Law & Order

Starting in September 2009, I will be yet again sitting down waiting in anticipation for the new series of the old American classic, "Law & Order". This year is the veginnings of it's 20th (!!!) season on American television, thereby making it the joint longest running primetime drama in American television history, and as everyone knows, it's not exactly easy keeping your show popular in the US. What's even harder, is keeping a show going that long, as the public knows, popular shows such as Scrubs, Desperate Housewives, even the supposed favourites such as Channel 4's Big Brother, struggle beyond the 5th season. They can still be popular, no question about it...however the strength in writing seems to start going downhill, or you begin to think you have seen it all before. Scrubs has even poked fun at themselves through the episode "My Deja Vu, My Deja Vu" where they admit they are running out of storylines. So the ability to keep a series still going strongly intowards 20 seasons is an amazing achievement. So how is it done?
The creator, Dick Wolf, has regularly admitted that the STORY, not the actors, are important. The premise is simplicity. The first half of the show is devoted to two detectives and their boss investigating a crime, quite often murder. They will find evidence and arrest a suspect usually half an hour into the show. This is the Law half, the second half is devoted to the District Attorney and his assistant trying to prosecute the suspect, with their boss helping them. A simple premise that has been used with varying circumstances for 433 episodes and a feature length TV-Movie. But what makes it more astounding, is that of the original 6 main characters in the first episode, of the first season, all of them have been replaced.

Since the Senior Detective Sgt Max Greevey debuted in the first episode, he has been replaced by 5 other actors. Since the Junior Detective Mike Logan debuted, he has been replaced by 6 other actors. Since the debut of Captain Donald Cragen, he has been replaced by Lt. Van Buren, who is now approaching her 17th season of Law & Order. Since the introduction of Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone, he has been replace by 2 actors, including the famed Jack McCoy, the second longest running character at 15 seasons. Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette was introduced and has been replaced by 6 actresses during the 2o seasons. And finally, the District Attorney, Alfred Wentworth, who appeared in just the pilot, has been replace by 4 other actors, including the famed Jack McCoy. This is an example of how the actors aren't the main part, but the premise and storylines. Since the 90's, Law & Order has been succesful enough to spin-off two shows, Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent, which follows similar premises and have reached their 10th and 8th succesful seasons.

The creator, Dick Wolf, when asked why he feels the show has done so well, had this to say: "Most shows when debuted, are the equivalent of a 100 yard dash, hitting the ground running and eventually running out of steam. Law & Order, however, is the equivalent of a marathon, it's prepared for the long run." And despite the fact that the story and premise is supposed to be the main focus, the characters are all 3-dimensional with backgrounds ranging from recovering alcoholics, sons of abusive fathers, divorced mother, grandparents, ex-gamblers, all with a slight hint that resonates with real life people. They are all perfectly imperfect characters, with a perfect premise, that draws an audience in again and again. For people with an interest in intelligent crime dramas where the storylines matter, but with realistic characters, this should be a show for you. And shall surely be drawn in, from the first moment you hear "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."

A Review of....America's Next Top Model: 12 Cycles on but still compulsive viewing

America’s Next Top Model is the perfect viewing experience: mindless, brightly coloured and addictive. The show, presented and produced by Tyra Banks, is now airing its twelfth season (or cycle as the Americans would have it) and the format has been exported to countries around the world. A thirteenth cycle is being put together at this very moment.
I’m certainly conscious of what I wear and how I want to be perceived but I’m definitely not a fashion slave, partly due to financial constraints and partly because the whole concept is clearly dubious from an environmental or basic human happiness point of view. Nevertheless I am a dedicated and unashamed Top Model fan and I am committed to spreading the love far and wide. So, here goes!

For anyone who doesn’t know, Top Model follows your basic elimination reality game show format. Thirteen model wannabes are whittled down over the course of the series by process of elimination based on their performance in the weekly tasks. Each series contains a number of standard set pieces: the makeovers, the runway challenge, the go-see challenge and the Covergirl commercial. Eliminations take place in front of a panel of industry expert judges who critique the photos and performance of the girls. The winner receives a modelling contract with Covergirl cosmetics and gets signed up to a modelling agency.

From the first episode that I watched I was instantly hooked and ended up watching the entire series in a single night (I believe in seeing an addiction through to the end). The appeal of Top model is simple yet contradictory. Ultimately it’s pure escapism. During the show the girls don’t have to worry about work or the mundane features of everyday life. They are thrown into an extravagant illusion of easy success based on looks alone. Yet it’s hard to say whether watching girls, who are prettier and thinner than me, having a good time actually makes me feel better about myself or worse. It’s rather like facebook stalking: you only stalk the people with more exciting lives than yourself even though you know it’ll make you feel inadequate.

But even with the escapism aside Top Model is worth watching for its visual appeal alone. The American version is the clear winner over the export versions in this respect. The budgets are incomparable. The American version is brighter and more lavish from the photo shoots to the judging rooms. The judging room in series one of Britain’s Next Top Model, for example, looks like the conference suite of a cheap hotel with a ‘Top Model’ sign stapled onto a grotty curtain. The Canadian judging room looks like it was borrowed from the set of an awful eighties quiz show.

As to the photos, some are truly stunning and you always look forward to the photo critique each week. In Britain’s Next Top Model the photo shoots are approached with a good, British dose of realism that reflects the overwhelming probability that even the winner is unlikely to feature in any serious fashion editorials. The judges’ in the American original make claims to look for an all-round winner who can do ‘commercial’ and ‘high fashion’ but there’s no sustained commitment to preparing the contestants for the realities of the less glamorous end of the fashion industry. The show never sacrifices the aesthetic glory of the dream for such dreary concerns.

So you’ve got escapism and aesthetics but Top Model also has some good, clean, family-fun entertainment thanks to the foibles of some of the judges and contestants. My all time favourite contestants from this point of view include Robin (cycle 1) who seems to have a biblical or moral maxim justification for everything she does, including buying $400 boots. There’s also Melrose (cycle 7), who epitomises the bitchiness that elimination shows can produce in people who are probably perfectly pleasant in the real world. In fact there’s a bitchy one for every cycle and usually a pair of girls who can’t stand each other so this never disappoints. The girls in Britain’s Next Top Model are arguably bitchier on the whole than their American counterparts and seem to form factions rather than there just being one or two bitchy girls within a larger group of nice girls. The first episode is always a selection episode and some of the auditions are priceless. Jaslene’s audition in cycle 7 is utterly glorious.

My all time favourite contestant by far, for entertainment value, has to be Jade Cole from cycle 6. She is outrageously arrogant, not only because of her looks and modelling abilities (frustratingly she does produce good photos) but also from a wildly misplaced belief in her level of intelligence. You have to see it to believe it but she has a unique vocabulary featuring words such as ‘analystic’, ‘tornness’, ‘dwelve’, ‘withhandle’ and ‘derrogatoriness’ which she not only believes are accepted words but that they make her sound intelligent. My favourite quote is “Elephants are just incredible. They’re so preposterous” but there are countless others.

Some of the judges are brilliant too. Janice Dickinson (cycles 1-4), boldly asserting herself as the world’s first supermodel, represents the brutal voice of the fashion industry and generally berates the girls for being ‘too fat’. She also has a hilarious argument with another judge Jay Manuel (who presents the Canadian version and claims that his skin is naturally that colour) in cycle 1 and is eventually replaced with Twiggy (cycles 5-9), the lovable fashion aunty who has a genuine claim to being the world’s first supermodel. The veteran model in Britain’s Next top Model is Huggy Ragnarsson: a walking warning to anyone considering plastic surgery. Back in America, two- time judge Nole Marin (cycles 3 and 4) ought to have some sort of statue erected in his honour for fulfilling so many fashion stereotypes. He’s a fashion editior who is gay, bitchy, short and a bit tubby, ruthless in judging the girls on their weight and has a miniature dog. Nigel Barker, the most enduring judge, probably owes the longevity of his service to the fact that there would be a tidal wave of abuse letters if the female viewers didn’t get to look at him each episode. His English accent appears to particular advantage next to the Americans and makes him all the more handsome.

Finally, there’s Tyra herself. There’re moments in the cycles when she shows surprising insights and she usually has intelligent and worthwhile advice for the contestants. There’s also her achingly awful attempt at a pop single and her frequent crazy moments which I can only assume are unfortunate attempts to make her look a bit quirky or original. When watching the programme you may sometimes wonder if you’re watching some sort of speech therapy programme as both Tyra and Jay Manuel belong to the presenter school of thought that believes in speaking patronisingly slowly and over-enunciating. There’s also the scandal as to whether cycle 9 was fixed so that Saleisha would win. It’s all on Youtube but the evidence looks pretty convincing to me, particularly as Chantal, the runner-up was basically a goddess.

The real question though, after twelve cycles, is does Tyra actually care about the girls anymore? Certainly comparing cycle 1 to the following cycles there’s a massive decline in the amount of time that Tyra personally invests into the girls’ progress. However, anyone questioning her interests needs to watch Tyra yelling at Tiffany in Cycle 4. Literally watch it now! It’s the rawest emotion that I’ve ever seen on a reality TV show, or maybe on any TV show, and it’s hard to believe that they didn’t edit it out.

So where should the Top Model novice begin their obsession? At the very beginning... Cycle 1 is probably still my favourite cycle and as I said there’s a lot more Tyra time and a feeling that there’s more at stake as there can only be one original top model winner. Cycles 8, 2 and 7 closely follow as my next favourites but, believe me, once you’ve watched one you will NEED to watch them all!

A review of..... Lost: La Fleur - SPOILERS (obviously)

Remember grizzled, sarcastic, pain-in-the-ass Sawyer?...nope neither do I. At least not after La Fleur. I'm guessing the choice of name was no coincidence- James Ford's old alter ego is now dead and we are left with soft sensitive Jim La Fleur and with all the twists and turns that Lost offers up, the biggest surprise this episode is just how well Sawyer suits sensitive.

'La Fleur' is thankfully Sawyer centric, which is a welcome breath of fresh air as season four was criminally short on Sawyer. Although it could have centered around any of the 'Island crew' and it would have been a hundred times better than any o6 episode. Even the likable o6 members are getting tired and as for Kate and Jack you almost have to respect the writers for keeping them as central characters when their popularity has plummeted. They are needed, I get that but just so annoying. Hell! At least it's enjoyable to watch the them suffer!

Luckily unlike the o6 Sawyer's fate seems to be pretty good, in fact, with the exception of poor Danial who's heart brake over loosing Charlotte was genuinely touching, everyone seems to be loving the 70s. Jin is finally interacting with more characters now he can speak English well, Sawyer is head of security for Dahma and playing house pretty convincingly with Juliet.

Of cause they can't play Brady Bunch forever. Along come the o6 to complicate things and Horace's (love him, not sure why) question "is three years long enough to get over someone?" is fresh in Sawyer's mind. Well, personally I damn well hope so. I'd rather say something rude about Keamy's mum and suffer the results than sit through any more Jack, Sawyer, Kate angst. And after Daniel and Charlot's o so sweet relationship was cut rudely short I couldn't take it.

Although this episode was light on plot there were so many good character moments it was a real high note to go out on one week hiatus with. Besides, a bit of a brake from the Linus/Hawking/Widmore mind fu*kary is pretty welcome. It got the story where it needed to be in a artful engaging way- what Lost does best at the moment. All survivors are now back together, likewise the action and we have at last stopped the time travel. Whilst it's a shame this means the tantalising glimpse of the 4 toed statue will be the last and therefore there are no chances of a story line where Kate gets bloodily sacrificed by an ancient culture, the time jump cut off in the 70s worked out nicely. There will be three years of island life now for the writers to explore and it's given our islanders time to develop together. Plus it opens doors for lots of mystery solving involving the 1970's crew, like where did Adam and Eve (skeletons in the cave) come from?

The time travel was a huge risk for the writers and so far they have avoided any massive plot holes. It is incredible but they really have pulled it off. OK so it may have slightly 'jumped the shark' plot wise, but they jumped it with style! Lost is still keeping it fresh and me on the edge of my seat.

New questions: So John's resurrection was a given but there is new intrigue from this seasons 'suspicious newbee with ulterior motives' Cesar. I would be tired of another character like this but Dan, Charlotte and Miles have fast become my favorites, (we better not have seen the last of Charlotte) so fingers crossed.

Plus, for the love of Jacobe, who are the giant statue building-4 toed civilisation? (we are so never going to get the answer to that.)

A review of....Heroes : A recent times overview

*Jump, thud* - That right there, that was the sound of me jumping on the Heroes Haters band wagon. God that was a painful jump. But after one bad season finale and two bad Volumes of defending it, fooling my self it will get back to old form; it is time to vent the anger!

Kudos at least to producers for making one of the most compulsive shows on TV. That people seam to be masochistically sticking with it, in the vain hope it will return to form, rather than just giving up says something about it’s originally quality. After all it's just a TV show, right? Why the dedication? Like no other show I can think of it seems to have a seriously addictive quality and just like any hard drug addiction it will leave you confused, angry and wondering what the hell you are doing wit your life! If all the people who seemed to hate it, yet still watch it, gave up then the already plummeting ratings would half. It is the only shows I have ever seen get a cover story on ways to 'fix’ it (EW apparently told them it was a promotional story- sneaky but I like it!). Is it the whole wish fulfilment thing? We so wanted to be those people with cool powers we can’t let them go easily. But is it worth the effort and faith it is given or has actually morphed into a ‘love to hate it’ show- Heroes, in the words of Dylan Moran "I hate you so much it gives me energy."

Somewhere between the first and second season something seriously weird happened. Ok the season finale wasn’t good, but at least it felt like the same show! Slowly (very slowly in Volume Two’s case) the show started to descend into a super hero soap opera, completely ignoring original premise of ordinary people in their home towns, with extraordinary destinies- and don't get me wrong that needed to develop, but in the opposite way to the one they chose- characters needed to come together, if anything, not be flung around the time-space continuum like superhuman trash in a trippy episode of Dynasty.

So my theories on what possibly went wrong (well this is the internet-everyone needs theories):

1) I remember seeing an interview with Milo Ventimiglia on Regis and Kelly where Regis told him that his daughter had been brought on as a writer in Vol. 2 - It's all Regis’s fault! Well may be not only Regis's daughter, but there was a change in writing staff. Writers from The OC, amongst others were brought in to write Clair’s arc. How anyone thought this was a good idea I don't know, half the writing staff are from Smallville already , which is hardly appropriate given Heroes was supposed to be the grown-up, realistic (well ish) side to superheroes - that was the point! The only other writers are Kirng alums from Crossing Jordan etc-i.e. no genre experience, no grasp of the average fangirl/boy’s memory for detail. Only one name really stands out on the writers list as having real calibre, which brings me to point 2...

2) Brian Fuller left. The exist of an exec producer who only wrote one episode would hardly be a big deal. However, that one episode just happened to be the fan and critic favourite of the whole show by a mile- a bench mark of what the show could and should be if it reached its potential. I.e. the reason so many people keep watching... "Remember how good Company Man was- it could be that good again". Also Fuller has proven himself an extremely talented show runner with Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies all critically acclaimed shows that he created. Whereas Tim Kring has two generic dramas and no experience in the genre on his CV (fuller worked on Star track previous to his own shows). Perhaps without him to oversee things and rein in the pure insanity and quash the “hay it’s Sci-Fi, we can do ANYTHING”s it all went down hill. Having said that, thanks to the fact that Pushing Daises is now…well...pushing daises, Fuller is back on board from episode 20 Vol 4. Disturbingly however (SPOILER ALERT) Fuller has said that season 4 will concentrate on Clair and the Petrellis....o good.

3) A lot of the complaints about the show seem to smack of poor management. In general Kring is to TV what Gorge Bush is to politics. If he is not calling his live TV viewers Dip S***s, he is blaming the serialised format for loss of viewers (yea coz 24, LOST, Desperate Housewives are all really unpopular) and my personal favourite, talking up the way the Heroes writers write it as they go along! He frankly deserves the flack he gets after making comments about Lost only having one good season...ha! There seem to be bizarre decisions coming from every department. Writing inconsistencies everywhere and writers complaining that it is because directors cut crucial lines of dialogue, the 4 million budget per episode is blown and no surprise when you see expensive sets like the Japanese strip joint set in Vol. 4 used for about five minuets. One thing they could learn from Smallville is how to use a budget.

Most bizarre though is the decision to give Hayden a distractingly terrible wig that literally looks like it is from a Barbie after she cut her hair a few inches. They even had a several week long time gap between Volumes- would it not have been easier to say Clair got a new hair cut? They constantly want her to grow up -so why not her hair too? It works for Future Clair. I mean do a few inches really make a difference? (dirty!) Seriously are they spending some of the 4 mil budget on crack!? Who came up with that idea? Peter was aloud a hair cut! (although ratings started to drop when the emo hair was cut- maybe that’s why they are worried?)

Surely there should be some people to oversee that lines of communication are open and decisions are thought through ...o weight there are! In know that producing a massive show is hard but it worked first season- what happened since? Well Jeb Lobe and Jesse Alexander got caught in the cross fire from an unhappy NBC. In Lobes case it may have been his time- comic book legend though he is, clearly his recent work has suffered from massive continuity errors and I doubt that it is a coincidence that Heroes does too. However the buck should stop at Kring. Some new writers don't seam to know what happened in previous seasons and the show no longer sticks to its own rules and ultimately it is Kring’s responsibility to remember all the little and not so little details and see that the rest of the crew do too- because the fans sure as hell will.

When Heroes started critics raved about how it actually answered questions, unlike Lost, but now there are just more questions than answers, not only about the show but about its production: Why are all the women blond? who the hell came up with the whole eclipses take away and give powers thing, (because I seem to remember a lot of powers going on before the last eclipse) and how have they not been fired? Who taught the heroes writers the theory of relativity? They did a bead job. What the F**K was with the hunger, since when was it a power based thing? Talk about pissing all over a character. Sylar the empath? WTF? Has that been all forgotten for Vol. 4? Is Clair's wig made of Golden Labrador fur? Is the whole show a secret promotional campaign for Italian supremacy? Why do the writers make thing so difficult for themselves (Clair's Jesus blood, Peter absorbing everything from Kirby Plaza)? Are they as masochistic as Heroes viewers maybe? And most importantly why am I still watching?

P.S. For anyone who is sick of the Lost vs. Heroes debate and wishes both would just get along...well it may look something like this...