum and continuity. No matter what the quality of the individual episodes, this is not helpful to retain audience support. I suppose we now have an insight into the minds of the scriptwriters on how they propose to develop this series. Up to this point, we’ve had Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) as a medical doctor who, more by luck than good judgement, has been able to assist Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) in solving cases. Well, perhaps she’d already given up on the practice of medicine as such. If you’d looked on LinkedIn or some other social networking site, you might have found her describing herself as a Sobriety Companion. Think of this as a kind of intermediate step. It’s related to medicine in that addiction and its consequences are inevitably a part of a doctor’s remit although some might see this as more a mental than physical health problem. So she’s abandoned the specific role as a surgeon but remains under the umbrella of medicine. Now she’s taking a further step away from the practice of medicine and trying out as a consulting detective. This is a step of some psychological significance so this episode makes Dr Watson the focus of attention and watches her challenged by the past and begin to look forward to a different future.

The structure is one of a six-month flashback. She’s meeting with friends for a drink when the call comes in inviting her to work with Sherlock. Broadly speaking, her friends are supportive. They see a steady future for Watson whether she chooses to stay in counselling or to return to full medical practice. Back in current time, she’s learning carjacking skills from Alfredo (Ato Essandoh) and observing Sherlock at work to get a better grip on the processes of detection. Inconveniently for Sherlock, his father refers him to one of his US attorneys to take on a case. The fact the problem is an associate’s missing sister does not modify his opinion of the case’s merit. He delegates it to Watson and decides to investigate a homicide on the New York Subway mentioned in a video made by the missing sister. We therefore have the first chance to see Watson take the initiative.

Lucy Liu getting her first sight of the “clue”

After reviewing the files, she goes to talk with the sister’s husband and is immediately suspicious when he repeats his original statement to the police almost verbatim. It looks rehearsed. Sherlock listens and suggests the Gaslight (1944) approach, i.e. sending messages to a suspect to see how he or she reacts. This requires her to follow the husband. Perhaps he will act suspiciously. Taking an hour out, she meets up again with those “old” friends who complain she’s abandoned them over the last six months, not only becoming “involved” with the addict, but now apparently giving up on her medical practice. They are worried about her and so put her under emotional pressure to justify her decisions. This upsets her and she leaves only to misjudge the situation with the husband. A misjudgment that lands her in jail, accused of breaking into his car (you see how immediately useful those skills proved to be).

Meanwhile Holmes is making progress on the subway murder. For once, this is done well even though it’s very much a skeleton plot element as he identifies first a stalker of the murdered woman and then a musician working on the platform who saw the killer. The upshot of this is a critical plot element that Watson is able to link to her investigation. When they compare notes, they come up with a theory of what must have happened. A search warrant elicits the evidence and they jointly get the result. The point of all this is to enable Watson to see she can actually make a success of being a consulting detective. This is not to say she will become Sherlock’s equal. She doesn’t think in the right way for that. But it’s made obvious that she does have appropriate intellectual skills and the determination to pursue her beliefs even though this may force her to spend some hours in a jail cell or lose her friends. Ah, now there’s the rub. As an individual, it’s not so difficult to change careers, but it can be painful to give up friends.

As to the case itself, I was initially thinking this was likely to be a Strangers on a Train (1951) scenario but it proved to be a much less complicated albeit elegant plot once you accept the coincidence of the two cases being connected. Overall, Elementary: Déjà Vu All Over Again is moderately satisfying as a mystery to be solved, but I remain worried about the decision to make Watson an increasingly valuable “partner” in the detective business. Arthur Conan Doyle has the original Watson as the back-up with the gun but not in any sense an effective investigator. Even the Baker Street Irregulars have more savvy than Watson. But this is definitely moving towards a Sherlock and Watson Investigate format which potentially distracts us from simply enjoying the mental skills of the great Sherlock Holmes. Just imagine this series becoming another Remington Steele. Indeed, the title of this episode might more properly have been Dr Watson Investigates with Holmes very much pushed into the background. I think I did catch sight of Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill). As core cast members, they probably draw their salary no matter how little screen time they are given.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Déjà Vu All Over Again, Elementary, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Sherlock Holmes

Endeavour (2012)

March 10, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

Endeavour (2012) is a prequel. For those of you who have some passing interest in the detective genre, you should recognise the name as belonging to Inspector Morse, the series character created by Colin Dexter. This is the first “real” crime he investigates and takes seriously. To some extent, the older Morse never quite seems to fit in the police force. His temperament is suspect and his irascible intellectualism tends to alienate the average police officer, no matter what his or her rank. If we travel back in time to 1965, the fish out of water problem is even more acute. There always has been hostility in the ranks towards the “clever”. No-one’s supposed to shine. Everyone rubs along together, solving crimes or not as luck dictates. The arrival of the young Morse has therefore induced culture shock on both sides of the divide. Having left Oxford University where he was studying Greats without graduating, our young hero spent a little time in the Signal Regiment. Not surprisingly, his face didn’t fit there either. Now at the rank of Detective Constable, Morse has written out his letter of resignation when he’s transferred to Oxford Central. A fifteen-year old girl has disappeared. More people are needed to cover this sudden increase in potential criminal activity.

Rather unexpectedly, Morse finds himself interested by the disappearance of this girl. Instead of following the instructions given to him, he begins to poke around and soon discovers she had a system for making appointments to meet someone. It was based on crossword puzzles published in the Oxford Mail as references to famous poems where an address or meeting place could be found. The middle ranks are scathing in their assessment this is a complete waste of time. They are therefore profoundly embarrassed when the girl’s body is found at the place Morse predicts. A young DC is not supposed to show up the senior ranks as not “clever”. In the midst of all this he also acquires what may be a suicide. A young undergraduate seems to have shot himself on the banks of the river. Except he was one of several university people who had had contact with this girl. She was being groomed as an Eliza Doolittle in a bet she could hoodwink the Registrar of one of the colleges.

Shaun Evans and Roger Allan set off into battle

The most pleasing aspect of this standalone story written by Russell Lewis is that it takes its time to set everything up. Shaun Evans is rather good as the despondent but curious young Morse. Lurking somewhat in the background is DI Fred Thursday (Roger Allam) who sees a spark in the young man. At the halfway point, the narrative divides into two streams. In a way, both are designed to show different facets of Morse’s character but one is the red herring. Put simply, there’s corruption in high places. This is set some two years after the Profumo Affair so people in 1965 would be sensitive if it was to be suggested that another Minister had been procuring young girls at sex parties. Indeed, Harold Macmillan, the then Prime Minister, would be interested in ensuring no details of such a Minster’s behaviour ever surfaced. The Special Branch might be asked to lean on Thursday and Morse to turn their investigation in a different direction. The second thread concerns one of the two academics in the bet. He sets the crossword puzzles that arranged the meetings with the murdered girl. Morse is deeply suspicious of this man but it seems that he has an alibi. A witness places the girl at a bus stop a six in the morning. Shortly afterwards, the man and his wife attended the Sunday morning service. While establishing this, Morse becomes quite friendly with his wife. She’s a famous opera singer, now in almost complete retirement. He finds he can talk with her about his past. She confirms waking her husband and getting him to the church on time.

Looking back, there’s an awful lot that’s good about this story. I lived through this time and knew many of these characters. There’s the spiv car dealer who procures the young girls for the sex parties. He’s well connected because of the clientele that comes to the parties and can later enjoy the merchandise in the privacy of their own homes. Obviously, his connections include various police officers. At the lower levels, they simply take cash to look the other way. There are the university lecturers who consider themselves a breed apart. But there’s also Thursday. If there’s a wrong note in this episode, it’s him. In a way, it’s the fault of the required focus of the story. This is Morse’s first case so it has to be about him. Thursday has to be prepared to allow a completely unknown quantity run his own investigation without any direct supervision. When he’s caught between Special Branch, his own senior officers who may attend these parties and the corrupt lower officers, I don’t think he would be quite so trusting as to put his future in the hands of Morse. He would either accept Morse’s resignation and hide, or he would be with Morse all the time, directing him to ensure they got the result. The explanation at the end also comes out a little pat. Suddenly everything drops into place so there can be the rather public arrest. It’s certainly dramatic but unnecessarily so. It doesn’t quite fit the Morse psychology. I think he would prefer to be more discreet in this situation. Finally we have the drama from the Special Branch officer. I’m not convinced this is even remotely credible in the Britain of 1965. I would be interested to know whether there’s any historical precedent for this kind of behaviour. That said, the first half is wonderful and the slow emergence of Morse’s backstory is handled beautifully. I think I’ll just try to overlook the perfunctory way in which the mystery is solved. Hopefully, with four more episodes on the way, there will be a better focus on the mystery to be solved and less on making Morse a sympathetic character. This leaves me saying Endeavour is good but not that good.

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Endeavour, Morse, murder, mystery, Roger Allam, Shaun Evans

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 17. Possibility Two. (2013)

February 25, 2013 David Marshall 10 comments

television

There are slightly more spoilers than usual in this review. You may prefer to watch the episode before reading this review.

Well it seems we now have a new game to play and, to be honest, I’m not entirely convinced it’s a positive development. To understand the scriptwriters’ problem, we need to go back to the beginning. Arthur Conan Doyle prescribed that, for most of the series, there be a single household containing Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Dr John Watson (although he did get married and find other reasons not to be around all the time). Hence, in strict canonical conformity, we’ve now arrived at a point in our subversive modern version with Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) formally enrolled as a member of the team. The only feature we’re missing in this New York brownstone is a Mrs Hudson (although presumably we have a turtle named Clyde lurking comfortably somewhere in a drawer — see The Red Team). So the first sixteen episodes have played with our expectations as to how this unlikely pairing will seal the deal. Now that’s all behind us, the scriptwriters must decide how to fill the time gap. They could produce more interesting and complicated crimes for Holmes to solve with Watson’s help. That would be a major statement of intent and reassure us that, in the final analysis, the program makers are interested in a Rolls Royce series of high-class investigations. The second possibility (sic) would be to keep on with modest mysteries and find something else which which to distract us — a much less desirable option.

In Elementary: Season 1, Episode 17. Possibility Two. (2013) we have a client referred by [Reginald] Musgrave (he of Ritual fame in the Memoirs). He’s been diagnosed with an hereditary condition except there’s no history of the condition in his family. Perhaps surprisingly, one of his delusions is that, “someone has done this to him”. OK so this is the science fiction episode. We’ve moved into a new technological age where scientists can design molecules that, when ingested by humans, give them [the symptoms of] an incredibly rare genetic disorder. There’s another marginally more likely scientific development thrown in later, but the damage has already been done. If you remember the famous quote, “When you have eliminated the impossible. . .” Sadly, the scriptwriters decided to introduce the impossible and let Holmes deduce the existence of stuff that doesn’t exist. Worse, the entire murder plot is actually complicated. Perhaps I lost concentration but I’m still not sure who killed the chauffeur. I suppose it must have been the demented client who just didn’t remember. I think it would have made for a better ending if the dynamic duo had been to see him, even if only to hold his hand while telling his uncomprehending body they had worked out who killed his mind. Then there was the whistle-blowing geneticist. We cracked that case. What happened to the Norwegian who had bought the royal estate he could not afford? And all this stuff about the family of the client came to nothing. I could go on but you should get the message that there was enough in there for at least two episodes but it all flashed by with such speed, we were not supposed to see how weak it was in the telling. There are red herrings and clues that go nowhere with everything stitched up at the end.
Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) now formally a partnership

The rest of the time, we had Holmes encouraging Watson to develop her own deductive skills. In strict terms, this is anti-canonical. Every attempt the original Watson made to think his way out of a paper bag ended in misunderstandings and confusion. The only thing he could do efficiently was accurately report what people said to him. Holmes would then interpret this in his unique way. We have to remember that this Watson is presented as a highly professional surgeon with an above-average level of technical skill. Yet to encourage her to compete with Holmes is a little daring. Indeed, in this episode, she does conduct her own investigation and gets a result. Perhaps this series will have to be retitled Holmes and Watson Investigate. Personally I’m not sure I want to see Watson endlessly humiliated, i.e. every time she gives an incorrect or only half-right analysis, Holmes publicly explains what she’s missed and where she’s gone wrong. In the earlier episodes, part of the fun was Watson inadvertently helping either by a casual remark based on her specialised knowledge or by being herself. Frankly I can’t think of anyone less well suited to be a teacher than this Holmes. He’s a deeply sexist, patronising, intellectual bully. The only virtue is that his inability to relate successfully with those around him gives him a position of isolated objectivity from which to assess the world. Trying to force this Watson into a new worldview threatens to be painful to watch as she will almost certainly fail to measure up to his high standards. The test case was faintly ludicrous as two men lay dead with a gun between them. The answer featured some tortured thinking in the style that reminds me of the old riddles, e.g. a man is found hanging from the ceiling in a room locked from the inside with no furniture, etc.

In the usual slightly jokey way, we have Holmes seduced by a solitary bee and Watson struggling with the need to hit the dummy with a big stick. As a final thought, there was absolutely no reference to addiction or meetings in this episode. Now that Holmes has his Watson, is he cured? Worse, there was little or no emotional development in the relationship between the new partners. They seemed exactly the same as in previous episodes. I was hoping they might be more comfortable together. Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) put in their usual token appearances. Put all this together and Elementary: Possibility Two was a poor episode.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 2. While You Were Sleeping (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 3. Child Predator (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 4. The Rat Race (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 5. Lesser Evils (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 6. Flight Risk (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 7. One Way to Get Off (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 8. The Long Fuse (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 9. You Do It To Yourself (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 10. The Leviathan (2012)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 11. Dirty Laundry (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 12. M (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 13. The Red Team (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 14. The Deductionist (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 15. A Giant Gun, Filled With Drugs (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 16. Details (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 18. Déjà Vu All Over Again. (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 19. Snow Angel. (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 20. Dead Man’s Switch. (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 21. A Landmark Story. (2013)
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 22. Risk Management. (2013).

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Categories: TV and anime Tags: Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elementary, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Possibility Two, science fiction, Sherlock Holmes

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