Laurel And Hardy 1931 01

Be Big! Pace is much too slow. Very few laughs in the mix. Not enough happens. 6/10

Laurel And Hardy 1930 07

Another Fine Mess, Thelma Todd. Delightful scenario, with some hilarious interplay between the boys, even before the story gets up and running. Todd is gorgeous and almost steals the movie. Her chemistry with Laurel is fantastic. The ending is weak. 9/10

Laurel And Hardy 1930 06

Murder Case. One of my favourites. A parody of haunted-house murder-mystery films, with some great character gags. A longer running time leads to a slower pace, so it feels more like a feature film than a short. A great pity that it is not. 10/10

Laurel And Hardy 1930 05

Hog Wild. Great setting and relentless gags, often very clever, this one is hilarious from start to finish. 10/10

Laurel And Hardy 1930 04

Below Zero. One of their more melancholy shorts, long on atmosphere and short on gags. The final rain barrel gag is one that I’ve always disliked, but the scenes in the restaurant before it are very funny, and the highlight of the film. 7/10

Laurel And Hardy 1930 03

Brats! Great gags, amazing production values. My only ‘problem’ with it is that the two kids, despite being exact copies of our heroes, effectively take us ‘away’ from the two characters we love and want to see: grown up Stan and Ollie. Odd, I know. But I’ve always felt this way about this particular short. 8/10

Journeyman, Laurel And Hardy, The Nancy Drew Mysteries

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

07:30 Journeyman
12:30 Laurel And Hardy
01:00 The Nancy Drew Mysteries

Journeyman. Episode 13. Dan meets another time-traveller in this final story from the Journeyman series. You can never be happy with the last episode of any show cancelled too soon, but Journeyman does a damn fine job to giving us resolution before it fades away forever. As well as giving us a very strong case-of-the-week for Dan to work on, the show presents Katie with solid temptation to leave Dan (or, at least, make plans for eventually leaving Dan and making a life on her own). It also allows Dan and The Scientist to talk - finally - about time-travel and if we accept Langley's ideas about it all then we have some idea what the show was about, and what the next stage in the series would have been.

All in all, Journeyman was a wonderful, fresh take on the idea of time-travel and it presented the Best Marriage on TV (outside of Friday Night Lights). Despite it's flaws, which were fading away as it stayed on the air, it still ranks as one of the year's best shows. This makes Adam Schubak's attack on the show all the more disheartening. Schubak seems to have missed the point of the show, and sees it only as two love-triangle's. Elements which, while certainly present, have little or nothing to do with the appeal/depth of the show.

Laurel And Hardy. 1930, Film 2. "Blotto" is rightly considered to be on the duo's greatest movies. It starts with Stanley at home with the wife, trying to concoct schemes to get out and meet his pal Ollie for a night on the town. The invention of these first scenes is top notch and the very-beautiful Anita Garvin is a treat as Stan's scary wife. Finally free, the boys enjoy their night on the town with some delightful slapstick as the repeatedly fall foul of the table and the bottle of liquor. It all finishes up with a truly infectuous laughing sequence before Stan's wife catches them and has her revenge.

The Nancy Drew Mysteries. Episode 10. The final solo adventure for Nancy Drew is very good indeed. It breaks with formula by removing Nancy from her supporting cast and relying on co-incidence to set the story in motion. Nancy just happens to be driving by when the police are chasing an escaping man and she hits him with her car. Next morning there is no trace of the accident, and no official mention of the man, or - indeed - either of the policemen that spoke to her at the scene of the accident. So Nancy starts to investigate. A great guest cast, superb location filming and lots of twists and turns make for a superior Nancy Drew mystery. Maybe the best of the run? The ending is a bit of a let-down, however, being a tad simple compared to all that went before it. However, it still stands as a great send-off for the best actress to play the part of Nancy Drew.

Highlight? Journeyman.

Futurama, Laurel And Hardy

Tuesday, December 25th, 2007

11:00 Laurel And Hardy
11:30 Futurama

Laurel And Hardy. 1930, Film 1. "Night Owls" is classic Laurel And Hardy and one of my most favourite of their films. It's got a great story, and lots of great set-pieces. We start off in a police station and learn that Officer Kennedy is under severe pressure to catch some burglars who are robbing houses on his beat. Meeting Stan and Ollie in a park that night, he suggests they help him out: rob a house, so he can catch them and look good. What will happen next?, they wonder. Have no fear, he assures them, Kennedy will fix it all. What follows is masterful slapstick of the boys scaling a wall, being confused by open/closed doors/windows and - eventually - getting full run of the house to steal/destroy as much as they can. Hilarious. I love it.

Futurama. Season 2, Episode 4. One of the best-ever Futurama episodes. It's Christmas-time in the year 3000 and Fry is lonely because of all the friends/family he left behind in the year 1999. But, in the middle of wallowing in his own sorrow, he realises that Leela is even sadder since she never had any friends/family at all in her younger days. So Fry (for all his stupidity) sets out to get Leela a present and show her that she's got someone now.

Futurama is my all-time fave animated show because (in common with sit-com greats like Taxi or Cheers) it's got heart and the characters are very real. Despite all the jokes flying around the writers always write the real emotions of the characters. Bender is an amoral lying thief, but he really does like Fry and they really are best friends. Fry is an idiot, but his love for Leela is very real. The writers have fun with everything else, but they (wisely) never make fun of Fry's feelings. This episode is driven by the fact that he wants to do something sweet for his friend. And the fact that this honest effort to cheer her up inadvertantly brings him out of his own funk makes the episode genuinely sweet and heart-warming. What more could you want from a Christmas episode?

Oh yeah, there's also a Killer Santa Robot on the loose....

Corner Gas, Futurama, Laurel And Hardy, Seinfeld

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

06:00 Seinfeld
06:30 Futurama
12:30 Laurel And Hardy
01:00 Corner Gas

Seinfeld. Season 8, Episode 8. Jerry and Kramer switch appartments. And Jerry begins to act like Kramer. Surely one of the funniest moments ever in the history of the show. Aside from there is the usual tangled web of plotlines involving all of the characters. Elaine and George spend a lot of time together in this episode, he's done something to really annoy her and it's great fun to watch her push him around.

Futurama. Season 2, Episode 12. A weaker-than-usual episode from the Year 3000 Gang. Everyone goes fishing. The ship gets dragged far under the sea and the crew finds The Fabled Lost City Of Atlanta. And that's about it gag-wise. Fry has a love-affair with a mermaid, but laughs are few and far between.

Laurel And Hardy. 1929, Film 6. "The Hoose-Gow" differs from the two films before it by having more of a story and several scenes/set-pieces rather than a multitude of gags built upon one situation. Consequently, I prefer it. And it contains some of my favourite Laurel And Hardy moments. Scene 1 finds the boys arriving in prison, and contains lots of very funny stuff with a guard. Scene 2 finds the boys at work in a Labour Camp with lots of nice slapstick. Confusion of where to sit at meal times follows. Then they managed to chop down a tree with a guard still in it. The final third of the movie is devoted to a visit from the governor (the always funny James Finlayson) and it all degerates into a free-for-all rice-fight. One of my favourites.

Corner Gas. Season 3, Episode 13. Christmas arrives in the quirky town of Dog River just as Lacey decides to head home to Toronto for the holidays. Hank is on a mission to help needy people, while Brent struggles to adjust when his parents switch to a new Tree. Much mileage is gotten from a robot goat (it seems that Trans-Farmer Toys are the In Thing) and there are a lot of laugh-out funny sequences. Most coming from little more than character interaction. There's also a moment of almost-sweetness when Lacey realises that "home" is back with the folks in Dog River. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, but it was there. And it felt very real. Apart from that, it was laughs all the way.

Highlight? Corner Gas

Laurel And Hardy

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

01:30 Laurel And Hardy

Laurel And Hardy. 1929, Film 5. "They Go Boom" is a lot like their previous film. it takes one situation (one setting; one central idea) and generates a multitude of gags. In this case it is 3am: Stan and Ollie are in their appartment and Ollie has a bad cold. Stan attempts to take care of his friend, but manages instead to burst a pipe, spill things over Ollie and incur the wrath of the landlord/police. Amongst other things. As with their previous film, you are never ten seconds away from a good chuckle, but - lacking a great sequence - it's still not one of my favourites.

Laurel And Hardy, Moonlight, Pushing Daisies, Reaper, The Six Million Dollar Man

Sunday, December 9th, 2007

05:00 Pushing Daisies
06:00 Reaper
07:00 Moonlight
11:00 The Six Million Dollar Man
12:00 Laurel And Hardy

Pushing Daisies. Episode 8. "Bitter Sweets" is the most inventive and delightful episode so far. Sparkling dialogue and an unusual world-view make for another wonderful hour of TV. PD grabs you and pulls you into it's world with increased confidence every week. But, this week, the writers play around with the show's formula in many ways. The case-of-the-week is as clever and off-the-wall as ever. But it is dispensed with a quarter of the way in, and replaced with a storyline about duelling stores. Quirky and enjoyable as this is, there is yet another twist furher down the line. Murder and mayhem ensue. Dialogue continues to sparkle. The script successfully places a sub-text and depth to the shenanigans. And it all comes to an end with a humdinger of a cliff-hanger. A real "Wow" moment.

Although Molly Shannon (deservedly) got all the hype for her guest appearance I, personally, was most delighted to see Steve Hytner (of Seinfeld) and Mike White (of School Of Rock) doing hilarious guest turns. Shannon will surely be back, but I wish we could see more of White.

Reaper. Episode 9. "Ashes To Ashes" finds our heroes stealing the ashes of many, many dead people from their relatives homes in (what I think is) the funniest sequence the show has thus far done. The show also expands it's mythology by introducing The Devil's Girlfriend and The Devil's Daugher (possibly). Erratic, crazy Andi only appears for one (awful) scene (I hope the character is ditched) and the show is faster and funnier than it has ever been. This is the second episode where Sam is really starting to appear like a kick-ass hero. Although, I must admit, I wish he hadn't whimpered like a little girl when The Devil sowed his mouth shut. Yes, I'm sure it was awful and terrifying. But, how much cooler would it have been if he'd just stood there eye-to-eye with The Devil (since he is now getting very good at standing up to the jackass on occasion)?

Speaking of being a kick-ass hero-type, didn't all three of them seem quite cool and heroic in those (beautifully filmed) closing shots? All majestic and so-forth against the sky and ocean. If Buffy was about the worth/empowerment of the average teenagers, maybe Reaper should embrace it's destiny and become a show about the worth/empowerment of the geeks and misfits. The writers should ditch Andi, and bring Ted and Russ onto the team full time. How cool would that be?

Moonlight. Episode 2. "Out of the Past" is a huge step-up from the pilot and - suddenly - the show seems like it might be worth watching. David Greenwalt (the genius who worked on awesome shows like Jake 2.0, Buffy, Angel, Jake 2.0, Profit and Shannon's Deal, plus Jake 2.0) delivers a top-notch script where an old foe (from 1983) is released from prison and - knowing that Mick is a vampire - sets out to get revenge on our hero. The script is pitch perfect. The guys plots is simple but very clever and Mick is very well written and played from start to finish. The shows ends with another awesome action sequence and - best of all - it is Beth Turner who saves the days and kills the bad guy before he kills Mick.

I'm not warming to Sophia Myles the acress, however, but Lisa Sheridan (from Journeyman) has a great guest role. I wish she was the love interest.

Since I first read about both shows, I've thought of Moonlight and New Amsterdam as being in the same vein. ("Vein". Ha Ha. Vampire humour.) Now that I've seen both, I see that I was right and wrong in equal measure.

Both shows are about long-living solitary males who (in the pilot) meet their One True Love. So both shows are crime dramas with a fantasy spin and a strong romantic element. But, in terms of appeal, I think they will appeal to different audiences based on their leading men.

Alex O'Loughlin is a great lead for Moonlight. He's also very pretty. And, thus, is probably more of a Woman's Leading Man. While he is very cool in the role, he's not the sort of man that men at home will identify with. And, thus, live vicariously through. While Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, over on New Amsterdam, is certainly very handsome he's not pretty in the way that O'Loughlin is. So, while it's also a very romantic show I think it stands a better chance of being a huge hit in the male demo, because he's more a Man's Leading Man.

Maybe I'm off-based here, but (assuming NA is aired/successful) I predict that it will have a very different fan-base.

The Six Million Dollar Man. Season 2, Episode 15. One of the very best. Dr. Dolenz is back and - this time - he's built a robot of Oscar, Steve's boss.

Good comedy, good magic and good storytelling is all about mis-direction. If you can give the audience information vital to the resolution but disguise it so that it appears to be something else, then you are well on your way towards a successful joke/trick/tale. Steve Austin, the Bionic Man, does not normally wear a bullet-proof vest. Yet, by the end of this episode, he will need one to survive the trap that is set for him. So, the writers must have wondered, how do we get Steve to wear a bullet-proof vest without it being too clumsy and obvious why we need it for the story?

Solution? A new character. Who appears to be there for several reasons. First of all, he appears to be there for comic relief. Secondly, he appears to be there to add character to Steve, Oscar and the inner workings of the OSI. Finally, he appears to be there to give a clue to Steve (with his interactions with Fake Oscar) that something is awry.

And while he serves all of those purposes, he is really there to get Steve to test a vest and that, ultimately, is what keeps him alive when he is led into a trap by Fake Oscar.

This is a superb episode. Virtually flawless. Richard Anderson has never been better. Lee Majors shows off his comedic muscle in several scenes, and gets to play the all-out action-hero in the episode's epic battle sequences. Henry Jones returns to play possibly the best Bad Guy the show ever had. He is such a gentleman. And all his exchanges with Steve and Oscar are so courteous. It's so well performed, so well written. An example of The Six Million Dollar Man at it's absolute best.

Laurel And Hardy. 1929, Film 4. "Perfect Day" is revered as the team's first real classic of the sound era, but it's not a favourite of mine. While it contains scores of wonderful small gags, it doesn't have a single great sequence like the Soda Fountain bit in their previous film. Stan, Ollie, their wives and one grouchy Uncle (wonderful Edgar Kennedy of The Average Man series) try to get the car started and get away for a drive. That's it. There are scores and scores of wonderful small gags and you are never more than ten second from a good chuckle, but it doesn't give me the hearty laughs of some of their best movies.

Highlight? Pushing Daisies.

Journeyman, Laurel And Hardy, Pushing Daisies, Reaper, The Nancy Drew Mysteries

Sunday, December 2nd, 2007

05:30 Pushing Daisies
06:30 Reaper
07:30 Journeyman
11:30 The Nancy Drew Mysteries
12:30 Laurel & Hardy

Pushing Daisies. Episode 7. For once the dialogue didn't sparkle. It seemed contrived and false in the opening scenes and some of the episode that followed was a bit weak, too. Especially the stuff concerning the aunts. I think I'm over them now. They need to be brought into the fold, with regard to Chuck being alive. The case-of-the-week was quirky and interesting, however, but Paul Reubens was underused.

Reaper. Episode 8 is a delightful episode that breaks with formula by giving Sock a whole storyline to himself (and a funny one, at that) while making the human in Sam's case-of-the-week more of a threat than the Escaped Soul out to kill him. This nifty twist at the end was also a great showcase for the way the Devil does things. Sneaky, sneaky. Also, for once, the scenes with Andi didn't bug me that much. Although she still gives me those stalker-vibes (crying and over-reacting when Sam gave her the nice birthday present).

Journeyman. Episode 10 is maybe the most perfect episode of the show yet. Less than a minute into the story and the Bad Guy from last week has broken into Dan's house and shot him in the shoulder. Pow! Now that is the way to open an episode. Next thing, Dan has vanished back to 1980 to (a) get medical aid and (b) help a ten-year old boy who is regularly locked in his house by his agressive father. The episode unfolds with parallel views of 2007 and 1980 as the Bad Guy searches the house for Dan (clever writing) before phoning Dan's wife and luring her back to the house to take her hostage.

Back in 1980, Dan realises that the ten-year old kid is going to grow up to be... the Bad Guy that shoots him in 2007 (amongst other dreadful deeds). Dan (and this is what I love about the show) reacts to this as anyone would. He loses his temper with the kid and contemplates doing something drastic. These are fleeting moments, but they serve to lift the show up and above many mundane series on the air.

Eventually (and I love this, too) Dan just tells the kid that he will grow up and do some terrible things. Thus making this particular case-of-the-week the best the show has done since the Hijacker who stole all the money. I like it because it ties so wonderfully into the 2007 storyline and because it represents a small victory of the type this show does so well. All told, Dan's visit to 1980 accomplishes very little. It manages to defuse the situation in 2007, yes, but the events that led to the hostage siege are still in place (history-wise) at the end of the episode. Maybe the days of Quantum Leap are gone. Maybe the heroes of today can't hope for big victories every time. Maybe Journeyman is a show of our times.

While all this is going on, Olivia travels to 2007 and meets Dan's brother and he finally believes that Dan is a time-traveller. While I applaud the decision to bring him into the fold I am disappointed with the way it was done. There's nothing clever about this method. I much prefer the way things went down in the alternative timeline of the previous episode. In that version of things: the brothers worked it out together and Jack put it all together cleverly based on things that happened in the past. In this version of things, a previously dead character pops up and tells him that his brother is a time-traveller. He has no choice but to believe. So, by doing it this way, they have taken some of the character's power away.

A minor quibble. This is still a fantastic episode.

The Nancy Drew Mysteries. Episode 7. Nancy has never been in safer hands. On one side she has Mark Harmon (who rescued loads of people on 240 Robert two seasons later) and on the other she has Martin Kove (who rescued loads of people on Code R that same season). The story is average, but reasonably well told. Harmon plays a young football player being duped by a syndicate into believing that he has killed a girl. Nancy's friend George sees the con in progress and sets Nancy on the trail of the dead girl (who, of course, isn't dead). The episode tells the stories in parallel. On one side we see Nancy doing her detective work, and on the other we see Harmon's character wrestling with what he thinks he has done and suffering the pains of being blackmailed. At the end of it all Nancy makes quite a leap of logic to put it all together. We know she's right because we've seen all the stuff with the bad guys at work, but if those scenes were edited out I wonder would it flow as smoothly? A minor quibble. It's fun to watch Nancy do her thing.

Laurel & Hardy. 1929, Film 3. "Men O'War" has three set-pieces. The opening scenes in a park shows what happens when Stan and Ollie meet two girls looking for a lost pair of gloves. The boys have found some ladies underwear (very large bloomers!!) and mistakenly believe that this is what the girls are talking about. Some of the dialogue that follows is very amusing. Much better is the second set-piece, which is one of my all-time favourite Laurel And Hardy moments. The boys are trying to treat the girls to some drinks, although they are short of cash. A plan is made, but - of course - Stan fails to follow it correctly no matter how many times they try. Hilarious. Finally, everyone heads out on a row boat. There are lots of fights with other boaters and - by the end - about twenty people end up in the water.

Highlight? Journeyman.

Journeyman, Laurel And Hardy, Pushing Daisies, Reaper, The Six Million Dollar Man

Sunday, November 25th, 2007

06:00 Pushing Daisies
07:00 Reaper
12:00 Journeyman
01:00 The Six Million Dollar Man
02:00 Laurel & Hardy

Pushing Daisies. Episode 6. Once again viewers are drawn into a very strange world. Wonderful and colourful, always delightful, but certainly strange. When a man with four wives is murdered in the most inventive sequence I've seen on TV in quite a long while, suspicion falls upon the four women in question. In a move guaranteed to make fans jump up and down with glee, our favourite three detectives add Olive Snook to the team. Were you jumping up and down with glee? I was.

The balance between case-of-the-week and ongoing-romance has never been better. The case was completely engrossing, and superbly cast. Always great to see Jessica Lundy and how hot was Christine Adams as a foil for Emerson? I hope she returns in future episodes. Together they made for the best Emerson scenes since the pilot. Olive's scenes, however, were more heartfelt and thoughtful. The writers are cleverly using the character to give new perspective on the Ned-Chuck romance, and the case-of-the-week fed into that better than ever before.

Reaper. Episode 7. I'm not trying to come across as some growling Alpha Male here, but - honestly - at this stage Sam's running away from women who are throwing themselves at him is tedious and off-putting. He won't pursue Andi (who is virtually stalking him) and he walks away from this week's guest star who french-kisses him before introducing herself (!!). What's up with this behavior? I'm not sure what the writers are trying to say about Sam, but I'm not getting it. Anyone care to clue me in?

And what is the deal with Andi? Wouldn't any non-stalker have left him alone by now? And wasn't that whole hidden lair of hers really creepy? I thought the popcorn was drugged!!! This is it, I thought, he's going to wake up tied to a large kitchen appliance with Andi eating large clumps of his hair and I'll finally be proven right in my theory that she's just a raving psycho who can't take "No, thanks" for an answer. I've known girls like that. I had to change my phone number once.

The lead characters aside, it was a pretty strong episode. Reaper gives almost no screen-time to the Bad Guys, sometimes they are nothing but FX, but the battles are always inventive and exciting. This week's Bad Guy was played by a real person (not FX): the fabulous Mercedes McNab but she was totally wasted in the role. Her only real scene, at the very end, was brilliant but left the viewer wanting more. Curtis Armstrong was better served by the script. I hope we see him again.

Journeyman. Episode 9 is a curious mixture of things that work very well, and things that really don't work at all. This week's case-of-the-week is much better than average, Livia finally contributes something valuable to Dan's mission, Katie gets some great scenes, so do Dan's son, brother and boss. Heck, even the brother's gorgeous girlfriend is well written. Plus, the show is using it's own continuity to fantastic effect and has, by the end of this episode, established two very different recurring bad-guys. Hurrah!!

Sounds fantastic, right? Well, it is. Up to a point. As engaged as I am by all of that, I am disheartened by the show's playing fast and loose with the idea of changing history. And by Dan's seeming inability to see what effect his actions are going to take. In the pilot, I was impressed by the way he acted like a real person who was time-travelling. Sadly, in this episode, he is behaving just like every other clueless character we have seen undertaking time-travel adventures.

Dan decides to do some stuff that Livia feels is not part of his mission. She warns him of the consequences of changing history. Now, this is all happening in the same episode where, in 2007, Dan has finally convinced his brother that he is a time-traveller. It's obvious to any viewer that by the end of the episode Dan will have undone the events that convinced his brother that he was telling the truth. It should be obvious to Dan, too. In fact, had he twigged to the fact we would have had a truly unique time-travel story: should he let the bad guy kill at girl in 2001 so that his brother might arrest him in 2007? Time/God/Whatever didn't even want him to save the girl. Yet, Dan continued on his off-the-book missin. Without realising that, by saving the girl, he was undoing all the conversations he had with his brother. And, then, at episode's end when he met his brother he seeminly realised for the first time what must have happened. How stupid is Dan, anyway? Stupider than the people watching at home, that's for sure.

Even worse: the writer's cheated anyway with the so-called twist ending. The actual event that changed his brother's mind about him happened in a completely different episode. A completely different episode!! All Dan had to say to Jack at the end of this episode was: "A cappie set a cop on me after I passed a 2003 $20 in 1996!" And - Pow! - Jack would have had the same realisation that he had ten minutes into the episode. By the writers didn't do that. How stupid are the writers, anyway? Stupider than the people watching at home, that's for sure.

But despite that nonsense, the rest of the episode was awesome. Livia did loads of stuff on the mission, her every conversation was valuable and she totally kicked ass when a guy tried to get tough with Dan. Katie, meanwhile, had to deal with her son causing trouble at school and pretending to be just like his father (saving victims from bullies and disappearing from sight around the house). Even better, in a clever piece of writing, Katie's conversation with her son - trying to help him understand what his father does, and how to cope with it - went a long way towards her understand what Dan does, and how to cope with it. Brilliant.

In short, there's was lots and lots and lots to savour in this newest episode of Journeyman. But the dumb bits were really dumb and caused me to beat my head repeatedly against a brick wall. Sure, I enjoyed the show, but now I have a bad headache!

The Six Million Dollar Man. Episode 13 ends the first season with, what is basically, a clip-show. A clip-show with horses. Plagued by mishaps, Steve suspects that someone who knows he is bionic is testing him. This causes him to frequently stare off into space, for as much as five minutes at a time, remembering the good bits from earlier really-good episodes.

Steve is right. Dr. Dolenz (from one of those earlier really-good episodes) is back, and studying Mr. Austin with a view towards building robots based on his design. All of this happens while Steve is staying at a friends ranch. A ranch which has a lot of horses, and a really bad actress. Since the episode is daft and pointless, there is a certain level of pleasure to be had from watching her mangle the awful dialogue she's been given. A certain level, but not much.

Laurel & Hardy. 1929, Film 2. "Berth Marks" has five set-pieces. A funny bit of Stan and Ollie missing one another at a train-station. A clever/funny scene of them causing utter chaos on a train, which ends with everybody in the carriage fighting. A funny sequence of their attempts to get into the top berth in a sleeping compartment. A long, unfunny, slapstick routine set within the confines of the top berth. And it all ends with the funniest part of the movie: not slapstick funny, but laughs generated by the considerable chemistry of these two performers.

Highlight? Pushing Daisies.

Journeyman, Laurel And Hardy, Pushing Daisies, Reaper, The Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Six Million Dollar Man

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

06:00 Pushing Daisies
06:50 Reaper
07:40 Journeyman
11:00 Laurel And Hardy
11:30 The Six Million Dollar Man
12:30 The Nancy Drew Mysteries

Pushing Daisies. Episode 5. The utterly-adorable Olive Snook takes centre-stage when her past comes back to haunt her. This change-of-pace episode shakes up the established formula of the series in a few ways. First, the team of Chuck, Ned and Emerson is broken up and given different things to do. Second, and more important, there is a downplaying of the romance between Ned and Chuck, which could be seen as the cornerstone of the show. These changes makes the episode the freshest and most enjoyable since the pilot and shows that the style and tone of the show are more important than the actual content. Much as I like the Chuck and Ned stuff, we don't need to see them gazing at one another in every episode.

Reaper. Episode 6. Another show that breaks from established formula. This episode of Reaper opens with the capture of an escaped soul. The soul in question cannot be returned to Hell for a few days so he stays around, and becomes a subject of much debate between Sam and Sock. The story ends with Sam showing some backbone for a change. He totally stands up to the Devil in their final conversation, which is cool, and he comes on all badass in the final confrontation with the Soul (in the therapist's office). Seriously. When he sat in the chair, all silent and tough-guy like, he seemed - for the first time - as if he might actually be worthy of the title: "Devil's Bounty Hunter". Not bad.

Journeyman. Episode 8. Not as strong as last week's episode, but -then - that would be very hard. The case-of-the-week is as boring as ever, but the unfolding of events in 2007 is much more entertaining. Katie makes a very important discovery about Livia and the time-expert scientist guy makes another appearence. In fact, lots of elements from earlier episodes come back and you get the feeling that all of this is going somewhere. Fast.

Laurel And Hardy. 1929, Film 1. "Unaccustomed As We Are" was the first sound film from Stan & Ollie and it's got some very funny moments. Everything is a bit stiff and formal at this stage, as everyone gets used to using sound for the first time, but you can't quench the comedy gold of these two when they start doing their thing. The script is very good, too, and moves at fast pace. Ollie brings Stan home as a surprise dinner guest. His wife is far from happy. She storms out. The lady-next-door calls in to sympathise, is dis-robed during a gas explosion (!!) and has to hide when both her husband and Ollie's wife return/arrive unexpectedly. Using this as their framework, the comedy duo create some slapstick. Some is weak, but most isn't. The overall is great fun.

The Six Million Dollar Man. Episode 10. An atypical and forgettable outing for the SMDM. Steve is sent on a straight-forward sabotage mission. Get in, destroy something, get out. And nothing much is added to that framework. The first 15 minutes are an extended training sequence, as Steve undergoes rigourous preparation for the mission ahead. A nice reminder that these were the early days of the Bionic Man and he had to work hard to master his super-powers. The next 15 minutes show his entry into the Bad Guy's vast complex. Lots of opening things and running down long corridors. Steve is captured by the Bad Guy and his team of grey henchment. In the midst of all these grey and boring men is a stunningly beautiful woman. Luckily for Steve, she turns out to be an Interpol Agent working to defeat the Bad Guy. (Makes you wonder why there was need to send Steve in, at all.) She and Steve team-up, they sabotage the Bad Guy and make their escape. An escape route of considerable distance and complexity which, apparently, only takes them five minutes. All leading to an awful final scene where Steve is too busy trying to bed his latest paramour to bother listening to Oscar. That's James Bond, not Steve Austin!

The Nancy Drew Mysteries. Episode 6. Lots of atmosphere, some good guest stars and a compelling mystery make up the sixth Nancy Drew TV story. The gang are on a cruise with a famous mystery writer. Mysterious events start to occur and Nancy deduces that everything is following the story of the writer's contentious first novel. The middle third flags a little (and contains a silly sequence of being haunted by a tape recorder!) but there is a great mystery surrounding the identity of the culprit and the revelation at the end is very satisfying.

Highlight? Pushing Daisies.