Series 2 of The Musketeers.
For anyone who doesn’t know this series
is a BBC production of the Alexander Dumas classic. Overall, I’d call it
serviceable; it has the difficult task of matching adult themes, such as cut-throat
political manoeuvring (with frequent assassinations) and adolescent comedy. This means that it
wasn’t really possible for the series to ever tackle the level of violence
you’d expect from a programme about the King of France’s elite regiment. The
only thing that stopped it from falling into the realms of awful was Peter
Capaldi’s performance as The Cardinal. He did as all good antagonists should
and made you really dislike him, balancing out the cheesy and clichéd parts of
the main protagonists have to get through.
But then Capaldi went and landed what
must be the best role in British television, the Twelfth Doctor. One thing that
both Matt Smith and David Tennant have stressed in interviews and panels is
that the role of the Doctor is liable to take over the entire life of the actor
playing him. Capaldi it seems is no exception to this rule and has announced
that he will not be able to meet the shooting schedule of both Who and Musketeers. So the Cardinal won’t be in the second series of The
Musketeers. Without and strong antagonist the show won’t be able to compensate
for the cheese and campness that it’s so fond of. Replacing Capaldi will not
help either given the amount of loose ends they left attached to his character.
So yeah…that’s gonna suck.
Gotham.
"Before Batman there was Gotham."
A series about Gotham pre-Bat. Err not a
good idea guys.
The primary thing that makes Batman so
popular is (as though it needs to be said) BATMAN. From a story point, the only
thing that anyone’s interested in watching Batman do stuff. Batman shows
without Batman don’t work. Has anyone heard of “Birds of Prey”? Didn’t think
so.
However, ironically, it appears the
producers’ knowledge of this is what looks to make this show so bad. Rather
than making a crime thriller set in Gotham, they are focussing on Bruce Wayne
as a kid, just after his parents were murdered. Apparently the trailer for this
show would have us believe that young Bruce met and discussed how he’s conquering
fear with younger James Gordon.
Yeah, so first off they’re proposing to
implicitly make Gordon seem even dumber than all before them have, as not only
is he being played by Ryan from The OC, he will apparently one day become a lieutenant
who can’t figure out who the vigilante with a seemingly endless supply of
wealth and a desire to tackle low level crime is. Well James why don’t you
start with the kid who you’re apparently quite close to now, with the endless
supply of wealth, who used to regularly tell you about how he’s overcoming fear
and has a vested interest in attacking low level crime.
And as if they don’t want to appear
unconfident enough in their leading man’s ability to carry the show, they
appear to have a pre-pubesant Selena Kyle hanging around. I’d say a production
team that’s claiming to make a show about Gotham and not Batman isn’t doing a
very good job if 90% of it’s characters are key players in Batman. You’re
telling me a city that’s supposedly completely under the control of criminals
by the time Bruce Wayne is 20, doesn’t have any other villains to offer than
the ones that are popular in the established future events. I’m predicting that
this will be the next Smallville; a cash-grab that relies solely on putting
lots of pretty people on a screen while asking you to completely turn off your
brain.
