Watching: Lots of Twilight Zones from the 1960s and 1980s. I found Burgess Meredith popped up in a few and while he's always of value to each story, I didn't like The Obsolete Man much because its overall message is a bit muddy, with Meredith's Wordsworth character being a Christian who deliberately tricks a man into being killed by the state which Wordsworth supposedly hated - hoisted upon his own petard, I admit, but still a death that is on the hands of the supposedly Christian Wordsworth. That's something I never really liked much in Ben Hur, either - despite being a story about the effect of Christ for the better upon man, the film is unquestionably about Judah's revenge rather than his forgiving Massala's betrayal, though I saw a tv remake a few years back that took the higher ground and had the two forgive each other on Massala's deathbed, which I thought much more in keeping with the original themes even if the rest of the remake wasn't that great. The Charlton Heston version, while a classic, still has Heston's Judah come to the realisation that vengeance is hollow too late to save Massala, who dies still consumed by spite(1), which strikes me as a bit too much having of cake and eating thereof, like those born again types - you know, cunts - who live it up, drinking and drugging and whoring all their lives who then find Jesus and become sanctimonious and preach that no-one else must do what they did even though it worked out great for them. Hmm... I seem to have gone all catholic and judgey about this. Best move on to more intellectual television...
Jane By Design. This is one of those shows which will make any person in conversation with me ask - sensibly - "Bry, you're a grown man, why are you even watching this?", and the plain truth is that while I look through the day's torrent lists for my usual shows, I compulsively grab anything that is "series one, episode one", or "s01e01" as the filenames usually have it as it's the ground floor on something new and you never know, it might be the next Treme or Game Of Thrones. But it's usually the next Vampire Diaries.
Jane By Design is one of those shows where X character accidentally ends up working in Y business because of Z misunderstanding and must navigate Y without people finding out about Z. X usually has a love interest in Y, but there's like complications and stuff which make a relationship problematic, probably. It could be any show from Teddy Z to Ugly Betty, really, and the specifics aren't even important because whatever you think it might be like, you are likely correct, because it does everything I would expect of such a premise and springs no surprises upon me. I think that's why I have no great objections to it, though I'm pressed to think of anything to recommend it.
The Secret Circle - you know how I went all catholic up there about forgiveness and thus by extension it can be assumed I am in favor of not being judgmental? Well screw that, this is a terrible series - kids inherit superpowers from their parents and blah blah blah. It pretty much means running about a house as someone chases them at some point in most episodes. And there's a secret society that kills people with superpowers because of course there's a secret society that knows about superpowers and wants to kill people with superpowers because it is lousy writing 101 that there be a secret conspiracy in there somewhere. I am so fucking sick of secret societies that are secretly controlling events, it is the oldest plot in the world ever at this stage and I hate it and god damn it, I am drawing a line in the sand now - anything - ANYTHING AT ALL - which springs a secret society plotline on me I am dropping immediately.(2)
I also dislike how the writer goes to great lengths to reinforce that these are high school kids before launching into a bit of cheesecake and a sex scene, with a character telling us "I can't have sex with you just now, I have school" before having her clothes magically fall off - no, really - and then presumably PATRICK STEWART SEES EVERYTHING. It's a bit skeevy, and undermines the whole point of having 20-30 somethings playing kids so you don't feel guilty about having boners while you're watching. Erm... which I don't.
Kamen Rider Fourze - the latest installment of the long-running superhero franchise aimed at kids and made in Japan. Either of these elements individually would suggest a rather loud and/or colorful experience is ahead, but apart from an enthusiasm for the ludicrous, the Kamen Rider series - especially the post-90s iterations - have been dark affairs, with the cast massacre of Faiz being the most obvious example of how much further the show tends to go than western kids' programming, though Hibiki's unintentional deconstruction of the oppressive demands of Japanese society upon its youngest members is equally dark, though ultimately life-affirming in a way that made it one of my all-time favorite tv shows. My favorite Kamen Rider series would easily be Kabuto, which - taking place in an alternate 2006 after Tokyo suffers a meteor impact in 1999 that leaves an unknown number of people not killed directly by the blast infected with a body-snatching alien parasite that lays dormant for years until it assumes control of the human host and launches into a killing spree - opens with a fantastic bait and switch by building up a character as a decent everyman type who you really root for, only at the last second to reveal that rather than being the hero of the series, he's actually the stumbling comedy foil of a hateful and arrogant jackass who turns out to be the lead instead. Constantly inventive and never afraid to be ludicrous in the quest to be entertaining - one episode revolves around a cooking battle between Kabuto and an alien worm that can only be resolved by using a magic kitchen knife that contains "the secret of ultimate flavor" - Kabuto is where I'd suggest any newcomers start their exposure to Japanese superheroics rather than the dry Ultraman series, but Fourze is where I suggest your exposure stops, because it is just plain anarchy so far.
Themed after the 40th anniversary of manned space flight, Fourze revolves around a disparate group of high schoolers typical of Japanese culture (rather than common western archetypes) as they join forces against a mysterious cabal of supervillains led by the school's principle and it. Is. Mental.
The change to a group of kids as the force against evil rather than a self-reliant central protagonist toiling in secret is a departure for the series even though its stablemate (they share a timeslot called "Super Hero Time") Super Sentai has been doing it for decades now, but on top of the slow move away from the grim roots of Kamen Rider that began with Den-O introduction of mecha and culminated in W ,'s bonkers premise of two people with different superpowers sharing one body, Fourze is pretty unrecognisable as the Kamen Rider I know, and looks suspiciously like someone sat down to make a parody of Japan, though I have a theory that this being the first post-tsunami series has been a motivating factor in how toothless it seems, because whatever else it may be, it seems deliberately engineered to be affirming in that it's pretty to look at and really pushes the importance of friendship and being decent to each other as paramount even in the environment of a Japanese high school system that is culturally reliant upon the student body to bully its members and ostracize those who are different in order to enforce the idea of conformity and push social norms as being desireable above all else - seeing diversity not just celebrated but elevated as it is here is a huge deal for Japanese kids' telly, and much as it changes something I'm quite fond of into something else entirely, I think this time at least the change is a welcome one.
(1) Which is actually in keeping with the novel where he lives beyond the chariot race and dies at the hands of a spurned lover many years later, having still sought Judah's death in the interim.
(2) Unless it is Hawaii Five 0, because nothing could make me stop watching that short of an episode that is intelligent and thought provoking. I DO NOT LIKE SURPRISES.
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