Versailles 1x04
Louis is inflexible and needs his ego soothed. This was not an intense evocation of the past. This had no luminous imagery. Jealously ill becomes Louis and a woman wants her daughter to join his very list of mistresses. This had no serene glamour. This unsatisfactory episode leaves one indifferent. This is beneath my attention. The king’s skulking heavy has no concept of evidentiary processes. Louis engages in ridiculous sulky buffoonery.
Louis sends a friend off to war over a woman. Said woman caught his eye. Louis selfishness is awesome. Louise wants to go to a nunnery. Henrietta is bothered by her husband’s vile boytoy. There is death and plotting. The Queen talks to Louise. There is foreshadowing of the War of The Spanish Succession. The King is injured and the female doctor attends him. People plot. The doctor warns his daughter, she does not listen. Louis speaks to a churchman - is he Mazarin? Louis makes many badly delivered speeches. Philippe goes into battle.
Best Lines:
“Beauty unlocks many doors.”
“Misery suits you.”
“I will soon be gone in your eyes.”
“Fight to the end to defend it.”
“Wrath has its station.”
“Marriage more than duty.”
“You emptied the contents of your bladder all over my kitchen.”
“There we are rolling on the floor pissing on one another.”
~
Penda’s Fen (1974)
This BBC TV play is considered outstanding but has no charisma or intensity. There badly dressed people, fields, a voiceover, sheep, heresy, pastoral horror and religious anguish. This is considered an unforgettable vision of an alternative England and a spiritual quest. An over-reaching evange-bro has moral certainty.
This was not vauntingly ambitious and was not good in any meaningful sense. An annoying boy mumbles about collective memory and hermetic language. This was not an intense evocation of anything as the malignant goblin gurns. This had no desolation and came across as an unrealistic caricature.
Best Lines:
“A terrible silence.”
“Some of us are learning to defend our country.”
“England’s last hope.”
“Your buckles are disgusting! Male and female must both be clean.”
“We do not have political censorship.”
“Atheististic and subversive trash!”
“Those who exercise eternal vigilance on its behalf!”
“Modern wilderness of amorality.”
~
Pilot
This cancelled show centres on a smart mouth named Carter who has inept mom and criminal friends. She’s a smug unlikable idiot with no idea of social consequences. She is arrested and her fingerprints reveal that her name isn’t Carter and her fun mom Lori is actually her abductor. Carter’s real name is Lyndon and she was snatched when she was 3. She has no respectful interaction with her father (Alexis Denisof of ‘Angel’) and mother Elizabeth (Cynthia Watros of ‘Lost’) and grandmother (Meredith Baxter of ‘Family Ties’ and many a true crime miniseries).
Carter is an abysmal person who has a total repudiation of sense. She resents her parents and twin sister Taylor. Carter has no concept of the unfathomable grief her family have been through. Elizabeth is a cop and Lori stalked them when Carter was a toddler. Her father picks fights and has an idiotic literary agent. Carter does recall her grandfather. Carter has displacement and is rude and has a complaint register. This was okay but escapes greatness and has anti-realist dialogue.
This was not enduringly meaningful. The family have money issues. Carter lionises her abductor and inflames situations and assumes the worst of Elizabeth. Carter steals the boy Taylor likes and has a chilling, calm and deliberate plan to reunite with her abductor. She has an emotional indifference and no particular integrity. Taylor has a profound grudge over her over-protected upbringing.
Carter is a person of no account with no moral standards. She does have ingratitude and the utmost coldness. Carter is nasty, vile and exceptionally disrespectful. I have a demonstrably low tolerance for her. She’s dramatic and emotionally manipulative. She has an all-knowing little brother. Elizabeth is having an affair with Taylor’s crush’s father. The cops miss Lori as she walks right by them. Carter causes disunion and spews aspersions. I loathe the thankless rude little bitch.
Best Lines:
“Emotionally chaotic day.”
“I’m the replacement child.”
“It’s my job to be insensitive.”
“That’s her name now.”
“People not remembering you exist.”
“She’s my mother and you’ve taken me away from her.”
~
The Monsters Of Nethermoor
A man and his woman are attacked. The female police woman has secrets that the gross twosome are obsessed with. I’m losing my patience with this humourless and exasperating show. Houdini believes in alien abduction and Doyle is the Scully. A woman babbles about goblins and Slavs. There are some rather modern attitudes. There are secrets and a hidden dark secret in the town. The duo are uncover a 50 year old secret that is like something out of a Guy N Smith novel or maybe Richard Laymon. This was sappy and stupid.
Best Lines:
“Stupid Martian sighting.”
“We know there are canals on Mars.”
~
The Border (2014) 1x01
This Polish drama is known as ‘Wataha’ in its homeland. The bumfaced ‘hero’ broods. This has nice opening credits but that is all that is good about this mess. This was low-key with an earnest tone and wacky shenanigans on the Polish/Ukraine border. There are disconcerting aspects that include sex, singing and an 80s perm. Then there is a wolf and stuff blows up.
Nobody looks even vaguely interested. This was slapdash, moronic, disingenuous and craven. This was bottom scrapping. The dank and murky bowels of Poland are explored. Violent louts have cold withered hearts. Bumface the only survivor is the only suspect. There are increasingly lax standards of acting and so much bad hair. I cringe-watched this tale of man-pain.
Best Line:
“You’re not even worth a beating.”