Mr. Giacchino has a great deal to live up to when it comes to the music of Star Trek. He not only has to pay homage to the beautiful scoring of original series theme tune composer Alexander Courage, and by default include 'that' tune in the score, but he's got a whole bunch of rather brilliant musical giants peering over his shoulder; Jerry Goldsmith (the score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture is quite frankly a work of god-like genius), Dennis McCarthy (a very under-rated score for Star Trek: Generations), James Horner (Wrath Of Khan. Say No More) and Cliff Eidelman (the end title score of Star Trek VI with the accompanying sign off from the original cast is enough to make grown men weep).

...a very colourful score

I know if I'm enjoying an original score. You've seen the film and it's helping you replay lots of great bits of the film in your head before the DVD comes out or you pay for another cinema ticket, or the music doesn't necessarily need the film to inspire you and is so strong and powerful that it totally stands in isolation as great film music. With Star Trek, Giacchino most definitely falls into the latter camp. I can't vouch for the former because I'm sat here listening to the music from a film I have yet to actually see! But I'm no stranger to that scenario. I ploughed through most of John Williams' music for the original Star Wars trilogy well before I turned up at the pictures to see the films. So what does Giacchino's music say to us in its brief 45 minute outing on this album? The impression I came away with was that we are about to see a punchy, fast moving action flick, full of jeopardy and darker, vengeful moments, and it's pretty epic in scope. Big, big brass sections, driving strings, rattling percussion and some outstanding choral work too. It's a very colourful score, running the gamut of bold orchestration, both thundering along to action set pieces and full of beautiful subtleties (and if you like his Lost scores you'll really like these) when needed for the quieter character driven moments.



He's also got his own Star Trek theme threading through much of the music. It's terribly heroic, a nicely controlled bombast but quite easily fits in with the stablemates of previous films. There's a James Horner flavour in there with a series of rising motifs, certainly rather well showcased on Back From Black, perhaps indicative of Kirk's journey from cadet (in black uniform) to 'Captain' (in yellow uniform) but that first makes its mark in the opening Star Trek. Slow, full, round brass, quite mournful, dotted with metallic sounding percussion and that drives, with subtle strings, towards one of those typical Giacchino crescendos. Nailin' The Kelvin does what it says on the tin and is big, militaristic stuff scoring the battle between the U.S.S. Kelvin and Nero's ship, the Narada. Pounding beats, flaring brass and swirling strings that again pick out Giacchino's own Trek theme.

The militaristic feel is well and truly the groove...

Labor Of Love is soft, pirouetting high strings, with harp and warm brassy passages very much in the style of Lost. A very romantic piece of scoring which I suspect might be the theme for the Enterprise (*I was proved wrong - it plays over the shuttle escape from the Kelvin and the death of George Kirk and it works stunningly). It's so lovely and conveys a sense of majestic flight through space. More Lost like, repetitive high strings and woodwind, lush and warm, and again carrying his Trek theme, that's then broken by clapping percussion make up Hella Bar Talk which to me might suggest the conversation between Pike and Kirk. Enterprising Young Men is all guns blazing Elmer Bernstein stuff, very rousing with some booming drums joining skittering percussion, whalloping big brass and strings. It bounces along and, again, is sweeping music, truly fit for heroes. It rises into an escalating brass serenade and ends wth a staccato round of drums. Fabulous. The militaristic feel is well and truly the groove of Nero Sighted, echoing a great deal of Horner's Wrath Of Khan score and then about half way through it goes all Goldsmith on us, with a screech of high strings and some nice atonal passages, slowing to a heartbeat and then building again, brass sections powering up as I suspect the Narada sweeps across the screen.

...a very operatic and threatening, nightmarish piece of music

Nice To Meld You is a bit of giveaway I think and is possibly scoring a particular meeting between old and new Trek that the Nimoy flavoured trailer has been hinting at. Swirling and dancing strings and brass that suggest an inner journey into the Vulcan mind and back into the past. Lovely flourish at the end which sounds quite mournful. More gung-ho drum and brass overlapping and string accentuation that picks up a pace in Run And Shoot Offense, momentarily broken by some very Bear McCreary sounding exotica picking up into a rousing theme that develops into a full throttle chase motif. That mournful passage may suggest Nero's motivation in the film, which is allegedly vengeance for past action, and it's carried through into the next track Does It Still McFly? The longer cue Nero Death Experience is a series of rising military motifs that are then joined by a phenomenal bit of choral work, swirling harps, attacking brass and strings in a very operatic and threatening, nightmarish piece of music. One of the best tracks on the album and I can't wait to see where this fits into the film. The end of the track is just wonderful, with his Trek theme insistent on the brass and accompanied by screeching strings then offering a pounding piece of choral, brass and string crescendos that end with the Courage four note opening to the original theme.

...with Alexander Courage's theme at the helm

I've no idea if the track listing here is the order in which the music appears in the film but Nero Fiddles, Narada Burns does indicate that the villain's copped it and his ship is in a right state. Again, the brass is wonderful and there some weird tonalities in the middle of the choir, drums and strings. Really triumphal stuff. That New Car Smell is quite lovely. Eastern instrumentation, perhaps the erhu, the "Chinese violin", and again very BSG, has been used here for a fairly mournful, elegiac piece with strings and piano, incorporating more Lost like flavours but with a smashing, romantic and emotional nod to Goldsmith's Motion Picture soundtrack (* and is actually the theme for Spock and the Vulcans. Works beautifully). Finishing on full throttle with a gorgeous bit of brass, chimes, flute and strings it's another superb highlight for me and is a very moving section of the score. The undoubted highlight is To Boldy Go and the way it segues into the End Titles. This is Giacchino grabbing the Courage theme and just turning it into the most sweeping, operatic version you'll ever hear, punctuated by his own Trek themes and many of the motifs from the soundtrack. It's bold, heroic, sassy and will leave you with a ruddy great smile on your face. Nine minutes that are a perfect summation of what has come before with Alexander Courage's theme at the helm.

The album is a great success and really deserves some applause. It certainly stands out as a very accomplished Trek soundtrack even if it doesn't quite scale the heights of Goldsmith's or Horner's work on the franchise. If the film is as good as this music then we are in for a treat. My review of the film will be with you in a week's time! Stay tuned...

STAR TREK - Original Soundtrack / Michael Giacchino (Varèse Sarabande CD3020669662 Released 5th May 2009)

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In one epic story told over five nights the new series, to be broadcast for the first time on BBC One later this year, promises to be Torchwood's greatest adrenalin-fuelled, high octane adventure yet.

Torchwood: Children of Earth re-joins Captain Jack (John Barrowman), Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) and Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) who are still coming to terms with the death of two of their closest friends. Despite their pain, they have a job to do.

This time they are faced with their fiercest threat to date - one which throws the future of Torchwood and the entire human race spiralling into danger. They battle against the odds but do they stand a chance of saving mankind?

Cameron K. McEwan reports over at Den Of Geek:

'The British Film Institute are hosting a preview of the first episode on Friday, 12th June at the National Film Theatre in London. This would suggest that Torchwood: Children of Earth will start broadcasting on 15th June. As previously announced by the BBC, the five-part series will be aired over five consecutive nights though it would appear that this format will not be observed when it is screened on BBC America.

The event at the NFT also includes a Q&A with guests from the cast and creative team. The BFi have also supplied a synopsis for the first installment (those avoiding spoilers may want to look away now):

1965: Twelve children are gathered on a deserted moor, before being surrounded by a harsh, bright light .... and then they are gone! Today: all over Earth, children stop moving. Stop playing, stop laughing. Then, as one, they begin to speak with the same voice, announcing the imminent arrival of a new alien threat. "We are coming...". As the British government closes ranks, it issues a death warrant against Captain Jack and Torchwood...'

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BBC1 - 27th April 2009 - 9.00pm

"Operation Burning Ring! Tip off! Tasty as Jane Fonda in a bap..."

"This motor's more a part of me than me own ball-sac..."

"Is there a musical called 'Paint Your Wagon Shit-Coloured'?"

"They'll tie you up as a sex slave and make a rabbit-trap outta yer knickers..."

"A hot cow's arse isn't my idea of a power drink..."

Whilst the central plot, a do-gooding Doctor bumping off the violent gypsy boyfriend of the underage young girl he's had sex with and made pregnant, isn't a particularly strong one it is quite obvious that it's simply a means to an end in packing the episode full with the more interesting material about Gene and Alex. It's a question of taking sides all round really - which side Gene really is on and whether Alex is on the wrong side whilst Ray Carling symbolises the way we were all having to make decisions about which side we were on during the Falklands War as well as an articulation of our xenophobia toward both the Argentinians and what would eventually become known as New Age Travellers living in the UK in the 1980s. The xenophobia directed at the Romany camp is as much about the bile and jingoism (summed up in that 'Gotcha' headline from the soaraway Sun) that seemed to possess seemingly right minded folk in 1982.

...trapped in a bungalow in Margate

All that is significant therefore takes place around the central plot, moving us through a narrative exclusion zone as murky as the one that sank the Belgrano. Writer Matthew Graham continues to flip the series over into something colder, bleaker and darker. There are layers upon layers here, beginning with the terrifying notion that Alex is beginning to forget her 2008 origins and can't even remember the face and the name of her own daughter, the disturbing notion that Gene really is corrupt and is being influenced by the brothers of the Lodge, that the messenger from the future is also part of this set up and that Ray, by the end of the episode, still genuinely is one of the brothers and is someone whom we simply can no longer trust at all and isn't quite the rough diamond we've all grown to love. It makes your blood run cold as the episode systematically moves the goal-posts of the established 1980s pastiche of Series One and asks you to question Gene's motives and it isn't until the last ten minutes that Gene reveals his plan, and relieves the tension, determined not to end up like his predecessor Garrett, trapped in a bungalow in Margate.

...his slimy trail of corruption weaves its sticky way through the narrative

Graham also reminds us that the matter of Kevin Hales, the cop-killer from last week's episode, is still very much in Alex's mind despite Super Mac and Gene's attempts to divert her from re-interviewing the suspect. This scene between Alex and Gene really starts to play on your loyalties to the characters and begins the slow unease that permeates the rest of the episode. Super Mac, brilliantly played by Roger Allam, finally makes his mark on the series and his slimy trail of corruption weaves its sticky way through the narrative, from the kiddy cover-up story for Gene's dangerous driving to his willingness to let 'brother' Dr. Battleford go free for his crime. Of course, with the story delving into the world of Freemasonry there's a lot of symbolism flying about in the story and feeding into all manner of conspiracy theories often accusing the Masons of being behind an occultist New World Order. The imagery at the start of the episode where Alex can hear the helicopter and spins round beneath a series of skyscrapers certainly nods towards the Masonic obsession with architecture.

a 'magical ride to the wrong side of the wardrobe'

The use of the Masonic conspiracy here can also be seen as an allusion to the murder or suicide of Robert Calvi on Waterloo Bridge in June 1982. A major figure in international banking, he was in charge of an organisation that laundered money made largely from the heroin trade for the mafia. He knew the dark financial secrets of the Vatican. It was the City of London police that suggested suicide after an investigation that lasted no more than a week. It has long been suggested that it was a masonic influence that led the City police to issue this conclusion, a claim denied by them. This influence in the story is then countered by the Tarot reading given to Alex by the old woman, which Gene pronounces as a 'magical ride to the wrong side of the wardrobe' (sides, again) but which forces Alex to admit that there may be 'more than one real world'. The Hanged Man, as applied to Gene, is a greatly important card in Tarot, symbolic of relinquishing power. Symbolically, Gene does give up control to Super Mac but only in order to overturn the corruption he can see in the force.



What is also worth noting is that this is a thoroughly male conspiracy within the police force, forcing Alex to take sides in the investigation against Gene but also reminding her, via the messages on the computer screen that there is a further dimension to her plight as she fights for her life on the other side of that screen in 2008. The feminine power of intuition and insight seems to be closing down for Alex at one point here, as emphasised in that wonderful visual motif of the ceiling lights going off as she runs out of the office after losing her temper with Shaz. It's a chilling scene and after the male bonding between Gene and Super Mac meeting in the sauna we see a distraught Alex, drunk, resolving not to 'join' Gene's world just as he resolves to 'join' Super Mac's world of the lodge. The 'devil made flesh', Super Mac, then materialises in Alex's nightmare as she struggles to take sides. Again, very disturbing imagery that superbly documents her battle with reality in this episode. When she interviews the pregnant Alva, her losing grip on reality reveals itself in the form of a slippage as she pronounces her daughter's name as Milly rather than Molly. You get the sense that her struggle for life in 2008 is now directly affecting the way she operates in 1982.

...the symbolic removal of those crocodile boots

As HMS Sheffield sinks, there's the confrontation between Gene and Alex in his office. Keeley Hawes goes full tilt and puts in a superb performance whilst Glenister make a virtue out of the comedy inherent in oxtail soup. Her pleading to him, 'please let me in' and his point blank refusal maintains the tension of the episode's obsession with 'sides', where characters are either arguing about the Falklands, fighting different sides of reality or changing sides in order to get the measure of the 'devil made flesh'. It's a fascinating kaleidoscope that powers the episode, reaching its height when Gene phones predecessor DCI Garrett and then, in a visual parallel to the earlier scene with Alex, leaves the office as the ceiling lights gradually shut down. An iconic moment all done to Phil Collins 'In The Air Tonight'. The great shock for us and for Alex is not only to see Gene at the Masonic meeting but to also see Ray standing guard as the Tyler (giving up his power to a Tyler which is a wonderful play on both the Masonic figure of the Tyler that guards the door to the meeting of the Lodge and, of course, our old friend Sam Tyler). And like the Hanged Man of the Tarot reading, Gene is stripped of all power with the symbolic removal of those crocodile boots.

'Come on, Eileen!'

Finally, Alex puts the pieces together and realises that Battleford, an effectively twitchy performance from Joseph Millson, is actually the killer. What's also great is that Alex puts her faith in Chris and this offers Marshall Lancaster an opportunity to make such a great impression in the episode with a warmth and innocence that's absent from our other characters. This leads to that superb revelation by Gene that he's joined the Masons to weed out corruption. 'You're playing with them?' 'No, that's just the way I'm standing' had me roaring with laughter and relief that our Gene Genie was back on side, as it were. Glenister is superb, full of anger and righteousness. Whilst Ray tries to stir up trouble with the gypsy camp, Gene is dragged into helping Alex deliver Alva's baby. 'Come on, Eileen!' indeed. Which brings us to this episode's wonderful use of music, using songs very carefully to underline many of the themes within the episode itself. I also hope that they're going to develop the way that Gene and Alex must now bluff about their professional relationship in front of Super Mac and, presumably, Ray, in order not to destroy Gene's cover. It should provide further layers to a very rich double act. And how ironic that the episode closes with OMD's 'Messages/Taking Sides Again' as Shaz and Chris get engaged, Gene and Alex have that flirty little moment in the office and the computer flashes up the 'ETA Crash Team 2 minutes' message.

Doesn't matter if the story about Battleford getting Alva pregnant isn't the strongest element here when you get Glenister and Hawes burning up the screen and making these characters sing, tons of symbolism and allusion, visual and aural games and a deepening mystery. Perhaps not as joyous as last week's but it pays off beautifully and confidently. More please.

Series Two Reviews:

Episode One review

Series One Reviews:

Episode Eight review
Episode Seven review
Episode Six review
Episode Five review
Episode Four review
Episode Three review
Episode Two review
Episode One review

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Aren't musicals strange? I mean it is genuinely a bit odd that the narrative suddenly shifts as various characters stop what they are doing and burst into song. Fortunately, those rather clever composers Rodgers and Hammerstein realised that the songs were excellent vehicles for communicating the emotional states of the characters whilst also moving the plot along. R&H are, of course, legendary for their contribution to the stage and film musical forms and South Pacific is one of their best. I have to say it isn't one of my favourites, I much prefer The King And I and The Sound Of Music, but like all their work it raises the bar on musical theatre storytelling whilst also examining American colonialism and U.S military power overseas during the Second World War.



Whilst it is full of familiar and very wonderful songs, 'Some Enchanted Evening', 'I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy', 'Younger Than Springtime' to name a few, it's a musical and a film that dared to tackle the issues of racial prejudice head on, is at its core about loneliness and loss, and tries to suggest that there is a way for people from all kinds of cultural backgrounds to come together in a common cause. For those of you not familiar with the musical, it's a romance and a war story set on a South Pacific island where the US army has stationed a strategic military base. A young nurse, Nellie Forbush (Mitzi Gaynor), falls in love with a middle-aged French plantation owner, Emile de Becque (Rossano Brazzi). The two have a troubled romance as Nellie slowly discovers the details of de Becque's past. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Cable (John Kerr) arrives to head a mission to create a spy post on a Japanese-held island. Bloody Mary (Juanita Hall), the island's Polynesian souvenir dealer, tries to set Cable up with her daughter, Liat (France Nuyen) in the mystical paradise of Bali Hai. Cable, however must go on a dangerous spying mission and has to persuade de Becque to go with him.

...a shifting sense of play between heterosexuality and homosexuality

From my own perspective it's a very valid example of why gay men, in particular, embrace musical theatre in the way they do. Musicals, particularly those released during the Golden Age, generally considered to have begun with Oklahoma! (1943) and to have ended with Hair (1968), appealed (and still do, I would argue) to gay men not just through the songs, the lavish production values, the oscillation between kitsch and camp, but also as forms of utopianism and sublimated desire. A number like 'There Is Nothing Like A Dame', featuring a highly stylised and erotic chorus of beefy marines being led by a rather camp Ray Walston, playing the duty shirking spiv Luther Billis, is a whirlwind of multiple readings. There is at once a fluidity of gender options, including Billis' semi-transexualised costume and the eroticisation of the many male bodies in the number, that provides a shifting sense of play between heterosexuality (the insistence that all these beefy men simply need a woman) and homosexuality (Walston's feminisation and role as Nellie's 'special friend' as well as his come ons to various homoeroticised and sexually objectified men in the number) that certainly at the time would have provided a closeted gay community with plenty of food for thought. This sense of play reaches its height in the 'Thanksgiving Follies' number where Nellie and Billis entertain the troops. It's a cross dressing, queer spectacular where Gaynor is dragged up as a sailor in an oversized white uniform and Walston is wearing a set of falsies made from coconuts. It's camp, kitsch and impressively scrambles the film's gender roles and highlights how many musicals rely on a feminisation of both male and female sex objects within their construction.

...the tensions of prejudice

The romances between Nellie and Emile, Cable and Liat, whilst read as 'straight', can also be successfully sublimated by a wider non-straight audience and the film also exoticises race through the number 'Bali Hai', for example, where Bloody Mary positions the mystical island as a symbol of otherness to a bewitched Cable. Cable and Billis have a shared fantasy about visiting the island and the consequences of this are that Cable falls in love with Liat, and even though, quite radically for the 1950s, he shares an on screen kiss with a Polynesian woman, he flatly refuses to marry her simply because it wouldn't go down very well in his home town of Philadelphia. The song 'You've Got To Be Carefully Taught' examines his upbringing and there is a sense that he may well go against the proprieties that require him to marry a nice white girl and join his father in business. The tensions of prejudice are also a major element of Nellie's initial rejection of Emile. She discovers he has previously been married to a Polynesian woman and has two mixed race children. She is so horrified by this that she tries to get a transfer off the base. South Pacific received much scrutiny for its commentary regarding relationships between different races and ethnic groups. 'You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught' was widely criticised and judged as very inappropriate for the musical stage, condoning as it does mixed race relationships and suggesting that racism is an effect of society rather than something 'in born'.

...the incongruity of harsh reality and romantic fantasy

Beyond the cultural and sexual politics, it's a visual and musical treat and is unashamedly romantic escapism. Even though the characters are fairly crude representational symbols, the film draws you into their intertwining saga of loss and love and all the actors offer compassionate and energetic performances; Walston and Hall are particularly enchanting as the comic reliefs, John Kerr is simply gorgeous as Lieutenant Cable and the Gaynor/Brazzi romantic chemistry is very appealing. The dream like quality of the South Pacific location, the heightened romance and emotions are all captured in director Joshua Logan's very surreal use of heavy coloured tinting and edge of frame diffusion for many sequences. It deliberately pushes the emotional content of particular scenes into an almost hallucinogenic state. 'Bali Hai', for example, swamps the viewer in a rainbow of primary colour filtering that perfectly encapsulates the mysticism and exoticism of the fabled island. The filters alter the tone of the film, which some may find an unnecessary distraction, and delineate the incongruity of harsh reality and romantic fantasy as the narrative progresses. The highs and lows of the relationships between Nellie and Emile, Cable and Liat, burst into various hues and illustrate the over-riding 'love doesn't quite conquer all' theme of the film where dizzy romance is punctuated by conflict, prejudice, loss and sacrifice.

You will simply not believe what you are seeing and hearing from a 50 year old film

For its debut on Blu-Ray, Fox have certainly pulled out the stops for this 2 disc edition. It's a ravishing 1080p transfer that suggests classic cinema titles can have a new lease of life when the transfer to High Definition is given this much attention and care. With stunning colour that's bold and lush and pin sharp detail that is truly gob-smacking, this is exceptional, reference quality material and must surely rank as one of best Blu-Ray titles now on the market. The audio is also presented as a lossless DTS 5.1 soundtrack and manages the sound field with great aplomb. Song lyrics are clear, the music and choral arrangements are particularly haunting, dialogue perfect and the ambient sounds of aircraft, the noise of battle, the crash of waves stunningly rendered with clarity and crispness. You will simply not believe what you are seeing and hearing from a 50 year old film. And it is packed with extras:

On Disc One:

• Audio Commentary - With Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation, and playwright/director Gerard Alessandrini.
• Karaoke Sing-a-long & Songs-Only Option

On Disc Two:

• Extended "Road Show" Version Of South Pacific (in Standard Definition, 172 minutes) - A version that played exclusively in cities and features 15 minutes of additional material.
• Audio Commentary - With musical historian Richard Barrios, who examines the road show version of 'South Pacific.' Lots of anecdotes and production history and a focus on the additional material.
• Documentary: "Passion, Prejudice and 'South Pacific': Creating an American Masterpiece" (HD, 94 minutes) – A thorough and comprehensive documentary, hosted by Mitzi Gaynor, exhaustively examines the production and contextualises the social and cultural themes of the film.
• Vintage Featurette: Making of 'South Pacific' (HD, 14 minutes) – A black-and-white vintage behind the scenes of the production featurette.
  
• 60 Minutes: Tales of the South Pacific (HD, 22 minutes) – 79-year-old author James Michener goes back to the islands which served as the setting for the film.
  
• Vintage Stage Excerpt (HD, 10 minutes) – The original stage stars, Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza guest on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' and offer a trio of songs.
• Fox Movietone News (HD, 2 minutes) – A newsreel covering the premiere and an honourary event in Belgium.
• Screen Test: Mitzi Gaynor (HD, 7 minutes) – Gaynor auditions with 'Cockeyed Optimist' and 'Wonderful Guy'.
• Still Gallery (HD) – Massive collection of colour and black and white stills - everything from the publicity department, including loads of behind the scenes photos too.
• Theatrical Trailer (HD, 3 minutes) – A 1960s re-release preview trailer.

A thoroughly entertaining film given a spectacular HD treatment, this is currently a Region A title only (the UK Region B release is in June, I believe) so you will need a multi-region Blu-Ray player and to import the DVD to be able to enjoy this right now. Definitely one of the top Blu-Ray releases of the year so far.

(Screencaps courtesy of Blu-ray.com and DVD Beaver. Many thanks to them.)

South Pacific (Fox Blu-Ray 50th Anniversary Edition - Region A Locked - 2 Discs - Not Rated - 2254165 - Released 31st March 2009)

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BBC1 - 20th April 2009 - 9.00pm

'Sixth in line to the throne. Gene Hunt does not wait for the sixth in line to the bloody throne.'

'That's what I call well hung'.

'I didn't know you had a phD in masturbation, DI Drake'

Was it me or was that whole sequence in the sewers a not so subtle dig at Demons? Anyway, I digress. Ashes To Ashes roars back to our telly boxes and it's undergone a bit of a transformation. From the pre-titles sequence set in the hospital in 2009 it's clear that the game is afoot. As the camera pulls back from the news broadcast about Arthur Layton's holding Alex hostage, an iPod comes into view and just for a minute you're tempted to think this might be Sam Tyler lying there, post suicide attempt. The theory is that this unidentified man is more likely to be the sinister Doctor Death character whom later kidnaps Alex and reveals some alarming truths about 1982.

With an emphasis on nightmare.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. To the strains of Duran Duran, our intrepid team - yes, definitely a team now with a much surer, confident Alex and equally confident playing from Keeley Hawes - race to the scene of a sex crime in seedy old Soho. An interesting story about police corruption, that isn't at all what it seems and throws us a few surprises, spins out and neatly intertwines with some very surreal moments. Everything from Alex's daughter Molly being interviewed by Grange Hill's Mrs McClusky, the frankly barmy and disturbing encounters with the granny gabbling in a gruff Scottish accent, the talking Alsatian and to Alex caught in the downdraught and searchlights of helicopters in 2009 that may have found her. Hawes and the writers have jettisoned much of the rather knowing, 'you're all a load of constructs' stuff and substituted it with a much more rounded portrayal of a woman caught up in a nightmare. With an emphasis on nightmare.

...a mention of garibaldis

And Glenister is in fine form as Hunt. The episode is chock full of his acerbic bon mots, from his haranguing of Princess Margaret in a Soho traffic jam to emulating the guvnor himself, DI Regan with, 'Get your knickers on. You're nicked'. He seems to have undergone a revitalisation too with this episode's tasteless but hilarious one liners achieving Life On Mars proportions. But there's also room for some genuinely moving moments too. When one of their only leads, a young prostitute from Hyde (cue Life On Mars music and a mention of garibaldis!) is shot before she can tell Hunt and Drake all that she knows, the poor girl Sally dies in Gene's arms. 'No, I won't tell your mum' he says softly. Hunt and Drake quietly reflect on this back at the office in a beautifully played scene between Glenister and Hawes. Hunt's sense of duty and loyalty to the chain of command also gets severely tested when Superintendent Mackintosh, appointed to affect the change in policing, is potentially at the centre of a sordid affair and corruption. The ever reliable Roger Allam instantly offers us a fully formed character, brittle and brusque and most definitely hiding something. SuperMac's speech about the demise of the old days of policing and the need to step into a new world echoes throughout the episode.

...lots of strange role reversals

It turns out that he's involved with the wife of the dead officer and knows the man's killer and he doesn't appear to be following his own advice. This also ties in with the thematic undercurrent about male and female sexuality in the episode. There are lots of strange role reversals - the granny with the man's voice, dead policemen in drag, Chris stripping for Shaz - that show the series is fast becoming a vast playground where sexual subjects and objects are the complex sites of diverse and contradictory readings. Soho is depicted as a place of innocence lost and moral corruption as well as a lurid pleasure garden. As Gene questions Mrs. Irvine he runs through a series of fantasies: schoolgirl, traffic warden, Princess Leia but with the dead Irvine it ultimately isn't about sexual corruption, it's about being victimised for threatening to reveal Kevin Hales' misdemeanours.

'A big puff and a diesel dyke'

And last but not least, those two icons of male sexuality Raymondo and Chris are given a number of fantastic scenes that had me roaring with laughter. 'Maybe we can accept a contribution to the Metropolitan Police home for the bewildered', says Ray. 'I don't want any money, Ray', retorts Chris as they enquire with the owner of a Soho strip club, featuring a lovely cameo from Diane Langton, where a dead police officer has been found. The sexual debate also continues between Ray, Chris and Shaz and there's that amusing scene in the kitchen where Ray provokes Shaz with Chris' apparent desire to see her take on the role of objectified female. This is then followed up by that wonderful coda in the restaurant. There's also that amusing moment when Ray and Chris discuss Russell Harty and Grace Jones - 'A big puff and a diesel dyke', 'Grace Jones is a lesbian?' - suggesting Chris and Ray will continue to explore their world of naivety and experience. The objectification of woman is also bound, literally, within the kidnap of Alex. The whole scene where she believes she has woken into 2009 but is in reality the victim of yet another father figure, the masked Martin Summers (note that his initials are a reverse of SM) reworks the symbol of the clown from Series One but with the added frisson that this man is also from the future and adrift in 1982. Accompanying this are the symbols of the rose, Diana and the Pont de l'Alma bridge.

Ashes To Ashes is obsessed with the idea of looking, gazing, seeing

In the armed siege the potency of feminine intuition allows Alex to prove to Gene (her other father figure) that she can talk Kevin Hales, now revealed as the killer, into giving himself up. This is an interesting scene in that it places Alex within the context of the idea of The Final Girl - the one woman who survives the narrative to meet the killer face to face and use the power of the female gaze (now as powerful as the male gaze) to disarm him. And there's that brief moment where Hales winks at Alex, suggesting that not everything is as it seems. Ashes To Ashes is obsessed with the idea of looking, gazing, seeing, from Alex's desire to deduct messages from the future via the television set to the frequent point of view shots as we see what she sees. It's a spiky script that plunges the series away from the overt knowingness of Series One and into a darker, wilder, more threatening world, propped up by the Falklands, Thatcher, new money, new crime. It also makes an effort to draw the strands of Life On Mars and Ashes together. And the terrific use of music continues to add value. A splendid start.

Series One Reviews:

Episode Eight review
Episode Seven review
Episode Six review
Episode Five review
Episode Four review
Episode Three review
Episode Two review
Episode One review

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When writer/creator Ron Moore described the forthcoming Caprica as akin to Dallas I was a tad concerned. A soap opera with Cylons? Does one of them emerge from a shower having declared the last four years of Battlestar Galactica as just a dream? Suffice it to say I wanted to be impressed when I finally watched the 93 minute pilot episode which is due out on DVD on April 21st.

...a virtual world of sex games, killings and sacrificial virgins

If you're a Battlestar fan and you're looking for more of the same then you might need to think twice. If you're a fan of intriguing, character based drama that deals with topical political, religious and cultural issues (which for all the flim flam of its special effects and space opera setting was what essentially BSG was, I'd argue) then Caprica should hook you immediately. Set 58 years before the fall of the titular planet under a barage of nuclear warheads courtesy of the Cylons, the pilot sets up the intertwining family sagas of the Graystones and the Adamas. Daniel Graystone is a research scientist working for the Caprican government on military robots whilst Joseph Adama is a corrupt lawyer, linked to the Tauran mafia. The pilot opens in rather dramatic style, plunging you into a virtual world of sex games, killings and sacrificial virgins; a world where troubled daughter, Zoe Graystone, seeks not only vicarious thrills but also a Second Life/My Space/Facebook refuge to exercise her monotheistic beliefs with fellow teeens Lacy and Ben. It's a clever extension of our own relationship to the transmedia world we find ourselves exploring and exploiting.

...the emotional journey of the two grieving fathers

The Second Life analogy is the most apt here. Zoe, Ben and Lacy decide to leave Caprica and find tolerance for their religious beliefs off world. However, Ben has already decided that their rejection of the pantheon of Caprica's gods needs a bigger gesture and he promptly blows up a commuter train, killing himself, Zoe and Joseph Adama's wife and daughter, Tamara. Moore's obsession with religious tolerance and the acts committed in the name of belief systems and deities is given a much stronger voice here simply because it is a much closer reflection of our world today. We're not seeing this refracted through spaceships, dog fights and Cylons. The pilot then takes the emotional journey of the two grieving fathers and engages in a meditation on mortality, identity and the soul, seen through the prism of advancing science and technology (the paper, fold out computer desktop is probably very accurate). Again, this is something that BSG routinely discussed but here it is the central tenet of the pilot. Graystone discovers a way in which both daughters, Zoey and Tamara, can be revived via their virtual world avatars whilst at the same time he uses Joseph's underworld connections to steal the technology that will allow him to recreate them in the real world. As this progresses, we also see his ongoing development of what clearly will be the first Cylon warriors.

More of a futuristic The Godfather perhaps?

The twist is that it all goes horribly wrong for both men. Joseph simply can't cope with the idea that his daughter can be brought back from the dead and believes the idea is an abomination. Graystone botches the transfer of Zoe's avatar into the prototype Cylon in a freakish parallel to the Frankenstein story. With the intuitive, human consciousness implanted into the cybernetic body, he succeeds in refining the machine to impress his defence contractors but is unaware that Zoe is still trapped inside the machine. There is a fantastic contrast between the now familiar utterance of 'By Your Command' from the Cylon and later, the plea for help from Zoe from within it. It's an intriguing and chilling premise and the pilot certainly leaves you wanting more and raises many questions about the human/machine interface, the rampant culture of technology, the beliefs and obsessions you would be prepared to steal or die for and by extension the very nature of fatherhood. Where the pilot more or less concentrates on Daniel's story, it doesn't do as well by Joseph and his family. There is much hand-wringing about Joesph's inability to connect to his own son, William, but it feels somewhat underdeveloped and that's probably because there just isn't enough time to do it justice in the pilot. There is also a developing mystery about Zoe and Tamara's school and their headmistress Sister Clarice (a very underused Polly Walker) that's left hanging and will hopefully be picked up in the forthcoming series.



It's a good start, especially if you are keen on dynastic family sagas, which is certainly the template they are following here. It is stylistically distanced from BSG too, that handheld faux documentary style is absent here and is replaced by a sleek, slightly colder visual style. The scenes within the virtual club are given a nightmarish flavour all of their own to provide an interesting contrast to the domestic and street scenes on Caprica itself. I did have some niggles about the CGI train and subsequent suicide bombing and felt the quality of the effects just wasn't high enough in those sequences. However, the effects for the prototype Cylon were, by contrast, particularly good. The performances are uniformly excellent, and special praise to Eric Stoltz as Daniel Graystone, and Bear McCreary's score is simply beautiful and lingers in the mind long after watching this. Moore's comparison to Dallas is a rather silly one because judging by the pilot it has managed to avoid the rather anodyne qualities of 1980s soap operas. More of a futuristic The Godfather perhaps? If they can avoid descending into those areas and can keep the writing and the characters complex and as fully nuanced as they have here, then the series Caprica will be one to watch.

CAPRICA - The Pilot (Universal Home Entertainment - Region 1 - Unrated - DVD 61109037000 Released 21st April 2009)

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I'm still finding it hard to believe that the writer of Terry And June came up with the excellent scripts for The Feathered Serpent. I remember that John Kane, the writer/creator of this children's series, and also a very good actor, had appeared a couple of years earlier as Tommy in Planet Of The Spiders. It was one of the first 'TV facts' that I cherished as an adolescent teetering on the brink of geekdom. Kane, I later discovered, also went on to write scripts for Dick Turpin, Smuggler and also adapted one of my favourite Jeremy Brett 'Sherlock Holmes', The Six Napoleons. I can therefore forgive him for the Terry And June and Never The Twain scripts and especially since The Feathered Serpent remained such a vivid piece of children's television drama, the memory of which has not dimmed since I first saw it back in 1976.

It's far too lurid for a start.

Looking back at Series One and Two now, it's quite clear that Thames and script editor Ruth Boswell, a highly respected producer of children's television (Timeslip is her enduring legacy), recognised Kane's story as a bit of a gem and decided to throw some money at it. Even then, budgets for children's television were meagre and for Thames to put some effort into costumes and sets at this level suggested they saw great potential in Kane's Aztec revenge dramas. This would certainly not get made in quite the same way today. It's far too lurid for a start. The twelve episodes concern the religious and political machinations between two Aztec civilisations, and the struggle between the supporters of rival gods, Quala and Teshcata. The first six episodes deal with High Priest Nasca's attempt to remove the Quala loving Emperor Kukulkhan from power and force the populace into worshipping the bloodthirsty god, Teshcata. Nasca uses whatever means necessary to bump the Emperor off and twist people to his will, his rise to power assisted by the labyrinth of secret passages he's had built into the palace.

Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince but set in Ancient Mexico

Looking at it now the tendency is to view at as high camp and the prolific use of gold paint and plastics in the costumes, the bucket loads of fake tan and the lashings of eye makeup (and that's just the men) would bear this out. The performances are all earnest, very much of a cod-Shakespearean mode, and on the whole, committed, and that's because the scripts are wordy and literate. Kids today would find this boring, I suspect, but then times have changed. It is theatrical and it is camp but the quality of the writing and the performances still shine through, and the story, a sort of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince but set in Ancient Mexico, is gripping and often very powerful. From the opening titles of Aztec skulls looming over a flaming landscape to the various murders, traps and subterfuges that make up Nasca's bid for power, it does things with children's drama, making it rather terrifying in the process, that no writer or producer would dare attempt today. Whilst Nasca plots on the sidelines in Series One, there is the tribal rivalry between the Princes Heumac and Mahoutek, and the anxieties of the dead Emperor's daughter Chimalma whilst the audience identification figure of Tozo, with whom blind prophet Otolmi forms a charming double act, seeks out the truth to reveal Nasca for the plotting swine that he is.



In the centre of these machinations is Patrick Troughton who puts in a rather stunning performance as Nasca that demonstrates he was so much more than the second incarnation of the Doctor. It's full bloodied, eyes and teeth, all guns blazing stuff that compliments the elaborate make up and costumes he wears. But for all that he often boils the performance down to moments of great subtlety, where just his mellifluous tones and his face do all the work that's necessary. He's supported by the wonderful George Cormack as Otolmi, Tony Steedman as Kulkukhan, Richard Willis (one of the better young actors of his generation who always seemed to be in kids dramas those days along with Simon Gipps-Kent, Stephen Garlick and the like) as boy hero Tozo, Diane Keen (before she hit the big time in The Cuckoo Waltz) as Chimalma and the rather lovely Brian Deacon as Heumac.

...the homoerotic content goes off the dial with Heumac, all hairy chest, fake tan and skimpy white pants

By the second series things changed somewhat and a more overt supernatural tone was introduced into the story. Nasca, presumed dead at the end of Series One, is brought back to life via the sorcery of witch Keelag, a storming performance from Sheila Burrell, whose act with a ragged dummy must have put the shivering shits up the kids watching at the time. She's wonderfully Grand Guignol and adds a distinctly nightmarish quality to the series. The costumes get more money spent on them and we get gold padded affairs this time and the homoerotic content goes off the dial with Heumac, all hairy chest, fake tan and skimpy white pants, and Tozo trying to defy all manner of mind games and traps to prove that Heumac is worthy to marry Chimalma. Nasca is joined in his nefarious deeds by Xipec, the very tall, horse faced, camp as tits Granville Saxton who is seriously enjoying himself far too much as he tortures an almost naked Tozo into giving up the location of Teshcata's black mirror and the twin crowns of Chichinitza. Throw in Nasca poisoning wells and rubbing mind-altering substances into poor old George Cormack's chest as part of the epic battle between good and evil and you'll be thoroughly seduced by it all.



Studio bound it may be but the sets are well designed, quite large in scope and highly detailed and where there is a tendency to over light some scenes there are equally many scenes where the lighting designer clearly can't believe his luck and starts throwing various sets into semi darkness lit by burning torches and candles. Oh, and a word for David Fanshawe's music. Startling. Tons of brass and shrieking, scary vocals for the titles and numerous, equally memorable and rich incidental cues. All in all, it's I, Claudius for kids. No wonder it's stuck in my mind since 1976. The Feathered Serpent does everything you'd want a children's drama to do, with bags of atmosphere, characters tested to their limits, very moral dilemmas, romance, mystery, sword fights and shed loads of exotic mythology. And it's got a very memorable central performance from Troughton, Brian Deacon frequently with his top off and Diane Keen's heaving bosom to please all sorts of grubby adult minds too!

THE FEATHERED SERPENT - The Complete Series (Network DVD 7952993 - Region 2 - Released 23rd February 2009 - Cert PG)

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BBCHD - 11th April 2009 - 6.45pm

Clang, clang, clang goes the trolley...ding, ding ding goes the bell. That'll be the cloister bell, I suspect. The one doomily bonging all over the trailer for the Novemberish special, The Waters Of Mars. The clanging noise is definitely the sound of this particular little folly nosediving into the sands of Dubai. Was it me, or did this just feel like one big dollop of deja-vu? The story, slight as it was, seemed rather overstuffed with references as if it required some significant shoring up to pass muster. Everything from bits of The Highest Science, Iris Wildthyme (time travelling buses and commuters being dumped on alien planets) to The Langoliers, Pitch Black (the nasty manta-rays), Flight Of The Phoenix (stranded in the desert), Lara Croft and 50s pulp SF, with added Giant Robot joke. There’s even a quite unnecessary shoe-horning in of an Easter eggs reference simply to acknowledge that, you know, it’s an Easter special.

...silk purse and sow's ear

Nothing seemed particularly original or fresh this time round and that's a shame because the production side of the programme stepped up to the plate, providing the much needed scope and glossiness for the show's first outing in HD. Director James Strong certainly seized on the opportunities this afforded to make Planet Of The Dead the sweetest, most calorific eye candy he could. Signature crane shots of the bus in the desert, lush travelogues as the Doctor and Christina go exploring, lens flaring silhouettes of Tennant, and dissolves between London and the alien planet. It looked good but shooting in HD is a double edged sword judging by this initial attempt. For all the gorgeous desert vistas you get to see how really dreadful the weather conditions were when they were shooting in Cardiff. No hiding that rainfall now. The CG effects also will need to improve because, for all the fairly good shots of the Swarm, we got a number of rather iffy, cartoon moments of flying bus. The ratio between how small the story actually was and how jazzy it all looked suggested silk purse and sow's ear to me in this instance. For goodness sake, if you are going to shoot your flagship programme in HD then let's have a big enough story to reap the rewards from it.

What is this, The Crystal bloody Maze?

We never really get to know any of the passengers on the bus properly, which is unusual for a RTD script. Compare how successfully he writes for a similar character ensemble in Midnight and the difference is remarkable. None of them make much of an impression and this does make you care less about them. The life-cycle of the metallic ray creatures is interesting and as a metaphor for the way blind greed can bring down civilisations it works quite well in these economically turbulent times. Tennant, as ever, simply slips back into the role and is pretty much on automatic pilot. There is that terrific scene where the Doctor asks each of the bus passengers about their 'chops and gravy' destinations, the witty translation banter with the Tritovores ('trite' is probably the best word to describe these fly headed, jump suit wearing, ray gun brandishing, self-sacrificing cliches) and the Billy No Mates confrontation between him and Christina as she unsuccessfully begs for the spare TARDIS key. I liked the way that the script offered us the Doctor and Christina as similar in their independence, where the Doctor reminisces on his own theft of the TARDIS and acknowledges her a kindred spirit, whom he sets free because he’s not really fit to judge her past actions. Michelle Ryan was good enough in the Lara Croft role for me to want her to pop into the TARDIS with Tennant so it made a bit of a change for him to turn a protege down. However, points deducted for the rather obvious need for Christina to repeat her Mission Impossible act to recover the crystal when she's already done the goblet stealing in the pre-titles. What is this, The Crystal bloody Maze?. And just where is she going to take that flying bus? It's not a spacecraft and she might be waiting a while before another wormhole pops into existence. Air traffic control is going to spot her eventually.

Lee Evans predictably did his goofy, physical comedy nonsense

I'm liking Captain Erisa Magambo as the new face of UNIT and once she gets herself and the troops sorted out (e.g. all shooting straight and not fawning over or saluting the Doctor everytime he walks by) then it might be worth bringing her back. I would have cheered if she had shot Malcolm and the attempt at raising the tension in that scene simply didn't work because the editing failed to compress the time between Magambo raising her gun at Malcolm and the Doctor driving the bus through the wormhole. And why did only three of the Swarm make it through the wormhole. Did the rest all stop for a bit of a breather? Unfortunately, both Lee Evans and Adam James did not find themselves in my good books. As D.I. Macmillan, James seemed to be borrowing Tom Chadbon's dumb show as Duggan from City Of Death but without replicating any of the charm and, as Malcolm, Lee Evans predictably did his goofy, physical comedy nonsense and, rather disturbingly, seemed to attempt to shag the Doctor's leg like a forlorn puppy at the end of the story. All that "I love you" crap was neither endearing nor particularly funny.

The word 'romp' is being liberally bandied about to try and deflect us from Planet Of The Dead's shortcomings and I suppose it just about qualifies for that status. A slight story, visually impressive, but with its fair share of cliches, wafer thin characterisation, cannon fodder nice aliens, nasty but dull aliens and stretches of dubious acting. It really only moved into gear when Carmen glared at the Doctor and predicted his demise. Cue cloister bell. Day return to Mars, please.

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“It was about loyalty – working-class loyalty, working-class villain loyalty - and it was an attempt by all of us to say, OK, the single play may be dead but we now see the possibility of starting something, if you like, called the television novel. Because they are novelistic in their structure – Fox was a novel”1

Director Jim Goddard’s observation about the death of the single play is just one factor crucial to understanding how Euston Films, the subsidiary of Thames Television, pioneered a number of radical new strategies for drama on television during the 1970s and 1980s. They abandoned the then traditional methods of making drama for television, the standard mix of studio VT and location filming and instead put together a company devoted to making location only based ‘cinema for television’. Goddard and the writer of Fox, Trevor Preston, had originally suggested a similar idea to ABC in the mid 1960s about setting up a small production team working entirely on film.



Goddard and Preston knew each other, initially from working on the arts programme Tempo, had both worked on The Sweeney, rightly regarded as Euston’s first popular television success born of the exploitation of their new strategies, and Preston was desperate to move away from the cop show/thriller format, and in partnership with Goddard, was "interested in taking conventional formats like the thriller and making them into something more. I think the audience deserves more."2 Observing that The Sweeney’s format had its limits and restrictions, and about to quit and start a business building boats, he pitched the six-part drama Out to an enthusiastic Verity Lambert, then an ambitious executive producer at Euston. Out was commissioned and immediately broke the mould by combining several dramatic genres, the way that it placed a criminal at the centre of a taut, psychological drama, Phil Meheux’s use of expressionistic cinematography and Goddard’s own cinematic vision. Preston then took this methodology, a greater focus on character and psychology and a working-class cockney criminal milieu and expanded it to tell the saga of Fox, an 11- hour, 13 episode epic focusing on the Fox family, headed by gruff patriarch Billy Fox, set in the environs of the rapidly changing Clapham area of London in 1980.

...masculinity, working-class pride and common sense versus intellectual and political idealism

Billy Fox (the ever reliable Peter Vaughan), a retired Covent Garden market porter, is the head of a large household, including his wife Connie (wonderfully played by Elizabeth Spriggs) and his five sons, portrayed by a thrilling ensemble of young British actors, Ray (Derrick O’Connor), Vin (Bernard Hill), Kenny (Ray Winstone) and Phil (Eamon Boland). The overall arc of the saga focuses on the construction of the family and the internal, often very tense, relationships between a father and four sons. The series is as much about male identity, ideas of masculinity, working-class pride and common sense versus intellectual and political idealism, as it is about the erosion of what are regarded as sacred family ties. Thus, for the first half of the series episodes focus on individual sons, opening with Billy’s 70th birthday and then concentrating on boxer Kenny’s preparation for a crucial fight in Episode 2: Arched Fingers For Bach, Flat Fingers For Love. The fallout from the fight depicted in Episode 3: Pugilism Not Vandalism, where Kenny kills his opponent Charlie Locke is one of the early highlights of the series. The way the fight is shot and directed, where an entire episode is devoted to its raw and feral nature, is quite as edgy as Scorsese’s work on Raging Bull. Couple this with Kenny's very strange post-fight dream sequence in the fourth episode as a further example of Goddard's cinematic approach.

As the story progresses, Preston introduces elements from the criminal underworld, firstly with the rather seedy couple who kidnap a distraught Kenny, steal his car, and hold him for ransom in Episode 6: Stick Or Twist, and then with rivalry in the form of local gangsters who eventually bring matters to a head in a rather brutal pub fight. Sub-plots concerning mature student Phil’s leftist politics, Vin’s deaf son Andy, nightclub owner Ray’s brush with police corruption and Joey’s relationship with bisexual Bette are all expertly woven into the background to be then, in the second half of the series, fully explored. Phil’s antagonistic relationship with Billy reaches a crisis point after he is framed for assault at a demonstration in Episode 7: The Perfect Scapegoat Syndrome. Phil’s parting words to Billy, suggesting the family will be free of his domination once he’s dead, provide an emotional and narrative framework for the remaining episodes. Billy dies after a heart attack, whilst out fishing with young Andy, and the repercussions for all of the family are then explored. The later episodes also develop the character of Ray, played with great economy by Derrick O'Connor, who is forced into a fait accompli with the police by settling a debt with an ex-con.

Preston’s lyrics and George Fenton’s music act as a Greek chorus

It was an extraordinary achievement for television drama in 1980, with a shoot that took a year, and it benefits from a superb ensemble cast. Larry Lamb, as Joey, and Eamon Boland, as Phil, offer up subtle and nuanced performances, key to the series explorations of male sexuality and father and son relationships. This not to say that the women’s roles are submissive to their male counterparts because Maggie Steed, as the striking, wayward bisexual Bette is equally superb, especially when she struggles to contextualise, and best explain, her sexual nature to a rather confused Joey. Elizabeth Spriggs, as Connie, underplays through much of the early episodes but really defines her role when, after Billy’s death, she must confront a woman who has had an affair, and consequently a daughter, with him. When Phil confronts Connie about his wish to leave for America, Spriggs sums up, in her acting, all the tension and anger a mother must feel when she sees her family drifting apart around her. The narrative also takes place within a London that’s rapidly changing, very symbolical of the wider changes in society under Thatcherism and keys into Trevor Preston’s own reaction to this and his upbringing as a working class Londoner. Many of the episodes are also very experimental in the use of music and song, similar to the function of Alan Price’s songs in Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man, where Preston’s lyrics and George Fenton’s music act as a Greek chorus, commenting on and embellishing the emotional journey of the characters.

A quintessential slice of Euston Films television output, one of the first long form dramas to experiment with a novelistic approach, Fox is available on DVD, from Network, and features commentaries from director Jim Goddard and writer Trevor Preston, on the first and last episodes, as well as all thirteen original scripts in PDF format.

FOX - The Complete Series (Network DVD 7952687 - Region 2 - Released 24th September 2007 - Cert 15)

1. Director Jim Goddard, Made For Television: Euston Films Limited (Alvarado and Stewart, BFI Publications 1985)
2. Screenonline, Trevor Preston biography (http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/1157184/ accessed 23/03/09), with thanks to John Williams

Thanks also to Television Heaven for originally publishing this review.