Obsolete Your Idols

Mormon Robots!

So after seeing a couple first season episodes, I hadn't been really enchanted with the show, it all reminded me far too much of the first incarnation. But then friends of mine convinced me to give it another shot. So I watched the miniseries. It was pretty OK. Interesting set up, compelling characterizations, eye-catching cinematography and I could forgive the plot holes.

Then I started watching in earnest with season two when several horrible events happen to the characters per minute. It's fun. Devout robots, treacherous humans. If it had space sex, it'd be unstoppable.

posted at 23:38 PDT (-0700)     (comments disabled)   permanent link  

Blackobite Rebellion

Now I've seen the third season of Blackadder. Quite fun. Blackadder as butler to a fool, with some fodder for the lighter side of a 7th Sea campaign.

Episodes:

• Dish & Dishonesty - Parliamentary politics, Blackadder style. Good payoff at the end for the setup.
• Ink & Incapability - This one's got Robbie Coltrane as Dr. Samuel Johnson and also a Shelley and Byron character and is decently funny.
• Nob & Nobility - Totally righteous skewering of several social phenomena: fads, poseurs, gourmet foods, obsession with other cultures. Good 7th Sea fodder, too.
• Sense & Senility - Er, anarchists and actors. This should be more interesting than it was. Maybe I expected too much from it. The ending seemed a bit weak to me.
• Amy & Amiability - Oh boy, Miranda Richardson! Very good 7th Sea fodder. A dashing highwayman or two or one. Some cute sallies at Cyrano de Bergerac. Probably my favorite of this season.
• Duel & Duality - Season ender. No Flasheart. No all fall down. A cute Prince & Pauper reversal. A cute Atkinson - Atkinson dialogue.

All in all, I think I liked season two more but season four less. But that's entirely subjective. Perhaps I'd feel differently if I'd seen the seasons in a different sequence.

Oh, and it's got the Blackadder Christmas Special on the DVD. That was delightful fun.

posted at 09:02 PST (-0800)     (comments disabled)   permanent link  

Blackadder Goes Forth

War is hell.

World war is mass insanity.

Blackadder in world war is delightful.

Sort of.

So this season of Blackadder focuses on World War I, the Great War. A time of bleak and horrifying pointless death and thus perfect backdrop for black humor.

It returns several favorites from season two, including Rik Mayall as Flasheart, this time an airborne fighting ace; Miranda Richardson, barely recognizable out of her Queenie costume; most excitingly, Tim McInnerny returns as a regular, no longer the foppish Lord Percy Percy but now the vindictive and high-strung Darling.

Now, this changes the dynamic. With season two, the only season I've seen before, Blackadder was thwarted by the impersonal malice of the monarchy and clergy as well as the bumbling of his henchmen. Here, he's actively being persecuted by the flunky of his superior. Which changes the flavor and causes me to root more for Blackadder. Not only is he twenty yards from men who hate him impersonally and have large munitions, he's under the command of someone influenced by a personal antagonist of his.

There's quite a bit of fun with Baldrick's bodily secretions, and sex and money remain the comedy elements they've always been, but the dark humor is substantially more dark for the setting and the end of the season was bleak and sobering for me. If you watch this on DVD, be sure to check out the footnotes, as well.

posted at 12:40 PST (-0800)     (comments disabled)   permanent link  

Potato Head

So there's this family, the Blackadders, and they figure prominently in the history of England and the events are captured in a television show from the BBC. I've watched the second season lately a few times, with Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh and the Bishop of Bath & Wells and so on. It's a bit like Wile E. Coyote with a variety of road-running targets for our hapless protagonist to chase after.

The episodes on the second season DVD are:

• Bells - Cross-dressing, homoeroticism, easy-listening parodies, this start to the season is quite a joy and nicely sets the tone for the misadventures of Lord Edmund Blackadder.
• Head - Here we find Edmund given a new position, attendant staff, and responsibility over who lives and dies. Of course he makes a mess of things through his recurring error of delegating to his minions, and has to undergo a variety of contorting impressions to attempt to retain his head.
• Potato - Sailing, eyepatches, conquest, discoveries, cannibals and a legless Tom Baker. This one is laugh out loud funny.
• Money - This episode has a cute prostitute. Some other stuff happens, including a recurring gag about unfunny practical jokes and the inability of Edmund Blackadder to hold on to any money, but the important part is that the prostitute is really cute, right down to her toes. Some jibes at the clergy of the day which seem practically prescient considering more recent Catholic scandal and hypocrisy.
• Beer - My favorite episode of the season, it's got fake breasts, drinking, and Puritans. Wicked Child!
• Chains - Season ender. Silly accents, sheep-fucking, light-hearted torture and hostage-taking and the obligatory all-fall-down ending. The blood, you see, is compulsory.

So quite fun, and the most concentrated Blackadder I'd seen in such a short span.

posted at 13:51 PDT (-0700)     (comments disabled)   permanent link