Welcome to my now-traditional round-up of my viewing habits from the
last twelve months! I haven't posted a single new blog this year so I
wanted to say thanks to anyone taking the time to read what remains an
entirely self-indulgent pastime; I was particularly gratified to see an
old friend for the first time in ages - maybe the first time this
century, in fact - and hear that he always reads this TV review. Cheers
Mitch!
So anyway, here's a breakdown of what I've been watching in
2023. A few disclaimers as always: there isn't time to watch
everything, and for one reason or another a fair few blockbusters or
critically-acclaimed shows haven't had an airing in my house. To
illustrate how behind the pack I often find myself, this was the year I
started Ozark and Succession, both of which I anticipate finishing at
some point before the 2030s.
Instead, here are the - checks notes
- 23 shows from 2023 (a number which may well increase to something
less conveniently appropriate as I write this) which made an impression
on me this year, corralled into vaguely relevant groupings, starting
with a trip Down Under...
Oh yeah: I'll do my best, but some SPOILERS might creep in. Consider yourselves warned!
AUSSIE RULES
My
in-the-know friends have spent much of this year enthusing about the
new wave of Aussie garage punk bands - the likes of Civic, C.O.F.F.I.N,
Bad//Dreems, etc. But if I'm honest, I've spent more of 2023 watching
Australian TV than listening to their music.
It started in
January with Outback Noir MYSTERY ROAD: ORIGIN, This was, as you might
infer from the subtitle, a prequel story to the two films and two series
of yer standard Mystery Road. Combining the careful storytelling of
Nordic drama with the grit of Australian crime cinema, this franchise
has always been compelling, and an excellent casting choice in Mark
Coles Smith as the younger version of Aboriginal lawman and leading man
Jay Swan ensured it remained in safe hands. Fleshing out Swan's family
background and having him meet future wife Mary, the series also delved
deep into the uneasy relationship between indigenous Australians and
white settlers - with more than one murder to solve, to boot.
It
was, however, uncharacteristic of the other Aussie shows which came my
way this year, of which the best was probably COLIN FROM ACCOUNTS. A
romcom written by and starring a real-life couple, this could have been
saccharine but was instead joyfully irreverent; the meet-cute involved a
flashed boob and a car accident involving the titular dog. Both Ashley
(Harriet Dyer) and Gordon (Patrick Brammall) are flawed but likeable
characters; their tentative, faltering relationship feels believable and
the plot doesn't ignore real life issues ranging from testicular cancer
to the difficulties of dating across an age gap. Most importantly, it's
also riotously funny, though an episode where Gordon throws a birthday
party for Ashley in his micro-brewery and tries desperately to fit in
with her hipster mates is best watched through your fingers.
From
something new to an established favourite in our house with the third
series of BUMP. This moves events five years on from its predecessor,
allowing the younger cast members to inhabit roles closer to their
actual age, (previously) baby Jacinda to be more of a proper character,
and for everyone's lives to have developed in interesting ways. Oly and
Santi have split up but are co-parenting (fairly) amicably, and their
dynamic remains the primary focus, but the rich supporting cast still
more than pull their weight, whether it's Dom accidentally creating a
Meninist app, Angie dealing with cancer or Vince - secretly the absolute
heart of this show - becoming a surrogate dad for his lesbian
housemates. As always, absolutely recommended.
More
under-the-radar, and the most overtly sitcommy of these choices was FISK
(originally aired in Oz in 2021, but on Netflix this year). Kitty
Flanagan co-writes and stars (in a genuinely horrible brown suit) as the
eponymous Helen Tudor-Fisk, a lawyer who moves back to Melbourne after a
divorce and takes a job at a shabby law firm. The jobs she takes on
provide a case-of-the-week framework, but the real joy is in the sharp
writing and the ensemble cast. Like Gordon in Colin From Accounts, Helen
is a middle-aged person facing up to a life which hasn't turned out how
she'd have expected, and while there are certain elements of cringe
involved, her misanthropic attitude to, well, pretty much everything is
paradoxically winning. Second series just dropped at the time of
writing.
FOLK HORROR WITHOUT THE HORROR
The rural is
rising again in popular culture. Maybe it has been for a while, or maybe
it never really goes away, but - in music alone - witness PJ Harvey's
most explicitly Dorset-orientated record ever, Lankum taking avant-folk
to the Mercury Music Prize and The Quietus albums of the year, and
Shirley Collins' paeans to Sussex on Archangel Hill. A song from the
latter album, the wonderful Hares On The Mountain, provided the theme
music to Bridget Christie's equally beguiling THE CHANGE. Christie
writes and stars as Linda, who takes a leave of absence from domestic
drudgery to find herself... in a caravan on the outskirts of a rural
community in the Forest Of Dean.
The setting buzzes with the
strangeness of countryside tradition - the town is soon to celebrate its
annual Eel Festival, and its people are eccentric and often mysterious.
But, in addition to its more clearly intended themes, like the
celebration of middle-aged woman and their untapped potential and the
protection of nature against invasive modernisation, The Change recasts
folk horror tropes in the service of joy and community rather than
mining them for terror. Meanwhile, you'd say that the impressively
stacked cast featured actors playing against type, if so many of them -
Susan Lynch, Monica Dolan, Liza Tarbuck, Tanya Moodie and Jerome Flynn,
for example - weren't established shapeshifters. Props also to Jim
Howick and Paul Whitehouse (in tandem with Christie's glorious writing)
for making a right-wing shock jock and a lecherous old geezer
sympathetic characters.
More folk horror without (much) horror
came from THE GALLOWS POLE. I should probably declare an
interest/humblebrag (delete as applicable), as this Shane Meadows
three-parter was inspired by the novel of the same name, written by
Benjamin Myers, an old pal from his music journo days. Mind you, this
was more of a Mystery Road-style prequel, set some time before the
events of the book and effectively detailing the origin story of The
Cragg Vale Coiners, whose enterprise was up and running - if set for a
fall - in Ben's telling of events. The strangeness here comes from the
Stag Men who appear to David Hartley (Michael Socha) in visions,
encouraging him into the illegal business of coin-clipping for the good
of his poverty-stricken community. Mind you, even these characters
contribute humour thanks to one scene with hilarious dialogue between
David and their leader.
At heart, this is another tale of working
class life from Meadows, albeit one in a rather more distant past than
This Is England. Humour, romance and honour are in noticeably greater
supply than in the novel, with David in particular a more
straightforwardly good guy then the hardened older figure we meet on the
printed page. Given its director's penchant for revisiting stories
through the years, perhaps we'll see a much darker second series one
day, covering the Coiners' decline.
CRIME WAVES
With
entrails hanging from trees and a historic ritualistic murder in a weird
rural location, WOLF had a fair whack of folk horror about it. But this
was just one element of an absolutely stuffed narrative that took in
everything from mildly unconvincing fetish raves to a missing dog. Of
the two primary storylines, we had Ukweli Roach, best known to me as
Anatole from Humans, as a DI obsessed with proving that his brother was
kidnapped and murdered as a child by a creepy next door neighbour who
looks exactly as I imagine Neil Oliver would these days if I was ever
likely to watch his conspiratorial ramblings on whichever second-rate
channel he's landed upon. On the other, we had a mildly irritating posh
family taken hostage by fake coppers played by Sacha Dhawan and Iwan
Rheon, whose camp but menacing double act is by far the show's
highlight. Their scenes feel like Funny Games recut with the baroque
humour/horror hybrid of Utopia, while both performances are the glue
which hold some pretty unpredictable twists in place.
Perhaps the
year's biggest surprise hit, BLUE LIGHTS was a Belfast-set drama centred
on one particular police station, focussing on three probationary
officers and their partners along with management, senior officers and
the community they serve - including its criminal elements. The way the
primary characters swiftly felt like fully fleshed-out actual humans
showed up how so many cop shows deal in cookie-cutter archetypes; Sian
Brooke has possibly never been better than her role here as social
worker-turned-rookie cop Grace, but newer names Nathan Braniff (as the
nervous Tommy) and Katherine Devlin (highly dedicated Annie) more than
held their own. Richard Dormer's old hand Gerry, essentially played as a
less manic version of his Captain Vimes from The Watch, was surely one
of the year's best-loved new characters, while pretty much everyone else
involved was on top form. Meanwhile, without being heavy-handed, the
show demonstrated how policing - and life - in Northern Ireland remains
different to elsewhere in the UK. Former paramilitaries might have
changed tack to less ideological organised crime, but still retain some
of the old methods - one sequence where a couple fail to intervene when
their teenage son is punished for a transgression will live particularly
long in the memory. With the police also being investigated from
within, and secret services hindering work on the ground through their
own manoeuvres, this felt like a legit replacement for Line Of Duty -
but with plenty of humour and humanity on offer alongside the
nail-biting drama. Fingers crossed for a second series, even if, for one
reason or another, certain folk won't be back. Which reminds me -
spoiler alert - surely one of the year's hardest-hitting screen deaths?
A
similar tone was achieved by SCREW. Like No Offence, it was intially
promoted as something of a comedy, but the second series of this
prison-set show definitely tips the balance in favour of drama. Rumour
has it there's an undercover cop posing as a prisoner, there to seek
information about the gang who put Rose in there as an officer;
meanwhile, a gang member has been transferred in to silence Rose. Jackie
is pregnant with Gary's baby; Ali is living in his car; Larry is dying;
Leigh and the prison itself are under review after Toby's death in the
first series. There are still funny, and touching, moments, but the
emphasis on heavier content brings out the best in the cast. Jamie-Lee
O'Donnell's Rose almost overtakes her scene-stealing turn as Michelle in
Derry Girls as her most memorable role; Laura Checkley sells all the
emotions required of her - which are basically all the emotions, full
stop - as Jackie; Stephen Wight's cynical, reactionary Gary begins to
let his guard down; Ben Tavassoli is given much more to do as the
conflicted Costa. Leo Gregory's murderous Tyler Reeks was the show's
only concession to cliche, but maybe I just can't deal with a white man
in his 40s speaking in MLE-style patois.
Lee Ingleby plays a key
role in Screw, and cropped up again in THE LONG SHADOW. Mind you, so did
half the Northern members of Equity, in a series which re-examined the
crimes of Peter Sutcliffe - or, more accurately, their effects. There
are no gratuitous reconstructions of his murders, with glimpses of limbs
emerging from hedges or under mattresses all we are shown of his
victims' bodies. Instead, in the manner of Hallie Rubenhold's book The
Five, which examined the women believed to have been killed by Jack The
Ripper, we meet (some of) the women as living, breathing characters; we
see their families, both before and after they're hit by grief; and we
see the effects on the women who survive attacks, the way they're
assumed to have been prostitutes or become too afraid to leave the
house. The other strand is about the police investigation which, given
that Sutcliffe was active from 1975 to 1980, we already knew was going
to be mostly a story of failure. From Life On Mars to David Peace's Red
Riding books (the first two of which I reread this year), we're primed
to see British cops of the 70s as corrupt, venal, racist and sexist
(I'll leave you to fill in your own comments about their present day
image), and there's certainly some of that here, but it's a culture of
professional competition, personal pride and (ironically) fear of
failure that seems to put success out of reach. Visually, the 70s are
evoked perfectly in their brown, smokey, down-at-heel glory, while the
stacked cast makes this something of a spiritual sibling to last year's
Sherwood (whose David Morrissey, almost inevitably, reappears here as a
senior officer). Grim subject matter, for sure, but outstanding
television.
Some seventy years, and 500 miles give or take, away,
there was more grim subject matter in PARIS POLICE 1905, which you might
have guessed was a sequel to Paris Police 1900. If that first visit was
mostly about butchery and fascism, this time was more about corruption
and syphilis. Fun times! Pretty much all of the surviving cast return,
with Jérémie Laheurte's dogged
Inspector Jouin once again getting thoroughly beaten up (literally and
figuratively) in the course of his relentless quest for the truth.
Thibaut Evrard's hardnut Joseph Fiersi is (mostly) on his side this
time, while dramas persist for Marguerite Steinheil and Police Chief
Lepine. Once again, there are notes of Red Riding here - conspiracies in
high office, a loner trying to get to the bottom of things as his life
unravels - and some almost hilarious violence in one of the show's
climactic sequences.
Another
bit of period drama in Netflix's BODIES - although the period in
question toggles between 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053. Based on a
standalone Vertigo comic book series, the intriguing premise is that the
same body, with the same injuries, turns up in the same London alleyway
in all four eras. In each time, a detective, each with their own
demons, motivations and instincts, is embroiled in the case. It is
genuinely difficult to discuss further without major spoilers, but
Stephen Graham, struggling manfully not to let his Scouse accent emerge,
is somehow the link. Aside from feeling a little like a darker Doctor
Who storyline (without The Doctor), Bodies is an original take on the
murder mystery that's well worth inhabiting.
We'll
get to new Who in due course - the crimewave isn't over yet! Screw
aside, most of these the shows we've discussed have been police dramas,
but GUILT is a little different. Revisiting brothers Max (Mark Bonnar)
and Jake (Jamie Sives) for one last time, this third series wraps up
their story while bringing together strands from both series.
Unwillingly back in Edinburgh, they've plenty of enemies to avoid - but,
as ever, Max is soon seeing ways to get rich through devious means.
Along with a clutch of new characters, Emun Elliott returns as reliable
Kenny (surely the character here who most deserves a happy ending?),
along with Greg McHugh's terrifying philosophical hardnut Kenny, Ellie
Haddington as Series 1's scheming pensioner Sheila and Phyllis Logan as
crime matriarch and Big Bad Maggie Lynch. This finale lands the ending
brilliantly - what a treat this dark but witty drama has been.
Sives
and Lynch both pop up in the latest series of SHETLAND, though the feel
of a mini-reunion is somewhat scuppered by the absence of any scenes
together. And speaking of absences, this is the first series without
Douglas Henshall, who's departed the islands to appear in incredibly
average Euro Netflix drama Who Is Erin Carter?. Satisfyingly, while his
turn as brooding DI Jimmy Perez felt like the glue that kept the series
together, the remaining cast, the tight plotting and - yes - the scenery
are now so well established that ther show continues to enthrall in his
absence.
Longstanding
(and much loved) second-in-command Tosh (Alison Robertson) effectively
shares lead with Ashley Jensen's DI Ruth Calder, a long-absent native
returning to her birthplace on the trail of a young girl, a bag of
stolen cash and the two men pursuing her. Early episodes almost have a
touch of Guilt about them, with Don Gilet and Arnas Fedaravicius
providing both menace and black comedy as the bickering hitmen, but as
always the plot widens out to include pagan rituals (touch of the old
folk horror again), blackmail, a past mysterious death and, as is so
often the case round these parts, the dark secrets of the mailies
involved. At the time of writing, the future of the series remains
unclear, but things are left open to (hopefully) revisit the excellent
Tosh/Calder double act.
The
last show I wanna talk about in this bit is rather different, but in
some ways the most trad. POKER FACE was an inventive reimagining of
classic case-of-the-week shows, with Natasha Lyonne's drifter Charlie
showing up in various different settings just in time to solve a murder.
Her character has a unique ability to tell whether someone is telling a
lie, while Lyonne plays her as a sort of cool older rock chick* who
disguises her skills and tenacity through a disarming slacker demeanour.
The pattern is that we see the murder happen (shades of Columbo here),
only for events to rewind to show that Charlie was present in the run-up
(as, for example, an employee in a care home or running the merch stand
for a touring band) and uniquely placed to pursue justice. Tremendous
fun.
*Just need to clarify this 'older rock chick' thing. I mean, look, Lyonne is younger than me! What I mean is that Charlie has the vibe of a certain type of woman who was there in the glam metal scene of the 80s, but one who'd been around a while and had no interest in dressing like a stripper or being treated like shit by maladjusted men with big hair. She would have been into Aerosmith since the 70s, and would have preferred Cinderella or Hanoi Rocks to, say, Poison or Ratt. Sorry this bit will be of interest to very few people!
LAUGH OR CRY?
Poker
Face had enough laughs to qualify for this section - in fact maybe more
than most of what I'm about to write about. Two great series of
TASKMASTER (a concept so beloved in this house that we also watched all
three series of its New Zealand iteration, despite having no clue who
any of the particpants were) provided the year's most uncomplicatedly
funny moments. It was a joy to see the likes of Frankie Boyle and Mae
Martin in very different settings in Series 15, while Series 16 was
stuffed full of treats - the friendship between Sue Perkins and Susan "I
trained at RADA!" Wokoma, Julian Clary's barely-disguised contempt for
the entire premise, the moments when Lucy Beaumont's dappy persona gave
way to genuinely weird surrealism and the alien charisma of Sam Campbell
all made for one of this evergreen's most engaging iterations.
The
final series of GHOSTS - the best British sitcom in an awfully long
time - continued its winning streak, though tinged with sadness that the
end was nigh. Revelations about Kitty and The Captain's respective
demises amped up the moving moments, but for me Robin stole the series,
not least thanks to his unexpected ability to speak French in a story
which reminds us that the older Ghosts would have been present through
their housemates' time living in Button House. At the time of writing,
the Christmas special/finale hasn't aired, but I confidently predict
that tears will be shed.
As
for the rest of the year's comedy that I watched... DREAMING WHILST
BLACK was brilliant, while laying bare the obstacles that remain for
black Britons trying to make it in creative industries. Adjani Salmon
writes and stars as Kwabena, with equally charismatic support from Dani
Moseley and Babirye Bukilwa, and it's to his credit that it's genuinely
funny while also painfully honest and clear-sighted.
I have to confess that I'd entirely forgotten that there was a series of INSIDE NO 9 this year, so I've had to hastily add it here. This might be a sign that Series 8 didn't boast quite as memorable entries as previous offerings, though the very dark denoument of closer The Last Weekend is up there with Shearsmith and Pemberton's cruellest Tales Of The Unexpected moments, while hoax game show 3 By 3 was a neat trick.
Last
year's Am I Being Unreasonable? proved that Daisy May Cooper could do
more than her (brilliant) turn as Kerry Mucklowe in the career-making
This Country, and RAIN DOGS completed a transition into something closer
on the spectrum to drama. In this grimy series, her character Costello
is a single mother and recovering alcoholic, who works in a peep show
but has the smarts to make it as a writer. She has a toxic relationship
with Jack Farthing's Selby, a gay conman recently released from prison.
Constantly on the move with daughter Iris (Fleur Tashjian), Costello's
progress is repeatedly stymied by people dismissing, patronising or
demonising her. If it doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs, well, it
isn't - but it is tremendously moving, and Cooper and Farthing
absolutely nail their respective roles. Unlike Am I Being Unreasonable?,
I can't say I'd particularly like a second series of this, but don't
take that as a criticism; one is just enough here.
THE
FOLLOWING IS BASED ON A PACK OF LIES features actors most known for
comedy roles, like Rebekah Staton and Julian Barratt, and there's no
denying its dark wit. But, really, this is one of the most powerful
screen renditions of creative control I've seen, at times absolutely
harrowing. Staton's Alice Newman discovers that her ex-husband, played
by Alistair Petrie, is not, as previously thought, dead. Instead, he's
reinvented himself as a sort of environmentalist entrepeneur (describing
his work with the perfectly bullshit phrase "disruption exploration")
with his eyes set on scamming a wealthy, bereaved author, played by
Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Her efforts to expose him do not, needless to
say, go smoothly. It's fantastic to see the excellent Staton in a lead
role, and she really sells the still-extant fear she has for a man who
previously ruined her life. Petrie, meanwhile, probably gave us the
year's most convincing villain, an utterly amoral and devious figure who
is both unlike any other screen bad guy, yet somehow stands in for all
the men out there subjecting their partners to emotional, financial and
even physical abuse - a scene where he throttles Alice is genuinely
horrifying. Again, not a barrel of laughs, then - but ultimately, along
with The Change, one of the most powerfully feminist series of this or
any year.
THE BLOCKBUSTERS
It
was something of a whiplash to go from the previous pretty much
straight into the final series of SEX EDUCATION, where Petrie's Michael
Groff cut a very different figure in a redemptive story arc concerning
his relationship with son Adam (Connor Swindells, looking ever more like
he must surely be Petrie's real life son).
This
storyline was somewhat off to the side, with Adam no longer in
education, though at least he was still present, unlike Lily or Ola,
unceremoniously dumped in a cast refresh that wasn't universally loved.
Certainly, some of the new characters - Anthony Lexa's Abbi, Felix
Mufti's Roman - initially grated, though as has so often been the case
in this most carefully-balanced of shows, I feel like they were allowed
to become more likeable as events progressed. Certainly, any complaints
that the inclusion of trans characters was an example of Sex Education
"going woke" were both tiresome and inaccurate, given that this has
always been a show which sought to portray a rainbow of races,
sexualities and various minorities in a scrupulously positive manner
(and that Cal (Dua Saleh) was already part of the cast). Witness George
Robinson's character Isaac, once reviled by fans as an obstacle in the
Otis/Maeve romance, but in this series making a principled stand for
disabled access and bonding with the always-brilliant Aimee (Aimee Lou
Wood) in a low-key but involving romance.
So,
speaking of Otis and Maeve... theirs has, traditionally, been the
on-off relationship on which the show supposedly hangs. This time round,
they were given closure, but for me the heart of the show is more about
friendship: Otis and Eric (the ever-effervescent Ncuti Gatwa), Maeve
and Aimee, Jackson and Viv... So, anyway, this final season still had
loads to recommend it, and for my money most of the various plot strands
ended pretty well. It's a sign of how beloved many of the cast have
bcome that seeing two previously-absent teachers turn up to a funeral
was a tear-jerking moment. Teachers! Many established characters were
given involving storylines, with Mimi Keene's Ruby completing her
transition from cookie cutter mean girl to fan favourite. And I haven't
even mentioned Gillian Anderson's Jean and appearances from Hannah
Gadsby and Lisa McGrillis! I will say, though, that for me the two best
performances came from Wood and Gatwa, the latter's struggle between his
sexuality and his religion coming to head in such a powerful way that
I've every confidence in his next, rather well-publicised role. Speaking
of which...
This
year's DOCTOR WHO specials were a necessary reset to usher in the second
Russell T Davies era. There's no getting round the fact that Chris
Chibnall's period at the helm was aliteral turn-off for many fans, even
if I enjoyed Jodie Whittaker's time in the role and found plenty to
enjoy, particularly the Flux storyline. Bringing back David Tennant may
have been a fairly calculated move to bring doubters back, but it's
undeniable that it was a blast to see the man who probably defined the
21st Century Doctor taking the mantle once again. Each special worked
for different reasons: as a man of a certain age, I remember the Beep
The Meep storyline from the Marvel UK comic book waaaay back in the day,
so it was a heady rush to see it adapted for the small screen in The
Star Beast; Wild Blue Yonder was a defiantly weird double-header that
made the most of Tennant and Catherine Tate's rapport; and The Giggle
saw Neil Patrick Harris making a creditable (and apparently rather
meme-worthy) turn as returning baddie (from even waaaaayer back) The
Celestial Toymaker, dodgy accent aside. A wonderful final cameo from
Bernard Cribbins nestled alongside new turns from Yasmin Finney as
Donna's daughter Rose and Ruth Madeley as UNIT operative Shirley
Bingham. Now, the chances are that you're already aware of what happened
at the end of The Giggle, but just in case maybe skip to the next
paragraph... I've got mixed feelings about that twist, which felt like a
rather hedge-betting move that could undermine Gatwa's debut in the
role. Tennant's Doctor had such a definitive send-off at the end of his
first tenure (somehow managing to travel through time to see all of his
former companions and allies mid-regeneration) that this maybe cheapens
it a little? Still, though, it was good to see an acknowledgement of how
the last forever has taken it out of The Doctor, giving at least part
of him a happy ending while setting up Gatwa's incarnation to be more,
well, fun. No doubt there will be people who've already made up their
minds about him though...
...Probably
the same people who reviled the third episode of THE LAST OF US,
despite it being the best standalone piece of telly all year. I came to
the series with no knowledge of the game, beyond its status as a cult
favourite. I'm also kind of done with the whole post-zombie apocalypse
narrative, done to (no pun intended) death by various iterations of The
Walking Dead. Imagine my surprise, then, to find this series wholly
enthralling, with intelligence, patience and its character development
treated with more importance than the (unexpectedly rare) attacks by the
infected (not sure anybody calls them zombies; maybe they're all fed up
with the trope too). Bella Ramsay smashes it as Ellie, and while Pedro
Pascal might be getting typecast as the reluctant surrogate dad figure,
he imbues Joel with hard-won grit and slowly-blossoming fondness. And
then there's the episode Long, Long Time, (largely) free of the
characters we were just getting used to, telling the unexpected love
story of Bill and Frank, played by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett.
It's a genuinely wonderful piece of work, beautifully played by both
actors, and its inclusion emphasised that The Last Of Us was so much
more than anyone could have foreseen.
AND FINALLY...
Look,
don't count how many shows I've discussed here, OK? But I couldn't
leave it without mentioning FIGHT THE POWER: HOW HIP HOP CHANGED THE
WORLD. This Chuck D-helmed documentary series was about more than just
music, instead telling a social history of the African-American
experience from the 1970s to the present day. With well-chosen
interviewees, loads of archive footage and an abundance of beats and
rhymes, this was simultaneously a reminder of hip hop's power and
energy, a summation of the struggles involved through its fifty years,
and a warning not to take anything for granted.
On
that cheery note, I'm off to get ready for all the Christmas telly
which is airing too late to appear here. Have fun getting the
highlighter out for the festive Radio Times and have a flipping great
Xmas! Same time next year?
