Material Girl: Episode One

BBC One
15.01.10




As a girl who can't tell her a-lines from her empires, this was a drama I'd hoped had been designed to educate. But the business of fashion is an innately silly one, so of course my anticipations flew out the window -- it's much easier to succumb to its shallowness instead. Er, darling.

Our Principled Young Heroine (played with usual charm by Leonara Crichlow) is an up-and-coming fashion designer. She's wonderful, passionate, smart; a goddess who glitters 100% silk. But -- and we know there's a but. Her evil (or is she?!?!) boss wants to pierce her innocent soul with those evilevilevil flashing black eyes, and our Principled Young Heroine is in possession of a non-existent love-life. Times are tough for underdogs, but at least London's looking nice.

Production-wise, it's British slick -- on the same kind of scale as Hotel Babylon, even complete with a similar synth-voice soundtrack, but nowhere near as glossy as any big-budget American counterpart. Not that it should be: charm lies in the rough and weakens from over-polish. Yet its determination to compare with the likes of Ugly Betty detracts from the quaintly British alternative that it could have been. It doesn't have the campness of Hotel Babylon, the freshness of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, or even the fashion smarts of Ugly Betty. It's just successful people whining.

Lightening the glossy gloom are lots of snazzy, brightly coloured shots of stiletto heels and whizzy London streets, trench coats and ugly dresses. But it's all nail varnish: I want to see the nail underneath, not the transparent coating. And it is transparent. The good characters are angelic while the bad are charred embers spat from hellfire -- there's no middle-ground, no development.

As a result, I learned precisely nothing of value from the opener. Apart from a few wise words bestowed by a sympathetic fashion templar: "You can't heal everything with fashion." In the case of Material Girl, this is quite true: at the heart of it is a typical relationshippy, underdoggy drama playing dress-up in the fashion world.

However. To be supportive, it's a new drama, and, you never know, it might radically improve. So yay! I mean, mwah, darling. Mwah; xoxo.

Dear Diary

BBC 4
04.01.10




I love BBC4 programmes; they revel in the quiet, the introspective, and the sublime. It's a channel necessary to combat the excessive noise from every other station. In fact, by its scholarly nature and wilful determination not to pollute the world with more cheap schlock, it's arguably the most rebellious.

Dear Diary is typical BBC4 material: Richard E. Grant -- for it is he -- narrates this documentary about the art of diary-writing, and meets with folk connected to famous diarists. He examines works by Joe Orton and Kenneth Williams to find out what it means to put yourself into the most personal and personality-conflicting of literary forms.

Grant is a competent enough host, though he occasionally lets his feelings interfere with the documentary's partiality -- his brief interview with former prison-diarist Erwin James is nail-bitingly awkward. By bringing his careful disclaimer-like opinions to the fore, the interview suffers, and after watching Grant debate exactly how he should react to meeting a person he's never met, James' eventual presence on screen is enough to make passing goldfish hiss wildly. Not that the questions asked make way for particularly insightful answers, but a more balanced outlook would have made for a less frustrating watch.

Grant's video diaries are infinitely more entertaining, and in the comfort of solitude he muses on the small philosophies accompanying a diarist's life. He comes to the conclusion that diaries are written, or can be viewed, as a way to conceal part of one's soul -- which is all deliciously Harry Potter. But Grant's reflections make for a tidy ending: one where the unexpected tone of Williams' diary can be put down to the diary's ability to combine the dichotomy of public and private personae; where so-called "death diaries" can shed light on unknown experiences, at the ultimate sacrifice of personal seclusion; and where words can wield unimaginable power, enough to result in murder.

It plants the seeds of a rather Roland Barthes-esque line of questioning: how much can diaries be considered to be prose with the, sometimes literal, death of its author? After all, life runs deeper than words on a page, and one man's interpretation is another's codswallop; the writer's intended truth being the reader's diverging analysis. And how much does the adage that diaries are written to be read by others factor into the discussion? It will be interesting to see if this mini-series deals with these paradoxes. But, as a BBC4 doc, it's grand stuff, being properly cool over in the quiet corner.

Doctor Who: The End of Time - Part II

BBC 1
01.01.09




It's the same with most Doctor Who episodes written by Russell T. Davies: a first-half brimming with jargon and chaos. It's a kind of science-y gloss, cheerfully maintaining the sci-fi quota, as if to distract from the fact that Davies is more at home with himself when engaging with the micro -- the small subtleties of everyday interaction. He captures humanity brilliantly, and this -- his final episode in a show about aliens -- is suffused with the stuff. It's like he wants us to sob manically into our cushions, the git.

We were left hanging at the last part, though freefalling grandly from its sheer theatricality. Scarlet cloaks, golden headgear, a resonant voice, and chess metaphors -- what could it all mean? Aside from "the end of time itself", which is an extremely vague and contradictory answer, for time is clocks and clocks are only ticking mechanisms; so is time real, and what is time, does it exist in this world, and if so when. Clock-smashing is not so great a threat, unless you're Captain Hook.

The Master had populated Earth with copies of himself pasted onto six billion people, thus allowing the pun "the Master race" to be used in a fully justified context -- much groaning was had by all, including Aryans. The forcedly familiar face of the Master was rather like David Tennant's omnipresence throughout the Christmas schedules, so it was nice to have such quality method acting to relate to from this hard-working crusader. Ah, I jest -- there are no doubt many folk gleefully screen-capping every millisecond of Tennant's prolific output. LiveJournal, you are a funny place, you are.

Fast-forward past feisty cactuses and the Doctor's dubious anti-gun policy ("No. Never. What's that? He's alive? [snatches gun]") -- in fact, whizz past all the action, until the piece finds its emotional heart. The delayed ending. From the silent aftermath of the departed Time Lords to the four penetrating knocks on the glass door. A build-up of the most beautiful tension; and the Doctor's release, the bubbling rage at the unfairness of death, and his clinging stubborn stranglehold on life. A man condemned, and Tennant played it perfectly.

And thus began the sentimental build-up: with each wordless visit made by the Doctor to an old character, another weeping brick was piled onto the Jenga tower of misery, a tower with a pointed stick stabbing at passing tear-ducts and chanting, "Cry, cry, cry, you cold-hearted tart." Oh, Davies. You bully us into feeling affection. You cruel, cruel wordsmith.

The Lottery ticket from the future was a nice touch, and -- I like to imagine -- a wry little nod to Derren Brown. If anyone deserves a waterfall of gold from a triple-rollover, it's Donna. No, not small deprived people from small deprived towns, but a magnificent flame-haired woman who travelled to the stars and was forced to forget it all. Ocean Finance wouldn't have been half as effective as the Doctor's compensation policy.

In all this hoopla, I feel quite sorry for Chris Ecclestone: there was none of this extravagant adieu-ing for him, which may have been a blessing. The end of Confidential was nearly as cry-worthy as the actual show, though more manufactured through its Best-Bits montage sequence. It should be law that everyone gets a Best-Bits montage set to some heart-wrenching music with a soaring modulation in the middle-eight. That's what they should offer in the afterlife: lots of merry footage of cool-looking sunglasses-wearing Radio One-listening twerps beaming at you, unsubtly edited with Take That on top. Hell yes -- and I may mean that as my requested destination.

More importantly, Matt Smith is not too shabby. Karen Gillan even less.

Allons-y, geronimo!