Saturday, August 8th, 2009
5.00 Scrubs
5.30 Perfect Strangers
10.00 Hammer House Of Horror
11.00 Black Beauty
Scrubs. Season 8, Episode 6. "My Cookie Pants" Elliot freaks put trying to plan a romantic night for JD. Cox gets offered Chief Of Medicine. JD confronts 'Jo' on her lack of compassion.
I'm starting to like 'Jo' a little bit. Starting to like the story arc that they have her on.
This is a great episode. The Scrubs signature moment (where JD makes a point, and all three plots reach the same pivotal question/moment/whatever) is beautifully realised here.
The ending, where JD arrives home to be greeted by an unglamourous Elliot, is wonderful and romantic and sweet. Let's face it: he's loved this girl for years, all he really wants is to arrive home and find her there, waiting for him...
Perfect Strangers. Season 2, Episode 6. "Babes In Babylon" Vegas!!
The first half is pure comedy, as we see Balki adjusting to the luxuries of Vegas. The second half veers towards seriousness as Larry is revealed to have a gambling problem. Unusual for PS there are several minutes of dialogue at the roulette table that aren't funny. It positively drags as the actors are forced to serve the story and establish Larry's 'problem'. After that, it's a mad chase as Balki steals the chips and Larry vows to get them back.
So, a great start and a great finish, with a big sag in the middle.
Hammer House Of Horror. Episode 2. "The Thirteenth Reunion" Fat Farm & Undertakers.
The horror bits work great, but the story is all over the place and (despite what they repeatedly tell us) the heroine isn't overweight.
Julia Foster (of The Wilde Alliance) plays a reporter in this one. Her editor tells her she is putting on weight (when she clearly isn't!!) and packs her off to a Fat Farm that they've just had a letter about. Seems that this place will help people lose weight, but at severe cost to their self-esteem. James Cosmo is superb in the scenes at the Fat Farm. His character bullies the people there with considerable verbal abuse and there is one absolutely superb scene where he brings one poor woman to tears in front of her group.
A third of the way into the story, the Fat Farm disappears from the narrative and our heroine is now on the trail of mysterious undertakers who seems to be targeting and killing certain people for some unknown client. The reporter even acquires a sidekick for this portion of the story. A plucky young undertaker who alerts her to all of this when one of her friends, from the Fat Farm, dies in mysterious circumstances.
Then, in it's final third, the story veers in a completely new direction. Again. This time, our heroine finds herself at a stately home in the company of a very strange group of rich people. It is only in these final minutes that we find out what the story is actually about, and this portion has all the horror of the tale. Wisely, most of it is left unseen and therefore it is successfully unsettling.
The fact remains however that Julia Foster is sadly miscast as an 'overweight' reporter and the story meanders too much for my liking. To make this work, for me, they would need to introduce the group of rich people much sooner, or find a way to set the whole story at the Fat Farm and tie things up in a less messy fashion.
Black Beauty. Episode 1. "The Fugitive" Vicky finds an injured horse shortly after her father moves the family to a quiet village.
18-year-old Judi Bowker makes a fantastic impression in this opening episode of the classic adventure series. An episode with a very strong story and good character work on the bad guys, as well as Vicky and her family.
Vicky is a great central character. Her passion for the horse, and for justice in general, shines through and it's impossible not to like her as the story unfolds. Judi Bowker and William Lucas have great chemistry and he seems like the perfect father.
The story opens with a 'bad guy' being brutal to horses. This is what causes Black Beauty to run away, where he is found by Vicky. As the story unfolds the 'bad guy's' uncle falls ill. Now, while it is clear that there is no great love lost between nephew and uncle, the script (by Ted Willis) wisely pulls back from making the characters completely 'black'. Sure, he's a brute and a thug, but he's not a cartoon villain, and he shows no desire to see his Uncle die any sooner so he can take over the business. Little touches of logic like that keep the show firmly rooted in reality and mean that it's not just an 'adventure' tale, but it's also a quality piece of 'drama'.
Highlight? Scrubs (romantic and sweet)
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