Television Review: Scott & Bailey S3

The third series of the crime drama focused once more on the friendship between DC Rachel Bailey (Suranne Jones) and DC Janet Scott (Lesley Sharp). Amelia Bullmore is back as no-nonsense DCI Gill Murray, we get liberal sprinklings of Pippa Haywood as DSI Julie Dodson while Danny Miller joins the cast as DS Rob Waddington. However, the stand-out addition to the cast is guest star Nicola Walker. She's a recurring theme within this series and, unfortunately, that caused some chronology problems, despite how fantastic the storyline was.

The first episode opens with DCI Murray being strangled from behind in her car and threatened with a knife. Then we flash back to eight months earlier. The first case that the team deal with involve the corpse of Eunice Bevan whose decapitated body was found on the staircase of her home while her bedridden husband awaits rescue upstairs. The couple's daughter Helen Bartlett (Walker) is immediately a suspect and those viewers paying attention recognise her voice as the one who took Gill hostage, setting up the season-long strand. Fair enough.

However, to complicate the series chronology, episode two is rightly an episode that belonged either at the end of series two or right at the beginning of series three. Rachel is experiencing difficulties in her new marriage so we go back a few more months to see the circumstances surrounding their wedding and the accusation that Rachel incited her brother to murder. It was a storyline that needed this conclusion, yes, but not at that point. I completely understand why the decisions for the series chronology were made: they wanted a hook for the series, they wanted to establish Helen Bartlett's character as a recurring and important one. They actually trailed the series with Helen being delivered up to Gill by Rachel and Janet. It was the right decision for the storyline but possibly not for the series.

Now - episode content. I actually really enjoyed every individual episode, even though I did have issues with the overall structure. Nicola Walker's outstanding first outing as Helen Bartlett prompted a rather gushy adoration post from me but she kept up that momentum in the four episodes she appeared in, especially as things became more grisly. Another episode that was particularly affecting was episode six which focused on abuse and murder in a care home.

The relationship between Rachel and Janet fractures this series when Rachel goes into self-destruct mode once too often. This provided a nice backdrop to the final episodes. One thing I also appreciated was the remembrance of little details that are brought up throughout the series, both related to personal and professional lives. It was rewarding for long-term fans and added authenticity to the series.

Finally, some of the guest stars were fantastic. Pippa Haywood's returning character, DSI Dodson, was both intimidating and funny. There's a wonderful moment between her and Amelia Bullmore in the middle of a very gruesome crime scene that made me laugh out loud. In addition, Tracie Bennett (who I saw a few years ago in End of the Rainbow) arrives as Rachel's mother, not a character you can like but one who certainly makes your skin crawl. I'm not sure of the point of Danny Miller's arrival as the new DS. For such a good actor the part seems too small but, then again, this is a show centred on the women. Maybe he'll evolve if a fourth series is commissioned.

The niggles I have about chronology didn't detract from my enjoyment of this series. It remained the programme I looked forward to week after week and I'll keep my fingers crossed that the ratings were high enough to secure a renewal. Oh, and ITV? Don't use the ratings for the last episode to judge - that was on a Thursday instead of a Wednesday and you didn't trail it enough to be irritated by any loss in ratings.

Classic Film Review: Spellbound (1945)

Spellbound stars Ingrid Bergman as a psychiatrist who goes to great lengths to protect a patient while she works out the truth of his case. The patient (Gregory Peck) originally appears at the institution where Dr Constance Peterson (Bergman) works, masquerading as the new chief, Dr Edwardes. However, Constance soon works out that he's not who he says he is and suspects that he has something to do with the disappearance of Dr Edwardes. This is complicated by the fact that Constance has found herself immediately attracted to the patient. She conceals his location from the police then sets off to find and then cure him, uncovering the truth in the process.

This is an atmospheric Hitchcock film with a supporting cast that includes Michael Chekov as Dr Alexander Brulov and Leo G. Carroll as outgoing chief Dr Murchison. The concept of psychoanalysis is explained in sometimes clunky terms during the film but it makes a good basis for the plot. To be fully immersed in the story you may have to believe wholeheartedly in psychoanalysis but, on the other hand, it's a good film even if you're ambivalent. The short dream sequence devised by Salvador Dali is too short for my liking but certainly adds something to the film.

The beauty of this one, though, lies in the leading actors. Bergman is phenomenal, from her first moments as a calm and in control doctor through to the finale where she's fighting to save the man she loves. There are too many excellent individual scenes to mention but the climax between her and the villain takes some beating. Equally, Gregory Peck manages a role that could have become far too melodramatic very well. During his episodes, yes, the patient is unpredictable and weak but this contrasts nicely with his obvious affection towards Constance. Also excellent is Michael Chekov as the talkative Dr Brulov who lightens the tension a little with his non-stop chatter though there is more to him than that.

Of course, there are aspects of this film which were badly handled. The completely artificial ski scene was one, which could have been better handled with a director like Hitchcock. In addition, I felt that the superfluous characters who were introduced at the beginning (another doctor and a female patient) wasted a little bit of time. While they were there to set up Constance as a character, I don't think they entirely worked. However, these are small gripes. Overall, I found Spellbound to be a captivating film and one which would've cemented my love for Ingrid Bergman - if it wasn't already cemented, that is.

Classic Film Review: Lover Come Back (1961)

Lover Come Back stars Rock Hudson and Doris Day with a side-helping of Tony Randall. Jerry Webster (Hudson) works for an advertising agency and has a pretty simple way of attracting clients - liquor and pretty girls. This infuriates Carol Templeton (Day) who works for one of his competitors and doesn't like the underhand methods. During their war, Webster accidentally advertises a product that doesn't exist - 'Vip'. Of course, Carol wants the 'Vip' contract and approaches the man she thinks is the inventor to wine and dine him. But, due to a stroke of luck, Webster intercepts her visit and he's suddenly masquerading as Dr Linus Tyler while the real Tyler (Jack Kruschen) works on a formula for 'Vip'.

This is a typical Doris Day comedy which relies heavily on her already-established chemistry with Rock Hudson. It's formulaic in places, yes, but it's still enjoyable. Tony Randall as Webster's boss Pete Ramsey, a man domineered by his late father and trying to become his own man, has a few excellent moments and I particularly liked Ann B. Davis as Millie, Carol's secretary, who has a few good lines of her own.

I found that the film trundled along, relying on gentle humour and Day's eyebrows (which are in top form). It really starts to pick up in the last twenty minutes when Carol discovers Webster's true identity. Tony Randall, as Pete flips, is very amusing too. As ever with these types of comedy, I found the ending a little rushed and unsatisfactory - although funny - and the fact that Carol had essentially fallen in love with a man who didn't exist wasn't resolved though, to be fair, I didn't expect it to be.

Lover Come Back isn't as funny as Pillow Talk (1959) but it's pretty good. The title is also nonsensical, the vehicle for a good Doris Day song if ever there was one. She also has another song as Carol wonders whether to succumb to 'Linus's' charms - 'Should I Surrender?', a number I hadn't come across before and rather liked. This is a light-hearted comedy that has a few golden moments but it's not my favourite Day film by any stretch. Worth a watch, though, if you haven't seen it, if only to see how Day's hair can stay perfectly still for long periods of time. Also, I have to admit that Hudson with a beard looks like a different man!

Television Review: Murder on the Home Front

Murder on the Home Front follows Molly Cooper (Tamzin Merchant) as she joins pathologist Dr Lennox Collins (Patrick Kennedy) in his investigation of a serial killer in war-torn London. The police think they've got their man but Collins is determined to use forensics to prove them wrong but the chase for the killer soon becomes dangerous for Molly. The cast also includes Emerald Fennell as photographer Issy Quennell, James Fleet as Professor Stephens and Richard Bremmer as mortuary assistant Charlie Maxton.

This is based loosely on the memoirs of Molly Lefebure, which explains where the rather odd concept came from. Molly Cooper is headstrong, amusing and a little bit stubborn but there still seems to be something lacking about the character. Stepping into a real person's shoes has that effect on some actors in this kind of role. I liked Molly but I didn't love her. Dr Collins, however, is likely to become a favourite character of mine. His approach to pathology is very modern in a time that wasn't really ready for it and his clashes with Professor Stephens are a good demonstration of that. I also adore Issy, who seems like much more of a real person than Molly does.

The plot of this was reasonably good and I certainly didn't work out the truth before the protagonists. However, my enjoyment was tempered by the unnecessary CGI and gore that looked frankly juvenile. There was no need to have ridiculous bomb effects in the background every time Collins stood in his flat with his curtains open. They looked unreal and added nothing to the overall story. If they'd spent more time making the close-up shots of bomb effects and damage appear realistic, I would've been a lot happier. Instead of focusing on character and plot, they decided to make it 'look spectacular' and, when you try that hard, you invariably fail. I personally got fair more pleasure from Charlie's occasional comments than the London aerial views that were supposed to make me gape. Equally, the excessive comic-book type gore that was used in certain scenes was irritating. I got the feeling that the series didn't quite know what it wanted to be and who its audience was.

All that said, I think this series has potential. The central characters have a good rapport and the concept is a good one. If they cut out the unnecessary CGI and focus on characters and plot then they could have a hit on their hands. I will certainly watch if they make more episodes.

The Next Two Weeks

The immediate future looks a bit hectic, as I realised last night staring at the ceiling and cataloguing what I've got to do - and what might get in the way. Things could get quite tricky quite fast.

On the PhD side of things, I need to get my third chapter fully drafted by the end of the month. I have a supervisor meeting on the 30th and by then I want a complete draft so I can make necessary corrections and enhancements over the summer. So I'm looking at perhaps another 6,000 words of analysis. And, really, I have to get that done this week because I'm not going to get much of a chance next week.

Also of importance this week is some secondary reading, which I have to neatly combine with some documentary viewing. I say 'have to' and mean it: our hard disk recorder's close to capacity and my father's going that funny colour which means that if I don't watch some stuff he's going to evict me. I've got a heap of documentaries on there but also some recent drama and too many classic films to count. So it's looking like I'm spending the days this week trying valiantly to create some space on the recorder and the evenings going loopy in my office trying to put words on the page.

Next week, things get a little more complicated. The Wakefield Drama Festival starts on Sunday 26th (preview post here). For seven consecutive nights I'll be at the theatre and, although I'm looking forward to it, I'm dreading the time it will sap. Added to which, I've got the Postgraduate Colloquium all day Tuesday, my supervisor meeting on Thursday and I'm babysitting for a few hours on Friday. The latter two I'm fairly okay with but it's the first that's causing me anxiety.

The organisation of the colloquium has been fairly fun, like trying to keep control of a bike that at first won't let you pedal then doesn't want you to apply the brakes. If I'd stuck to the organising I'd probably have been fine but I'm conscious that I need to give a few papers this year to stick to my goals for 2013. So I've written a paper called 'Edmund Yates: Rumour and the Forgotten Author' which I'm fairly happy with. The only part I'm not happy with is presenting it. My public-speaking fear has kept me awake a few nights recently. There are reasons I'm not cut out for this line of work and I suspect next Tuesday will demonstrate that. If it does, I think a new career plan is in order.

During the drama festival I'm not going to get much PhD work done (which is why this week is so important in that respect). I don't know what I'll do during the two days I'm actually at home that week but it might involve sleeping and, on Monday, plotting to run away.

So what are the variables? Well, apart from my paralysing fear, there's the small matter of my grandmother who has decided that my father doesn't understand her so she needs to talk to me and me alone. That's fine for a few days over the weekend but, given what I've got to do this week, it could soon become a little irritating. I'll try to hold my temper because I really don't want to upset her more but having the same conversations fifteen times a day could drive me round the twist. Also, last week we had five power cuts (including three nights where it was off overnight, leading to some fun times with the dog-that's-scared-of-the-dark). They claim the problem has been fixed but more outages could lead to some epic frustration. As with the grandmother situation, this isn't within my control but it doesn't stop the anxiety. I'm beginning to learn, very little stops the anxiety.

Book Review: The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger

The Newlyweds is a truly modern romance. It tells the story of Amina, a Bangladeshi who has met an American online and moved abroad to marry him. George is a decent man, everything she and her parents have been hoping for and Amina's intention is for her parents to finally come and live with them after she has passed her citizenship test. However, she finds it difficult to acclimatise herself to America and she discovers that George has been keeping something fairly important from her. However, she hasn't been entirely honest with him, as she realises when she returns to Bangladesh.

On one level, this book is difficult to read because of all the time it spends meandering back and forth between Amina's life now in America and her youth in Bangladesh. However, because the two locations are so different, it's easy to follow. Amina's recollections usually have a basis in what she's going through at the time so, in that sense, it's a perfectly logical book.

The descriptions of Bangladesh are one of the most outstanding aspects of the book. The humidity and the community seep from the page, making it both interesting and oddly stifling, even for the reader. Amina's location in-between cultures means that she is able to note the bizarre in both Bangladesh and America, understanding the differences and criticising them both fairly equally.

The Newlyweds certainly contains humour but I found that after reading it was the more serious scenes that lingered with me, including one - ridiculously - that we find was made up by another character. Freudenberger deals with the issues facing couples the world over including the recession, family divisions and the complexity of married life. Amina's ethnicity is thrown into this mix, creating new obstacles that aren't immediately discernible but eventually make their presence known. One of the events which make up the finale is beautifully foreshadowed throughout the novel and it is the scenes stemming from this horrible event which impacted me most forcefully.

Amina is an excellent character to follow, particularly during her return to Bangladesh. In addition, Freudenberger throws in some clever red herrings throughout meaning that the actual progression of the plot remained a mystery to me. It was a pleasure to read a book that surprised me but still made sense in terms of characterisation. If I had one criticism it was that I wanted more from these characters. I feel like she stopped as one story was ending, yes, but as a whole other one was beginning. I suppose that's the mark of a good book - one that leaves you wishing there was more.

Classic Film Review: Never a Dull Moment (1950)

Based on a book that's based on a true story, Never a Dull Moment stars Irene Dunne as Kay, a successful songwriter who falls in love with rancher Chris (Fred MacMurray). She marries him and moves from the bright lights of New York to live with him and his two daughters (played by Gigi Perreau and Natalie Wood). It's a classic fish-out-of-water tale that sees Kay struggle to adjust to life in harsh conditions and finally she is faced with the choice of the New York life she once enjoyed or life with her new family.

This film apparently won an award for being dull but, really, I found it refreshing. It was amusing and the comedy came from realistic incidents. There was little farce for the sake of farce, though it did appear once or twice. Mostly, the humorous situations came from Kay herself - losing control of a horse, battling with a dust-storm, stepping on a loose floorboard - and for that reason they were amusing. The children also added to the film instead of detracting from it and there are some good performances from the supporting cast, especially Ann Doran as Jean and Andy Devine as Orvie.

The problems with this probably stem from the fact that nothing much happens. It's very much Kay's battle to adjust and to some viewers this could indeed be boring. However, I enjoyed the light-heartedness of it and Dunne is really endearing as Kay, striking up a decent rapport with MacMurray. It might be predictable in places but Dunne's warmth shows through - particularly in the scenes with the girls - and makes it much better than the story probably deserves. The little friendship she strikes up with Jean, someone who was once touted as a potential wife for Chris, is pleasant and realistic - no backstabbing or popping poison in the tea, as Kay puts it.

There are certainly things lacking in Never a Dull Moment but it is an enjoyable family film. Although it concluded a little too quickly for my liking, it was overall a good experience.