The age of TV cynicism (Part One)

Millennials get a bad rap in the media- they are labelled as lazy, lacklustre members of society whose collective vanity and obsessive with the self ruins anything they come into contact with for everyone else (Case in point- AMC considering allowing phone usage in thier cinemas to get young people to start coming to the cinema). However, while most of the Millennials stereotype is either untrue or exaggerated, there is one worrying element of the stereotype that is perpetuated over and over- the notion that the young generations are a generation fuelled by cynicism and mean-spiritedness.

Sitcoms are one of the most popular genres of television with dozens of new shows coming out each year. However, since the late 1990s there has been a marked change in the demeanour of the characters we are expected to tune in to watch. It all started with Seinfeld and FRIENDS, with one being about Woody Allen’s wet dream of four truly horrible neurotics trying to survive in New York while the other is about six friends who appear nice at first but then you realise how goddamn awful they are. That began a downward spiral which has led to two character archtypes you will see in shows aimed at the 90s kids and Millennials (the 16-24 market). This blog will cover the first trope- the unlikable ensemble.

The unlikable ensemble

The much wider and easier to spot archtype is the ‘unlikable ensemble’- a group of core characters so vile that you’re not even sure why you watch the show, except for the sweet release of schadenfreude.

FRIENDS is a prime example of this, with the core group of six comprised of Ross the  whiny neurotic serial divorcee, who basically stalks one of his best friends because he thinks they belong together; Monica, Ross’ sociopathic sister who revels in manipulating her friends and family (Case in point: At one point she takes on the job of delivering a speech at her parent’s wedding anniversary for the sole purpose of making everyone cry like her brother’s speeches do); Chandler, Ross’ best friend from who is a serial misogynist (he complains about his lack of luck with women when, at various points in the show, he breaks up with a woman by leaving her half naked and handcuffed in her office); Joey, the dim-witted nymphomaniac who routinely forgets the names of the women he sleeps with and he conducts himself from day to day in a selfish, almost child-like manner; Rachel, the brainless daddy’s girl and the most self-absorbed of the group, and finally, Phoebe, a former mugger and current psychopath who: leaves her fiancée handcuffed to a drain pipe somewhere in New York City; gives her wedding money to a children’s charity and then steals it back and bases how much she likes her friends based on their salaries. Together, they make one of the most popular sitcoms of all time but you can’t look too closely or else you’ll uncover the horrible horrible people the protagonists actually. Oh and FYI, that table they always sit at? They reserve it. If nothing else, they are horrible people because they reserve a table in a coffee.

How I Met Your Mother is a FRIENDS clone if the characters were at Seinfeld levels of horrible. You have Lily, a kindergarten teacher with a heart of darkness who is rude to the children she works with, skips out on her boyfriend of a decade a few months before their wedding to pursue an art program and routinely uses sex as a way to manipulate her husband; then there’s central character Ted, who tells his children the entire story of he met their mother, all in order to see if they approve of him marrying his friend Robyn since his wife has passed; there’s Barney, who is both better and worse than Joey from FRIENDS (While is aghast when he is led to believe that he cannot remember one of his sexual partners, he also keeps a scrapbook of all his sexual encounters and implies that he may have sold one of his partners while abroad). And then there’s Robyn, a sexually manipulative, violent Canadian constantly torn between her disdain of romance and her apparent addiction to being in relationships. There is also Lily’s husband Marshall but he better fits my other archtype. However, over the course of nine seasons we see the gang not only conduct themselves in a self-absorbed and selfish manner, we also see them commit a number of legitimate felonies including: theft, grand larceny, assault and providing alcohol to a minor. There’s even an episode where they spend the whole time trying to list 50 reasons that you might have sex.As previously stated, the characters of How I Met Your Mother are darker version of the ones we saw on FRIENDS.

Finally, we have The League, an FX sitcom about a group of Chicago-based friends and their fantasy football league. The extent to which these characters fit the ‘unlikable ensemble’ trope is so great that they have little character development beyond the core ensemble. These people should not be friends and take every opportunity to punish, humiliate or one-up each other, be it sending a friend to a fancy restaurant in order to shoot a porno in his house as ‘punishment’ for coming last in the previous season’s fantasy league or causing the new boyfriend of one group member’s ex-wife to suffer a heart attack. At an individual level, one member of the group uses his Jewish heritage to try to get his son into a Jewish pre-school, mere days after wantonly spray-painting a swastika onto a pothole outside his house while another member of the group, who is a plastic surgeon, breaks his doctor-patient confidentiality after possible opportunity he gets. The characters of The League are so horrible, the show is near unwatchable at times and anything vaguely redeeming feels hollow or forced.

Come back tomorrow for part two- the Innocence is Bliss trope. In the meantime, check out my other work and leave some of your major examples of the unlikable ensemble in the comments below!

A twist in the tale: 5 well-executed plot twists

When creating a book or film or video game, including a plot twist is often a good way to keep the audience on their toes. However if not executed properly, a twist can leave their audience scratching their heads. This can be because a certain character has just suddenly become evil or the big reveal has to suspend all kinds of logic to be vaguely feasible. That said, the large amount of underwhelming plot twists only serve to make the decent ones all the more enticing. So here are 5 of my favourite, well-executed plot twists. Spoilers ahead for Bioshock, Attack on Titan, Spec Ops: The Line, The Usual Suspects and House of Cards (US).

1. Would you Kindly- Bioshock

In Irrational Games’ undersea adventure Bioshock, you play as ‘Jack’ a man who survives a plane crash and subsequent discovers an underwater city which has fallen into ruin as its residents have gone insane. As you navigate the hallways and shops and sections of the once great Rapture, you make contact with a man called Atlas, who hopes to overthrow the tyrannical ruler of Rapture, Andrew Ryan, and essentially free those who are imprisoned there.

Atlas gets you to complete various tasks around Rapture, politely asking ‘Would you kindly do X’ in his soft, trustworthy Irish accent. Well, turns out that Andrew Ryan, founder and ruler of Rapture is actually your dad and that you are basically a sleeper agent programmed to follow any order preceded by the phrase ‘Would you kindly’. In a brief flashback, it is then revealed that you caused the plane crash at the start of the game and Atlas reveals himself to be one Frank Fontaine, Andrew Ryan’s biggest rival. Yaaaay!

What makes this twist so good is that it plays on the basic logic of video games- you receive an objective, you (eventually) complete said objective. Much like Jack and his programming to obey ‘Would you kindly’, the player doesn’t question the objective given to them.

2. The truth about abnormals- Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan is a popular one season anime which follows the trials and tribulations of Eren Jaeger, a young man who lives in a society that lives in fear of Titans, large humanoids that love to eat humans. Of the course of the early episodes, the Titans attack after 100 years of peace and quickly begin to overrun the humans. Things don’t get any better when ‘abnormal’ Titans begin appear, such as Colossus Titan, who is just a really big hard to kill Titan, and the Armoured Titan, who is immune to basically everything the human military has. Later, the Female Titan appears, who is a combination of both the Colussus and the Amoured.

After Eren is devoured by a Titan during a particularly calamitous mission, his friends think him dead. However, he is later revealed to be the ‘Titan Killer’, a Titan that only attacks others of its kind. This leads to one of the show’s biggest twists- the abnormal Titans are ‘controlled’ by a human host. Not much is known about these ‘Titan Shifters’ as the anime series lasted a season, with a second season coming at some point, and the manga it was adapted from still ongoing.

This is a big twist for the show/manga as it redefined the human/Titan relationship. Up to the point of the reveal, many saw the Titans as simply being a beast that sated its hunger with humans. However, now it raises the question of just what is human and how many Titans are in fact humans.

3. Rumours of my life- Spec Ops: The Line

[Call of Duty: Black Ops spoiler included]

In military shooter Spec Ops: The Line, you play as Captain Walker, a Delta Force commander who is sent into war-torn Dubai to conduct recon. This changes when Walker decides to hunt down rogue brass Colonel Konrad. In a story that borrows heavily from Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, you fight your way across the city in order to take down Konrad. Over the course of the game, you experience the true horrors of war, including a white phosphorus attack on what turns out to be a number of innocent civilians.

Eventually, you make it Konrad’s hideout and finally get to confront…a decaying corpse. Konrad’s been dead for months and the voice that has been taunting you and communicating with you since the white phosphorus attack, which it turns out you initiated, has been a hallucination.

That’s right, the entire game has actually chronicled your descent into madness. This twist is almost a trope in itself but it does raise questions about the definition of reality and what it means to be a soldier. This twist beats out the ‘Reznov is Dead’ twist from Call of Duty: Black Ops because it’s done with slightly more nuance.

4. The cork board- The Usual Suspects

Byran Singer’s The Usual Suspects follows the questioning of Verbal Kint, a small time con man who happens to be one of two survivors of a mass killing and subsequent fire aboard a ship docked in LA. Kint’s story grows more and more complex as he reveals a web of interconnected events, all leading back to notorious crime boss Keyser Soze.

The customs agent questioning Kint is skeptical of the story and slowly breaks down each piece towards the end of the testimony, eager to pin it on a man that he holds a personal grudge against. Eventually Kint admits to this man, Dean Keaton,  created and orchestrated the elaborate plan told over the course of the film. Then Kint’s bail is posted and he leaves.

In a beautifully shot scene, the customs agent questioning Kint begins to notice that some of the names that Kint had mentioned in his story match those on random flyers and pieces of paper scattered within Kint’s eyesight. Meanwhile, Kint’s limp disappears and Keyser Soze slips into a waiting car and disappears into the city. Soze had just managed to personally get the police off his back.

This is one of the twists that is consistently quoted as one of the all-time greats and it works because it is just so ballsy and well executed.

5. Basic rail unsafety- House of Cards

The American iteration of House of Cards, chronicles South Carolina Congressman and Democrat Majority Chief Whip Frank Underwood as he slowly climbs the political ladder towards the highest office in the land.

For the best part of the first season and moving into the second season, Frank engages in a sexual relationship with young reporter Zoe Barnes, whom he also leaks stories to from time to time. However, after he begins to distance himself from Zoe, beginning to find her tiresome and untrustworthy, Zoe begins to dig into the death of Peter Russo, a congressman from Pennsylvania and a hopeful for the state’s governorship. Now, as a ploy to get himself for the running for the vice-presidency, Underwood had vetted Russo and then orchestrated his downfall, finally setting up Russo’s ‘suicide’ by leaving him unconscious in a locked garage with the car engine running. This led the vice-president, and former Governor of Pennsylvania, to be coaxed into re-running for his position as governor, leaving Frank to eventually secured the vice-presidency.

However, Zoe and her colleagues were slowly getting places in their investigation into Russo’s death and at the very least, they were tarnishing Frank’s name and reputation. And so Frank invites Zoe to a secret meeting on subway platform, where he offers he a ‘fresh start’- they clear all their history and he begins to give her political leaks once more. Zoe accepts and wipes her phone of any trace of Frank. Satisfied, Frank pushes Zoe in front of an incoming subway train, killing her instantly.

This is a classic American twist, blending shock to add that extra kick to a plot twist. However, it serves to reinforce the audience’s perception of Frank- when push comes to shove [too soon?], he won’t passively engineer his way to success, if he needs to do, he will do what needs to be done.

What are some of your favourite plot twists? Let me know in the comments below!

Nazis, cultists and serial killers oh my

No, this isn’t an advertisement for some brand-new high-octane first person shooter or an upcoming darkly themed roleplaying game, nor is this a spotlight piece on the worst compatriot of Cowboy Ninja Viking.

There are two major things that nazis, cultists and serial killers share- they are universally considered ‘bad guys’ and they are present in every facet of popular culture- whether we are gunning down zombified soldiers of the Third Reich in Call of Duty, saving the President’s daughter from hooded figures in Resident Evil 4, watching our favourite TV detectives track down a killer with a highly unusual MO or following one man’s journey through a world in which the Nazis control America after winning World War Two, you have to admit it’s hard to escape these three types of villain.

However, I fear that we have gone beyond the pale and, in a way, trivialized these groups by turning them into tropes. Let’s break this down, trope by trope:

Nazis

The Nazis’ systematic extermination of European Jews is something that occured in living memory. However the more time that elapses between the end of the Holocaust and the present day, the less educated about the events of the Second World War we become as memories fade, new atrocities rise and those who lived through it disappear. It wouldn’t surprise me if when asked what a Nazi is, a younger person of the present day would answer with “Oh, they’re those guys from [insert popular culture]”. The Nazis appear as the primary antagonist for the first six main titles in the Call of Duty franchise, as well as appearing in the game’s popular ‘zombies’ mode, with Nazis serving as the primary antagonist in seven of the 22 existing maps for the game mode. The biggest problem many see here is that young people begin to simply see Nazis as nothing more than the mindless bad guy that needs to be (and needed to be eliminated), as opposed to learning the complex history of World War Two and actually gaining the understanding of the Nazis and Nazi Germany.

The biggest problem with the prevalence of Nazis in popular culture is that sometimes the ‘shock’ of Nazism becomes a priority. For those of you familiar with the superhero Captain America, one of his greatest foes is the evil organisation Hyrda, a Nazi-affliated group of evil. While comic book Hydra has less of a 1:1 parallel with the Nazis than the cinematic depiction of Hydra, there is still a tie between Hydra and the Nazis in the comic books. Now Captain America was created by two Jews, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and in his earliest days, exclusively fought the Third Reich. This is why many were confused when Marvel recently announced, in Steve Rogers: Captain America #1, that Captain America had been a member of Hydra this whole time.  That’s right, obviously in a move to ‘shake things up’, Marvel decided that they were going to make one of their flagship characters, who had been created by two Jews to fight Nazis, be a secret Nazi affiliate. And this isn’t the first time that the Nazis have be seen to take a priority over good sense in recent times- in a misguided move to advertise their adaptation of the Philip K Dick short story, Amazon chose to decorate a New York subway car with a blend of American and Nazi iconography to promote The Man in the High Castle. For those of you who don’t know, New York has one of the largest Jewish populations in the world, many of whom are Holocaust survivors, a lot of whom use the subway.Yeah, maybe a little more thought next time Amazon.

I don’t think the case is that we have forgotten what the Nazis the did, I think that enough time has passed that people feel it’s appropriate to use the Nazis as nothing more than as a standard ‘bad guy’. It’s the classic “people will know what we’re trying to do” mentality but in applying that, we do in a way forget what the Nazis were.

Cultists

Whether they are trying to bring about Doomsday, invoke the favour of an ancient God or just dabbling in magic, cultists are the shadowy bad guys used when a sense of a mystery and the “this is bigger than just one man” vibe are needed. Their portrayal varies, whether it’s the dark benevolent dictatorship of The Sacrament or the violent cults of the Skyrim universe or the quirky, played for laughs depiction in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schimdt. Cults are so malleable a concept that it’s up to the creator of the thing the cult will be featured in to decide how they will be depicted.

However, cults are a very real thing. In January of 2016, Aravindan Balakrishnan was jailed for 23 years- he had been running a pseudo-Communism cult out of a house in South London since the 1970s, convincing his followers that he possessed telepathy, “god like powers” and control of a supernatural entity that would cause natural disasters if he was disobeyed. One of his captives was his own daughter, who had been born into the ‘commune’. His daughter described in an interview how she was so alone, as she was not allowed to leave the house, that she began to make friends with the bathroom taps. In November 1978, over 900 men, women and children either drank poisoned Flavor-Aid or were shot dead on the orders of cult leader Jim Jones. In March 1997, police discovered the bodies of 39 members of ‘Heaven’s Gate’ who drank cyanide as they had been told it would allow them to board an alien vessel tailing a comet.

We all like to believe that cults are just a thing of fiction because it helps us convince ourselves that things like this don’t really happen. But they do and we need to accept that or else we become desensitized to the reality that cults exists and they aren’t overt like their fictional counterparts and they legitimately ruin people’s lives.

Serial Killers

No crime show is complete without a season-long arc in which the main antagonist is a serial killer.

Here’s the big problem- fictional serial killers are too damn murdery. I recently wrote a blog about some of the most terrifying fictional serial killers and most of them have body counts that not only exceed the serial killers with the highest body counts in the US (where most of these shows are set) but in the entire world. The problem is that we slowly become desensitized. We might find ourselves ignoring legitimate serial killers because their body counts aren’t high enough or their MO is too mundane. We are used to super-stylised, high body count killers, meaning that we might miss the ones that don’t fit that umbrella description.

Ben talks entertainment: 5 terrifying fictional serial killers

A well written serial killer can be the shining light of any book, film, video game or TV show. A man or woman who leaves a trail of destruction in their wake as they deftly avoided capture by our heroes. The real fear comes from the knowledge that unlike aliens or malicious ghosts or supervillains, serial killers are actually out there in the world. But we skill continue to create them in our fictions. Here are five of my terrifying favourites. 

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Dexter (Season 4), The Mentalist, Hannibal/Silence of the Lambs, Heavy Rain and various DC properties

1. The Trinity Killer (Dexter): For those you unfamiliar with the show, Dexter Morgan is a sociopathic serial killer who only murders criminals. Every season, he is given a new serial killer to catch and eventually kill. In season 1, it was the prostitute murdering Ice Trucker Killer; season 2 saw Dexter try to hide his true identity as the Bay Harbour Butcher; season 3 pitted Dexter against The Skinner. Then there was season 4. The Trinity Killer would murder a young woman in a bathtub, a mother by falling and a father by bludgeoning once a year in a random city across America. Dexter learns that the Trinity Killer is in fact the leader of a local church and charity organisation and engages in a battle to stop him, leading to some bloody consequences. What makes the Trinity Killer so terrifying is the departure from the show’s usual trope of the season serial killer being a damaged loner. There is a sharp contrast between the sweet and loving Pastor Mitchell and the cold-hearted Trinity Killer, which also provides a secondary contrast between The Trinity Killer and his double life and Dexter’s own double life, in which he essentially plays the same person just doing different things. Number of victims: 267+ (in context, the ‘worst’ US serial killer by number of victims, Gary Ridgeway/The Green River Killer, had 49 confirmed victims and was suspected of killing up to 90)
2. Red John (The Mentalist): Introduced in the first episode of this charming ‘case of the week with a twist’, Red John was a California-based serial killer who was known for leaving a smiley face painted with the victim’s blood as the first thing people would see at the crime scene. He is the personal nemesis of series protagonist Patrick Jane, whose wife and daughter were murdered by Red John after Jane, then working as a psychic, denounced Red John during a television interview. As the show progress, we slowly learn more and more about Red John, such as his organisation of followers, known as the Blake Association, and are often teased with his appearance, such as at the end of season 2, where student film makers who made a slasher film with a real murder, are killed in front of Jane by Red John after he takes offence at their sloppy copycat work. Red John is eventually revealed to Napa County sheriff Thomas Atkinson, a man we actually met in the pilot of the show. He is killed by Jane at the end of the episode ‘Red John’. Number of victims: 41+ directly, countless more by members of the Blake Association (This would put Red John as the second worse US serial killer in terms of number of victims, putting him behind The Green River Killer and ahead of Ted Bundy).
3. Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal/Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, Hannibal): Probably the most famous character on this list, Hannibal Lecter is a former psychiatrist and actual cannibal who terrorized the Maryland area as the Chesapeake Ripper. Much like the Trinity Killer, Hannibal maintained a deceptive facade as a kind and insightful psychiatrist. He enjoyed high society and the finer things in life, except for the fact that you never knew if he was serving you Coquilles Saint-Jacques or whether those scallops were actually human white meat. His background is kind of tropey- witnessing a horrific act of brutality (in this case, being fed his sister to survive a gruelling Eastern European winter) that irrevocably altered his mindset and turned him into a brutal, cold-hearted killer. However, the overall creepiness that surrounds the character (be it Anthony Hopkins or Mads Mikkelsen) is compelling and makes you fear for all those around him. His cool intelligence, merciless brutality and plethora of disposal methods probably make him the most formidable killer on this list also. Number of victims: 29 (Novels), 27 (Films (Excluding Manhunter)), 62 (TV Show) (The novel and film Lecter sits around the mark of Dean Corll, the Houston Mass Murderer, while television Lecter would top the list of worst American serial killers in confirmed victims alone and would make him the 8th worst serial killer in the world by confirmed number of victims.)
4. The Origami Killer (Heavy Rain): Heavy Rain is a neo-noir detective thriller game from David Cage. You play as Ethan Mars, a mentally ill father searching for his kidnapped son; Norman Jayden, a passionate and drug-addicted FBI agent hunting for the infamous Origami Killer; Madison Paige, an investigative journalist looking for her big break, and Scott Shelby, a former cop and private eye digging into the Origami killer case. The Origami Killer kidnaps young boys in the fall and drowns them in rainwater before leaving them in abandoned lots near railway lines. As the game progresses, you discover that Scott Shelby is in fact the Origami Killer and is collecting evidence from the victim’s families in order to cover his tracks. The killer is a cold and methodical man, deftly avoiding the police and any attempts to catch him. There are multiple endings for every character and the three for the Origami Killer range from his death to him getting away with his crimes, Scott-free (-mic drop-). The Origami Killer is probably the weakest entry on this list, but that is more about Cage’s preference for style over substance as opposed to a direct fault with the character. He is also the most realistic character on this list with only eight victims. Believe it or not, most serial killers don’t cut huge swathes out of the population. Number of victims: 8 (plenty of US-based serial killers share this number of victims, the Happy Face killer and the Dating Game killer to name but two).
5. The Dollmaker (DC): In the comics, The Dollmaker’s MO involves kidnapping children (mostly) and turning them into cybernetic slaves. This evolves into creating mannequin like figures out the skin and limbs of his victims. The MO finally peaks with the fourth ‘Dollmaker’, who uses her victims as unwilling organ donors to provide produce for the black market. In the DC TV show Gotham, Dollmaker, or Francis Dulmacher, is a surgeon who runs an island hospital for the wealthy, performing illegal cosmetic surgery and transplants with the bodies of kidnap victims, including the insufferable Fish Mooney. The third comic book iteration of the Dollmaker, Baron Mathis, makes an appearance on Arrow. After escaping from prison during a pivotal plot point, Baron Mathis begins kidnapping young women, suffocating them by pouring expanding polymer down their throats and dressing them like dolls for the police to find. The Dollmaker is a classic Batman villain- absolute evil, deranged and frightfully brutal. Number of victims:  Unknown.

 

Which serial killers had you keeping the lights on at night? Let me know in the comments below!

Ben talks TV: Friday Night Lights

Warning: Some plot spoilers ahead

The late Tom Landry one said “Football is to Texas what religion is to a priest.” If you venture into the Lone Star State, you will find a sports culture unlike any other. Whole towns come to a standstill when the high school team plays on Friday night; Texas has twelve teams playing in the highest tier of collegiate football and the Dallas Cowboys once spent over two decades being considered the greatest football team in America.

Friday Night Lights: A town, A team and a dream is a 1990 non-fiction work that follows the 1988 season for the Permian Panthers, a high school football team from Odessa, Texas. The book is not only a fascinating insight into high school football and its effect on the town around it, but also the journey of the author, HG Bassinger, who goes from looking to write an uplifting piece about high school football unifying a town to writing a much more cynical piece as he uncovers the darker truth about how much Texans love their football. Bassinger’s work was the basis for the 2004 film Friday Night Lights, which is a largely faithful adaptation of the book with Billy Bob Thornton taking on the role of Coach Gary Gaines. The film then served as an inspiration for an NBC drama of the same name, which is what I’m here to talk about today.

Before you stop reading, let me tell you that Friday Night Lights isn’t just a high school sports drama with a ‘game of the week’ format. It is a heartfelt series which really personifies the title of Bassinger’s work- a town, a team, a dream. The show follows the fictional Dillon Panthers, who must work to meet the high expectation placed upon them.

The cast of characters is diverse and likeable (or deliberately unlikeable). The show’s characters are split into three overarching categories- the Taylors, the team and the town. The show’s lead characters are Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his wife, Tami, and daughter, Julie, as they return to Dillon in the pilot episode after a number of years elsewhere. The struggles faced by Coach Taylor that is the main basis for the show. As you would expect from a show about high school football, the team roster changes as classes come and go. For the first two seasons, we follow the on and off field lives of star quarterback Jason Street (who is paralysed in the pilot episode); his replacement Matt Saracen, a sweet and sensitive boy who defies, and struggles with, the jock lifestyle; the arrogant and verbose running back Brian ‘Smash’ Williams, who has to learn to cope as one of the few black members of a largely white team as well as how to play nice with his teammates; and the sullen, often drunk fullback Tim Riggins, who is the show’s anti-hero character. After season 2, there are few squad changes, except for the departure of Smash and the introduction of the socially awkward Landry Clark, who had previously been a secondary character and a close friend of Matt Saracen. The other big change is the introduction of JD McCoy, a talented quarterback and Matt’s rival for first string quarterback. The biggest changes come in the last two seasons of the show, when Coach Taylor is transferred to the newly re-opened East Dillon High School. The major players that are introduced are Micheal B. Jordan’s Vince Howard, a boy from the rough part of town trying to make good, and Luke Cafferty, a nervous yet talented running back. Completing the cast is the rest of Dillon, showcasing the mentality of a football obsessed Texas town. Many of the characters are romantically or linked to players or are their family, such as Tim’s on and off girlfriend Tyra and Jason’s loving yet ultimately fickle girlfriend Lyla. We also meet Matt’s grandmother, who is slowly losing a fight to dementia, and Tim’s deadbeat brother Billy. The show also focuses on the relationship between Coach Taylor and the Boosters, the primary source of the funding for the football team. We especially see his relationship with former player and influential booster Buddy Garrity, who often comes as single-minded and rude but deep down, he’s just trying to do everything he can for the team.

As I said before, the show isn’t just about football and its in-season arcs do cover a wide range of issues. We get an insight into how football players are treated in Texas, with one story following a Hispanic player who assaults a fellow student but lies and says that he was racially provoked. Coach Taylor is torn between standing up for the victim and protecting his player. As you would expect from a Texan set drama, race is explored thoroughly. Most of the core cast get a few storylines thrown their way. The show deals with abortion and sex, both near taboo topics in Texas. Essentially, the show goes out of its way to create a snapshot of rural Texas and the issues that high school students and their town as a whole may face.

If you are looking for a good drama to watch, and you don’t mind a little football thrown into the mix, I’d definitely recommend Friday Night Lights, which you can find on Netflix.

Have you seen the show? What do you think of it? Let me know!

 

Ben talks television: 3 stories I would have the considered for ‘American Crime Story’ Season 2

For those of you who are not aware of the show, American Crime Story is an FX anthology true crime series from Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski and executive producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, the latter two being best known for their roles in creating the anthology horror series American Horror Story.

The 10 episode first season, also known as American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson, follows the 1995 murder trial of former American Football star OJ Simpson. It is enjoyable American melodrama with some genuine twists and turns. However, the scarce production notes about the greenlit second season talk about the show’s second season focusing on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with the focus quite possibly being the investigate into the failure of levees in the greater New Orleans area. Today, I would like to share my suggestions for material for the second season:

1. Patty Hearst: In 1974, the 19 year old grand-daughter of media magnate William Randolph Hearst was kidnapped by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a leftist revolutionary group. However, in April of the same year, 2 months after Patty Hearst had been kidnapped; a video surfaced of Patty declaring that she had come to see her captors’ ideology and was now a member of the SLA. Less than two weeks later, Hearst was seen to be involved in an SLA bank robbery. Hearst was later involved in the primary phases of a plot to kill police officers with explosive devices.

Patty Hearst was arrested along with another SLA member in September 1975. While there were concerns regarding Hearst’s mental health, with one psychiatrist describing her as a “low-IQ, low affect zombie”, Hearst stood trial for the 1974 bank robbery. At her side was defence lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who would later go on to be part of OJ Simpson’s defence team.

The central question of American Crime Story‘s first season is ‘did OJ do it?’ and the general ambiguity and divisiveness of two opposing sides is what gives the show its fuel. A case like Hearst’s would raise similar questions, making for less of a cut and dry second series. Furthermore, the subtle links to the first season, such as reappearance of F. Lee Bailey, would make for a nice touch and be a half throwback to the way that American Horror Story shares a lot of its primary cast from season to season.

Hearst in 1975

2. Waco siege: In 1993, the FBI, ATF and Texas National Guard were involved in a 46 day siege with the Branch Davidians, a religious sect that had split from the Seven Day Adventists. The Davidians were secured in a large compound outside of Elk, Texas and accused of, among other things, weapons violations (hence the presence of the ATF), sexual abuse of members of the sect and holding people against their will.

After a failed initial raid by the ATF, both sides entrenched themselves and the siege began. While the Davidians waited for the government to try and take them by force, the FBI debated as to whether to try and resolve things peacefully or act with force. The issue was that they did not want to spark a mass suicide in the same vein as Jonestown and were eager to try and repeat the events of the 1985 siege of The Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord religious group in Arkansas, which ended peacefully. After 50 days, the FBI stormed the compound. The leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh was killed along with 75 other members of his group. 8 survivors would later go to trial.

While a seemingly cut and dry story, Waco could be covered in a unique manner by the writers and producers of American Horror Story– set before and during the trial of the eight survivors, the events of the siege could be told in flashbacks from both the Davidian and FBI perspectives, giving a ‘two sides to every story’ message to season. While it would be harder to garner sympathy for the Davidians in the same way the show would garner sympathy for OJ or Patty Hearst, a shifting perspective, as the first season does by splitting the runtime between prosecution and defence, would make for an interesting story.

Mount Carmel Center, home of the Branch Davidians, aflame on the final day of the siege

3. The Unabomber: Ted Kaczynski was a child prodigy and later assistant professor of mathematics at Berkeley. An undeniably gifted man, he abruptly resigned his post in 1969 and became a recluse in an isolated cabin in Montana. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski would mail or hand-deliver bombs to locations around the United States, including: 6 universities; 5 towns or cities; Boeing Headquarters and an American Airlines flight. The Unabomber’s reign of domestic terrorism spanned seventeen years and claimed three lives while injuring a further 23 people.

Kaczynski was arrested at his remote cabin in April of 1993. Similar to the Patty Hearst case, there were concerns over the bomber’s mental health but he was eventually declared fit to stand trial. To avoid the death penalty, Ted Kaczynski pleaded guilty to all charges.

If the Unabomber was chosen as the subject of an American Crime Story season, it would be very much about the crime. Primarily focused on the FBI’s hunt for the perpetrator, it could be clever by drip-feeding the audience information about the bomber himself, such as his alleged involvement in unethical research while he was a student at Yale. A season focused on the Unabomber would take much more of a psychological insight, looking at what drives a man to commit such heinous acts for so long.

The widely distributed sketch of the suspected Unabomber

Have you been watching American Crime Story? What do you think? What would you recommend as a potential season arc?

American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson concludes on April 5th in the United States. Episode 8 airs on BBC Two on April 4th. 

 

Ben talks entertainment: Why ‘The Room’ would make a great Lovecraftian-esque movie or TV series

Films based on video games have a dark history- there was that period in the 2000s where Hollywood parasite Uwe Boll was turning your favourite games such as Far Cry and Alone in the Dark into horrific cash grabs; the less said about Super Mario Bros. the better and even in today, movies like Hitman: Agent 47, are tame action movies that only carry similarities in their source by sharing a name and (hopefully) a vaguely recognisable protagonist. Meanwhile, if you seek out films based on the work of the cosmic horror author H. P. Lovecraft, you come across a multitude of tongue in cheek horror comedies (Call Girl of Cthulhu and Re-animator to name two) or your standard somewhat gritty modern B-movie horror (usually one word titles named after a Cthulhu-mythos being). Both sub-genres aren’t held in particularly high regard.

But what if I told you that I could combine both of these genres in one project?

The Room is a trilogy of mobile puzzle games from Fireproof Games. They see you take control of an unnamed, silent protagonist exploring a number of interconnected locations as you investigate the existence of the ‘Null’, the mystical fifth classical element. You are guided across the game by notes written by an unknown figure and work to unlock puzzle boxes in bizarre locations that are linked by doors that spawn from the walls around you once you unlock each room’s main puzzle box. Currently there are three games, each one giving you a little more about who you are, what you are doing and what the Null is and can do. While not directly Lovecraftian, the slow pace, mystery and puzzle of the game as well as the generally woo-wa of the Null and its tentacles, the only part of the Null we directly see except for a brief Null-cameo on occasion, it will definitely give Lovecraftian fans a mythos vibe.

So why would The Room make a great Lovecraftian project? Well, let’s examine what makes a great Lovecraftian adventure:

-A slow burn pace, building in a beautiful crescendo towards a horrific climax

-A largely unseen antagonist

-A small cast of core characters

-A somewhat insane or unhinged guide of some sort

-An early 20th Century setting

So which of these does The Room fulfil? Well, it certainly has a wonderful slow-burn pace, allowing the player to take each puzzle at their own pace. The game series also features a small cast of two characters, one of them who appears to be a somewhat unhinged academic who is travelling through the rooms before you. The setting appears to be somewhere in the late 19th Century or early 20th Century based on the technology around you but this does also shift depending on the room you are in, which can range from a pirate ship to an Aztec/Mayan tomb. And finally, the Null is certainly a largely unseen antagonist but beyond that, we never find out what is pulling the strings and manipulating the events of the game.

As you can see, The Room series does fulfil my criteria but how exactly would this translate into a film? Well, The Room could do well as a mini-series adaptation, seeing a group of unconnected people comes across the first Room and beginning a journey that seems them flit between a journey for the null and the reality that they once existed in. A small cast in a dark, Lovecraftian setting with the Null potentially leading to an actual mythos being would make for a gripping mini-series at the very least.

Each episode could see our protagonists seeking the next room in their journey while trying to find out more about the Null and the mysterious forces surrounding it. The audience would also see the sanity begin to slip from the protagonists as they try, and fail, to comprehend this assault to their reality.

Hell, I might run this as a long running Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game…

So that’s my pitch? Have you played the Room and its sequels? What do you think of my pitch?

 

Ben talks entertainment: 3 movies and TV shows that completely change when you swap the POV

So today’s blog is based on a Cracked podcast from earlier this week about films that are better from a different point of view. I thought I would add some of my own as it’s a fun topic to mull over. Real nerd pub talk this is. I’m not going to talk about anything particularly recent but watch out for spoilers anyway.

1. The Karate Kid (1984) as seen from Johnny Lawrence’s point of view

In the film: Johnny Lawrence is the bad guy of The Karate Kid– he’s the blonde, hyper-aggressive martial artist who tries to kill the protagonist on Halloween for making his ex-girlfriend lose focus during her gym class due to his dreamy New Jersey charm. Johnny gets his come-uppance for just being the worst by getting kicked in the face and losing the Under-18 All-Valley Karate Tournament to the scrawny dork from New Jersey.

From Johnny’s perspective: For many years, you have essentially been abused by this psychotic ex-Special Forces guy who now runs a martial arts dojo, You have been taught that loss makes you a worthless failure and that you are nothing if you don’t win. So, you lose your girlfriend and then all of a sudden, some upstart from across the county is making her all fluttery and swoony. Being a hormonal teenager with unaddressed anger issues, you rationally decide to teach him a lesson by beating the crap out of him. After having your ass handed to you by an elderly man, you get the chance to legally beat the crap out of the kid in a sanctioned fighting tournament. When you meet him in the final, not only is he fighting on a broken leg, he has had no professional training and is scrawny and less experienced than you are. What happens? He comes at you with this flying head kick that no amount of training could have prepared you for. Now you have to face the wrath of your insane coach and get your nose unbroken or something. From Johnny’s perspective, The Karate Kid is a film about an abused martial arts enthusiast struggling to deal with his emotions who then loses an important tournament to a kid who wins with some underhand head kick.

2. Footloose (1984) as seen from the perspective of Reverend Shaw Moore

In the film: Reverend Moore has led the city council in the town of Bomont to ban dancing and rock music. He is challenged by a plucky teen from Chicago who slowly convinces him that dancing can be joyful and does not lead to sin. Eventually, his mind is changed and he lifts the ban, leading to a celebratory flash mob. (NB: The perfect flash mob to top off senior prom leaves me convinced that Footloose is a back door pilot for The X-Files about a town of teens with a hive mind, allowing performing a perfect dance routine without any prior preparation).

From Reverend Moore’s perspective: All Reverend Moore wants to do is keep the children of Bomont safe. His son died in a car accident which was caused by reckless driving. The teens of the town play chicken with tractors. AND THEN, some kid from Chicago rolls into town and decides to upset the status quo by seducing his rebellious daughter and leading the teens in a dancing resistance. Then he finds out that he is fighting a losing battle- his daughter isn’t a virgin, the teens are dancing and drinking and sinning. However, after a passionate plea by said teen, Moore wants to change his mind but fears for what will become of the town if he relents. From the reverend’s perspective, Footloose is the story of a man trapped between what he feels is his moral duty and the wishes of the future of his beloved town.

3. Warehouse 13 (2009-2014) as seen from the perspective of anyone affected by an artefact

The show: Warehouse 13 follows the exploits of two Secret Service agents who are recruited to work for a secret organisation called Warehouse 13. Agents of the Warehouse travel the world, securing powerful and dangerous artefacts for safe storage in the warehouse. These artefacts, usually associated with a famous individual, include Abraham Lincoln’s hat (which imbues the wearer with an overwhelming urge to emancipate African-Americans) and Ghandi’s sandals (which calm you down to the point where your heart stops beating). Most episodes follow the agents collecting these artefacts after someone has accidentally activated them.

From the victim’s perspective: You’re just an average person, going about your business when BAM, someone you’re mad at gets vaporised in front of you or you get an insatiable craving for human flesh or you get a freaking doppelganger OR your buddy on the wrestling team spontaneously combusts. Sure, some nice people claiming to be from the government turn up and restore everything back to normal but then what? You receive no government aid and you can’t exactly go into therapy and when asked what the potential cause of your mental breakdown, tell your therapist “my high school stalker was using binoculars that witnessed the denotation of the atomic bomb to vaporise anyone who he felt was threatening me” and in some cases you may have seriously injured people or actually killed someone. Where do you go from that? From the victim’s perspective, Warehouse 13 becomes a weird supernatural psychological drama about being possessed and having to come to terms with happened to you or what you did.

Which films would you think be completely from someone else’s perspective?

 

Ben talks TV: My 5 favourite SNL original characters

So I am quite a fan of Saturday Night Live (SNL). There is a Youtube channel that puts up the highlights of each show and it is easy to get into a watching binge. So today, I would like to share my 5 favourite original SNL characters or character groups. For this blog, I am going to include original characters, so no celebrity impressions this time round.

1. Vince Blake (played by Bill Hader)

Vince Blake is a gameshow host who never seems to be able to hold down a show. You can see him as the host of Game of Game of Thrones, Who’s on Top? What’s that Name? and What’s Wrong with Tanya? Every gameshow is weird and wacky, which is beautifully contrasted by Blake’s deadpan, straight-faced hosted. Blake is bought to life through Bill Hader’s wonderful comedic acting and keeps you hooked throughout each instalment of his work.

2. Target Lady (Kirsten Wiig)

Have you ever encountered that one person a little too excited to be working behind the till at a large retailer? No? Then Target Lady will give you some idea of what I mean. With her pristine uniform and “bangs that go all the way around her head”, Target Lady is an employee at the popular American retailer, Target. She is ready to scream “Welcome to Target!” and generally make those she is serving highly uncomfortable. Target Lady is one of Kirsten Wiig’s many crazy characters and is one of her best, with her over-enthusiasm and improvisation skills (which is she displays through her intended uses for various products she buys from Target).

3. The Californians (Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Kirsten Wiig, Kenan Thompson and Vanessa Bayer, plus guests)

If SNL does one thing right, it’s parody. The Californians are a group of barely coherent Californians who live out their dramatic and complex lives. They can often be heard detailing their exact travel plans and indulging in ‘passionate’ affairs. With the core group made up for experienced SNL cast members, there is plenty of hilarious (if barely coherent) dialogue between the group and the humour is genuine enough to have the actors lose it from time to time.

4. The Spartan Cheerleaders (Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri)

Arianna and Craig are two plucky cheerleaders who didn’t actually make it onto the cheerleading squad. However, that’s not going to stop them being cheerleaders! Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri portray these two cheerleaders who bring the school spirit to some rather unorthodox tournaments, such as chess. Ferrell and Oteri’s chemistry is perfect and it leads to a hilarious performance from both of them. And hey, their cheerleading isn’t bad, I mean it’s not good but I’ve seen worse.

5. Jonathan Cavanaugh and Rebecca Stern-Markowitz (Taran Killam, Vanessa Bayer, Jason Sudekis, Fred Armisen, plus guests)

We all know someone obsessed with Japanese culture and Michigan State University students, Jonathan Cavanaugh (Killam) and Rebecca Stern-Markowitz (Bayer) are no different. They host ‘J-Pop America Fun Time Now!’ an early morning student network TV show for MSU, overseen by their Japanese Studies professor, played by Jason Sudekis. While their knowledge is inaccurate and based mostly on idioms inherited from anime, they must be credited for their passion and the dedication to the role is fantastic. Over the course of four episodes, they are joined by students of a similar strain of fan culture, with the show’s only Japanese link being Cavanaugh’s Japanese girlfriend, played by Fred Armisen. The skit only gets funny as it is revealed that the two hosts are the worst Japanese Studies students.

 

Ben talks Halloween pop culture: 4 of my favourite TV Halloween Specials

Television series love to do episodes based around some of the larger holidays. For American made shows, these will take the form of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes. Today I’m finishing off my trio of Halloween blogs by looking at my five favourite Halloween TV specials. For my blog on my favourite monsters, click here and for my piece sharing some chilling true stories, click here.

1. Halloween (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

In this season two episode of the hit 90s show about a teenage vampire slayer, Buffy and her friends are afflicted by a curse that turns them into the costumes they are wearing. While Buffy is render useless as an 18th Century noble woman and Xander has become a soldier, it is down to shy Willow to lead the Scooby gang to victory. While an entertaining episode, it also stands out for its genuine character development and continuation of the Buffy motif, rather than indulging in a silly episode for the sake of the season.

2. Epidemiology (Community)

Of course Community, the show that loves to indulge in pop culture references, has a number of Halloween episodes. However, the stand out of these Halloween themed episodes is ‘Epidemiology’ from season two. At the Greendale Halloween party, a military rations experiment that the Dean mistakes from discount taco meat at an army surplus store begins to turn people into zombies. It is up to the study group to save the rest of the students. Full of pop culture references and uniquely scored to an ABBA soundtrack, Epidemiology is a classic Community parody of the zombie genre. The episode also serves as the start of a minor story arc for the rest of the season, without seeming forced into the episode.

3. It’s Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester (Supernatural)

As the characters note on the show, for them, every day is Halloween. However, that doesn’t mean their work takes a holiday on October 31st. This episode sees a spree of mysterious deaths in a small lead the brothers to discover a plot to raise Samhain, a demon who inspired the Celtic celebrations of Samhain which became the Halloween traditions we know today. The episode nestles nicely into the ‘Sam and Dean attempt to avert the apocalypse’ and continues the characterisation of the major angelic players but it is also a nice pretty from the rather cut and paste episodes that comprise most of the arc in question, The show holds the Supernatural trademark, with The CW friendly horror mixed with charming humour.

4. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

The namesake of the third entry, this seminal Halloween special is an animated feature based on the popular comic strip, Peanuts. While the gang prepare for Halloween, Linus writes his letter to The Great Pumpkin, a holiday icon similar to Santa, and prepares to wait in the pumpkin patch to meet him. Linus is undeterred, despite his friend’s ridicule. This 25 minute feature is a charming piece of a time gone by which I believe still carries the same message about belief and respect today as it did in 1966. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.