Wednesday, 25th November, 2009
08.00 The Good Wife
09.00 V
02.00 Barney Miller
02.30 Black Beauty
The Good Wife. Episode 6. "Conjugal"
The best stuff here details the complexity of the relationship between Alicia and Peter as she agrees to a "conjugal" visit as a cover for some case talk.
V. Episode 4. "It's Only The Beginning"
That episode title sounds like a threat to the viewers. The show's mini-season (of four episodes) ends with more of the same bland nonsense that took us this far.
Ryan stands out for being kinda cool and interesting.
Tyler stands out for being very stupid and possibly the worst teenager I've ever seen on a genre show. He's a moron and I hope his death is slow and painful.
Barney Miller. Season 2, Episode 2. "The Social Worker"
The finds a way to involve Barney's wife in a story by sending her to a rough neighbourhood and making Barney worry. It's a lame way to keep her in the show, but it reminds us that this show is set in a gritty, real world and not a sitcom world.
Black Beauty. Episode 2. "The Hostage" A fugitive takes Beauty hostage.
Darker and much better than the first episode, with John Thaw giving a superb performance as a fugitive who takes refuge in the barn.
It's a surprising episode in all the things that it does not do. And I enjoyed it much more than I was expecting to.
While Vicki is very much the main character in the show, she doesn't really do a whole lot in this episode and most of the heroics are left up to her brother Kevin.
Black Beauty, the nominal star of the show, also doesn't do a heck of a lot. He's an integral part of the story, of course, but it's really the story of the escaped convict and Kevin.
The story and the casting are terrific. John Thaw doesn't play the character as sympathetic or likable at all, in fact he comes across as a real brute, but as the story moves into it's second half and we get to hear his back story (he was stealing to feed his wife, who has since died) our perception changes slightly. He speaks very briefly of poverty and the sort of life that Kevin, the son of doctor, would never understand and Thaw makes it work superbly because he plays it in a very unsympathetic way. Even when we hear of his sad life, the guy remains a dangerous brute, and that - more than anything - allows us to believe in him as real and - ultimately - have sympathy for him.
The ending of the story is a bit cliché. Kevin is injured while trying to help the man, and he has to choose between leaving the fallen boy or turning back to help (and risk getting caught).
Highlight? Black Beauty (dark)
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The Good Wife, V, Barney Miller, Black Beauty
