December TV Update

6 TV shows I watched earlier this year

****

1. The Last Of Us (Season 2)

At the end of The Last Of Us Season 1, Joel learns that Ellie, the girl immune to the fungus zombie plague, is going to die as a result of the efforts to find a cure. Joel refuses this, kills everyone in the research centre and escapes with the sedated Ellie, lying to her about what happened. Five years later, in Jackson Wyoming, they’re part of the post-apocalyptic community there. Joel, once a building contractor, designs and builds things. Ellie, now an adult, has just progressed to being a patroller. She’s also in love with her friend Dina. Dina has just broken up with Jesse, a slightly older man. Rounding out the main cast is Tommy, Joel’s brother, one of the founders of the community.

Abby, the daughter of the scientist Joel killed, now a leader amongst the Washington Liberation Front (WLF, the wolves) leads a party to take revenge on Joel. They arrive at Jackson, discovering it’s a fortified town and try to figure out what to do. Infected tendrils are coming into town by pipe. While scouting Abby awakens a horde of fungus zombies hidden under the snow. Joel, out on patrol, rescues her, only to be kidnapped. While Jackson is attacked and almost overrun* Ellie tries to rescue him, but she’s captured too and Joel is beaten to death.

Ellie makes an appeal to the town to send out a mission for justice. Jackson, damaged, needing repairs and short of people, votes against it. Ellie and Dina decide to go on their own. They plunge into the darkness that has overtaken Seattle, between the militaristic WLF and the Seraphites, a weird cult based on a martyred prophet who don’t use guns and scarify themselves.

In between this we learn more about what Ellie and Joel got up to in the last five years, how they fell apart, how Joel keeps lying to make things easier. How his father hoped to do better, and how he hopes to do better than his father. And how that isn’t happening, Ellie carrying on the violent, destructive habits. Plus we learn some of how the WLF came to the fore (betrayal, murder, violence) and how the brutal war between them and the Seraphites is going (poorly, for both sides, not especially well for the fungus zombies either to be honest). And then it ends on a cliffhanger!

Watch This: Amazing post-apocalyptic scenes, tense action and violently flawed characters
Don’t Watch This: People squabbling murderously in the ruins 

* The defences are inadequate, for dramatic reasons.

2. Dr Who

After his adventures with Ruby Sunday and then the Time Hotel in the Christmas Special episode the Doctor arrives on Earth just in time to see Belinda Chandra kidnapped by robots. A former boyfriend gave her a star as a gift, and that makes her queen of the planet Missbelindachandra One, where the robots have taken over. Rescuing her the Doctor tries to return her home, and to her own time, on 24 May 2025 (the date of broadcast of the last-but-one episode of this season). He fails, though neither he nor Belinda notice the Earth wreckage in space.

They then spend four episodes (and make a cameo in a fifth where Ruby Sunday returns) going to either Earth in the past or places in space where The Doctor places a vindicator – a gadget that tethers them in place to allow them to find their way to Belinda’s time and place. Obviously each place has a Doctor Who adventure brewing. Belinda, a nurse, pushes back on The Doctor’s nonsense occasionally, while he tries to figure out which weird creature has caused trouble.

Belinda is a good character but barely gets any time to shine. These episodes are already packed, with the monster of the week, this week’s setting and characters, a hint of what’s coming, some reference to past Doctors, the theme or point or political message, a clever twist and maybe a bit of genuine imagination (in one episode they confront a cartoon character and briefly become cartoons; in another they find themselves in the room with a group who are watching Doctor Who).

It is the last two where it becomes disappointing. A clever set up rapidly turns into some moderately good villains gloating, the Doctor figuring stuff out, running, shouting, explosions. And then we get an iteration on the message of last season: the point of Doctor Who is family, and especially Motherhood. I’m not convinced.

Watch This: Exciting, fun, packed family science fiction with good ideas and some heart
Don’t Watch This: The heart may be in the right place but it’s on the sleeve and squirting messily in all directions

3. Doom Watch

Concerned about the dangers of unchecked scientific research the British government sets up the Department Of Observation and Measurement. (Doom Watch is the name of the computer and also what people start calling the department). Intended to be a minor advisory group, they put Dr Spencer Quist in charge and he swiftly forces it to have some real influence. Quist worked on the Manhattan Project in World War II (this show was made in 1970) and later his wife died of radiation poisoning; he has photographs of nuclear weapon tests on his office wall to indicate exactly what’s going on. He’s assisted by several others including Dr John Ridge, who has a background in espionage, and Colin Bradley, who does experiments and runs the computer in a white coat.

Many of the things they investigate are still relevant. The first episode has Toby Wren, newly recruited to Doom Watch, sent out to investigate a plane crash, to find that a plastic eating bacteria has got loose. Genetically engineered rats, computers that refuse security clearances, subliminal advertising, life extension, genetic screening for criminals. The episode on jet lag maybe less so, and sometimes the discussions are very of the time. Others startlingly prescient.

Unfortunately the master tapes were wiped afterwards, as was the habit at the time, so episodes two and three of season one are missing, where Doom Watch gets into the swing of things, and also the final episode, in which Toby Wren gets killed trying to defuse a nuclear bomb. However that final scene was repeated for episode one of season two (complete) so we get to see that, and also the fallout, with Dr Quist being accused of getting Wren killed.

In Season two several new characters are introduced, Geoff Hardcastle as a new investigator, Barbara Mason a new secretary for the department (who is given slightly more to do than the previous one whose main job was to sit on Dr Ridge’s desk and have things explained to her). Quist starts to see a psychiatrist, Dr Anne Tarrant and later in the season recruits biologist Dr Fay Chantry.

Several changes take place in season three, but unfortunately almost all of the episodes are missing. As an early 70s BBC TV show the budget means a lot of the show is actors talking in various sets. Still, the sets are pretty good, the Doom Watch office neither spacious nor crowded – everyone’s desks except Quist are in one large room to leave the other one free for experiments. And the stories always have something of interest, being sure to have both technical, ethical and personal aspects.

Watch This: Clever, ripped from the headlines, barely science fiction stories
Don’t Watch This: Dated, poor effects, many episodes lost

4. Poker Face (Season 2)

At the end of Season 1 Charlie Cale, human lie detector, found herself on the run from the Five Families who run organised crime on the East Coast of the US. Over the course of the season Charlie solves this problem when Beatrix Hasp needs her ability to find an informant (in typical Poker Face fashion this becomes a chaotic hostage situation with both the informant, the FBI agent Luca who Charlie has helped, and an FBI mole all involved). A free woman she wanders for a while through various jobs before settling in Brooklyn.

Directionless wandering where Charlie finds herself in an interesting situation where there is a crime (usually murder) and one or more recognisable actors is essentially how the show works. So we go through a funeral home being used as a film location, a minor league baseball ground where the washed up players bet against themselves, a private school where childhood rivalry overflows, a rather complicated big box store robbery gone wrong, an old-school confidence gang who find Charlie’s ability fun, a rent-controlled apartment complex in New York, a gym where the owner supplies an unusual supplement, and a wedding with a master of disguise assassin as a guest.

My initial thoughts were that this season was a bit meaner, a bit crueler than the first season. Also that the various crime scenarios were wackier and more off the wall. On reflection I don’t think this is true. It’s not that it isn’t a cynical show – people will plot elaborate murders on the drop of the hat, though often the killing is where some scam or property crime has got out of hand. And it’s not that this doesn’t have some genuinely bizarre set-ups. The first episode has four identical twin sisters who as teens were actors in a kids-crime show, only for a fifth identical twin to show up (all played by Cynthia Erivo). It’s more that I had fond, rose-tinted memories. The show has always been a light-hearted look at the depraved hearts of the worst people in the world – and conversely how people react when the worst happens to them. That some people step up and are good is frankly miraculous.

Having gone through most of the permutations of people lying to Charlie – them knowing Charlie’s ability, them not knowing, them lying about something minor, them straight up lying about the crime, Charlie reacting, Charlie not reacting – there are still a few bits of the possibility space to explore. In particular Charlie lying about whether someone is lying, sometimes when we the audience know it, sometimes when we don’t. If I make this sound like a formulaic mannered process, that’s not quite it – it’s more that when it happens it rewards the audience for paying attention, a brief moment of nodding and saying, that’s a new twist. Charlie makes a friend who never lies, which gets used to moderately good effect.

So maybe it’s me who didn’t enjoy this as much as the first season, who didn’t find it as refreshing and clever. Who had too high hopes for what is, in the end, a show held up by difference, gimmicks and a bit of self-knowledge. This is fine, this is better than most TV and possibly still the best crime TV, not so much balancing light and dark as shrugging it’s shoulders and saying life’s got some of each, you know.

Watch This: Quirky murder mystery show that still manages to surprise and sometimes delight
Don’t Watch This: Smugly confident in it’s own cleverness, finds humour in cruelty and misfortune

5. Ballard

Renée Ballard is a Los Angeles Police Detective who has been put in charge of a cold case unit, investigating old deaths. The unit consists of reserve officers (Thomas Laffont who worked with Ballard before he retired, Ted Rawls a politically connected security company chief) and volunteers (Colleen Hateras an enthusiastic empty nest mother, Martina Castro a law student interning). Ballard has been given this assignment to keep her out the way after accusing another officer, Robert Olivas, of sexual assault and him being exonerated. She’s also been given it because City Councilman Jake Pearlman wants the unit, both for political reasons and to investigate the murder of his sister twenty years ago.

That’s one of the two cases they spend most of the 10 episode season on, which Ballard breaks open when she realises there could be latent DNA untested at the time. (She has a good relationship with two of the lab techs, one of whom she bribes by giving them plants – her source for these is not revealed). It leads them to another case, and they start to suspect they have a serial killer.

The other season-long case is a John Doe that Ballard picks almost at random. The detective on that was Zamira Parker who shortly afterwards left the LAPD to become private security. Ballard convinces her to come in and take a look at it. She’s surprised to learn that a report of a fight at the motel where the victim was last seen (before being found dead) has been dropped. Other parts of the investigation seem to have been ignored. After they go to the motel, a cleaner seems to have more information but before they can get her to talk she’s murdered and they suspect a cover-up. Parker joins the team, initially as a volunteer, then re-qualifying as a reserve officer.

There are also two one-episode cases they work on, one an urgent one when a relative of a fraternity member who died goes viral demanding answers and the politicians want it dealt with. The other when the corruption one comes to a head and it’s taken away from them (this is a continual part of the show, whenever a new, recent crime is revealed or committed as part of their investigation they keep being given a deadline or having to plead to keep it) they pick out a new one. These are efficient, self-contained stories, contrasting with the long, painstaking, difficult season-long investigations. Those are hard because the killers are careful, and in one case has police covering it up. The one-and-done are because someone in the police missed something, took things at face value. It’s a contrast!

This is a spin-off of Bosch and Bosch: Legacy and the first link in the Pearlman case is a case that Harry Bosch investigated. Ballard puts off talking to him, as apparently he causes too much trouble, and besides you’d have to pay Titus Welliver to play him*. Eventually he does appear, and later, when the corruption case gets very deep, she turns to Bosch for help, as he’s outside the department.

We see some of Ballard’s life – she’s living in a house on the beach with her grandmother and a dog, going surfing (her family’s from Hawaii). She has a casual relationship with a local lifeguard. But it’s starting to get serious; in an emergency she calls him, and he qualifies as an EMT so starts going on ambulances. Her partner, who didn’t back her in the sexual assault case, tries to contact her, eventually confronting her while drunk. Later he dies, drunk again, in a car crash.

The others get a little as well; Laffont’s husband seems to spend his time baking and doesn’t want him to get so caught up – he retired to avoid the long shifts and danger. Rawls is useful, but he’s too keen to do real police work – kicking in doors etc, though that never pays off. He is there to keep the team on track for his friend Councilman Pearlman. They have to tell Collette to keep her superstitions and intuitions to herself as any amount of woo-woo can scupper a case. And Martina spends a lot of time in their office (an archive in the basement of the LAPD’s training offices) because her home is full – until she gets a cop boyfriend which complicates a case.

This has many of the elements that I enjoyed about Bosch – the noir influence that everyone has an angle, the meticulous chasing down of leads, the way different levels of politics and the police interact. Bosch was an insider when on the force, even when he went off on his own he was one of the boys, they would stretch to help him. Ballard isn’t that; her accusation against Olivas has made her enemies, she’s on her last chance. She has to get results and she can’t cross any lines. Her boss is the captain, but she also has to provide progress for the councilman.

Anyway this is a superior police procedural, held together by a fairly good cast. In particular I think the villains – hiding in plain sight – are excellent. Maggie Q as Ballard has to do quite a lot, both leader, partner, unsure, fighting her bosses, dealing with personal and professional fallout. If it makes the character a bit unfocused then the plot is not. If anything the way everything is brought together is a bit… not neat exactly but tightly woven.

It ends on a cliffhanger which I do not approve of.

Watch This: High quality police drama, with the police providing at least as much friction and grit as the criminals
Don’t Watch This: Badass cop does badass cop things

* Except he’s already doing the voiceover for the reports he filed, we know he’s going to turn up.

6. The Equalizer (Season 5)

At the end of the last season Mel, suffering from PTSD, had withdrawn from the team and Dante had taken a job with a Federal taskforce out in Los Angeles. This looked like soft exits from the show, but it turns out not to be. Mel works through her problems with a therapist. (Harry is caught between trying to help McCall and supporting his wife, at one point failing to pass on vital information when Mel has a break down). Even on the other coast Dante remains present, on the phone, using his contacts, and when he gets to go out on an arrest that goes wrong Harry does some computer magic to find things out. Eventually both return to the status quo though not without everyone reconsidering what they’re doing.

It’s the side characters who don’t return to status quo. McCall’s Aunt Vi goes to a citizen police training course where she clashes with a police captain; the two begin a romance. McCall’s daughter Dee is trying to get into college. This is harder than she thought despite good grades, as it turns out her arrest at a protest is counting against her. She and her boyfriend take McCall’s classic car out and get in a prang. They also meet the boyfriend’s friend who robbed them last season and discover the stress of trying to keep his family together with his addict mother. And Colton Fisk, CIA super-agent makes a return, causing chaos before making a final exit from the show – though not before rescuing a hacker who Harry takes on as a protégé. Not in the hacking but in life skills and maybe street smarts.

There is a season long villain, Angel Salazar, a weapons dealer and gun smuggler. They confound him a couple of times, preventing him getting into the big leagues by preventing, I think, a coup in Yemen. McCall is a ghost, thanks to both Harry and the CIA, but when she and Dante go on a romantic trip Salazar is able to track them as he has learned that Dante is associated with the vigilante team.

The ongoing stuff though is not really the highlight. The high concept ones were often fun – a weird serial killer, a treasure hunt, going undercover in a prison. What it most often does is dig in on a setting and looks – from a violent fictional vigilante perspective – at some real situation and problem. So gangs shooting at each other, military covering up assaults, scams to do with going viral online and so on. Keeping one foot in real life, they rarely are able to do anything about these structural problems. Depressing!

Watch This: Vigilante show still manages to put out interesting new crimes and ways to resolve them
Don’t Watch This: Petty criminals get tricked, beaten or shot, nothing changes
Apparently: The show's over and that's it