The grass is already greener

[alexsarll]

Vexed should have been good, given it's by Howard Overman, the writer of the excellent ASBO superpowers series Misfits, and it stars Toby Stephens. And the plot outline - a series of murders of women whose Nectar card purchase records revealed them to be single and desperate - was novel without being gimmicky. But the odd couple cop dynamic, and the general silliness, felt too blatantly like a sketch show riff on Ashes to Ashes, and an hour of that gets wearing.

Fairly quiet weekend all in all, except for Saturday, when steve586 hosted a Matt Smith marathon during the day, followed by a party for a more general crowd come evening (the tone of conversation later was probably more disturbing, but that may just be because some of us had been drinking for eight hours by that point). Conclusions on rewatching just over half of Series 31 of Doctor Who:
Perception filters are rather overused, being one of the more common triggers in Steve's drinking game.
'The Beast Below' does have some wonderful moments, but the basic set-up still stinks, being the sort of half-coherent idea one expects from RTD, but not from Moffat.
I think River Song is going to be the cause of Matt Smith's regeneration into 'her' Doctor. That killing - taken by most for genuine murder - is what lands her in Stormcage.
And Matt Smith's central performance is even better second time around.

The late Simon Gray is now known mainly for his Smoking Diaries, but the reason his diaries were getting published in the first place was his plays. I just watched Butley, a film with Alan Bates and Harold Pinter reprising their stage roles as star and director, and it's fairly entertaining but the stage origins do show; there's a sort of larger than life performance which is always going to seem a bit blunt when you're not watching it from rows away. Bates as Butley is essentially Withnail if he'd become a lecturer; forever on the piss, doing his best to avoid the students, dragging his friends and lovers down with him...but at his age, that bilious, boozy self-destructiveness is not so endearing anymore.

Comments

[exliontamer.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask what had been so disturbing in the conversation at Steve's party but then I remembered your "fountain" comment.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten that, and was thinking more of the whole foreskin business.

[exliontamer.livejournal.com]

I HAD FORGOTTEN ABOUT THAT OH GOD

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I would apologise, but by commenting on this topic, you did rather bring it on yourself.

[exliontamer.livejournal.com]

This is true.

[steve586.livejournal.com]

Fountain?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You're better off not knowing. Really.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

I WASN'T EVEN THERE AND I HEARD ABOUT IT ENOUGH TO ARGH ARGH MY BRAIN WHAT IS THIS.

[augstone.livejournal.com]

i love 'butley'. the dialogue is ace. i see what you mean but i'm not sure how endearing he's supposed to be.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The dialogue is good, but the delivery is just that little bit 'a-ha!' for me - although I'm sure it was great on stage.

I'm not saying he was intended to be endearing, only that he wasn't, especially. I suppose part of that may be that Bruce Robinson was fictionalising an admired friend, whereas Simon Gray's main model was himself - and he was always pretty harsh on himself.