I published a couple of reviews last weekend, one for a book I enjoyed, and one for a book that I struggled to finish. I leave it to you to deduce which was which: One Kick by Chelsea Cain or Robogenesis by Daniel H. Wilson. I’m currently reading Phantom Instinct by Meg Gardiner, which features a former cop who has a very strange affliction due to a contrecoup injury.
Both of the movies we watched last weekend were based on true stories. First we saw The Monuments Men, starring Clooney and Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett and Lord Grantham Hugh Bonneville. A solid, reliable film starring solid, reliable actors. There were some interesting moments but no overall real suspense as the story played out much as one would expect. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. A good story, well told. Then we saw 12 Years a Slave, which is not light viewing by any measure. You have to wonder what effect playing vicious, evil characters like that has on a person’s psyche after a while. It was interesting to learn that some freemen were sent back into slavery, even though they had documentation that they were free: they simply couldn’t gain access to it once trapped. Tough to watch.
I had already seen the first season of Derek, Ricky Gervais’ surprisingly touching and soulful series about a man whose mantra is “be nice.” He works in a nursing home and is much beloved. There are only seven episodes that run 25 minutes each, so you can tear through the whole thing in an evening, if you want. Watched it again with my wife last night as a prelude to the second season. For a while, I thought that the story would have been much better without Kev, the gross, sexually obsessed character, but I now realize that without him the story might have been schmaltzy and saccharin. He keeps the pendulum from swinging to far in that direction. And then there’s Doug, the hapless, existential everyman who’s been the caretaker / Mr. Fix-it for a decade. He’s the voice of cold, absolute reason. Also the guy who doesn’t take anyone’s crap and sends people running once they’ve worn out their welcome. And, finally, Hannah, the long-suffering and obsessively caring manager who is really the story’s heart. Gervais’ characters in other series tend to be boorish, but not here. Definitely worth seeing, and I’m looking forward to the second season.
For a moment in one of the final scenes of the new series Murder in the First, I thought I was having a flashback to the 90s. The guy standing next to Steven Weber resembled Tim Daly and they were dressed like pilots. Not that Steven Weber’s character ever dressed like a pilot (see picture) on Wings. This new show is reminiscent of The Killing. One case will occupy the entire summer season, and it’s as much about the private lives of the two cops as the case. The woman detective is a divorced single mother struggling to make ends meet and by the end of the first episode her partner is a widower. The initial murder has connections to an asshole version of Steve Jobs, and then there’s another death that is also apparently connected. The early reviews said that the series finds its stride in the second episode. We’ll see. It’s not bad so far—just nothing new.
I thought briefly that Orphan Black might just have jumped the shark with last week’s episode. Yet another clone? But this one is a lot different from the others (in fact, they are all remarkably different from each other) and gives Maslany yet another chance to shine. The story has more twists than a strand of DNA, but it’s never dull.
I finished the third season of Death in Paradise, which has been renewed for a fourth. It’s a whimsical cozy detective show set on a fictional Caribbean island. There’s a new DI this season, a bit of a bumbler, and the stories are very much inspired by Agatha Christie, with arcane clues and motives, and a summing up at the end in front of the suspects, but it’s fun. Sometimes I figure out at least half of the truth ahead of the big reveal but often I’m in the dark until the end.
