"We've done our best. If you've got a problem with that, fuck you"

Hello Everyone :-)

And so the end of another series of ‘Misfits’. Episodes 7 and 8 were quite something, iguana eating girlfriends, old probation workers and zombie cheerleaders, it’s all here!

I can’t really talk about these episodes without dropping some clanging spoilers so if you don’t want to risk it, watch them and come back to me in bit.

So episode 7 continues directly from the end of episode 6, Curtis has the resurrection power and he and Seth head to the cemetery and the pair dig up Seth’s very ex-girlfriend. An unfortunate side effect of Curtis’s power is that the re-animated turn in to blood thirsty zombies which he discovers when he brings back a cat that infects a bunch of cheerleaders who then get a rather apocalyptic case of the munchies. Meanwhile Kelly is trying to tell Seth about his girlfriend’s new blood lust, he refuses to believe her so she takes it upon herself to save him.

It seems so blatantly obvious to combine a series like this with the zombie concept I’m surprised they’ve not done in before now. ‘Misfits’ and Zombies could smack of lazy writing but I quite enjoyed it. They obviously employ the usual zombie tropes (“removing the head or destroying the brain”) but little additions made it a fresh take on an old story.

Seth and Kelly fans hold on to your hats because a WHOLE load of shiz goes down between them in this episode! I sympathise with Kelly, you know when your boy/girlfriend does something so totally idiotic you want to go mad at them but you can’t because you still love them? It’s that, but with potentially disastrous consequences. To be fair to Kelly I’d forgive him too and totally not because Matthew McNulty is drop dead gorgeous…

One thing that really stood out for me in episode 7 was the depiction of the group as a unit. They really band together and in Kelly’s words “that is proper superhero shit". Also notable is the body count… Our favourite five have off-ed some people in their time but this episode takes the biscuit.

Not a stand out episode by a long way but I still enjoyed it. ‘Misfits’ doesn’t bring anything new to the zombie arena but it’s by no means dull.

So, the finale, episode 8. A psychic medium (Mark Heap) shows up at the Community centre and knows rather too much about Simon’s murderous past. It’s revealed that the medium was also affected by the storm and he can actually bring spirits back that are stuck in Limbo. So Welcome back Probation workers 1 and 2 aka Tony and Sally and Virtue nutjob Rachel, who are all trying to find out why they’re still hanging around.

An underused Mark Heap is really all I can criticise about this episode, he’s a fantastic comic actor and his character wasn’t developed as much as I’d like (if you are unfamiliar with his work, a. shame on you and b. go and watch Green Wing NOW). A little bit of a slow burner in the beginning (that’s not a criticism) and then one huge smack to the face that, unless you’re very clever, you won’t see coming till the final moments of the episode.

Initially, the reappearance of Rachel (Jessica Brown-Findlay) was perplexing but actually it was quite a clever. She’s there to serve a purpose (and serve it she does), but I liked the way her character interacted with Rudy and Curtis, those scenes provided a lot of comic relief in what was quite a heavy episode.

It’s quite interesting to see Simon interacting with Sally again. It brings his character's development into rather sharp focus. Sally speaks to him like he’s still the shy “pant sniffer” he once was, but he’s clearly not that person any more. I think this contrast is brought up to heighten the ridiculously emotional final scenes.
I was in FLOODS of tears at the end. We knew this was coming but I didn’t think it would come so soon. It’s a brave move on behalf of the writers to off Alisha in such a violent way, I mean she was by no means a fan favourite but the audience have all warmed to her. I have loved watching her and Simon’s relationship develop, it was so delicate and I thought it was nice to have something like that in contrast with the rest of the show that is so bold and brash.

You’ve got to hand it to the ‘Misfits’ writers, they don’t have it easy. Whether by artistic choice or out of necessity, three of the original five main characters have been written out of the show and, bless them, they must have worked over time to tie up all those plot threads. With Antonia Thomas and Iwan Rheon’s confirmed departures, it would appear that Curtis, Kelly and Rudy are being promoted to lead characters. I have no qualms with the latter two (Lauren Socha has really hit her stride in series 3 and Joe Gilgun has proved himself to be more than capable) but Curtis… I’m not so sure. His character has definitely had more to do in this series than in previous ones, but is he a lead? Time will tell.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this series. The introduction of Rudy was nothing short of genius, he perfectly fills the Nathan shaped hole left by Robert Sheehan and so much more. With Rudy’s emotional induced cloning it delivers a depth to his character that I don’t think Nathan had (for everyone that just gasped when I said that, go back and watch series 1 & 2 again, I liked Nathan but he was all laughs and not much else).
So it’s a brave new world, unbound by destiny and all we have left are three main characters (well… four if you count Rudy as two people and five if you count Seth). The show has been greenlit for a fourth series (Channel 4 would have been foolish not to, this series has garnered more viewers than either of the last two) and the world is Howard Overman’s Oyster. What do I want to see? Well another girl in a lead role (perhaps a love interest for Rudy?), a probation worker that gets more involved in the story (maybe they themselves could have a power?) and a proper interesting bad guy. Other than that, off you go Overman, impress me.

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)
(I know it’s nearly Christmas and that in itself is reason enough to be cheerful but humour me)

1. OMFG!!!!! THE TRAILER AND FIRST POSTER FOR THE FIRST HOBBIT FILM IS OUT!!!! Yes 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' is a year away but I was tearing up a bit yesterday morning when I saw it. It looks nothing short of amazing :-)

2. A preview for the ‘Prometheus’ Trailer is out and the first official poster! I know, I know! Ordinarily I’d find a preview of a trailer far too pretentious to bother with on here but because it’s ‘Prometheus’ I’ll let them off! It looks good (read as: Fassbender looks good)!

That’s it for today!

I’ll be back before the end of the year with a round up of my favourite Films and Television for 2011!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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Mis-sing Something?

Hello Everyone :-)

Sunday was another episode of Misfits and my, didn’t they pack a lot into an hour and 5 minutes! FYI there are a few spoilers in this post so if you weren’t watching on Sunday night, get thee to 4OD and then read on dear friend!

So, a few threads in this episode, most of which were nookie related! There’s Rudy’s problematic one night stand, Curtis’s teen pregnancy and Seth, unbeknownst to Kelly, playing god.

Despite the three plot strands, Rudy emerges as the star of Sunday night’s show. After an encounter with a girl he met at a party some rather nasty things start happening to his gentleman vegetables so he needs to find her and get it put right, unfortunately he can’t remember who she is… I loved this story! It’s like STI CSI but with a ‘Misfits’ edge :-) Rudy risked being a one dimensional character full of bravado and not much else, but I really think he’s great. Joe Gilgun moves effortlessly from one of the character’s personas to the other, making him a multi-faceted creation, he’s fast becoming one of my favourite Misfits.

After having issues with Curtis’s role in last week’s episode I really didn’t mind this week. It was interesting to say the least, Curtis/Melissa wound up pregnant and not really knowing what to do about it. I don’t think they could have done it any other way (Melissa couldn’t exactly have the baby, it’d be incest of the HIGHEST order). I’m kind of sad about Melissa’s departure, purely because Kehinde Fadipe is a really good actress, but they used up that character’s potential in episode 2 so it was about time she was off.

Seth lent his air of mystery to proceedings once more and not always in a good way. Kelly’s answerphone message to him was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen and it broke my heart when the twist of the resurrection power was revealed. This can only end badly.

I think the three elements of this episode were dealt with nicely. They were all given equal time to develop and I especially liked how Rudy’s thread resolved itself with a bit of self reflection and Curtis and Seth’s storylines linked up to give a teaser about next week. I also liked the safe sex message. It was pretty obvious to all involved what was being preached here but, because it was done in such a comedic way, it never felt like the message was being rammed down your throat.

I was quite disappointed with Simon’s contributions in this episode. It looks like they were trying to recreate Nathan and Simon’s relationship with Rudy replacing the former but they never quite achieved it. Rudy’s histrionics, as amusing as they are, over power their scenes and Simon never really gets a look in. It’s a shame because when it boils down, this is Simon’s show, it’s the story of ‘Superhoodie’ and there’s been a distinct lack of that mythology all the way up to this point. I mean it’s entirely possible that next week’s penultimate episode will be bursting at the seams with Superhoodie-ness, but if they’re gonna do that they haven’t given it sufficient build up and it runs the risk of being rushed.

This episode was a good one, definitely up there with my favourites of this series. ‘Misfits’ continues to chop and change characters breathing new life into the show week after week. Some may feel like they’re on rocky ground but I’m enjoying the ‘who’s next?’ mentality this series is instilling in the programme.

Next week looks AMAZING! Zombie cheerleaders FTW! And did anyone else get the whiff of hope that maybe Curtis’s new power might be used to bring Shaun the Probation worker back from the netherworld? Zombie Shaun could be EPIC!

Now, I reckon it’s time for…

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)

1.  A whole host of new pictures have been released for the Doctor Who Christmas special. They are V.Christmassy :-) The ones of Bill Bailey and Arabella Weir in space suits are REALLY exciting! I can’t wait; it’s all my favourite people in one place!

2. Black Mirror aired it’s first episode on Sunday. I watched it on 4OD at daft o’clock Sunday night/Monday morning because I couldn’t sleep. This was probably a mistake… It’s a disconcerting show to say the least and I think contributed to my restless sleep. I don’t really know what I was expecting given that it was written by Charlie Brooker who wrote the excellent (if bleak) ‘Dead Set’. I think I enjoyed it, in fact it’s probably one of the best thing’s I’ve seen on TV all year, but it will floor you and possibly leave you with acute nausea as it did me. Rory Kinnear is superb in a role that I’m sure other, less capable actors, would have turned down and Brooker should be applauded purely for having the balls required to make something like this. I’m not going to say anything else about it but it sets its stall out pretty early on and you won’t know whether to laugh or throw up…

3. I’m going to link to his blog in the side bar but Rhys Morgan is 17 and I think is smarter than I will ever be! He’s a blogger and his posts about antineoplastons as part of a non-approved alternative cancer therapy at the Burzynski Clinic are nothing short of awesome. He’s just great; I want all teenagers to be like this! He’s a Ben Goldacre in the making and we TOTALLY need more people to be cut from that cloth! Follow him on Twitter and/or read his blog, he’s a hero :-)

4. We’ve had some clarification about Captain Moff’s involvement in the Doctor Who movie. It’s weird actually, I’d been writing a post about this based on the original comments from David Yates and I was almost finished when this info arrives on the scene so I had to scrap it all! Even so, the arrival of this news is a massive relief. I would have hated the thought of a non-BBC standalone ‘Who’ movie franchise, no matter who it was directed by.

5. ‘NerdyRachelMay’ favourite Richard Osman has been named ‘Heat Magazine’s Weird Crush 2011’. Can I just put my two penneth in? I don’t think there’s anything weird about having a crush on that man. He’s funny, clever, gorgeously tall and totally lush :-) Can I have one for Christmas please?

6. Muppet countdown: 66 Days to go!

Just a quick last thing about Lord Russell T Davis. His partner Andrew has been diagnosed with cancer and the couple have moved back to the UK whilst he undergoes treatment. I wish them both all the best and Andrew a speedy recovery :-)

That’s all for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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"Girlfriend in a Coma, I know, I know, it's serious..."

Hello Everyone :-)

Sunday night was the fifth episode of 'Misfits' series 3. As usual I raced back from the quiz (we came 5^th, an improvement on last week’s 9^th but still not up to our usual standard…), watched it on E4+1 and this is what I thought.

This one was a Kelly focused episode… or was it? This week the ASBO 5 are doing some community payback outside a Hospital, Kelly wanders inside and comes across a Coma patient, Jen. Kelly touches Jen and the two swap bodies so Kelly is in a Coma and the Jen is running around in Kelly’s body, trying to pick up her life where she left off. This leads to a whole heap of trouble and Kelly misses the date she had arranged with the gorgeous Seth. Meanwhile Rudy starts his anger management course and his clone starts sharing rather too much with the councillor…

I know what you’re thinking, this is ‘Misfits’ does ‘Freaky Friday’ and you’re right, that’s exactly what it is. What’s good about it is that, instead of making a carbon copy of every other body swap storyline in history, they decided to create some tension by putting one of the characters in a Coma. This totally changes the dynamic of the story and shapes it into something quite emotional. Kelly is totally helpless; her consciousness is stuck in an inert body, no one knows that this has happened except Jen and she doesn’t want to give up her new found freedom. In one scene Jen threatens to turn off the life support machine that’s keeping Kelly alive, my heart was in my mouth! There’s a genuine sense of ‘I’ve no idea how she’s going to get out of this’ which they maintain throughout the episode.

Lauren Socha is the centre of this episode and she has the unenviable job of portraying two different characters. She kind of succeeds, she does Kelly’s gobby charm with ease but I felt like the delineation between Kelly and Jen was a bit wishy washy. I would have liked Jen to have been noticeably different but all they did was put a jacket and a dress on her and have her hair down. She didn’t even change her accent that much and I would have liked her to have had a slightly different way of speaking, if only so it was easier to differentiate between the two characters.
One actor that clearly doesn’t have a problem with taking on two different roles is Joe Gilgun who completely comes into his own in this episode (and looks set to carry on that trend into next week). I thought they’d have to ditch the cloning power because of limited scope but it’s proving to be a very useful plot device. Gilgun tackles both elements of Rudy’s personality with the greatest of ease; I really enjoy watching him.
There seems to be a bit of a plot developing between Curtis, Simon and Alisha of which I’m not massively fond. It started the other week when Curtis was asking Alisha about what he was like when they were together. This week Alisha walks in on Curtis seeing to himself in a cupboard and Simon jumps to the wrong conclusion. I’m not massively fond of this new direction, in fact I actively dislike it, I can’t see it amounting to anything and if it’s not going anywhere what’s the point (so true in so many situations)? I also didn’t’ like the fact that Curtis turned himself into a girl in order to play with himself. Why exactly? Because when a girl does it, it doesn’t make a mess? Or because we needed reminding of what Curtis’s power is because it’s useless and therefore has to be shoehorned into an episode? I’ll let you work out from that why I think they included that quick gender swap…

Speaking of powers there’s a distinct lack of power usage in this episode. I think that may have been a conscious decision due to last week’s power-heavy episode; it’s not a good thing or a bad thing, just something I picked up on. Aside from Curtis’s sex shift for self gratification, Rudy’s power is played for laughs which works really well and Alisha’s proves its worth when she sees through Kelly’s eyes and helps the gang work out where she is.

It’s really nice to see Seth being integrated into the show as a full time character, he totally steals this episode. He is one of the more interesting characters; his redemptive storyline adds quite a lot of depth to the role which is nice. Matthew McNulty is doing a fantastically moody performance and, I may have mentioned this before, he is completely and utterly gorgeous! He and Socha are so endearing in their scenes, it warms the cockles of your heart to see them get together :-)

Alas as one character becomes a fully-fledged main part another bows out. We say goodbye to Shaun the Probation officer in this episode! I’m so sad! I was beginning to like him!

Not a classic ‘Misfits’ episode but it’s notable for two , very different but equally great turns from McNulty and Gilgun and a nice twist on the usual body swap story. Let me know what you thought in the comments below!

Now, who wants some…

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)

1. The BBC TV Christmas Trailer. It’s made of AMAZING! If this doesn’t get you in the festive mood there’s no hope for you! I want to play twister with a Cyberman whilst wearing a Christmas jumper!

2. Gary Oldman has hinted at a sequel to the critically acclaimed (and NerdyRachelMay approved) ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’. I’m reading the source novel of ‘TTSS’ at the minute and I’m enjoying it. I don’t know anything about ‘Smiley’s People’ but as I loved the first film I’d hope it was just as good if not better. There’s no official line yet so watch this space.

3. Alice Eve has joined the cast of JJ Abrams ‘Star Trek’ sequel! I like Alice Eve, she was in the underrated ‘Starter for 10’ (a film about University Challenge… what’s not to love???) and is, of course, the daughter of Trevor Eve. Brits breaking Hollywood :-) Two Thumbs up from me!

4. ‘Horrible Histories’ have won a Children’s Bafta! I’m slightly obsessed with ‘Horrible Histories’ at the moment. The other night I got caught in a YouTube loop just watching clip after clip from the show. My favourites are Historical Paramedics, Bob Hale with the History report and A Shouty man :-) It’s just the best, if you’re watching telly and see it on the CBBC channel give it a look, I promise you’ll know the songs before you ever realise… “LITERALLY!”

That’s me done for today!

Goodbye till next time
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