Perhaps They Should Call It “Pendragon’s Creek”
Today’s Arthurian Snark, from Wikipedia (I know, I know):
“…[H]e was a peerless warrior who functioned as the monster-hunting protector of Britain from all internal and external threats. Some of these are human threats, such as the Saxons he fights in the Historia Brittonum, but the majority are supernatural, including giant cat-monsters, destructive divine boars, dragons, dogheads, giants and witches.”
So, would you like a film about this Arthur, or the guy from the castle once again going off hunting for a carpenter’s drinking recepticle while his cock of a best mate knobs his wife? I bring this up because BBC Wales are currently filming a new series which is essentially the Adventures of Teen Arthur and Teen Merlin, i.e. SmallCamelotVille. The Welsh: We Do It To Ourselves, We Really Do.
Speaking of superhero films (and in doing so now, this post becomes the 100th entry into the Journal’s “Comics” category. Huzzah!), as we have been doing a lot recently, one I’ve not mentioned here is next year’s Billy Batson and the Legend of Shazam, in danger of not featuring on anyone’s radar. Captain Marvel is a bit of a difficult one to translate to the screen, I would imagine. On the other hand, I actually thing that the title sounds kind of right, has the correct weight of playfulness and bluster. I think it might absolutely work as an 80s kid’s adventure type film, like a mix of The Goonies and Big. What absolutely isn’t going to work is a Hollywood horror remake of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Just when you think the film industry can’t possibly get any stupider.
Battlestar spoilers ahead.
Just watched the third series episode with the strike on the fuel refinery ship. I was skeptical at first, because, you know, Americans talking about labour relations doesn’t usually bode well. Baltar, the closest the series has at the moment to Amoral Irredeemable Baddie, gets cast as the Marx figure, writing influential revolutionary pamphlets from jail, which struck me as a little less than even-handed.
However, the episode really did win me over, stressing the appalling conditions the workers had to operate in, and how intrenched the class system is becoming in the exiled fleet. I was expecting a full-on condemnation of industrial action, which was somewhat prejudicial of me, because the writers did a brilliant job of balancing up the different sides of the debate.
The heart of dilemma, of course, is the strike eventually being led by Chief Tyrol. He had to act, but he’s military personnel. More than that, he’s military personnel during events that could lead to the total annihilation of the human race. The fuel workers have to work in terrible conditions, but it isn’t for the benefit of, for example, the bank accounts of the upper class, but the survival of humanity. Yet, as the show makes clear, it’s only the working class who get the shitty jobs.
For a while, I thought they were going to do something to really screw up Admiral Adama, but the resolution was just perfect. Adama had to make it clear to the Chief that he couldn’t tolerate orders being construed as optional, while at the same time agreeing to meet the worker’s demands. Sure, he comes across as an overbearing authoritarian, but that’s in keeping with his history and his current role, and besides, the best thing about the series is how every single character has deeply disturbing flaws as well as virtues.
I notice some online chatter about how the latter half of the third season wasn’t taken very well by the fans, because in an attempt to draw in more viewers they slowed down on the overarching stories in favour of done-in-one standalones. Now, I don’t get the problem. I’ve really enjoyed the standalones, and I think they’ve been necessary for a number of reasons.
The series has been a non-stop rollercoaster since the original mini-series. There’s so much going on I think it benefitted from a little breathing room. It certainly hasn’t been any less intense, dealing with themes of religious persecution, racism, social class, murder, betrayal, and a fuck-ton more. Also, because of the unrelenting pace up until now, it’s been essential to understand who the characters are through a series of episodes that have dealt with cast members who’s characters aren’t always explored, or who’s screen time gets split up into the odd scene here and there between the action sequences. Helo, Starbuck, Apollo and Tyrol in particular have all been served well by this.
Also, actor James Callis putting on what sounded like a stereotypical Yorkshire farmer accent to represent Baltar’s unsophisticated origins was a bit of a surprise. They should shove the cast of Heartbeat on one of the ships to represent diversity, as if one of the Twelve Colonies were Planet The North. Of course, as the Ninth Doctor once said, lots of planets have a North.
