Opinion: (Other) Shows I Love

You know the shows I love - Doctor Who, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, etc. . But there are some shows that I can't find either the time or the nerve to review but do watch on a regular basis. So; here are four (Other) Shows I Love.

Star Trek

The Cast of Voy. Season 4 onwards.

I’m not enough of a fan to really review any Star Trek episodes – there are other people on the internet that can do and are doing it better. I love Star Trek because unlike Doctor Who, it takes one central sci-fi idea and expands upon it in a wonderfully technobabble-filled setting. Like that show, Star Trek is best when examining character and realistic moral dilemmas, something it does very often.

     That said, my favourite series of Trek is probably Voyager, mainly for its focus on the Borg. Its bad episodes are, unlike certain episodes of the putrid Enterprise, funny because of said poor quality. While not every character gets enough development, I think that the excellent development of The Doctor and Seven of Nine are enough to watch Voyager’s highlights. I also like Deep Space Nine for its deeper political tales and its very strong characterisation across the board (although to me the Ferengi are downright ridiculous and entirely superfluous to proceedings.)

    Part of Voyager’s fun that I really enjoy is Janeway, whose splintered and inconsistent characterisation is even joked at in some of the later seasons. Her character is a “matriarchal hypocrite” – like Karen Fisher but with 100x more responsibility. Her exploits make the show dynamic, and even when this applies to the show’s quality it’s still something that keeps me coming back.

    Star Trek, while more science-based than Doctor Who, is in some ways a perfect Americanised staple. Maybe I’m being too heavy on the comparison, but both have had a profound influence on their home cultures and on each other. Different, but the same.

     For good reviews from everything Star Trek, I reccomend Sci Fi Debris.

Luther

I said at the beginning of the year that I’d be reviewing the second series of this excellent cop-drama series, but I couldn’t conjure the words. Luther (Hollywood actor Idris Alba) is fundamentally a tired concept amongst tired concepts – a maverick cowboy cop who doesn’t play by the rules and has nothing left to lose. But, for some glorious reason, Luther takes this and rejuvenates it with perfect art-deco style and a series of characterisations so fun to witness that it feels a shame not to come back every week.

    The first series had its share of issues, but the show was held together by the side-character Alice, a psychopath who managed to escape prosecution for the murder of her parents. A charming stalker, she assisted Luther and helped him with not only his troubled private life (with ex-wife Indira Varma and new hubby John, played by Paul McGann) and his cases.  The second series left those characters behind, and with some strong characterisations the series stood on its own two feet with a series of three powerful villains.

    One thing that separates Luther with other cop-shows is that, rather than trying to discover who the killer is, the show introduces the villain as a main character and then follows how the police find out what we know. Not new to the genre, maybe, but it’s a concept not seen on British crime drama at the moment and thus feels very fresh and exciting.

The Brittas Empire

Readers of my blog know that I absolutely adore Red Dwarf mainly for the performances turned in by Chris Barrie as Rimmer. In 1993, Barrie got his own sitcom – The Brittas Empire, set around the neurotic and incompetent Gordon Brittas in his day-to-day management of a Leisure Centre.

     The series’ charm for me, like a lot of other, “UK Gold Comedies”, is that the humour relies on both slapstick and on the characterisation. Gordon is probably one of the most well-characterised comedy protagonists this side of Reginald Perrin, and this is in no doubt codified by Barrie’s stunning performance.

            The show ran for seven series before it was cancelled, and after that Barrie went off to film a full series of Red Dwarf (the horrifically bad Series VIII). Despite British Brevity, this means that I unfortunately couldn’t review it as I haven’t the money nor the time to discover which episodes are in which order and to find them in television together at a convenient time.

            The Brittas Empire will always hold a special place in my heart, not only for its cast of brilliantly written characters, but also for the tremendous performances and the often powerful and satirical stories.

Jeeves and Wooster

One of the more well-known adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse’s series of written comedies, Jeeves and Wooster took the incredibly well-written and enjoyable stories and took them to screen with the same vigour. Starring two of the early nineties’ best comedians – Hugh Laurie (fresh from Blackadder) and Steven Fry, who had been popular with their sketch-comedy series A Bit of Fry and Laurie – I love the show for its trademark wit and charm, taking an Edwardian feel and translating it to modern audiences. It feels more like an ITV Costume Drama than a typical “UK Gold Comedy,” and so is too oft ignored – a crime, considering the quality of its writing and acting.

There are many other shows I like but can’t review, but these are the ones that I have considered reviewing in the past and just haven’t been able to.

Thanks.