Withnail and I

If you wrote a sitcom that was a cross between Steptoe And Son and The Young Ones then you'd probably end up with something resembling Withnail And I.

Two penniless alcoholic junkies with aspirations of success and moving up the class ladder share a squalid London house in the second half of the twentieth century, and talk. A lot.

This is helped by their both being out of their minds with paranoia.

The plot involves their getting away for a week in the countryside to clear their heads, however one of those class problems I mentioned follows them out there. More conversations ensue about how simple-minded the rest of the world appears to be, our speakers unaware that this rather reflects their own simple-minded inability to perceive others in much detail. (part of the human condition) You have to wonder how clever they might both be if they just stopped all the drink and drugs. Oh, right, not clever enough not to start on them, well never mind.

By the time that the 'I' of the title is having to fast-talk his way out of getting raped - a situation that is in part the consequence of Withnail's inability to grasp the complexity of lying to others - there can be no doubt which of these two anti-heroes is the slightly less messed-up one.

Mind you, he does also miss the option of just sleeping in his locked car…

It might sound like I didn't like this film - I did. While neither grotesque is one that can be warmed to, Withnail's half-brained shallowness is entertaining throughout. All that talking that I mentioned keeps the tone relaxed, and the plot is very simple to follow, giving us a chance to go on the geographical journey with them, if not the emotional one.

While visually there is plenty of detail in their world, not much of it is worth looking at. Even the location work is dreary, and hardly reminiscent of its settings of London and Penrith, yet its dreariness is the point. We just can't wait for I to break away from Withnail's gravity and realise some of his life's potential. Much of the film is dubbed also. It's all been put together rather roughly.

Overall, I'm not quite sure why this 1986 outing has become such a classic. It could be because of the drugs (which would be a rubbish reason), or its gay content (also a rubbish reason), or maybe just because these days there are so few other films slow enough to let the audience relax and, if you'll excuse the expression, drink in the movie. (unquestionably the rubbishest reason)

But hey, why does there have to be an explanation? While Withnail And I's content might not be my cup of lighter fluid, it's refreshing to spend a couple of hours able to clearly see and hear what's going on in a movie for a change.

Even though that definitely doesn't help one to identify with either character.

(available here)

(beginning and) End Of Part One

Has it dated?

Maybe it's just my imagination, but the above question seems likely to crop up when discussing any comedy series from thirty years ago and over.

It's a fair question. Or is it?

I mean in the fair corner we all know that comic tastes change over time. Famous celebrities come and go, and with them something of the desire to poke fun at them. Taboos change too - for example a 1980 joke about two men getting married might not even look like a joke today. Fashions change, music changes, technology changes. Everyday things like LPs, train doors, the price of using a public lavatory, and the word "wotcher"… they fade away into unfamiliarity, and with them, jokes about said subjects lose their all-important relevance to us.

But the bottom line is surely that there is only one thing that really changes:

The audience.

1979 will always remain 1979, whatever year you or I may be looking back at it from, and the tapes of its shows shouldn't change much while in storage either.

Ah, 1979 - yes I can still remember what I was doing on Sunday 15th April. Watching the first episode of new sketch show End Of Part One on London Weekend Television. I can still remember, at age 8, watching the first episode's opening gag, and loving it.

You see, LWT was an ITV ('Independent TeleVision') region that covered South-East England from Friday evening until very late on Sunday night. Programmes made by LWT - including End Of Part One - would begin with a short musical jingle accompanied by a stripey vertical line falling down from the top-left of the screen, before taking a right and then breaking up to form the letters 'L', 'W' and 'T'.

But on the start of the first End Of Part One, the familiar music played, the vertical line came down the screen and… it just kept on going! It went right off the bottom of the screen and crashed with this almighty collision sound effect, as the rest of the picture shook like an earthquake!!! It was riotous!!!!! Oh, right, I guess you had to be there… or rather then…

Well, no you didn't. You can still see what it was lampooning, just by checking out the start of reruns or other recordings of so many other LWT shows from that era. Mind Your Language, The Rag Trade (colour episodes), World Of Sport, Weekend World…

And that's just my point. End Of Part One, which parodies all of those programmes listed above and many many more, is today a spot-on satire of UK Gold, UKTV, YouTube, or whatever 'Old British TV' station you happen to be investing your relaxation time in watching.

Anyone remember the movie review show Film 79?

"Following her divorce in 1946 from failed actress Roy Rogers, Lottie met and married Captain Terrific, a cartoon character working on short one-reelers for the treatment of afternoon insomniacs in Britain. But close friends could see it was never meant to last. She was the glamourous wealthy movie actress with a passion for the high life, and he was just a line-drawing in Indian ink on a sheet of celluloid. It was arranged that, to help the marriage, Captain Terrific's animator, Ub Kranski, should always be on-hand to draw her husband in whichever position Lottie desired. A plan which came to an abrupt end on the first night of their honeymoon when he ran out of ink."

And yet, no, that's still not the whole story. For End Of Part One, in its first series at least, set about parodying not just TV programmes of the day, but a whole bunch of other difficult-to-record televisual concepts that really have been lost to time.

In-vision continuity junctions. Regional variations. On-air job vacancy adverts. American imports having their ad breaks cut out. Safety films, programming trends, early TV video games…

The loose plot of one episode finds Vera Straightman auditioning for a job as the new girl on the live testcard, for which she has to sit next to a rag doll, and remain perfectly still while muzak is played.

Ah yes, the surreal world of the long-suffering Norman and Vera Straightman. Throughout the first series they represent the series' comparatively more down to Earth sketches, about getting kidnapped by Vikings, donating to a decapitation charity, and buying a takeaway meal from a pet shop. Not to mention their actual pet - Mr Sprote of Hackney - and their nosey neighbour from Cardiff, whose name I recall was Mr… Err…

Sadly, this parody of the traditional 1970s sitcom family was dropped from the second series, which in retrospect I guess ought to have been called Part Two. On the one hand the Straightmans' departure freed up the remaining beautifully strange TV parodies to really bite, but perhaps at the cost of the programme's soul. In the increasingly surreal second series, there just isn't anyone to root for, only against.

Not that that's why End Of Part One itself ended. According to wikipedia, a third season was considered, but declined by the writers, who were demoralised at the show's continued scheduling on… Sunday afternoon. Yes, afternoon.

Was this extensively clean piece of fun actually a children's show? Not really, but certainly a family one. Admittedly though, as an 8-9 year old myself, I found this unusual timeslot refreshing, but I can see the writers' point. Whether you find the series funny or not, there's no denying the sheer amount of hard work and honing gone into penning many of these sketches.

Quizmaster: "That means you have won this beautiful two-door saloon… in Nevada USA! Yes it's the entire building, and 6,000 acres of land is yours, together with the state of Nevada itself, a selection of leading mafia bosses, a complete set of Tony Bennett records together with a sledgehammer AND a signed death certificate of Derek Nimmo! Plus! The Black And White Minstrel Show, the treasures of Tutankhamun, Elizabeth Taylor's entire jewel collection, Elizabeth Taylor's entire husband collection, AND a complete set of the weight lost by Elizabeth Taylor over the last five years! PLUS! The planet Jupiter complete with six moons, four of its own and two that we've had built up from some bits lost by Elizabeth Taylor, the Vatican, and the constellation of Arcturus, and of course, God in a choice of mauve, pink and pale lemon."
Mrs Crint: "Oh my goodness…"
Quizmaster: "So bad luck on getting the booby prize there Miss thing…"

Yes, these shows are as tightly-scripted as any episode of The Simpsons, and the gag-to-minute ratio is so high that a ridiculous amount of material gets lost under the audience laughter.

Well, usually.

Man wearing Brian Walden's jacket: "Later in our report from Westminster, I'll be talking to Mr Chris Chummy - chief speech writer to Jim Callaghan and editor of The Beezer, a man who belongs to the Liberal Party but who walks normally, and a third joke in a similar vein."

Basically if you spot a sign in the background, then for goodness' sake hit pause and read it!

Now there's an irony - how many of End Of Part One's original audience could do that? Presumably the viewer who taped episode six at home, and in so doing accidentally saved that edition from LWT's furnace. Whoever you are, thank you.

As I said earlier, I can still remember watching the very first joke in this series. I loved this show as a kid, and so did friends at school. When it all came to an early end a year later in 1980, well, I can actually remember its parting punchline too. I guess the series just really hit a nerve with me, even though I also found myself regularly disappointed at not understanding a lot of the humour.

Had there been a third season, we can only wonder what lost elements we might have seen parodied of the way in which we used to watch TV in Britain in 1981. The Crystal Palace transmitter breaking down. American series getting their theme moved up to ahead of the first prologue. Whole series getting aired in the wrong order. Closing credits getting faded out early. (today they put them in a box) The BBC's refusal to use real trade names in drama. The phrase "the other side", along with each broadcaster's regular implied denial of the other's existence. Booster transmitters, after closedown, picking up a weaker foreign station on the same frequency and automatically rebroadcasting that. LWT's regular audio output swamping the police's VHF channel. The police getting their revenge by appealing for information via hijacking Rediffusion's cable service on the east coast. The electricity meter running out in the middle of a programme. Switching channels where the regions overlap and seeing slightly different trailers for the same programme. Early morning engineering tests. 'TV detector' vans. The jump in quality between film on location and videotape in studio. Magnetic weather symbols. Teletext. The wiping of shows after their broadcast, in the face of growing criticism that there were too many recent repeats. The reshooting of black and white shows in colour. Those very rare series that managed to change networks. That flipping strike…

It's all gone now, it's all gone...

However, to answer this what if question properly, maybe I should just rewatch all three seasons of the authors' follow-up sketch show Alexei Sayle's Stuff, which is similar in tone, and contains just as many sketches about BBC2 continuity.

The final word though must surely go to the barman in episode two when a ghost walks up to him and orders a "Double scotch please."

Barman: "I'm sorry, we don't serve old jokes."

I'm not sure I'd ever heard that one before, even in 1979.

Illiterate? I don't know the meaning of the word.

Now available on DVD (alas not Betamax!) here.

Doctor Who: Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS

How can an episode with such an exciting title as this one deliver such a clunker?

Doctor Who has always had a history of missing its own opportunities, it's one of the reasons why fans such as myself can get so passionate about analysing certain episodes.

In this remake of 1964's The Edge Of Destruction… well… they just don't seem to know what they're doing.

That said, while I think it's certainly below average, I would not relegate it all the way down to awful. It still has plenty going for it.

The opening TARDIS scene is just lovely, with the Doctor and Amy Clara walking round and round the TARDIS console in a single shot, and the camera roving around with them. Yes, this TARDIS set has four walls. Or arguably one circular one. We see those inner Police Box doors going past in the background so many times that it's like watching a cartoon made by Filmation.

So far the TARDIS' geography is great, until later when there are revealed to be several copies of this room in the vicinity, and the direction makes no attempt to map out how they relate to each other, despite asking us to empathise with Am-Clara's attempts to.

(Clara. Clara-Clara-Clara. Clara. Clara. Okay, I've got the new name now. This one's called Clara instead.)

Clara also gets to explore the TARDIS a bit. I think a lot of the series' appeal lies in the wonder of that safe box from which we can visit anywhere at anywhen, so it surprises me that more episodes don't make more of this. We see the library, the Eye of Harmony (or a fragment of it, whatever), and the new swimming-pool, which looks absolutely spectacular. (the old one was abandoned in The Doctor's Wife) Frankly I'd be happy with forty minutes of this travelogue and no story at all, especially since so much of the plot we do have functions as poorly as the TARDIS does this week.

Yes, I'm afraid that the following list of problems is going to look as ugly as the episode itself:

- The TARDIS, we are told, has been wrecked by a salvage ship's grappler. It accordingly lies in a pile of wreckage, which in this context appears to be its own innards. It turns out it's not though, as one of the merchants dismisses it as "four feet of metal". (apparently describing either its width or its depth, as opposed to its height) How the Doctor has got outside into such wreckage to talk to the scrap-dealers is anyone's guess. Does he have a Star Trek type transporter in there?

- Despite the TARDIS' sentience, which here is realised better than in any story in the past, the Doctor doesn't just ask the TARDIS whereabouts on the ship Clara is. Instead he recruits three complete strangers to help him scour the corridors for her, as slowly as possible, and even more nonsensically en masse. He even says he's set the ship on self-destruct to motivate them. This is awful, just awful, and on no level a situation that we the viewers can buy into without constant frustration at the Doctor's total inability to simply look for someone in his own house. He's pathetic. Even the self-destruct turns out to have been a lie, following which its impossible for either the rag and bone men, or us, to believe anything else that he says.

- Despite having last been seen in the console room, Clara awakens under some internal wreckage down a corridor. How did they get separated? When we last saw them they were both together in the console room.

- Clara should surely have already explored the TARDIS long before now. Despite what she claims, she's certainly already spoken to it. (last week in Hide)

- In the library, Clara discovers a book detailing the history of the Time War, which she opens on exactly the right page to discover who the Doctor really is. She later claims to have read his name. Yet just how can it be possible for her to know that the person named in the book is him? She doesn't already know his name, nor can there even be a picture of his current face for her to recognise. This might be explained in a later episode, but I'm not holding my breath. I shall skip the impossibility of a history book about the Time War even existing - I mean who can possibly have published such a tome.

- Tricky the android discovers that he is not an android, something which even us viewers who have only just met him could see coming a mile off. Sheesh, just how can he possibly never have known this? They even carry scanners to tell them what everything is. Idiots.

- Clara gets scared of the Doctor, realising what a weird guy he is when he admits that he thinks he's met a girl exactly like her twice before. As in Cold War, it's all looking like she's going to completely lose it, go home, and wrongly peg him as a stalker forevermore, but nah. Inexplicably she then says how much she likes being hugged by him. It's another real missed opportunity for a show that thrives upon doing things that are new, and especially since Clara is a completely expendable character - she's been killed off twice before already.

- We see Clara's impending doom, but it doesn't happen. Again, how dramatic could it have been for the Doctor to lose her again. Her previous deaths in the series make this a real possibility.

- As the TARDIS consciously mixes up its own physical interior, a similar thing happens to localised time. (it's leaking space as well as time) Now, normally I would insist upon this making a modicum of sense, but given the confusion in geography too, I think it works. What doesn't sit well with me is the ambience of dialogue from episodes going back some 50 years, and there being no exploitation of anything else from over that period, eg. walls. Future glimpses of River and / or the Valeyard and /or already filmed scenes from next series would have been good too.

- The inside of the TARDIS turns out to be every bit as miserable and cold as in the aforementioned The Doctor's Wife, and on no level a place where anyone would like to live. It's one area in which any TARDIS scene from the original series trumps any one in the revived version every time - the old TARDIS was cosy. I'm genuinely disappointed that this episode didn't mine the opportunity to take advantage of that.

I could watch this once, but I couldn't ever recommend it to anyone, fan or not. Its lazy collection of isolated situations feel like an ill-fitting jigsaw, reminiscent of The Curse Of The Black Spot. (NB. After typing that last sentence, I learnt that this episode had been written by the same author)

And that title at the start was going so well, darn it.

For all that, Clara continues to come out as friendlier than Amy, and the Doctor as less trustworthy, both of which would be good trends to continue. I also liked the Doctor's needing to tweak a plan that he'd already carried out, and the usual undoing of everything so far by the pressing of a handy button is done much better here than usual.

Doctor: "I've thrown this through the rift before. I need to make sure this time. I'm going to take it in there myself... there might be a certain amount of yelling."
Clara: "It's gonna hurt?"
Doctor: "Things that end your life often do that."

At the very end, there's also a curious shot of a piece of paper falling in front of the Doctor:

Has this happened before? Are there going to be more of them? Will it turn out to have said something completely nonsensical again like 'bad wolf'?

Or are they going to lose interest and just forget about it?

Thank You For Smoking

I think it was at the Auckland Film Festival - in July 2006 - that I first heard of this movie.

I'd somehow got talking to this lady who was enthusing to me about what a great film it was because, as I understood her to mean, it exposed how arbitrary, underhanded, and just plain false the anti-smoking lobby's arguments were.

So, nearly seven years on, now that I have today finally made good on her movie-recommendation, I must conclude that one of us had seriously misunderstood. Either I had completely got the wrong end of the stick of the point that she was making, or she had genuinely missed the film's message.

(a third option would see me missing the film's message this morning)

Lead character Nick Naylor is a professional tobacco lobbyist. Although a smoker himself, he's not actually that into the stuff, he's just paid to be. He's really a spin doctor. Throughout the running-time we see him giving interviews, appearing on TV, having on-air showdowns with politicians, that sort of thing.

In the opening scene - an appearance on a daytime talk show - he puts his foot in his mouth by contradicting himself almost in the same breath. He argues that smoking can't be deadly because the smoking companies don't want their customer base to die, and then straight afterwards announces a $25million campaign to cut teen smoking. You can't really have it both ways.

There's another scene early on with Nick's son, who he only has custody of at the weekends, and for a moment the whole yarn looks set to go off the rails in the same way that a child will afflict most modern films, but then things take an interesting turn.

As Nick flies around America carrying out his duties, he finds himself taking his son with him. Along the way he repeatedly finds himself explaining what it is that he is actually doing, and indeed the real reason why - for the money. Just for a change, the kid is not just there to enable the film's target audience to easier identify with Nick. He serves a stronger purpose as a device for Nick to explain to us the tricks of his trade (the film's true agenda), without having to spend even more of the film using narration.

Hence, we witness Nick criticising the speaker rather than their argument, broadening the topic from morality to freedom, and replacing an argument with an analogy so that he can exaggerate it and then attack that instead.

Nick Naylor: "I'm sorry. I just don't see the point in a warning label for something people already know."

Senator Dupree: "The warning symbol is a reminder, a reminder of the dangers of smoking cigarettes."

Nick Naylor: "Well, if we want to remind people of danger why don't we slap a skull and crossbones on all Boeing airplanes, Senator Lothridge. And all Fords, Senator Dupree."

Senator Ortolan Finistirre: "That is ridiculous. The death toll from airline and automobile accidents doesn't even skim the surface cigarettes. They don't even compare."

Nick Naylor: "Oh, this from a senator who calls Vermont home."

Senator Ortolan Finistirre: "I don't follow you, Mr. Naylor."

Nick Naylor: "Well, the real demonstrated #1 killer in America is cholesterol. And here comes Senator Finistirre whose fine state is, I regret to say, clogging the nation's arteries with Vermont Cheddar Cheese. If we want to talk numbers, how about the millions of people dying of heart attacks? Perhaps Vermont Cheddar should come with a skull and crossbones."

Senator Ortolan Finistirre: "That is lu - . The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese!"

The way he convinces the shotgun-wielding man bitterly dying of cancer to accept a bribe for his silence is cinema gold.

As you can see though, Nick's fluency in dirty tricks is a little short-changed in this film by the absence of a worthy opponent who can really stand up to him. Even when a woman reporter beds him and gets him to spill all his secrets, this hardly takes any intellect. To the end of the film it remains a mystery why such a smart cookie as Naylor falls for the oldest 'trick' in the book.

And there are one or two other disappointing moments when Nick's formidable skills are likewise let down by his less-able scriptwriter here.

The plot is refreshingly simple though, giving the characters and politics unusual room to breathe.

Then the middle of the movie features a misplaced kidnapping storyline. The kidnappers' forewarning him of this makes no sense at all, as doesn't the producer of the live TV show who doesn't see the hijacking of his show coming. The kidnapping itself is accompanied by comedy harp music, which hardly reflects the feelings of the character.

After Nick has been released and unexpectedly survived being covered in nicotine-patches, the kidnappers are then simply never mentioned again. Umm, I think you'll find they'll now be after him again to finish the job…? Nope, not in this film, which is something of a surprise for a flick about people's motivations.

In the closing scene, Nick's voice-over smugly remarks to the viewer "Now I know what you're thinking..." No you don't. Actually I was wondering how Nick's son Joey could be outside the building while simultaneously also being inside it. Like I say, this film is written very well, but not quite well enough.

On another subject, the picture is awful. Someone had the bright idea of tinting much of the film with a tobacco colour so that we wouldn't be able to see it clearly. No.

So, is this film pro or anti-smoking? Well, I'd err on the side of saying that it's anti, although that may just be due to my own cultural perspective. It's not really about smoking in the first place (no-one in the film is ever even seen having a puff), but more about the subversion of politics and the media.

Watching the news this lunchtime, about an entirely different subject, I found myself taking quite a different approach to the words of one of their suited interviewees though…

So, I guess I was convinced after all.

(available, if you're old enough, here)

Doctor Who: Hide

Just for once a generic title that could apply to any Doctor Who story in the last 50 years, gets employed on a tale that thoroughly deserves it.

I mean everyone is hiding in this one. The Doctor is at his most evasive ever when facing Amy (sorry) Clara's barrage of questions in the TARDIS. The TARDIS herself is hiding from Clara. Professor Palmer is hiding from just about everyone, as is his assistant Emma Grayling, although for different reasons. Even the monster in this five-hander stays fairly well hidden, most of the time.

I found the opening in the haunted house somewhat reminiscent of The Sarah Jane Adventures, although mercifully without anywhere near as much music. Bits of the middle are reminiscent of Sapphire & Steel, as they should be. The end, with the two aliens in love, was reminiscent of K9, which no programme - including K9 itself - should ever remind its viewers of.

For the most part, this is a good story, ably directed and well played. The small cast, including the TARDIS, is used well as everyone gets something important to do. When the Doctor becomes trapped in the pocket universe, and two contradictory rescue plans are hatched without any other party's knowledge, there's a real sense of threat that someone's hopes are not going to come to survive the episode.

In fact, the episode easily soars over Doctor Who's usual mediocre fare simply by staying away from all the usual tropes of BBC news reports, zombies, a guest character helpfully committing suicide, and a machine that undoes everything for our heroes at the end. As a result, for much of this I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen next, as the characters had to use their wits to find ways of dealing with the situation. (well, when the Doctor wasn't reeling off information without much evidence of how he'd acquired it, anyway)

A few plot points were lost on me, such as how the Doctor could photograph the 'ghost' in the same place throughout Earth's history without her being permanently visible there forever. Also, that ending. Sorry, how did the Doctor reunite the alien lovers? Did he return to the pocket universe again, or was that a flashback, or did he go back and overwrite his own history? They looked like flashbacks…

Despite this, the other really big praise point here was the director - Jamie Payne. At long last the music is kept to a minimum, completely absent from talking scenes, and the actors' dialogue has been recorded beautifully in the first place. And all this in addition to how well the ghost story unfolds anyway! What a shame this aired in sunny April instead of, had this series continued airing last October, at Halloween. Mind you, after the second half of Cold War was ruined by digital TV's inability to cope with a few clouds last week, I guess this was the lesser of two evils.

Finally, Clara (see I got her name right at last) continues to be written as a generic Who companion with no characterisation of her own, and as such continues to be a relief. She has little to do here except ask the Doctor questions, which while obviously not an ideal way to be realised, is heaps more preferable to the usual maneater co-stars these days. Like last week, she portrays the companion as a fish-out-of-water very well indeed for a change. Even when she sets off to rescue the Doctor in the TARDIS, it's the TARDIS that's doing all the work with her just along for the ride. Hmm, yes I'll take that.

Mind you, she does have to have the usual conversation about boys again, like all the other modern ones have to. Once again, it makes her just another clone. It's the one thing that really lets down this otherwise excellent episode - the amount of love going on. In the 1960s Star Trek was always always rubbish whenever it tried to depict the characters falling in love, and it remains embarrassing to see Doctor Who continuing to try to emulate this fifty years on. No-one takes love in science-fiction TV series very seriously, no-one. Well all right, I'll concede that there is a minority. Anyway lose all that, and this episode would be a corker.

Definitely not an episode to Hide!

The Flight Of The Conchords (TV series)

***Contains spoilers***

Let's get one thing straight at the start - whatever anyone may say, no matter who they may be, this TV series is entitled THE Flight Of The Conchords. It's right up there on the title card! :)

'Flight of the Conchords' (FOTC) are a music duo from New Zealand with their own highly popular US TV sitcom, which would be eponymous but that, as stated above, it has that whole extra "The" going on at the beginning.

It's also based upon their similar BBC Radio 2 series, but this article isn't about that, purely the TV version. After all, this version doesn't have Neil Finn in it. (I guess everywhere they went, they didn't always take Neil Finn with them)

Each week Bret Mckenzie and Jemaine Clement, as Bret and Jemaine respectively (whew!), wander through some sequence of events or other, usually falling out along the way, and always drifting off into at least two of their bizarrely tounge-in-cheek songs. Part sitcom and part music show, all the words in this series appear to have been carefully crafted to hit their target, resulting in quality all the way.

Well, most of the way.

Season two suffers from second album syndrome, with songs and videos that just aren't as good, and tend to feature the duo merely singing on-camera rather than with the psychedelic direction of some of season one. Also famous guest stars begin to make appearances, which breaks the deadpan believability of the world they stumble so ridiculously through. (I never recognised Rachel Blanchard in the first series - she looked so much younger than she did in Clueless) Season one is great! Season two, well, that's good as well.

Just listen to (or read even) the freedom with which their finely-honed scripts will repeatedly change subject and hence remain unpredictable:

[Opening of episode 8 Girlfriends: Bret and Jemaine are standing outside a bakery]
Jemaine [right]: "Come on man, I can't go in there by myself."
Bret [left]: "I don't like croissants."
Jemaine: "What was all that about just then?"
Bret: "What?"
Jemaine: "About you not liking croissants?"
Bret: "What are you talking about?"
Jemaine: "What are you talking about now?"
Bret: "I don't like croissants."
Jemaine: "I don't even know what you're talking about."
Bret: "I'm not going in there man."
Jemaine: "You gotta come in there with me, I can’t go in there by myself and buy a croissant can I - she'll think I'm weird. You have to back me up, you have to be what's called my wingman."
Bret: "Oh like in Top Gun."
Jemaine: "Stop comparing everything to Top Gun. It's not - this situation's nothing like Top Gun. 'Ooh it's like Top Gun!' Come on, it'll only take five minutes - we've been out here talking about it for two hours now."
[They enter the bakery and take the two female sales assistants cycling into a film-damaged Scopitone music parody, performed entirely in French, at least, until Jemaine remembers that he cannot speak French]

As you might have noticed, Bret and Jemaine both play the straight man in this, and as such there isn't much to distinguish their inner identities from each other. Similarly, words and phrases like "Could you please leave?" and interest in threesomes keep getting voiced by multiple characters, inevitably resulting in a lack of diversity among them, which is not necessarily a bad thing for this type of comedy. After all, like The Monkees, this is not a character-based comedy, but a joke-based one. Their repeated reveal that there has been an extra person in the room all along, rendering the entire conversation so far inappropriate, becomes something of a running gag, although not quite in the way that running gags are meant to.

I originally set out to watch one episode of this a week, but quickly found myself watching more like four at a time - I couldn't get enough! Come the end of the series, I went back to make some notes for this article, and lo and behold found myself pretty well watching the entire two seasons all over again. Clearly I was enjoying this!

One thing that does bug me though is the series' broader continuity. In one episode their manager Murray (Rhys Darby) gets a new computer. But then the following week he has his old one again. Oh, well, those clever old network schedulers have obviously been rearranging the episodes' order without watching them. When will they learn? But, hang on, this is a DVD, so what's the excuse now?

In another episode Murray's Honda Accord car crashes into a swimming-pool and has to be hauled away. Yet in subsequent episodes he's wordlessly driving it again, in fact right through the following series, and this despite having at one point actually acquired a different new car! Well, maybe his waterlogged car actually got repaired. Or perhaps Murray buys a third car that is identical to his first one, after all, that sounds like the sort of thing he would do. Either way, I need a line explaining this, precisely to avoid it feeling like I'm still watching these out of sequence.

Their multiple contradictory backstories are insane.

In another episode the first scene features Bret and Jemaine discussing at length how they have only ever owned one cup between them. Yeah… nah.

So, in case you are about to watch these two series for the first time, I have put together the following suggested viewing order to minimise these disruptions to the series' flow.

Broadly speaking, I've tried to preserve the transmitted order, and only tweaked it where I thought events needed it, and where it doesn't to me appear to have disrupted anything else. There may well be other background details that I've messed up, probably including things like furniture, but I've prioritised whatever the makers have drawn the viewer's attention to.

I mean okay, so there are two different opening credit sequences to waver between (for example like there were on Soap), and the cast may subtly age two years and back now and then, and some things just won't make sense whatever order you watch them in (the number of band photos available), but at least this time Murray won't take down and change his office poster only to change it back again a week later. And do feel free to ignore any signage out the front of the New Zealand Consulate - that makes no sense at all, even within individual episodes. (don't question why Bret and Jemaine splash out on new leather jackets either…)

Here we go:

1. Flight Of The Conchords TX#1: Sally

Plot: Jemaine goes out with Bret's ex-girlfriend Sally, thanks to turning the lights to very low while she's by the stereo. However they then come to a fork in the road which cuts like a knife. What she really wants is an Australian.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand. Like Lord Of The Rings
A second poster materialises behind Bret and Jemaine mid-scene:

Murray has a laptop computer.
Jemaine's ex-girlfriends include Sarah Fitzpatrick, Michelle Fitzpatrick and Claire Fitzpatrick in New Zealand.
Landlord Eugene (played by the lugubrious Eugene Mirman) interjects that he is getting new taps for the building.
Video for "The Humans Are Dead / Robots" is recorded.
Greg (Frank Wood) speaks to Murray and ignores Bret and Jemaine.
Bret and Jemaine have one glass visible at their flat.
They perform no gigs.
Bret and Jemaine's flat has brown walls in this episode only.

2. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#3: Mugged

Plot: Despite being given a map, a reflector and instructions to stay away from crowds and stick to the back alleys, the Rhymenoceros and the Hiphopapotamus (rapping names) still get mugged. I guess they should have read the episode title.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Cool!
Murray now uses a very old desktop computer.

Bret and Jemaine have eleven cups and one glass visible at their flat.
Murray has only ever got them one gig.
Bret and Jemaine meet mugger John.
Murray drives a dark green car.
One good photo (and others?) of Bret and Jemaine from their cameraphone are developed.
No Greg.

3. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#2: Bret Gives up the Dream

Plot: Inner city pressure causes Murray to fire Bret and replace him with a cassette, which works out better because the tape is cheaper, more consistent, and not as hairy. At a tourism expo, as well references to New Zealand's Te Pahu toothbrush fence and the Ohakune carrot, you can just make out a photo of the Tirau Sheep with the caption 'The Shed That's In The Shape Of A Sheep'.

Continuity:

Central poster: still New Zealand - Cool!
Murray still has the old computer.
Bret and Jemaine have a coffee flask and a soup dish visible at their flat.
Bret and Jemaine are poor.
Bret pawns the cameraphone.
Murray: "I haven't got you paid gigs for a while."
Murray seems to learn for the first time that Greg knows Bret and Jemaine.
Murray has had a photo of Bret and Jemaine printed on a consignment of mousepads.
Bret gets a job as a human billboard.
Jemaine appears to be composing the song Who Wants To Rock The Party.
Murray fires Bret, then arguably Jemaine also.
Jemaine performs two gigs solo.
Bret meets Coco.

4. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#4: Yoko

Plot: In both transmission order and this one, the fourth episode in a row to feature Bret and Jemaine falling out.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Cool!
Murray has the old computer.
Bret and Jemaine have one cup visible at their flat. (yellow)
Bret begins going out with Coco.
Murray and Mel (Kristen Schaal) attend the 2nd annual fan club meeting, implying that Murray has been managing the band for at least one year.
Murray has some photos that he found at Bret and Jemaine's flat, including the one already used on the mousepads in Bret Gives Up The Dream, so I'll presume that he found them before that.
Murray invites Mel to keep a photo of himself topless, suggesting that he is currently single and does not yet know of her husband Doug (David Costabile).
Murray and Jemaine go on an Interesting Buildings Tour together.
Murray: "Bret shouldn't have a girlfriend, I told him!"
Murray advises Bret not to mix a girlfriend with music.
Bret resigns again: "Yeah well I'm quitting this band, yeah."
Jemaine: "Ah well you quit last week!"
(this is probably a reference to Murray's sacking him in Bret Gives Up The Dream, originally aired two weeks' earlier)

5. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#5: Sally Returns

Plot: Sally returns. In an astoundingly unexpected plot-twist, this does not cause the band to break up.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Cool!
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have at least five cups between them, and a flask.
Sally has watched the Humans Are Dead / Robots video online.
Bret refers to back when he and Jemaine knew each other at school.
Eugene refers to the apartment's new paint job.
Jemaine: "Do we have any gigs anyway?"
Murray: "Ah yes, I've got an answer for that… no."
Bret makes an embroidery of Sally's face.
Bret gets ditched by Coco.

6. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#6: Bowie

Plot: "Weird Al" Yankovic and Professor Kettlewell's giant robot from Doctor Who appear as photos. David Bowie appears as stardust.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray has the old computer.
Bret gets through two cups.
Murray: "We've got A photo", but it was taken by Bret and doesn't have Jemaine in. Murray's only 'other' photo of them has Bret's face stuck over Jemaine's ex-girlfriend Claire. (presumably Claire Fitzpatrick, as identified in Sally)
Greg does a photoshoot of the duo using a passport camera.
At some point in the past they have been on a tour, but the location is not specified.

The futuristic birthday card plays The Humans Are Dead / Robots song.

7. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#8: Girlfriends

Plot: Bret and Jermaine get new girlfriends.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?

Murray still has the old computer.
Bret and Jemaine have 4 cups visible.
Bret and Jemaine go out with Lisa and Felicia.
Murray: "Look I've told you this before guys, okay, I don't wanna have to, y'know, back-pedal and repeat myself but, it's like I said when you [Bret] were with Coco: Bands shouldn't have girlfriends. Okay? You lose your female fan-base."
Murray refers to himself and Shelley last Christmas, it's unclear whether they are still together.
Murray plays an excerpt of the song Who Wants To Rock The Party.

8. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#12: The Third Conchord

The final episode of season one.

Plot: Murray broadens his portfolio to also manage The Original Flight Of The Conchords and the Crazy Dogggz, the latter of whom get to number one in 24 countries in just one month. "He's like the pied piper of cool!"

Continuity:

Central poster: still New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray has the old computer.
Bret and Jemaine have four cups visible and a glass.
There are several gigs.
They sing The Humans Are Dead / Robots.
Murray remarks that Bret is always quitting.
Murray gets a new open-topped BMW sports car.
Jemaine says that no-one attended their recent gig.

9. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#13: A Good Opportunity

The first episode of season two.

Murray: "I don't need you guys! You're un-needed? Okay, I've got the Crazy Dogggz? They're making hit after hit! Doggy Bounce - number one, Doggy Dance - number five, In The Pound - number 37? That's not gonna stop - it's never gonna stop! They're a hit-making machine!"

Plot: It stops. Everything returns to exactly the same way as it was before in just 26 minutes. The way in which Murray gets his old job back is pure genius.

Continuity:

Central poster: should really still be New Zealand - Why Not?, but it isn't, so they've used the old New Zealand - Cool! one as a stand-in for it, and folded it over itself to disguise it! Hence the first word 'New' is all that has been left visible above, because that is the same first word of both posters.
Likewise, if Murray does has a computer, then it is also carefully hidden from us, again because in this second series it would be the wrong one. I'd better not look too closely at the rest of that office.
Bret and Jemaine have no cups visible.
Library gig.
Bret's dad is/was a sheep lawyer.
Murray has similar dull green car to earlier Honda Accord again.
According to Greg's account of Murray's phone messages, at least seven months have elapsed since The Third Conchord.

10. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#7: Drive By

Plot: Bret and Jemaine become victims of racism, until they realise that it's all been a simple misunderstanding.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?

Murray has a new computer installed.
Bret and Jemaine have 4 cups visible.
Bret and Jemaine are surprised to learn that Murray is now separated from his wife, despite his having earlier moved in with them for a month, during which time they had to talk him down from the roof.
They receive a videotape from New Zealand of The Dog Show and Albi The Racist Dragon #6. I love the advert.

11. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#9: What Goes On Tour

Murray: "I'm so livered with you turkeys - you're like a couple of cool looking idiots!"

Plot: Bret, Jemaine and Murray go on a warm-up tour to prepare for their biggest gig ever - Central Park.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray has no computer visible.
No scenes take place at Bret and Jemaine's apartment.
Bret and Jemaine learn of the existence of the band's Emergency Fund.
Bret is surprised that Murray and Shelley are back together again.
They play several gigs.
Murray has FOTC CDs with the Union Flag and a photo of Bret and Jemaine on the cover.
Jemaine: [to Murray] "You can't quit the band! Bret usually quits the band!"
Bret causes significant water-damage to Murray's Honda Accord. Just ignore this.

12. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#10: New Fans

Plot: Bret and Jemaine get a new fan each, trippling their fanbase.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray still has the new computer.
Bret and Jemaine have one cup visible.
They play a gig.
They sing Who Wants To Rock The Party.
They get new fans called Summer and Rain.
Murray reveals that Bret and Jemaine's bedroom and lounge are being monitored by a live web-cam.

13. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#11: The Actor

Plot: Murray negotiates a $2million deal for the band with a major label - Sony. Too bad he never thought of that (in either order) while he had all that clout as manager of the Crazy Dogggz.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray still has his new computer.
No scenes take place at Bret and Jemaine's apartment.
They play a gig.
Bret wears his Sally embroidery as a t-shirt.
The song Cheer Up, Murray refers to his 03 Accord car, how his wife comes and goes and met someone on the net, and that Murray's 33rd birthday party was attended apparently only by Bret, Jemaine and Greg.
Murray appears to have first met Bret and Jemaine 1½ years ago when they had lost their passports and come into the consulate.
Murray: "I haven't seen any record deals." Yes, I know I should have left this episode before Murray's management of the Crazy Dogggz, but in that story he still had his old computer, so what are you gonna do?

14. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#14: The New Cup

Jemaine: "I knew if you bought a cup I would end up in jail."

Plot: Bret buys a new tea cup for $2.79.

Continuity:

Central poster: Woolcome to New Zealand.

Murray has a new new computer.
Bret and Jemaine have one cup, and have always owned just one cup (despite the evidence of the opening credits), which they have always shared. They even have a cup roster. Until this episode when Bret buys a second cup, and a month later all Hell breaks loose.
Jemaine: "Why would we need two cups?"
Two gigs, which is more than the number of guitars they have available.
Bret asks about the band's Emergency Fund.
Bret and Jemaine apply to the government for some biscuits.
They sing The Humans Are Dead / Robots twice.
Bret refers back to Sally.
There is a boom briefly visible in the darkness at 13:20. Just sayin'.
Bret is still employed as a human billboard.
Jemaine phones his ex-girlfriend Carol, who he knew in February last year, so they have been based in New York for at least a year.

15. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#15: The Tough Brets

Plot: The Rhymenocerous disses other rappers. Murray gets dissed by Jim Robinson, who bizarrely becomes a body double in the immediately following video.

Continuity:

Central poster: Woolcome to New Zealand, then later New Zealand - Better Than Old Zealand.
Murray has no computer visible, but Greg has a new-looking one.
Bret and Jemaine have 1 or 2 cups visible.
Another library gig.
Bret uses his rapping name.
Jemaine says Shelley has left Murray.

16. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#16: Murray Takes It to the Next Level

Murray: "Let's have a look at the friend-agenda. The afrienda."

Plot: Murray gets the guys a gig in his workplace's elevator, but when they presume to play table tennis on his desk, they take advantage of his friendship so badly that he forgets who they are.

Continuity:

Central poster: none, then later New Zealand - It's Not Going Anywhere.
Murray has his new new computer.
Bret and Jemaine have a flask.
They discuss past gigs, including ones on a raft and in a campervan.
They do a gig in a lift.
Murray wants to become Bret and Jemaine's friends, rather than their colleagues. He seems to have forgotten going on the Interesting Buildings Tour with Jemaine in Yoko, and living with them for a month before Drive By.
Murray appears to live alone.
They play Who Wants To Rock The Party.
Murray drives a silver car.
Murray ends the episode with a best friend called Jim.

17. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#18: Love Is The Weapon Of Choice

Plot: Bret and Jemaine both write songs about the plight of epileptic dogs, and put on a benefit concert to raise awareness of the issue. They succeed. Spectacularly.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Ewe Should Come.
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have no cups visible.
Murray has been their manager for two years minimum, or at least has records of meetings going back that far.
Despite all the talk of writing a song about dogs, nobody even mentions the Crazy Dogggz or their back-catalogue.
Murray appears to be single as he comes onto Brahbrah a bit.
They put on a benefit gig.

18. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#19: Prime Minister

Jemaine: "So we look like some Simon & Garfunkle look-alikes who don't look like Simon & Garfunkle."
Murray: "That's right. What a blessing!"

Plot: Murray becomes personal aide to the Prime Minister (Bryan), and has to set up a meeting with President Obama at the Whitehouse. First however he has to convince them that New Zealand is a real country.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand Only 18 hours from New York.
Murray has new new computer.
Bret and Jemaine have no cups visible.
They recently did a gig at a karaoke bar.
Jemaine: "You've been managing us for two years!"
Murray says they are still in a learning phase.
They do a gig as Simon & Garfunkle look-alikes.
Bryan (the Prime Minister of New Zealand) arrives.
The previous Prime Minister was called 'John'.
Rt Hon Bryan PM: [regarding his business card] "Yes I know it says John, that was the last Prime Minister, we had 3,000 of those printed, we couldn't just throw them away! Still the same number though isn't it Murray?"
Murray: "Same phone number, basically when you call up just ask for Bryan not John. Changes every three years."
Jemaine sleeps with Karen.

19. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#20: NewZealandTown

Plot: Bryan (the Prime Minister of New Zealand) creates a little piece of home in the big apple. Meanwhile Bret and Jemaine suffer withdrawal symptoms from hair gel and hide in their apartment, forgetting that it is monitored by a live web-cam. (whatever)

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Like Scotland But Further.
Murray has no computer visible, although yet another new one appears in a deleted scene.
Bret and Jemaine have no cups visible.
Bret and Jemaine play a gig at which most of the audience are shopping bags.
Murray: "One person. This is a new low."
Murray: [later]"0 people. This is a new low." (he's presumably unaware of the gig in The Third Conchord)
Bret and Jemaine play a gig at the opening night of NewZealandTown.

20. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#21: Wingmen

Plot: To ask out a girl, Bret uses an idea from a sitcom, which he reasons ought to work properly in real life.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Worth A Go.
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have 1 cup and 1 glass visible.
Jemaine watches The Dog Show.
Bret says Jemaine always hits on his girl. Eugene agrees.
Murray refers to Shelley in the past tense.
Jemaine gets his mugger friend John from Mugged to help them.
Bret gets together - briefly - with Savannah, still forgetting about the live web-cam.

21. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#17: Unnatural Love

Plot: Jemaine accidentally starts dating an Australian.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Take Your Mum.
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have two cups.
Murray drives a green Honda.
Bret's biscuits arrive.
When they first met each other, Jemaine tried to have Bret deported from New Zealand for being an Australian. (he was wearing a vest top which his (Bret's) mum thought would make him look like Bruce Willis) As Sally Returns states that they knew each other at school, this was quite enterprising.
In the song Carol Brown, Jemaine lists his ex-girlfriends Loretta, Joan, Jen, Jan, Lisa, Felicity, Emily, Fran, Bruce, Flo, Mimi, Britney, Paula, Persephone, Stella, Stefanie, Mona, Tiffany and Carol Brown. Lisa is not the Lisa from Girlfriends, while Carol Brown is presumably the same Carol he telephoned in The New Cup. There is no mention of Sarah, Michelle, Claire, Sally or Felicia, so I wanted to move this earlier, but...

In the final scene they get robbed of almost everything they own by Keitha, leaving their apartment deserted of furniture. Of course, their flat is monitored by a live web-cam, and they know where she lives anyway. I've suggested moving this episode back to here due to the number of subsequently broadcast episodes that featured their apartment normally furnished again.

22. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#22: Evicted

Murray: "I think it might be time guys."
Jemaine: "What for?"
Murray: "To stage your lives as an off-broadway musical."

Plot: Evicted for being two years overdue with the rent, Bret and Jemaine stage an off-broadway musical about their time in New York.

Continuity:

Central poster: It's not boring in New Zealand.
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have 1 cup and about 7 glasses visible.
Bret and Jemaine's landlord Eugene has today tried to cash all of the pair's rent checks for the last two years only to realise that they are in New Zealand dollars. (most of them would have expired by now anyway) With $7,727 USD back-rent outstanding, Eugene gives them a month's notice of eviction. (neither of them think to check how much is still in that account, given that Eugene has never drawn upon it)

This first scene is the only one set in their apartment, and is set a month before the rest of the episode begins on November 1st. Given the flat's furnishment, this opening can therefore be viewed as a prologue set prior to their total burglary by Keitha in Unnatural Love, hence my suggesting moving that episode back to immediately before this one. Of course, you could argue that the five episodes originally broadcast between that episode and this one could all have taken place in that month, but I find that too much of an ask.
Jemaine still has his cameraphone.
Murray is still living alone. The guys decline to sleep on Murray's floor when they learn that he had to leave the army due to seeking people out in his sleep to grope them. You would have thought that their shared accommodation in What Goes On Tour would have reassured them on this count.
Bret and Jemaine now first met while they were both working as shepherds in nearby paddocks, and a couple of Jemaine's sheep had wandered over into Bret's paddock. I guess we have to assume that that day Bret was working in a vest top (Unnatural Love), and that since his dad was a sheep lawyer and not a farmer (A Good Opportunity), this was holiday work from the school that they hadn't met at yet. (Sally Returns)
The play includes reenactments of events from Prime Minister, Mugged and The New Cup.
Technically, the play's opening night is their final (to date) US gig.
The series concludes with Bret, Jemaine and Murray returning to New Zealand.

23. Flight Of The Conchords & Friends: TX#23: Feel Inside (And Stuff Like That)

Plot: Still in NZ, Murray convinces the duo to release a charity single for the local Red Nose Day, so the pair ask Kiwi kids for advice on what to write about. For example:

Bret: "What does the Prime Minister like spending his money on?"
Kid wearing New York City top: "A chair, or a sofa."

Bret later singing lyrics to final song: "John stop blowing all the money on couches."

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not Moove Here?
Murray has no computer visible.
No scenes are set at their apartment in New York.
In August 2012, Murray and the guys haven't spoken for three years.
With Bryan's three-year term complete, the NZ premiership has been reclaimed by John again. Hope they still had some of those cards left over.
Murray ought to be present at the recording studio, smiling and nodding his head enthusiastically like a muppet, but he isn't. I guess Bret might have found that derivative.
Jemaine has really let himself go.

This telethon sketch cum minisode is the duo's, well, trio's really, final outing to date. While another TV series has long-since been ruled-out, that has been talk of a movie, well, I mean there's always talk of a movie isn't there? All the same, I find it very hard to believe that we've seen the last of Bret, Jemaine and their long-suffering manager Murray.

Until next time then, I'm not crying... no I'm - I'm not cryin'...

(mostly available here)

Flight Of The Conchords (BBC radio series)

When I put my mind to it, like the band above, I can be quite two-faced.

For example, if there's one type of fictional series that I never like, then it's the reboot.

For so many reasons:

1. A reboot kills off any possibility of the well-loved original version ever returning.

2. A reboot carries the implication that the original is somehow inferior to this new version.

3. A reboot sets up a competition - and uncertainty - between tellings as to which account of events is the true one.

4. A reboot is always a waste of time getting into, because the precedent is now set for this new version to presently itself get thrown away and rebooted, so why bother? (anyone remember Sam Raimi's world-popular, but nevertheless short-lived, reboot film series Spider-Man - itself rebooted against his wishes after a mere decade?)

Reboots. Hate 'em. Such a betrayal of the audience's loyalty, trust and, dang it, love.

Imagine my dismay then at learning that HBO's well-received American TV sitcom The Flight Of The Conchords - which I enjoyed so much that I watched both seasons twice - was in fact just such a beast.

For this morning I completed listening to the series' trial run from two years earlier - a six-part BBC series, made, set and broadcast in the United Kingdom, on the radio.

Featuring the same cast, characterisations, style, songs and jumbled-up plots, this preboot (barring Rob Brydon's narration and Neil Finn) is just like listening to a mixture of several episodes of the TV series again, in fact, too much like it.

And once more I found myself going through the same mindset as I described above. Why bother getting into this, when the later TV series makes it impossible for me to root for the outcome of events that can have no lasting consequences? Where plots are duplicated, did the guys have the actual adventure in the UK, or NY? Maybe they can still get together and record some more episodes of this… oh no, that's right, now they never will.

I don't have many bad things to say about the fourth most popular folk parody band from Wellington, but I do think it a great shame that their later TV series simply reworked this material (therefore being dependent upon the TV public not being aware of these editions), instead of building upon them. How much more fascinating and sought after would these radio episodes be if they told of Bret, Jemaine and their manager's backstory and exploits from before their move across to the United States?

It's tempting to try to find a way of reading that backstory in here, or even retropositioning this earlier series as a sequel. Maybe, after their deportation to NZ at the end of the second TV series, they had to try going to the UK because the US wouldn't let them back in again. Maybe Murray (still played identically by Rhys Darby) therefore changed his name to Brian Nesbitt for legal reasons. And maybe they make so many of the same mistakes all over again, compose the same songs again, and encounter another fast-talking shark who sounds like Greg Proops again, because… because… because it's all Bret's trip while taking drugs in the TV episode New Fans... aw, no, then he'd know the future...

No, I really am going to have to choose between the two.

Well, I'm opting for the TV reboot. It gets them out of Josh du Chez's crippling rights contract from episode four.

There. Now I feel dirty.

(available here)(think about it, think, think about it)

The Piano

***Contains spoilers***

Worst. Film. Ever! :)

Previous to sitting through this, for me the above accolade had been held for a good decade by Jacques Tati for his yawning two-hour 1967 muse Playtime, but even that has held a strange fascination for me down the years, if I'm honest. You know, it was so bad it was goo… well, no, that really was brain-hammeringly awful.

But then this morning I discovered The Piano, and that's so bad that I don't even have a synonym for it. And, impressively, it's all down to one single component - the script, which manages to single-handedly unweigh any good at all that the rest of the roles can do.

This two-hour man-bashing rant about a group of uniformly horrible grotesques opens with a child's narration. She explains that she is not a child but a mute adult, because having chosen to stop talking at six years old (for reasons never explained), this is her internal monologue that she is speaking to us through.

Err... how? I mean I get first-person narration - they're obviously talking to a second character at a later date - but this? Does she become telepathic?

Somewhere along the way she's grown up and had a daughter, and years after that somehow been given into an arranged marriage to a man who she's never met in another country - specifically New Zealand. Again, her motivation for going along with this, let alone his for sending overseas for a bride who he's never met, and has a daughter from a previous relationship, and has a disability, is never made clear. I suppose true love must cross all borders.

What is made deafeningly clear though is her attachment to her piano, although yet again, despite all her new husband's best efforts to make a good first impression, he inexplicably fails to register this. Upon his very first meeting her after she has been dropped off with her belongings on a deserted beach, despite her written, signed and interpreted protests, he insists upon leaving it behind on the sand to the elements. Again, no motivation at all for his ignorance of this woman's feelings in the face of his very attempts to win them.

In fact, he spends the entire film trying to win her over, but paradoxically cannot get this one obviously most important thing right, even despite the evidence of her simply having brought it all this way with her, and told him. He promises to go back to the beach for it, but then just doesn't. There's likewise no mention of why they don't even move it away from the water's edge to keep it drier. Does the tide come in and ruin it? Well I have to assume so, except that it remains in near-perfect condition, and tune, for most of the rest of the film.

Well, perhaps the moviemakers all want us all to hate this fellow, the heartless brute. But as mentioned, he likes her and wants to win her, so such brutishness cannot be the reason for his throwaway excuses.

Mind you, he is the sort of person who organises a wedding photograph to be taken, complete with studio background, outside in the pouring rain. Again, I have as much idea why he does this as he does that she loves the piano that she's so obviously upset about.

Soon he finds her at home miming playing a piano on an ordinary table, and he still cannot fathom why. It's a completely left-field event for him. He appears to have no memory whatsoever of the thing! We're half an hour into the movie now, and all hope of believing in these characters is gone. Next he even trades her abandoned piano away!

So one of his associates (who is secretly cheating him) gets the piano, and begins emotionally blackmailing the poor girl into sexual favours in return for getting her own piano back. Yes, she willingly prostitutes herself for the piano. Again, we're never told why she has to have this particular piano, as opposed to any other. However she in return emotionally blackmails him, raising the price of her favours making him more and more miserable. She does this with her young daughter just outside the house, it never occuring to her that the child might just peep in and see.

Presently her husband catches them having sex and, rather than confront them, contents himself to initially watch them through the wall, and then… crawl under the house to spy on them through the floorboards instead? Yes, really.

Presently his indignation does manifest itself though, and he tries to rape her, foolishly attempting to do so outdoors in the broad daylight of a public space, rather than in bed at their home.

Worst of all, she falls in love with the weirdo who's been forcing her to have sex with him in return for getting her beloved piano back. Yes, she falls in love with one of the two men who have been sexually abusing her. (there are barely any other men in this film) She even breaks off a central key of her piano to tell him so by writing on the side of it. While this demonstrates both his comparative importance to her and the paradoxical end of their manipulative 'piano lessons', obviously her precious instrument won't really work after that, but I bet her notepad still does. Let's hope she isn't planning on writing him a dissertation.

The first guy, although not really that riled by her sexual unfaithfulness, does lose his temper at this revelation though, and punishes her by cutting her finger off with an axe right in front of her daughter, even though as mentioned above the piano she would have played with it is now fairly useless.

She eventually leaves on a row boat with her daughter, the weirdo she's fallen in love with, and the piano which the boat supports the weight of with the realism of a cartoon by Terry Gilliam. At this point, again for no explained reason, she tries to commit suicide by drowning, again right in front of both her lover and her poor long-suffering daughter.

The bottom line here is that her young daughter is the one and only character in here who is not perfectly hideous. Even the local Maoris are portrayed as so primitive and stupid as to not understand what a shadow is, invading a theatrical stage thinking the acting to be real. Any Maoris here in the audience tonight? Hey - great to see you - everything in this moving picture is real too.

As I indicated above, the script is really my only problem with this film. The direction - by the same person - offers some inspired camera-angles that really made me feel like I was there. The acting is good all round, particularly Anna Paquin as the child, and Sam Neill as the disconnected husband character - there's so much going on on his face. The brief second of animation I will groan at and wave on past. Dropping into animation wasn't so common in 1993.

But the script lets the whole thing down so hugely that there is simply no reason to watch any of this. It gives us an entire main cast of horrible characters, being horrible to each other, in a horrible place, for no apparent reason.

Why would anyone pay money to watch this miserable unpleasantness? People whose lives are just too happy to bear, and need a break from all the joy?

The ending is ambiguous, offering either one of two conclusions in which she lives or dies, in each case fantasising the opposite. Well, that's how I interpreted it.

Whichever conclusion is canon, here's hoping that her poor distraught daughter doesn't go the same way.

By my calculations, this is the 357th film that I have reviewed on this blog, and on a scale of 357, with 1 as the best film and 357 as the worst, for me this comes in at 357th.

What's that? But you've seen this film and found it beautiful? Then I'm happy for you, I honestly am. It's only a movie that we both disagree upon, and our diversity is one of the things that makes life so brilliant.

Can I interest you in the works of Jacques Tati?

(available to those with more charitable hearts than I here)

Doctor Who: Cold War

(nice title)

Has David Warner ever appeared in Doctor Who before?

No, not in a spin-off, I mean in the actual proper undisputed live-action picture-synchronised-with-sound Doctor Who / Sarah Jane / K9 / Torchwood (eurghh) universe?

It sure seems like he ought to have been. A few years ago, for some reason, this actor started to get work in just about every science fiction series going. Tron, Babylon 5, Star Trek V (no relation), Star Trek VI (not related enough), Star Trek: The Next Generation (a poor relation), Lois & Clark (as Clark's relation)... even Freakazoid!

But the mysterious grandfather of them all Doctor Who? Well, it seems like yet further evidence that the BBC took the series off the air in 1989 at exactly the wrong moment.

Anyway, if he hasn't, then tonight all that was finally put right. With his English accent, Warner initially appears to be playing a western defector to the Soviet Union, although the reminder that everyone is in fact speaking fluent Russian, combined with his character name of Professor Grisenko, clears this up.

He's also responsible for bringing a 5,000 year-old frozen Ice Warrior on board a nuclear submarine in the year 1983. If you're thinking that this is all starting to sound somewhat like Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, then you'd be right, although it doesn't go nearly far enough in that direction, sadly. Boo! Bring us silver-suited "Cyber Men" for this one! :(

The rerealisation of a monster from 40 years ago is done pretty well at first. The Ice Warriors' formidable presence is recaptured here with more threat than ever, thanks partially to its increased bulkiness, but mostly to its much more powerful voice than before. However its appearance on the front cover of Radio Times a fortnight ago does its surprise entrance no favours whatsoever.

The revelation that this 'classic' look has always been merely its body armour provides something of a regeneration scene for the returning race, and also proves to be a double-edged sword. Its ventriloquism to its casing makes almost as little sense as the Doctor's approving its being chained up in such a way as that it can easily escape. Dur.

While I like the creature inside's 'new' look, its fluidity of movement didn't match the live action characters to whom it was speaking. Something to do with the way frames refresh or something. I don't know the technical reasons, I only know it didn't quite flow on for this viewer, in a similar way to how film and videotape never have done.

Still, that fuzziness was nothing compared to the cloudy weather outside my window. Yes, the 21st century digital downgrade had the signal cutting out and freezing all the way through the second half of this episode, rendering the programme literally unwatchable. All right digital people, you've had every chance now, and you've failed. Can we all just go back to analogue now - the system when this sort of thing never happened?

Author Mark Gatiss, once the genius behind The Unquiet Dead, now has a track-record with me of turning in scripts that are dependably average, and thin on story. After the lack of much actually happening in Victory Of The Daleks and Night Terrors, this one actually finishes with the baddies simply letting our heroes off! So the Doctor and Amy think they saved the world today then do they? Well, okay, how lovely for them.

Speaking of the new Amy - Olwyn/Oswin/Olwin/Oswyn (I'm still not even sure of her name) - she's shallow and generic here, and as such I liked her a lot more. These days girl companions tend to spend far too much time trying to compensate for their apparent insecurity at not being a guy. Here, after her failed attempt to negotiate with the Ice Warrior, it really looked like this one was about to collapse and actually have a breakdown at the question about Ultravox, and as such I think it's a shame that she didn't. No-one's really done that before, and after the Doctor's keeness to whisk her away without considering the consequences, that would have been a stunning development.

Glad too that Grisenko suddenly found the sonic screwdriver on the floor in the end, I really didn't like where it looked like this production team were going to go with that…

Noisy, chaotic, a bit disorientating… well I guess if your submarine's been breached by a 5,000 year old alien planning to end all life on Earth, then that's probably how it would be.

Doctor Who: The Rings Of Akhaten

It's hard to remember the last time I really felt like I was watching Doctor Who.

Early on in this episode, the Doctor and companion land in an alien environment, surrounded by aliens, and stars, and take the time to really be there. There's dialogue, there are crowds, and singing, yes singing. If getting to sit down among an audience of creatures you've never seen before and witness an opera in another tongue for a few minutes doesn't make you feel like you've been travelling in the TARDIS, then I don't know what does.

It's almost a disappointment when a story begins to slowly emerge. I mean we've all known since we first saw the kid getting chased that she was going to turn out to be some kind of primitive sacrifice to a so-called 'god' (this is Doctor Who after all), but I for one would have been quite happy if they'd just stayed at the opera for 40 minutes, with everything going to plan.

When this tale does eventually get going, it too takes its time, which again is refreshingly great for making me feel like I'm there. Taking another motorbike (moped whatever) across space after the kidnapped child instead of taking the TARDIS though… well that was never going to work for any viewer.

The visuals here are as beautiful as the music, and that our heroes remain surrounded by stars for so much of what transpires ensures that we don't often feel like they've stumbled back onto a BBC set.

In the final act though, it becomes clear that this plot just isn't sure where it's going. Just what is that alien supposed to be, and who saves them from it? It's not the passive Doctor, who surely cannot be heard by it, and indeed is left with all his memories apparently untaken at the end. It's not the child, who again only sings a song. And it's not the companion's leaf either which, it literally goes without saying, cannot hold memories of events which have never transpired.

For all that, this story still does better than most these days, and what substance it does lack it certainly makes up for with style.

Not interesting, but certainly enthralling.

Fame (1980 film)

Fame!
I'm gonna live forever,
I'm gonna learn... how to fly???

What, seriously - one of the greatest things about being famous is that you can finally get to take those... flying lessons?

Oh, well, okay then, I guess that is a more attractive potential benefit than being appreciated for something you're good at, making pots of money, and scaring people just by being in the same room with them.

For a story that has spawned so many spin-offs, it's something of a surprise that the film Fame has never had a sequel.

A book, a stage play, a remake, a long-running TV remake, a spin-off of said series (Fame L.A.), an LP, and of course no end of parodies. But whatever became of the original 1980 movie incarnations of Ralph, Montgomery, Bruno, Lisa, Leroy, Dominique and Coco out in the big bad world, we'll probably never know.

I gotta admit that, before watching this today, I had this movie pegged all wrong. I was expecting a family film. Instead I got profanity, pornography, suicide, abortion and homosexuality. It was like watching a movie made today! I guess I had been influenced too heavily by the two episodes that I think I caught of the TV series 30 years ago, where the most extreme issue had been anorexia.

However Fame is an odd jumble of ingredients, whatever you're expecting. Despite a great many highly dramatic scenes, which are played very well indeed and consequently involving, there's very little progression to these situations. The story's narrative of several years means that big events often appear to get forgotten immediately, and this conversely makes it hard to connect with the characters.

Also there's the audio. In a number of scenes this gives the film an echoey fly-on-the-wall style, making events appear believable, like in a documentary. Then there'll be one with all the actors clearly on-mic, much more like the Hollywood movie that it is. And there there are odd scenes in which characters are dancing to music, which we can hear clearer than they can, but with the other elements in the room getting that echo again. Once more, fascinating.

More than anything else though, Fame transported me back to my own days at college, taking Theatre Studies. An era when everyone had time, and the civilised world looked like a game that was actually playable.

I miss those days. Perhaps it's a good thing that we never got that sequel. It might well have proven even more mundane.

(available, if you can remember its name, here)