[Please note: Happy Valley comes with huge trigger warnings for male-on-female violence, rape, suicide, and stalking. This review discusses these issues. There are no major spoilers.]

In the middle of all the Celebrating New Who fun, I did have a chance to finish Series 1 of the British crime show Happy Valley. It absolutely blew me away, and I highly recommend it.

Catherine Cawood is a successful Detective Sergeant in a small West Yorkshire town riddled with crime and drug abuse. Catherine has a grandson and a sister, a recovering addict herself, and their grim but stable lives are disrupted when Tommy Lee Royce, the man who raped Catherine's now-deceased daughter, is released from prison, returning to town and ready to offend again.

What makes Happy Valley remarkable - and why I found it so riveting - is how it blurs the lines between law enforcer and victim. Catherine is both. Her life is so unbelievably harrowing that it's hard to comprehend how she avoids total breakdown, and actor Sarah Lancashire conveys the crushing weight of Catherine's life with clarity and dignity. Regularly assaulted in the line of duty, Catherine also battles with debilitating PTSD from her daughter's suicide, and struggles to raise a grandson with a learning disability. Despite the presence of a supportive sister and ex-husband, we see how utterly alone she is. Most importantly, though, Catherine is a woman, and we see how being female places her at a disadvantage at many points, from casual workplace sexism to stalking and physical violence. The story makes terrifyingly clear how very close all the female characters live to violence, and that being part of law enforcement really doesn't offer Catherine that much protection when it really matters.

Happy Valley is a difficult (though unfailingly gripping) watch, filled as it is with male-on-female physical, sexual, and mental violence. Some have asked if the series is too violent, which is actually quite laughable when you look at what else is out there. The difference with Happy Valley is that it squarely confronts the viewer with the brutal truth about how violence impacts people. If it's too violent, it's because the reality of real-life male-on-female violence and harassment is equally horrifying. TV needs more series like this, so we get used to being shown the real, devastating mark that violence makes on people, especially women.

It's a fascinating watch because Happy Valley shows us the point of view of the male offender as well. In fact, not simply giving Tommy a passing chance to exonerate himself to the viewer, it practically rubs our face in it. And what we see is terrifying. Tommy Lee Royce is remarkable not for his active malignancy, but for the fact that nothing really matters to him. He only kidnapped and raped a woman because it was mildly convenient. He has no strong feelings about anyone or anything other than his own self-interest, and yet he truly believes that he's basically decent and altruistic, that none of it was really his fault. It's frightening to see inside the mind of everyday evil, and Happy Valley doesn't let us off the hook by leaving the bad guy a mystery. It shows us exactly why he did it, and that's more horrifying than anything.

There's enough black comedy shot through each episode to lift the gloom slightly, and the crime plot never overshadows the development of the main characters, all of whom are utterly believable. Sarah Lancashire (Catherine) delivers an outstanding performance, and the rest of the cast are all top-notch, particularly James Norton (Tommy Lee Royce) and Siobhan Finneran (Catherine's sister Clare). Sally Wainwright's script is bold, gritty, and rarely falters, and if a few plot turns are a bit convenient, they are more than outweighed by the collection of layered, complex characters she creates.

Filming for Season 2 is due to begin this year, and in a similar vein to another high-quality crime drama, Broadchurch, there's a bit of chatter around whether a series that was originally planned as a stand-alone drama should be renewed, and whether subsequent seasons can possibly match up to the near-perfection of the first. I don't know, but if Happy Valley can follow Broadchurch's lead and pull off more seasons, I'll be happy. Either way, this first season is so amazing that I recommend you see it immediately. Five stars.


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For today I chose the tiniest moment - a gesture so brief that if you looked away you'd miss it.

It happens in The End of Time part 2, in one of Wilf and the Doctor's main scenes together. They're stranded aboard a creaky tub of a spaceship, as the Master runs rampant on the Earth below. The Doctor is fiddling with wires and gadgets, trying to get the power going again, and his concentration is disrupted by Wilf, who sits down beside him and starts talking.

And then a very small but crucial thing happens. The Doctor sighs, mildly irritated at the interruption. He takes off his glasses, turns his mind away from saving the world, and gives his full attention to the old man sitting beside him.

In the wider context of the episode, this small moment is seemingly insignificant. The stakes are high. The Master has possessed the human race, perhaps permanently, and the Doctor himself is reeling from his decision on Mars, still in the middle of a struggle for his own soul. More crucial things are going on than Wilf's delight at realising his lifelong dream of travelling to space.

But the Doctor gives Wilf his undivided attention. And then they trade some of the most beautiful lines in Doctor Who:

"Nine hundred years... We must look like insects to you."
"I think you look like giants."

And that's why the Doctor doesn't become the Master. Why the Tenth Doctor is able to end his life well, after all his mistakes. He keeps in touch with the best of him - the human race. The people who keep him aware of the small details upon which everything rests. The people who give him hope. The human race needs the Doctor to save the world, obviously, but equally he needs them. They remind him that although saving the world is important, human dignity and small kindnesses are even more essential.

That's what I love about Doctor Who, even more than the time travel and the monsters and the thrills - I love the humanism, the hope, the dignity. The reminder that an ordinary person really is the most important thing in the universe.
 

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It's Day 1 of the Celebrating New Who Countdown Challenge, started by this great Tumblr blog, and I'm thrilled to be taking part. In just a week it will be ten whole years since the revived Doctor Who first aired on British TV. How much has happened since then! and how many new fans of the show (me included) have been made! It's the perfect time for me to spend a week talking about how much I love this show and how much it means to me artistically and personally. Woop!
The theme for today's challenge is "Favourite Season", so here I go. 

It's tough for me to choose which NuWho season is my favourite, but I have to go with Season 4. NuWho almost has a tradition of having one clunker episode per season, but in Season 4 the episode quality is consistently good, and often outstanding. And Donna Noble. Need I say more? It was a bit of a risk to pair the Tenth Doctor with a companion who's even more bonkers than he is, but it pays off. Donna is a main female character who's over 25 years of age - something you don't see all the time - and she's not at all overawed by the Doctor. Tennant and Tate's comic (and dramatic) chemistry is second to none, and since it was high time to have a Doctor-companion relationship with no romantic feelings in the mix, it's a refreshingly new dynamic. Everything works. Plus, there's the heart-stopping teasers of Rose's return. The strands of fate drawing together toward the DoctorDonna. The exploration of the darker side of human nature. The return of my favourite NuWho creatures, the Ood, and a great treatment of classic Who monsters, the Sontarans. There's so much to love about Season 4. Here's a few thoughts on each episode.


Partners in Crime: It's not the strongest opening episode in NuWho history, but Tennant and Tate get some great scenes to establish their outrageous, screwball comedy dynamic. And the Adipose are pretty damn cute too.

The Fires of Pompeii: A brilliant historical episode combined with big ethical decisions. The Doctor and Donna's choice of whether to change history is a reminder of the Doctor's destruction of Gallifrey and also a foreshadowing of his coming dilemma on Mars.

Planet of the Ood: A personal favourite of mine, and an unusual episode in that the human beings (not the scary-looking Ood, a design triumph) are the actual monsters here. The morality is extremely clear, and the Doctor's in top form as an ethical crusader, but the episode's none the worse for that. And the musical score still brings tears to my eyes after multiple re-watches.

The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky: A fantastic Classic Who villain race are resurrected here, and it's done brilliantly. They really do look like potatoes. We have two companions in the TARDIS, and Martha Jones has come into her own, as the Doctor's relationship with the military and violence is explored.

The Doctor's Daughter: The presence of not two but three dynamic companions (we count Jenny, don't we?) smooths over some of the weaknesses of the story. A well-paced episode with some imaginative touches. Drives home, again, the foreboding message that the Doctor loses everyone he loves in the end.

The Unicorn and the Wasp: Historical episodes can be tough but this is extremely entertaining, with brilliant guest writing and the Doctor-Donna dynamics at their funniest and most screwball.

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead: An enjoyably mind-bending two-parter. The amorphous Vashta Nerada are an exciting new villain, and River Song is a tantalising and well-acted new character at her strongest. "Yes, she's dead. Help her" is one of my favourite lines and a reminder of the Doctor's alien-ness.

Midnight: an episode Russell T Davies wrote in 48 hours and nearly scrapped. Thank goodness he didn't - it's one of his most unusual and striking episodes, and Who psychological horror at its finest ("bananas-creepy", as David Tennant called it). Notable for the outstanding ensemble cast, and for the lack of special effects or visible monsters. Touches again on the theme of humans as monsters, as we see for the first time the Doctor at the mercy of the worst of humanity. Chilling and outstanding.

Turn Left: A companion-centred episode that works. Explores the tantalising question "what would the universe be like without the Doctor?". Donna and Rose continue the RTD-era theme of ordinary people stepping up and filling the Doctor's place in his absence.

The Stolen Earth/Journey's End: A huge, spectacular finale where so much happens. Rose returns and leaves again with-and-not-with the Doctor. Donna meets her gutwrenching end (of which I usually don't speak...). The Daleks. My favourite DW villain, Davros, is resurrected from the Classic series with great respect - he's a chilling and commanding character, and his psychological games with the Doctor are gripping. All the companions of the RTD era come into their own as Doctors in their own right. And on a melancholy final note, the Doctor is left alone, ready to descend into hubristic madness in the 2009 specials.

Season 4 has so much going for it. It's a steady descent into darkness for the Doctor himself, but it manages to keep the gloom balanced with humour and enough action-romp episodes that it doesn't take itself overly seriously. Catherine Tate drew more depth out of the insecure, abrasive, courageous Donna than anyone expected, and the scripts were carefully sequenced and well-realised. I remember Season 4 as the season where Doctor Who really started to grip me. I'd been relatively engaged through my binge-watch of the previous seasons, but I remember chewing my nails through The Stolen Earth and suddenly realising how much I had begun to love this show. And the more I watch Doctor Who, the more I love it. That's not something you can say about every TV show that comes around.

New Earth is such a rewarding episode. In contrast to the following episodes, which are either character-driven or pure adventure fun, it introduces a lot of important issues that define the Tenth Doctor's journey, and that makes it a particular favourite of mine. New Earth is arguably the Tenth Doctor's real debut, after his eleventh-hour appearance in The Christmas Invasion. That episode established the vast poles of his personality - that lightning switch from bouyant swashbuckling to vengeful arrogance - but New Earth works on a deeper level, setting out the themes that Russell T Davies chose to define the Tenth Doctor's arc, and with which the Doctor would wrestle for the rest of the Davies tenure. When you view this episode in the light of the end of Ten's story, it really becomes clear how solidly those major issues and themes were sitting there, in plain view, just waiting to blossom in a year or two's time.

The whole episode is concerned with life and death in its many forms. The Doctor is new-born, seeing the universe with innocent, enamoured eyes; the Lady Cassandra is alive, but by rights should have been dead long ago - she is a parody of life. The Flesh are living death itself, bearing so much disease and suffering that their life is a contradiction; the cat nuns are physically alive but, in the Doctor's view at least, morally dead or worse than dead through their utilitarian brutality.

And it's clear that the Tenth Doctor is very much on the side of life. He fights for Rose's life; he takes explosive joy in saving and healing the Flesh. Others might well have written off this new life form, but the Doctor invests himself in their flourishing: "I'm the Doctor and I cured them!". The approaching hubris in this remark is hardly subtle, but he's so baby-faced and exultant, and so very innocent in this remark, that a time where that statement might be backed up with real arrogance seems very far off.

It's also clear that if there's beauty and joy in the beginning of life - the Tenth Doctor's and the Flesh's - then there's a right and proper time to die as well. "I don't want to die," Cassandra whimpers, and he replies, "Nobody does." Which of course includes the Doctor himself, and if we flash-forward to The Waters of Mars and The End of Time we see that the Doctor isn't really much better at taking his own advice in this respect than are other people. At the end of his own life it takes him time, and more human damage, and more crushing regret, for him to face up to the inevitability of his own demise, compounded as it is by his guilt and fear for the mistakes he's made. He rages against the dying of the light like everyone else, except, like everything else he does, it's somewhat more spectacular.

Of course it's not all bleak - he gives Cassandra a truly meaningful experience before her death, gives her a moment of real living in his sense of the term ("You're so desperate to stay alive, why don't you live a little?"), and that experience gives her the strength and dignity to face up to her demise. In much the same way, Wilf's companionship to the Doctor in The End of Time, and the wider legacy of Rose and his other companions, enable the Doctor to master his fear and regret enough to make a good end, giving his life to save an "insignificant" old man. And because he's the Doctor, and because he basically succeeds in living up to his own values, it's a tremendously selfless and moving end, proving that while he gets it wrong - sometimes spectacularly so - ultimately he lives up to his moral values and his concept of what a life well lived should look like. He dances with joy to see the Flesh "completely, completely alive" because he, too, is so vibrantly alive, and his childlike delight stems from the quality of a life truly lived.

Despite his fierce dedication to preserve life, no matter the species, the Doctor doesn't advocate life at any cost. He has extremely clear ideas of what constitutes a meaningful life. That's not to say he's without compassion - the very opposite, in fact - but it explains why his discovery of the Flesh's exploitation is met not only with compassion or sorrow but with explosive anger. "If they live because of this, then life is worthless." The Doctor sees very clearly inside his own head what constitutes a meaningful life. His moral compass is well-defined and absolutely rigid, and anything that clashes with it brings out an unbending anger that belies his happy-go-lucky exterior. This is, of course, one of his greatest strengths (his instinctive anarchism, his firm resolution to resist structural power and control, enables him to refuse the Krillitane in School Reunion) and also a significant weakness. In New Earth we're inclined to side with his anger - experimenting on humans is clearly wrong - but in the previous episode his moral line in the sand, while very clear to him, likely evoked a more ambivalent response from us. Was he right to depose Harriet Jones? Even if he might have been justified, should he have done it? They're open questions, and a reminder that while the Tenth Doctor defines himself as this earth's champion, he doesn't prioritise human life over that of other species. He might be utterly humane, and the model humanist, but he's not human.

Next time it's one of my favourite guest-written episodes, Vincent and the Doctor. 


For all Doctor Who posts, click here.

"You could be so wonderful, Moffat. You're stone cold brilliant, I swear, you really are. But you could be so much more - you could be consistent. You could write stories without trolling, or over-reliance on monsters, or re-writing the laws of time, or a hundred plot holes per episode. You could make Doctor Who better, without retconning the entire series to satisfy your colossal ego. Because you don't need to be The Moffat Victorious. Just be a decent show-runner for five years and then bow out like a good boy. That's more than enough power for you."

Lately I've realised that my taste in TV isn't as highbrow as I liked to think.

I'm not really sorry, though, because I have a new crush, and it's The Vampire Diaries. Yes, in all its melodramatic, angsty, trash-tv glory. I love it.

Why, you ask? Well, for a start, it's just pure entertainment. Unlike most of the films I enjoy, it's never going to go down in history as a work of art, but it's a pretty damn enjoyable way to spend 40 minutes. It's fast-paced, funny, suspenseful, and all the other adjectives that every TV magazine will throw at you - but more than that, it has good characters. And that's usually my deal-breaker when it comes to film and TV. Are the people true to life? Larger than life? Are they complex, relatable, human? That's what I really look for in film, and that's my favourite thing about The Vampire Diaries.

Which is kind of ironic, of course, because actual humans are in short supply among the characters of TVD. There are vampires, werewolves, hybrid wolf-vamp freaks, witches, supernatural vampire hunters, and various other forms of dead and undead beings, but humans really are an endangered species. Only one of the three main characters is human, and that is of course Elena Gilbert. She's the sweet girl-next-door caught between Stefan, her virtuous vampire boyfriend, and Damon, his malevolent vampire brother. It's all very high school, at least at the start. Of course we find out sooner or later that the unthreatening girl-next door might be a bit more complex than we bargained for, her hero boyfriend might be hiding a serial killer streak, and the brother who started out as a homicidal maniac might just be her one true love after all. It gets complicated.

And speaking of romantic complications, the signature of The Vampire Diaries' fanbase is the seismic split between Stefan+Elena fans and Damon+Elena fans. I started out liking Stefan+Elena, like everyone else, but during season 2 I made the surprising discovery that Damon, the snarky, bourbon-swilling bad boy, had become my favourite character. And for more reasons than I can count, I'm definitely a Damon+Elena shipper now and it's the main reason I follow the show. Contrary to what I assumed at the start of the show, I now truly believe that Damon is the love of Elena’s life, and the tortuous journey their love has taken makes it even more real. So yeah, I'm a sucker for complicated romantic triangles.

I never expected Damon to be my favourite character, not by a long shot. In the first season I could see that he felt something for Elena, but I expected his love for her just to be a device that would downgrade his character from 'nuclear-level psychopath' to 'charming and morally ambiguous bad boy'. I figured that after three or four seasons of half-heartedly trying to be good, he would eventually get his heart broken by Elena and usher in a revenge-fuelled armageddon that would tie off the final season. He might even redeem himself by some final selfless act that would ensure Stefan and Elena could be together (maybe saving their lives or something). Inevitably, he'd die in the second-to-last episode and we'd all feel a bit sorry for him but forget him soon enough in Stefan and Elena's happily-ever-after. This wasn't pure conjecture, after all - how often does the villain of the piece actually get the girl? Err...going on my knowledge of classic literature, that would be pretty much never. We all know that Paris loved Helen of Troy, Vronsky loved Anna, Rhett loved Scarlett, Heathcliff loved Cathy, the Phantom loved Christine, Snape loved Lily (yes, I know that's not classic literature), but there was no happy ending there. Admittedly, I'm not much of a TV person and the narrative structure of TV shows is different. I'm sure there are some examples of villain-gets-the-girl in TV but I was missing them.* At any rate, I just assumed that whatever character changes Damon might go through, he'd never actually end up with the girl.

Slight problem. By the middle of season 2, I wanted Damon and Elena to end up together just as much as I wanted Damon to redeem himself. I could still appreciate Stefan and Elena's relationship, but there was no doubt in my mind that Elena and Damon absolutely had to end up together. Call me a die-hard romantic, but all that angst, slow character development, and surprise revelations really did it for me. From a writing perspective, I'm always fascinated to see how this pans out and how the writers make it believable. The thing about the TVD writers is that they're just inconsistent enough to make it really suspenseful. I always wonder if they really know what they're doing and if they actually care about the characters as much as the fans do. Some moments are pure genius, like the revelation that Damon and Elena met first (boy was that a game-changer) but sometimes they just screw with the characters too much, pushing them beyond the bounds of what's cohesive and relatable. That kind of writing, while it might be clever in a cheap sort of way, makes for tense and often infuriated fans. Having said that, the writers have created some unforgettable characters. They've taken an eye-wateringly terrible set of books and turned them into suspenseful, engaging entertainment. The downside is that for Delena shippers like me, it's a rough ride. Although I really believe they're endgame, the show is so unpredictable that part of me is waiting for each episode to be their last.

So yes, I'm hooked on The Vampire Diaries, and no matter how crazy it gets, I'm sure I'll keep watching because I've never wanted a fictional couple to end up together-forever as much as I do Elena and Damon. Until that day comes, I'll be writing away all my doubts and conjecture. So here's to many happy, suspenseful hours ahead.

Image from pinterest.com/phoenixfire369/thevampirediaries

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Ever since I saw Christopher Nolan's Batman, I've been a bit in love with superhero films. Not in the ultra-nerd, comic-reading sense, but in terms of enjoying contemporary mythologies brought to life in a realistic way.
Today, unwell and immensely bored, I decided to watch Ben Affleck's Daredevil, Director's Cut. I make it a rule not to waste words on bad films, so I have only one piece of advice if you're contemplating watching it:

Just no.

I have a confession: I hate musicals. 

Over the weekend I watched a wonderful film – A Star Is Born (1954). I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it, because it’s a musical. Now, I’ve tried to like musicals – I really have – but with little success. I like opera, but musicals are beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with memories of The Sound of Music played endlessly on repeat seemingly for my entire childhood (apologies to Sound of Music lovers). Maybe it's because I can’t suspend disbelief enough to overcome the ludicrous sight of people bursting into song and dance in the middle of daily life. There are exceptions – I adore Top Hat, enjoyed Cabaret, and the gorgeous Tangled made me cry. But in general, musicals make me want to stuff my ears with cotton wool and hide under the covers. Even the eternally fabulous Audrey Hepburn wasn’t enough to make me sit through My Fair Lady. Similarly, although I adore Deborah Kerr, there was nothing that could make three hours of The King and I tolerable. Singin' in the Rain (oh, heresy!), High Society, and more recently, Chicago, also joined the list of musicals I couldn't bear to finish.

Lest you be thinking that I'm a little crazy, let me say, I don't hate song. Or dance. And I quite obviously love film. It's when the three elements are mashed together into one ear- and eye-watering extravaganza, I start to have a problem. Maybe I'm a minimalist at heart. In any case, musicals remain the final frontier for me.

So I was surprised, to say the least, that I enjoyed A Star Is Born. In fact, I loved it. Mostly, I was blown away by Judy Garland’s performance. Garland plays an aspiring singer and film star who is discovered by an actor on the verge of decline, a man who becomes her mentor and eventual husband. However, as her career blooms, his fades, with his alcoholism taking a toll on his life as well as her career.

This isn’t your average cheerful musical – although the song and dance numbers are exhilarating, the story line is intensely moving and deeply tragic. Most of the emotional weight is carried by Garland, who delivers a stunning performance. For the whole three hours of the film, I simply couldn’t take my eyes off her.

This is the first Judy Garland film I’ve seen (I haven’t even seen the Wizard of Oz – musicals!) and I think I've found my new favourite actress. I know next to nothing about her life or career, but I do know that she had a very hard personal life with plenty of ups and downs. And you can see it in her face. Her performance is truly extraordinary. She has a kind of desperate courage about her, a fragile, fierce tenacity that illuminates every line and every gesture. The scene where she confesses her grief and guilt over her husband’s alcoholism is gut-wrenching. When she exults, it’s with a kind of disbelief at her own happiness. When I watched the film, I saw a woman (as well as a character) who had fought, battled every inch, to have the life that she had. It is an incredibly moving performance, deeply authentic and courageous. For that reason alone it should be on anyone’s must-see Old Hollywood list.

Garland’s co-star, James Mason, also delivers a great performance. Famous for playing charismatic villains, Mason gives a faint menacing edge to his portrayal of an unstable alcoholic. He also shows real warmth and tenderness in his relationship with Garland, bringing a convincing complexity to his character.

Finally, a review of this film wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the memorable musical numbers. Some of these, such as “My Melancholy Baby”, “Born in a Trunk”, “It’s a New World”, and my personal favourite, “The Man That Got Away”, are the stuff of legend. Most of the songs were co-written by Ira Gershwin. And Garland’s voice – well, it has to be heard to be believed. Unexpectedly deep and lush, exceptionally powerful, seductive, brave, sparkling – if you’ve never heard her sing, you are missing out.

Much of the emotional heart of this film is undoubtedly due to the superb directorial skills of George Cukor. Known, rather disparagingly, as ‘the women’s director’, the openly gay Cukor was a highly personable, brilliant actor’s director, who had a special affinity with and ability to connect with female actors under his direction. He brought authentic, harmonious and delicately nuanced performances from some of the best actors of his day. He is probably my favourite director, for his ability to tell simple stories with deep humanity, compassion and authenticity. (More on his work in future posts).

I highly recommend A Star Is Born. Is there anything nicer than finding something you didn’t expect to enjoy, turn out to be a wonderful, enriching experience? I don’t think so. 


[Trigger warning] [Spoiler]: This film should come with a mild trigger warning for suicide.

I chose His Girl Friday as my first film review because it is sheer pleasure. It was one of the very first Old Hollywood films I saw, and I laughed so hard I had to pause the film while I caught my breath – the pace is so fast that if you laugh you’ll miss the next joke. Strap yourself in for the first few scenes – it’s very, very fast and very funny.

The film begins as former reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) shows up at her ex-husband and former employer’s office. With her cloddish new fiancé in tow, Hildy is determined on a life of quiet domesticity – but will she really be happy away from the high-speed world of journalism? Meanwhile, her devious ex-husband Walter (Cary Grant) is pulling out all the stops. He has a few hours to secure the news story of his life, get back his prize reporter Hildy, and persuade her to give their tumultuous relationship another chance. As Walter unscrupulously manipulates everyone in sight, hilarious chaos ensues.