Best TV / Radio / Web of 2016 so far - 5 October 2016
Netflix and Amazon Prime are coming. In fact they have arrived, they are making their own programmes and they no doubt have the biggest audiences on the planet. They dont have to go through all that selling the product territory by territory like the BBC - the process that made Top Gear such a big deal when Clarkson was running the show. The net based broadcasters can get huge audiences from day one of release, and then the numbers keep growing from then on. The BBC et al know the writing is on the wall, and will have to find a way to make BBC Iplayer available to all, not just UK based customers.
Amazon Prime currently is host to my favourite comedy - Crisis in Six Scenes. I am sorry if who dont like him, for whatever reason - but (IMHO)Woody Allen is a living legend and comedy genius. His comic creation - the worry guts, irrevocably urban, middle class Jewish male has barely changed since the
60s (physically he is older , yes) when he hit the stand up circuit in the States, and then the big screen with movies like Take the Money and Run, Bananas and Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask - featuring unforgettably, Gene Wilder unable to break off his love affair with a sheep. He is always the same, worrying about what could go wrong, no matter if he is playing a South American revolutionary or a sperm. Now well into his 80s, he is more paranoid than ever, living with wife Kay ((Elaine May) in suburbia in the early 1970s, when they are visited by a communist revolutionary, played by Miley Cyrus.Two of the three episodes I have seen so far have had me splitting my sides, despite the two protagonists not having the greatest diction (due to advanced years) and my computer not streaming the programme correctly. Or is it because here in SE London we still dont have super fast connection to the net. This is the draw back of watching on your computer. Despite these things which usually would ruin comedy - all about timing and delivery as well as jokes, I love it. The scene where he goes to dinner with his pal and his paranoia develops into a full on terror of everyone and thing out to get him- including the food just put in front of them - was Woody at his best. Hilarious. The first episode is OK but beleive me it gets a lot better. Stick with it.
The only thing this year to match it has been Julia Davies latest - Camping. David Bamber was leading my Best Comic Performance prize as the demented , increasingly disrobed host of the camp site , who falls in lust with Vicki Pepperdine's bossy wife - instead of the bossy Doctor in Getting on.
In the serious drama realm - we are still spoilt for choice. This is the golden age - no doubt. Not only do we have a new series of The Fall with the fabulous, speaking in a whisper, sexy cop Gillian Anderson. The Night Of was tense , nasty and addictive, including some great performances - including the fabulous Jon Turturro - and dark prison scenes involving one of the stars of The Wire - Michael K Williams, the actor who played Omar. Now we have a new super series. Its going to rank with the big hitters - the Breaking Bads, Wires, True Detectives. Westworld S1 Ep1 was so packed with amazing plot developments and weird and wonderful visual effects, it made you battle to keep up. Many a scene I had to rewatch, and even then I was unsure who was robot and who was Newcomer or human guest to the theme park. HBO have taken the original
Michael Crichton idea and film and fleshed it out, thought it through, and given it a 21st century spin. Pure quality and not to be missed by sci-fi fans and anyone who has loved HBOs recent big hitters.
Not so mighty but worth a mention is another Amazon Prime production; The Collection. Again my internet troubles are not helping my enjoyment but this is interesting and a bit different to the usual fare of bodies piled high. Set just after the war in the Paris fashion scene - I am unsure who it is really about , if anyone , but there are some great scenes and intriguing characters and plot lines. Frances De La Tour is back - looking great in the Matriarch role of "over my dead body" tied with "he's my boy" type scenes with the gay creative sibling (Tom Riley stealing the show, but he has the best part). I cant help feeling the main character - Paul Sabine as played by Richard Coyle is miscast but its early days.
More to come next time - finally a word re Gary Shandling. It was great to see The Emmy's give him an acknowledgement, after his untimely death was swamped by that of Prince.Larry Sanders Show
was comic perfection, and it always revolved around his likeable narcissist host, who blazed a trail for so many to follow - he was on Seinfeld I think, or was it Curb Your Enthusiam? Are Larry David and Woody Allen massively different ? Re Gary Shandling - he is much missed.
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