Being Human

There have been a few supernatural dramas launched in the past couple of months. Apparitions was a bit disappointing as a kind of Exorcist meets Torchwood kind of thing. It's uncritical and humourless take on catholic mythology didn't deliver the goods with the creativity of Dogma, although it did address the issue of evil with some intelligence and insight. ITV's Buffy clone Demons was, I'm afraid to say, unwatchable, so I can't really comment beyond episode two. It was a good try, but Van Helsing did the Van Helsing thing with a bit more style...

Blessings on the BBC however for having another go with Being Human. On first glance it sounds like a sitcom - a ghost, a vampire and a werewolf all share a flat - roll on the usual bad comedy script writers and you've got another star vehicle for Nicolas Lyndhurst... but no, Being Human is inteligent, dark, emotive and very human.

The opening episode included a nice piece on the nature of loss as newly ghosted Annie texts her now-ex-boyfriend and arranges for him to come round and fix the tap. The werefolf has some difficulties with his "time of the month" and the vampire faces the difficult choice between allowing someone to die or innitiating them into the curse. The chief vampire is a friendly policeman who spends his tiome covering things up. It's a bit silly by the nature of these things but it does work. I find myself looking forward to episode two... or is it already on iPlayer?

Any survivors?

This evening I sat up with Isla and we watched the first episopde of Survivors, the remake of the sevinties drama by Terry Nation. This drama tells the story of a group of people who survive a rapid and near universal plague that wipes out most of the world's population.

This episode predictably focussed on the arival of the plague and the death of most of the UK population. It began with some fairly obvious links to a genuinely possible flu pandemic which had clearly been picked up from the various documents that have been produced about this. Fairly soon society was in collapse and the end 

was in sight. The lights went off and when the sun rose again there was no-one left.

It's interesting to see this apocalyptic vision resurface after 30 years. Last time there were a whole stream of "empty earth" scenarios inspired by nuclear war or scientific disaster. Even then there was a sense that mother earth might kick back against human foolishness and kill us off before we cause too much

 damage.

During the past decade or so we have had alien invasions (fear of the stranger) and tecno-thrillers (fear of our own ignorance) but very few genuine "empty earth" stories. The clossest thing to them have been zombie stories in which most of the population are reduced to mindless consumers who will do anything to satisfy their own urges...

Perhaps now that the consumerist society is teatering on the brink of collapse it may be time to revisit the "empty earth" scenario again. What is the purpose of human beings? What holds society together? Why do we need each other? What are we if we are not consumers - or on the run from agressive consumption?

These are genuinely interesting questions to ask - but where will Survivors go with them? The first episode was appropriately meladramatic with lots of death and loss. Otherwise it was, unfortunatley, a bit dull - and killing of Martha Jones after the first twenty minutes will have disapointed a few fans. Perhaps the most interesting moment was the final thrity seconds when, in true Lost style, we were given a brief hint that all may not be quite as straightforward as it first appears with the introduction of the mysterious lab... Will this be any good? Who knows - but I suspect it won't be the last "empty earth" that the media visits over the next few years...

Apparitions?

I managed to finish work by 9:00pm so had a chance to watch the first episode of the new BBC exo-thriller Apparitions. This is a six part series with Martin Shaw as the exorcist, Father Jacob, waging war on demons. It's a bit like a British version of the Exorcist but really looks, and feels, like a sequal to channel four's vampire drama Ultraviolet...

As a piece of drama it's quite well made and will probably draw me in for episode 2. It's appropriately grim and dark with some real moments of evil - as you would expect.

The key issue for me is whether its fairly uncritical embrace of catholic "mythology" will work in a post-modern context. It might have been more interesting to mix catholic and pentecostal concepts of evil and exorcism, but perhaps this is an issue for future programmes... So far this is an old-world look on evil with fairly limited references to the majority world - via Mother Theresa - who was born in Europe...

Kevin Smith played with his own catholic tradition in Dogma - in which a couple of angels attempted to use a loophole created by the institutional church in order to get back into heaven. This produced an entertaining romp which dealt obliquely with issues of truth, authority and faith. Apparitions is more serious but has its own agenda. So far it has hinted at issues of homosexulity, child protection and faith. Failrly high on the agenda is the clash between secular materialism (both within and beyond the church) and the unseen world which has to be experienced in order to be believed...

This is an inteligent piece of television and it does acknowledge the reality that many religious people are quick to see the influence of demons when the real source of evil may be illness, pschological difficulties, or institutional violence. The message of Father Jacob seems to be, if in doubt, say a prayer. As you enter consciously into a spiritual domain you'll find out what the problem really is. Which isn't a bad message to take on board...

It will be interesting as the show develops to see how it deals with some of the issues it has so far only hinted at: faith, reality, secularism, materialism, multi-cuturalism, plurality, atthiesm, power, hierarchy, etc... This was only episode one. The scene is set. What will happen next?

Subtitles

The BBC subtitle system this morning referred to the Department of Children, Schools and Lies. I know this department has been renamed many times, but this seems the most worrying...

Danny Wallace

One of the great things about living in a town like Milton Keynes is that you get the chance to attend author events. We've been to a few over the years. Tonight we went to see Danny Wallace launch his new book, Friends Like These. He introduced it, read a chapter and told us what happened when he tried to track down some of his childhood friends. It was a good event - very funny.
We've been Danny Wallace fans since he and Dave Gorman tried to find 50 Dave Gormans... I have a signed copy of Join me - which says I can I can still like Jesus and join Danny's Karma Army.
The girls became DG fans when he hosted Castaway. Danny's Diary was must see TV from their point of view. As Danny admitted, they may have been the shows only fans...
He was witty and charming as ever. Haven't read the book yet. Apparently it's not out officially until the third, but we've got one already! (Not suitable for younger readers, I suspect...)

Richard on TV

Our dear friend Richard Davis was on telly today - one of these house buying shows where they get you to look at three houses and tell you to pick one. I know they didn't go for one of the houses on the show but it's worth seeing anyway. I did note they were both referred to as 'vicars'. Isn't ecumenism wonderful...