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alexsarllI'm pretty sure I would have seen the 'twist' in that Life on Mars coming even if it hadn't been used in The Shield a couple of seasons ago, but although the plot was drivel and the Tony Blair joke run into the ground, I will concede that there were some lovely moments.
Similarly, The Trap used accomplished film-making skills to disguise a confused lack of structure or substance. Like the game theories it explained/attacked, it seemed to exist in a simplified, isolated bubble world. New Labour's pledge "to liberate the individual", for instance, was shown to have had unintended consequences - but surely everyone already realises how hollow the 'choice' agenda is, and no mention was made of the party's countervailing nanny state tendencies. Nor did Curtis ever seem to reach back past the beginning of the Cold War; how the Hell can someone make a programme about ideologies which attempt to harness the self-interest they see at the core of humanity without reference to Hobbes? At other times it was simply bizarre; how can Curtis claim that anti-democratic islamism was "summoned up" by the West's actions when his own prior, superior Power of Nightmares showed that it was no such thing? And why was the Prisoner's Dilemma explained in a format without any prisoners, making its name seem utterly random? I don't think I'll be bothering with the subsequent episodes, so if they do manage to make any points which are valid and/or new, somebody please let me know.
On the plus side: RD Laing is Peter Capaldi working from a Chris Morris script AICM5UKP.
There is more than that, but I'm afraid none of it is suitable for a general audience except to note that if 2007 gets any hotter than today, it shall be TOO DAMN HOT.
Similarly, The Trap used accomplished film-making skills to disguise a confused lack of structure or substance. Like the game theories it explained/attacked, it seemed to exist in a simplified, isolated bubble world. New Labour's pledge "to liberate the individual", for instance, was shown to have had unintended consequences - but surely everyone already realises how hollow the 'choice' agenda is, and no mention was made of the party's countervailing nanny state tendencies. Nor did Curtis ever seem to reach back past the beginning of the Cold War; how the Hell can someone make a programme about ideologies which attempt to harness the self-interest they see at the core of humanity without reference to Hobbes? At other times it was simply bizarre; how can Curtis claim that anti-democratic islamism was "summoned up" by the West's actions when his own prior, superior Power of Nightmares showed that it was no such thing? And why was the Prisoner's Dilemma explained in a format without any prisoners, making its name seem utterly random? I don't think I'll be bothering with the subsequent episodes, so if they do manage to make any points which are valid and/or new, somebody please let me know.
On the plus side: RD Laing is Peter Capaldi working from a Chris Morris script AICM5UKP.
There is more than that, but I'm afraid none of it is suitable for a general audience except to note that if 2007 gets any hotter than today, it shall be TOO DAMN HOT.
