reviews

Veronica Mars seasons 1 & 2 – Belated TV review time!

September 1, 2015 by Nick Bryan

Veronica Mars is a US TV high school crime show from the mid-2000s, in which a teenage girl in the crime-ridden town of Neptune solves a load of mysteries – both smaller ones to help out her classmates and big-time criminal incidents involving gangs, murders and the like. Helpfully, she’s the daughter of a local private investigator, so she knows the business. I’ve long been aware that this is a very well-regarded show, and as a fan of Buffy, I’d probably like it, but only just got round to watching properly.

I’ve now seen the first two seasons – the third will follow, along with the recent Kickstartered film continuation, but considering this are mammoth 22-episode American network TV seasons, I figured I can probably find enough to say about the first 44 eps to fill up a blog post.

So, let’s investigate this detective.

CRIME CRIME EVERYWHERE (ho ho I referenced a poem)

You can practically smell the mid-2000s.

Make no mistake, this is a strange show to get thrown into. The weird combined aesthetic of standard high-school drama and noir crime show leads to some weird disconnects. No, you’re not hallucinating, there really is a random motorcycle gang hanging around, their leader goes to school with Veronica and this is absolutely normal.

Still, the show commits to its dual aesthetic, giving Veronica a wry narration that doubles as a teen-drama diary-style monologue and the grim neo-noir internal thoughts of a PI. After the first ep, the crime keeps bubbling beneath the surface, so much so that you might wonder if there was constant gang activity at your secondary school as well and you were just too wrapped up in yourself to notice.

The dialogue is very much Buffy-esque super-clever-teenager style, with all of them (especially the main character) jabbering at high speed and referencing more pop culture than many TV shows’ entire Wikipedia pages. This conversational style has been used in TV and film for enough years by now that you know if you find it annoying. I love it, and Kristen Bell delivers the shit out of the quicksmart wisecracks.

It’s true that some of the case-of-the-week mysteries get a little formulaic. You can guess whodunnit a lot of the time simply because the regular cast is so large, there’s only room for one or two thinly sketched suspects. Still, they come up with a great range of high-school-based mysteries for Veronica to investigate, all while regular plots jog along in the backdrop.

They also spend a lot of time on the handling of race/class, more than many “adult” shows I’ve seen. Although they do it in a slightly standard high school drama boxing-people-off-into-tribes way, it’s interesting to see. Maybe more so nowadays, considering a lot of the annoyance around pop culture right now that shows and films won’t address these topics to even this degree.

And, yes, although there are a lot of clever tricks and crime show storylines, it’s still a teen drama which means love triangles, kissing, angst, but they usually punctuate it with shock crime twists and killings. Plus there’s some amazing mid-2000s fashion to admire – it’s like a younger Coupling. (In this way and no other.)

If you (like me) have not seen Veronica Mars and think you might like it, you probably will. It really is great for the most part, juggling loads of characters and plot points with aplomb. Very serialised, very ambitious, and I can confirm that the season-long arc storylines pay off well.

That completes the general review. I’m now going to talk about the actual plots and characters a bit more. This will feature spoilers (though I’ll refrain from revealing the major season-long whodunnits). Still, if you are considering watching the show and want to remain surprised, best stop now.

Season One – “Soap monster!”

She does this expression a lot.

The series dives straight into the heavy, soapy mythology, building confident, comprehensive, detailed montages in the very first episode. A lot of shows might’ve found a less personal mega-arc to lead off with and kept this story, which really unravels a lot of the major characters, until the second year.

But Veronica Mars dives right in and I think it pays off, getting us right on the character’s side with the terrifying rape/murder combined mystery and flashbacks to happier times.

I felt like Duncan never came into his own as a major character as a result of this structure, though. We started when he was already estranged from Veronica and the attempts to dive into his personality often felt shallow.

Again, this is a show with a massive cast and you can’t win them all – Logan’s rich-boy-angst was competing for space with Duncan’s and seemed to always win out. But yeah, I never ‘felt’ Duncan. To be truly honest: for some early eps, I struggled to tell him apart from brief love interest Troy.

The first season of Veronica Mars also hit the unavoidable problem of stripping a murder mystery across loads of episodes: seeming big reveals in the mid-to-late-mid-point of the season end up being obvious red herrings due to their placement in the running order, meaning we never cared as much as the characters. The Killing had a similar problem with ‘That can’t be it, there’s still eight episodes left!’ syndrome.

Still, the eventual ending was great and had a lot of impact, even if I did guess a major chunk of it one episode before the end. A lot of drama and charm, and Veronica’s relationship with her dad Keith was always so damn warm and likable.

Season Two – “Political animals!”

Sorry Duncan, but it’s not me, it’s you.

Perhaps to avoid ‘That can’t be it! pacing issues, season 2 attempted a bigger mystery than a mere murder. This was an epic conspiracy, layers upon layers, meaning they could unveil an individual character’s whereabouts or motivations and it could play into the ultimate storyline in a meaningful way rather than always needing to be a lie.

This worked a lot better at keeping the dramatic tension up, although it never felt quite as personal to Veronica. Also, due to the high level of the conspiracy, a lot of the story arc stuff had to be performed by dad Keith while Veronica focused on the high school mystery of the week. Sometimes seemed weird considering she’s meant to be the hero.

Nonetheless, it was a clever story with enough layers and moving parts to fill the space. I also always enjoy a show that obviously likes playing around in the world it’s created, giving bigger roles to pre-existing characters and bringing back old guest stars.

Yes, my lack of connection with Duncan made the chunk of the season when he was main boyfriend uninvolving at times. Still, this is dramatic television and misery/angst/love triangles are inevitable. I just waited it out.

And then the ending came along. They did a good job of selling it, even though I’d kinda spotted the main baddie reveal coming thanks to a number of hints along the way about that character’s true evil nature. Still, I wasn’t prepared for quite how evil they went with him, not to mention how carefully it was planned and woven into the pre-existing mythology. Gave the finale a real kick.

If I were told to pick my favourite out of the first two seasons, I think I’d struggle. The stakes felt higher in s1, the big conspiracy in s2 wasn’t as personal, but I thought they executed the second storyline better. Your mileage may vary. Feel free to vote for your favourite in the comments below.

And that seems a good note to end a blog post on. More on this very topic in… a month or two, probably, once I’ve seen the final season and movie.

BEST OF 2014 – Top Ten TV

December 31, 2014 by Nick Bryan

I used to be an Internet TV Reviewer, you know. Writing blog-length reviews of TV show episodes, expressing my critical thoughts, trying to be funny without tipping into bitchy snark. I eventually burnt out on sheer volume of critiquing, not to mention it wasn’t justifying the time spent neglecting fiction, but still, I never reviewed purely for attention. I did it because I love the work.

So, I haven’t reviewed a TV series weekly since Game of Thrones season 4 finished in April, but I have run down my top ten TV shows every year since 2012 on The Digital Fix and here in 2013, so I see no reason to stop now. Let’s see this year’s list, which includes The First Ever Non-Fictional Shows To Chart.

#10 – The Fall

Relegated to honourable mentions last year, The Fall jumps to the proper chart for series 2. Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson closes the net around misogynist serial killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan), desperate to stop him before too many innocent women die.

And if that sounds like a lot of other shows, fair enough. The appeal of The Fall is mostly in the execution – the acting (Anderson especially is magnificent, Dornan very strong too), direction and writing are all at a high level, digging into the motivations of everyone involved and making the investigation challenging without the police looking like idiots.

It gives in to a slightly cheap semi-cliffhanger at the end, but The Fall was still amazingly good viewing. And it lets me imagine a final season of Dexter that wasn’t terrible!

#9 – Homeland

At long last, a year or two later than they probably should’ve, Homeland sloughs off Damian Lewis’ Nick Brody and reinvents itself as a spy thriller revolving around Claire Danes as Carrie Matheson. She’s in Islamabad, a new and wholly un-American backdrop, to make her latest morally ambiguous battle with terrorism seem fresher.

Much like the previous season, it starts off slow, but was completely compelling by about halfway through. Claire Danes is still great, but Mandy Patinkin as Saul is what really sold this season for me. His performance during his kidnap plot is gutwrenching, scenestealing work. To be honest, I feel bad not placing this run of Homeland a little higher, but alas, ’twas a competitive year and the final episode was a tad disappointing.

#8 – True Detective

As you may note if you’ve read a lot of these year-end list, most people had True Detective a little higher than I’ve ended up placing it. I’m not saying it wasn’t a fantastic work of technical TV, with Woody Harrelson and the much-praised Matthew McConaughey delivering well-written dialogue pitch-perfectly. Not to mention a considered, atmospheric look and, yes, that astounding unbroken long shot.

But still, this chart is a list of what I enjoyed the most, and although it was well done, there were long stretches when I felt I was admiring True Detective rather than enjoying it. Not to mention, yes, I am one of those people who found the ending a bit of an anti-climax. Still nicely done, but after all the slow, slow build, I was hoping for more actual incident. So here it lies at #8, falling just short of…

#7 – Doctor Who

It’s only climbed one place since last year, but that doesn’t convey the extent to which I feel Doctor Who has improved in its eighth series. It mostly just represents the scale of the competition. So yeah, this was Peter Capaldi’s first series in the part, and I thought probably the best since the first Matt Smith run, restoring a little mystery, fun and drama to the whole affair.

It helped that (perhaps bruised by scathing criticism last year), showrunner Steven Moffat and his writers were clearly determined to retool Jenna Coleman’s Clara into a character with the depth to carry the show. Some said this resulted in a run focused on the assistant to the detriment of the hero, but series seven was more about the Doctor, and it just felt rambling and ungrounded as a result.

This one had some heart, plus a compelling arc around Missy. The Christmas special wasn’t bad either – albeit marred by obvious rewriting at the end after Coleman changed her mind about leaving.

#6 – Brooklyn Nine Nine

Brooklyn Nine Nine coming in here means True Detective isn’t even the highest ranking police-based show on the list. The American mainstream sitcom genre ran a little dry lately, so a new one coming through with the right combination of wacky jokes, character banter and real feelings is always a cause for celebration.

Will we end up hating Brooklyn Nine Nine when it reaches season eleven and we’ve heard all its jokes a thousand times? I’ll be honest, I can’t rule it out, but for now, it’s so nice to have a new, assured, reliably uplifting comedy in town, I’ve given it a generous placing. Captain Holt alone (the amazing Andre Braugher) would probably get this into the list somewhere. Oh, and the first season is just up on UK Netflix.

#5 – Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle

The first ever non-fictional show to appear on this annual list (although not the last one this year) is Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, a one-man stand-up show featuring the so-called comedian’s comedian talking at extreme length about the topic of the week. After a year or two to get the format right, they’ve found the confidence to just show one man talking for the whole episode, with only a slightly different man to break it up.

Lee’s grim, knowing, deadpan humour is not to everyone’s taste, obviously, but again, this is my list, and as far as I was concerned, this was one of the most successful TV exercises of the year. Absolutely nailed all its targets, and having Chris Morris as Lee’s main interrogator was the icing on the cake.

#4 – Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones must surely be one of the most successful TV shows in current Western society. The epic saga of Kings fighting Kings to be King, with some Queens and some incest, and god knows what else. This wasn’t actually their best year to date, there was some slack plotting as characters clearly just killed time waiting to get somewhere, and also a confusing rape scene that just made certain character arcs harder to grasp.

Still, here it is at #4, because even when the characters are rambling along, the dialogue, acting and moment-to-moment storytelling is always great. Not to mention, whenever Game of Thrones hit a big set-piece scene (Joffrey’s wedding, the Viper’s big fight, the invasion of the Wall, Tyrion’s trial, the final few scenes of this season), they utterly nailed it. Great show, still one of the most watchable things currently running. I await season five with interest, as we’ve finally finished book three and now, surely, entirely new things gotta happen?

#3 – Last Week Tonight

Not too long after our first ever non-fictional show, here comes the second. Last Week Tonight is HBO’s vehicle for John Oliver, freshly poached from The Daily Show and ready to show us what he’d do if given a desk, some graphics and the chance to be sarcastic about the news.

Well, after a few weeks to find his feet, Oliver has settled on his offering – long-form investigative journalism that takes dry subjects and somehow makes them intriguing, funny and accessible. For sheer cultural impact this year among leftie internet types, Last Week Tonight may be unparalleled in TV terms.

Not to say it’s a flawless venture – in particular, the fun-video segments thrown in to break up long spells at the desk often fall a little flat or overstay their welcome. But when this show works, it really works. And I’d say that even if I didn’t have a lot of affection for John Oliver from The Bugle.

#2 – Hannibal

When I wrote last year’s Top Ten TV, Hannibal landed at #2 and I was confident, with the mighty Breaking Bad gone, it would ascend to the #1 spot in 2014. As you can see, that hasn’t happened. However, Hannibal remains one of the most uniquely stylised, strange, funny, scary, charismatic dramas on TV. It clearly lives about six feet up itself, but it always has a sense of humour about both that and the horrible things it does to its characters.In short – yes, Nick Bryan likes a bloody dark comedy. Surprising.

Still, Hannibal had another great year developing its universe further, making major changes to the show’s set-up but still remaining fundamentally recognisable. Intelligent, self-referential and with a magnetic central performance from Mads Mikkelsen as the cannibal himself. Oh, and it finished off its second season with the other big thing that makes me like a TV show – an absolutely killer cliffhanger that didn’t feel unearnt or cheap. Bravo. Can’t wait for season three.But it still isn’t at the top, thanks to the arrival of…

#1 – Orange Is The New Black

Every so often, a show arrives that works in every way, has a huge and varied cast yet almost no weak spots, good acting across the board, minor characters that are almost as compelling as the supposed lead.

In 2014, Orange Is The New Black was that show. It was the best, most absorbing and affecting thing I saw this year, bar none. Netflix gets a lot of good press for their original content, but even if the rest of it was garbage, the creation of this series would probably justify the entire initiative.

From the writer of Weeds and starring so many good people that I feel bad singling anyone out, Orange Is The New Black is funny, addictive and brilliant. I watched both seasons this year, which may explain why it’s had such a particular impact upon me, but the 2014 season was excellent. Even the mostly-absence of major character Alex (apparently for schedule/contract reasons rather than a desire to quit) didn’t slow them down much, and it seems she’ll be back in a bigger way next season.

I was particularly impressed with the direction of Piper in season 2 – for much of the first one, I thought she’d end up becoming one of those lead characters who was the worst thing in their own show, but they’ve really made her work, simply by allowing her to grow believably, rather than keeping her as a tedious static anchor. They’ve also introduced a new character who is basically Piper from when she first arrived, to hammer home that contrast.

Amazing show. If you have Netflix and haven’t seen it, I recommend rectifying that. If you don’t have Netflix, consider signing up for the free month just to hammer through Orange Is The New Black.

Honourable Mentions

My prime honourable mention this year is Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, definitely #11 in the list. It improved by leaps and bounds after the dull first two-thirds of season 1, and at this point, midway through season 2, is close to becoming the espionage-with-superpowers show we all hoped it would be. The Walking Dead also had a very good year.

Other nearly-almosts were Orphan Black, Sherlock and House Of Cards – I watched both seasons of House Of Cards this year, liked the first one a fair bit, but it just fell apart in season 2 for me. With the exception of a couple of exciting episodes around the beginning and end, there were no interesting characters left and watching it was a chore. Oh, and The Newsroom might’ve crept in with its final season if the second half were as good as the first.

And that, at last, really is that. Wait, one last shout-out for Arrow, which I didn’t include in the list as I’ve barely seen any 2014 episodes, but season 2 especially is just stellar. If you have any affection for superheroes, or action-driven TV in general, check it out. Looking forwarding to starting The Flash soon too.

Okay, I’m finished now. I swear. That was 2014! Let’s all move on with our lives!

BEST OF 2014 – Books

December 29, 2014 by Nick Bryan

My original plan, as threatened in last week’s podcast/film/music summary, was to dig into my favourite books and comics of the year in this single post. However, due to circumstances beyond my control (me banging on for too long), I am going to leave this one with just the books and return to the comics at a later date. Probably quite a soon later date, as I still harbour the ambition of getting these blog posts out before 2014 itself ends, and I still gotta do the TV as well.

If you want to see how my tastes have evolved, you can consult the 2013 equivalent of this blog post. For now, though, let’s dig into the best printed prose stories of the year, most of which I read digitally.

YA – Why, eh?

My major shift in books-direction this year was to start reading YA, because I’ve begun to socialise with a lot of YA-likers and also (inevitably) started to wonder if I could write it myself. So, if anyone else wants a good entry point, I’ll lay out the best of my mostly-scifi/fantasy sampling.

I’ve read The City’s Son and The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock, the first two in his Skyscraper Throne trilogy set in a fantastical London. Although the first one is a strong opening adventure that set out a potentially fascinating world, the second was a year-highlight, a genuinely excellent emotional journey through cool concepts that I’d recommend to anyone. Must track down the third one. (By which I mean: I’ll buy it when it gets cheaper on Kindle.)

Elsewhere in the YA exploration, Pantomime by Laura Lam is a lovely, fragile book about Micah Grey, a teen coming to terms with his own identity under confusing circumstances – and also set in a circus. Control by Kim Curran is the sequel to her alternate-reality-wrangling scifi book Shift, and in a similar way to the Tom Pollock series, the first one does some interesting world building, but the second is the one which really made me pay attention. Happily, the third and final part is coming soon.

Also read The Curse Workers trilogy by Holly Black, about magical con-men, and although they never quite top the excellent first book, it’s all an exciting adventure.

At the younger end of the target-age spectrum, but also among the most excellent: Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens is a mega-likable school detective story and Close Your Pretty Eyes by Sally Nicholls is beautifully characterised and creepy. Very creepy.

Aged To Perfection

I’m going to creep back towards adult novels now, via the bridging method of fantasy author Joe Abercrombie. I read the last two books in his adult trilogy The First Law, as well as his new YA book Half A King this year and all were great. The biting wit and intense adventure are strong across the board.

Tore through The Cormorant, the most recent in Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black supernatural crime series too, and it’s the best one yet. The first two were fun adventures, but this third part was blow-me-away good, and I’m pleased to hear it should be continuing this year with Thunderbird. His urban fantasy book The Blue Blazes was fun too.

I also read Feed by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) and although I’ve not read her work before, I did enjoy the combination of genuinely creepy horror plotting and someone writing about the internet/blogging in a way that suggests they actually understand it. All too rare.

Getting into sundry other territory now, I also liked:

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, a sweet robot-romance by Cassandra Rose Clarke
Fight Or Flight by Chele Cooke, the second in her Out Of Orbit scifi adventure series
Deadlines, a weekly newspaper-crime serialised thriller by Chris Brosnahan
Gun Machine, a heavily armed crime novel by noted comic writer Warren Ellis
Mayhem, Jack-The-Ripper-esque gritty crime by Sarah Pinborough.

Phew. I read a lot of books this year, and that was just over a third of them.

I refrained from listing my own book, as that seemed like supreme arrogance, but if you want to see The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf on a similar list, you can head on over to Nimbus Space here. Just popping that in. Coming soon: the comics!

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) – Thoughts On A Book

August 26, 2014 by Nick Bryan

Just finished reading The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first crime effort by J.K. Rowling, best known for being written under the pen name of Robert Galbraith and concealed for a short period. Eventually, of course, the truth emerged, and although the fun ended, sales went through the roof.

But plenty already written about that, and sequel The Silkworm was released recently with the unsecret identity still in place. I read The Cuckoo’s Calling as if it were a story (and in many ways, it is), how did it hold up? What thoughts did I have? (Some mild spoilers, though nothing explicit really.)

The Casual Cuckoo

First up, for anyone who found The Casual Vacancy a bit of a rambling polemic, this second adult effort is much more story-shaped. In fact, compared to her other work, it’s unusual how heavily it buys into and works within genre conventions.

Rowling/Galbraith does a good job of populating said story with strong characters and memorable personalities. With so many people under the Suspect category, each getting one or two scenes to shine, it helps having all be memorable and easy to define. Although, even with Rowling’s gift for the easy-to-place personality, I did feel a few tugs of “Wait, which one was that again?” by the end.

Because, yes, this book is very long. And I say this as someone who thought most of the Harry Potter books were a fair enough length. (Except Order of the Phoenix, that was ridiculous.)

The Doom Bar’s Calling

The mystery itself is a well-drawn, believable one, armed with fun twists and turns to keep us guessing. Maybe could’ve used a midway mega-twist to keep everyone excited through all that length, but the resolution remained satisfying.

Lead gumshoe Cormoran Strike gets plenty of depth and development, plus amusing drunk moments. He also drinks Doom Bar, a respectable ale.

Basically, it felt like many good origin-of-series stories (see also: the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and last weekend’s Doctor Who Capaldi debut) – focusing on introducing the lead character and putting them through a standard storyline, psyching us up for when they face a more terrifying threat next time.

And it did a decent job, although (again much like that Who episode), it probably didn’t need to be quite as long to achieve that. Definitely worth a look if you like J.K. Rowling or a good meat-and-potatoes murder mystery.

(And yes, I’m aware that this book does demonstrate a more-than-slight resemblance to my own Hobson & Choi books in the early chapters, although that does clear up in later days. The dangers of following the same genre-lines.)

Best of 2013 – Books and Comics Edition

December 23, 2013 by Nick Bryan

I’m off home for Christmas tomorrow, I should be packing a bag, so it seemed an ideal time to type up the second installment of my 2013 cultural intake summary! This time: Books and Comics!

If you want to see my movies, music and podcasts of choice, that was last week. TV to follow next, once I’ve formed an opinion on the Doctor Who Christmas special.

But first, it’s time for stories told in page format. From a wide perspective, the big development this year was my moving entirely digital in both these areas. I can comfortably read digital comics on my widescreen monitor (though if anyone wants to buy me a tablet for Christmas, don’t let me stop you), and started properly using my Kindle all the time. It’s great, my room is much less drowning in paper. But what was I reading, exactly?

Books

A Dance With Dragons - George R.R. Martin

My biggest single reading project this year: consuming most of the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin – the books being adapted as Game of Thrones on the telly. I finished the second book just after Christmas last year, and am coming to the end of the most recent volume now.

I’m not a huge epic fantasy person, but I have enough sci-fi/fantasy tolerance to deal with the tropes and detailed worldbuilding moments, and the the real hook of these books is the characterisation, the way everyone has a motivation and an angle. If you enjoy the sprawling scope of the TV show and want more, then believe it or not, there’s loads more characters in the books. Now, I can join in waiting for Martin to write the next one, which sounds like a damn good party.

Going way back in the past to established literary classic territory, I also read The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, which was short but perfectly formed, a nice balance between black humour and the genuinely disturbing. Also The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which is every bit the tearjerker you’ve heard. The trailer for the film still makes it look awful though.

Consumed A Serpent Uncoiled by Simon Spurrier and London Falling by Paul Cornell, both by comic authors whose work I’ve enjoyed, both great stuff with unique voices on the crime genre. London Falling has a sequel coming and has recently been optioned for TV, all good news.

Also: The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling, ultimately rewarding but very slow to get going. The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie was an excellent action-heavy introduction to a fantasy universe and I’ll be continuing the trilogy very soon. Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig married a cool concept onto a memorable character with style.

That’ll probably do – and yes, I’m aware none of those books came out in 2013. If you want a complete list of my reading, complete with star ratings, I keep my Goodreads profile fairly up to date.

Comics

2013 saw me re-enter reading comics in the biggest way for a while. The biggest reason for this is probably the rise of digital, finally bringing new comics down to a price I was actually willing to pay. I was also put on to a few interesting new books – the best of these was probably Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark, about a seemingly unkillable warrior in a future universe of warring families, struggling with herself both inside and out.

Just as reliably good was the longer running Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory, in which a detective investigates messed up crime and food-based superpowers. I finally caught up with that book this year, and although I’ve now fallen behind again, it remains a fun, surprising and blackly hilarious bundle of joy.

I also read the first volume of Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra’s The Manhattan Projects – more overtly sci-fi than I often go, but a lot of ideas and clever plots being thrown around and I imagine I could get a lot of re-reads out of that. Imagine an aggressively adult Doctor Who.

I read a few bits by Kieron Gillen this year too – his Journey Into Mystery for Marvel and Phonogram for Image with Jamie McKelvie. JiM probably spoke more to me personally, but the craft on display in Phonogram is undeniable. Next stop: Young Avengers.

It never feels like I’m properly reading comics unless I’ve got something by Garth Ennis on the go, and currently it’s Hitman, his 90s series for DC about a superpowered contract killer in the superhero universe of Superman and Batman. Once again, a brilliantly executed black comedy with a real human heart. I always like those.

Superhero-wise, I’ve mostly been reading random snippits from Comixology sales, but Superior Spider-Man has been consistently great and I’ve also just checked out All-New X-Men and the current Wonder Woman, both of which make old icons seem impressively new and interesting.

Lastly, and as a reward for anyone who read this far, one of my favourite comics of the year is available free online (and in print, if you like paper books) – Crossed: Wish You Were Here is a free weekly webcomic which makes a zombie-esque Apocalypse seem tense, human and horrific in a way I’d almost forgotten they could. Written by the earlier-mentioned Simon Spurrier, it’s really good. His X-Men: Legacy run is worth a look too, and the firmly surreal mini-series Numbercruncher.

That blog post was way longer than I intended, but the list still seems frustratingly incomplete. Dammit. Still, I must pack those Christmas presents now. Take it easy, blog-readers. I might manage some kind of Christmas broadcast on here before the big day, but if not, hope it’s great.

Best of 2013 – Movies, Music and Podcasts Edition

December 18, 2013 by Nick Bryan

As half-predicted in last week’s WriteBlog, my fiction-writing has slowed to a standstill thanks to festive distractions and an inconvenient cold. I’m just about keeping up with Hobson & Choi commitments, but aside from those, all quiet.

So, both to keep this blog ticking over and because I genuinely love reviewing stuff, I’m going to do a few posts about stories, shows and stuff I enjoyed during 2013. These are in no particular order and may involve items released pre-2013 that I’ve only just got round to dealing with, though I’ll try to keep those to a minimum.

This time out: movies, music and podcasts. Subsequent posts will cover books, comics and TV.

Movies

My film viewing has been slack, so this shouldn’t be a long segment. My favourite film from 2013 was Django Unchained, released on January 10th in the UK, so it does count. The ending ran a bit long, but I enjoyed the characters and knowing meta-Western aesthetic a lot. Christoph Waltz was as amazing as everyone says, but no-one was bad in this movie. Well, except Tarantino during his cameo.

Elsewhere, I didn’t even keep up with superhero movies that well – not seen Man of Steel or The Wolverine – but Iron Man 3 was excellent, one of the best Marvel movies bar Avengers and maybe the first Iron Man. Heavy on character and light on costumed punch-ups, but I think we’re all getting a bit numb to shiny fights anyway.

Speaking of which, Thor: The Dark World was decent superhero fun-action, but we’re so saturated with these films at the moment, “decent” isn’t necessarily enough to make a huge impact. Still, it was enjoyable and didn’t let the side down.

The World’s End was a fun cap-off to the Cornetto trilogy that has been rumbling through my entire adulthood; Zero Dark Thirty has already been reviewed on this very blog, and was compelling and light on triumphalism; I finally saw The Hunger Games just as everyone else watched the sequel and it did a great job of capturing what I liked about the books and converting the unfilmable parts into film.

Also saw Looper and yes, that was a dynamic, entertaining sci-fi movie, although maybe I’ve watched too much Doctor Who to be totally blown away by time travel mindscrewery.

Music

This should be even shorter as I’ve dropped out of current music almost entirely – Frank Turner released Tape Deck Heart, which was listenable and stayed on rotation for a while, but the new Arcade Fire lasted even longer, especially once I cut out the draggy second and third tracks. Seriously, try it yourself if you’re struggling to get into Reflektor – cutting We Exist especially makes a difference.

The Duckworth Lewis Method debuted Sticky Wickets, their second cricket-pop album. Yes, I’m aware songs about cricket veer into novelty music territory, but since half the band is indie-pop maestro Neil Hannon (of The Divine Comedy), it was still excellent, catchy work. Recommended, especially if you’ve enjoyed Hannon’s stuff in the past.

Finally, we dive full-on into the novelty music vortex, as both of the former Amateur Transplants duo released new parody albums in the last few months. Adam Kay’s album Specimens features more inventive offensiveness, whereas Suman Biswas’s Still Alive After Amateur Transplants is catchier and longer. Both are good purchases if you enjoyed their previous work, or Weird Al-style word-swapping pun-parodies in general.

Podcasts

The podcast champion of this year is probably satirical-surreal mocknewscast The Bugle, even though it always is and they’re almost too obvious a choice. The schedule was patchy at times this year, probably due to John Oliver’s increasing stateside celebrity, but news stories like the US government shutdown and the UK’s huge pig semen exports meant they were always on form when they did release.

Elsewhere, I subscribed to Welcome to Nightvale like everyone else in the geekosphere, and yes, it is excellent. Creepy, funny, endearing, generally lovely. Perhaps less predictably, I also listened to the entire backlog of Me1 vs Me2 Snooker with Richard Herring. It’s an acquired taste, perhaps best kept for when you’re also doing something else, but I got strangely into it.

Daniel Ruiz Tizon, South London’s master of darkly comic melancholy, seems to have put his Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available podcast on hiatus for now. However, he did also write and star in The Letter for Resonance FM, a tragicomic series of monologues that distilled the best of his recent work into a single run. If you’ve never tried his stuff before, this is definitely the one to go for, and if the end of his regular show means more work like The Letter, I will have to grin and bear it.

Finally, I listen to a few podcasts about comics, the best of which continues to be House to Astonish, dissecting recent comic book news and releases with exactly the right levels of fannish enthusiasm, cynicism and good humour. I also picked up Silence! this year, which also has good thoughts, analysis and chat. And yes, despite reading largely American comics, I only seem to like comics podcasts hosted by British folks.

Not entirely a podcast, but the makers of Alternate Cover also released a sci-fi sitcom called A Brief History of Time Travel this year, which is worth a look if you enjoy the Hitchhiker’s Guide/Red Dwarf Brit sci-fi comedy genre.

And that is it for now. Hopefully there’s stuff in there you haven’t already seen and might consider giving a shot. If I’ve missed anything of note, let me know in the comments below – especially in the podcast category, always looking for more good listening. I shall return in the near future to cover another category or two – probably Books & Comics unless plans change.