Labyrinth Fans Are Likely To Be Thrilled Enough By The Jareth Pop! Vinyl!

The Good: Good sculpt, Decent coloring, Collectible value
The Bad: Problematic seam under the head, Lack of articulation
The Basics: The Pop! Vinyl Jareth figure is likely to be a generally pleasant surprise for Labyrinth fans, though it is not the best-made vinyl figure ever.


My wife is a huge fan of the works of David Bowie, which she very much brought me around to early on in our relationship. One of her favorite films is Labyrinth and in trying to decorate our space together, I have found that the years I have on her were spent well with acquiring collectibles and now I'm working to catch my wife up. As it turns out, there is not a whole ton of Labyrinth merchandise out there, but most of it actually does feature Davide Bowie's iconic character Jareth the Goblin King. One of the newer pieces of merchandise I have found for her growing Labyrinth collection is the Funko Pop! Vinyl Jareth figure.

For those unfamiliar with Jareth, he is the primary antagonist in Labyrinth (reviewed here!). Having kidnapped Sarah's baby brother, Jareth returns to his castle at the center of the Labyrinth where he holds the baby ransom. Sarah has a time limit to get through the Labyrinth before Toby will be the Goblin King's forever. In the process, Jareth falls in love with Sarah and wants her to join him.

The Pop! Vinyl Jareth figure is stylized, but otherwise generally well-rendered and anyone who has seen how David Bowie as Jareth looked will recognize this character. This looks like a caricature version of Jareth with a significantly larger head than is appropriate.

Basics

Jareth is the Goblin King in his casual outfit that he wears when walking around the Labyrinth. The figure stands 4 5/8" tall, from his feet to the top of his spiky hair. Jareth is dressed in a purple, black, and gray outfit with his spiked hair, recognizable brooch and belt buckle and undershirt molded on.

This toy is a decent sculpt for the stylized version of the Goblin King, which includes things like the pant cuffs folded up, the tiny studs on the jacket's wrist and lapel. The sculpt is brought down a little bit by the head of Jareth. Jareth looks recognizable-enough (it could be pretty much any hair band Pop! Vinyl by the mouthless sculpt), but when the Jareth Pop! Vinyl figure is out of the package, there is a troubling seam under the head. The head, which only turns ten degrees, it attached to the body by what seems to be a plug, like the figure was made with a different head, which was then removed and a new one stuck on. It is comparatively sloppy and that is a bit disappointing for die-hard fans. Funko almost makes up for that with the riding crop that Jareth is holding in his right hand. Jareth's jacket tails are well-sculpted in a soft, rubbery plastic that accents the figure nicely.

The coloring of the Jareth Pop! Vinyl figure is wonderful, in its basic way. There are no subtleties to the coloring, but Funko did paint all of the accents on the figure. The belt buckle, amulet, and studs are all painted to offer contrast with the monotonal jacket, pants and shoes. On Jareth's face, there is the cat eye make-up that Jareth had, which is accurate.

Accessories

Jareth, despite holding a riding crop, is not actually adorned with any accessories; this is a Funko Pop! vinyl figure on its own without a stand or any additional elements to the figure.

Playability

The Pop! Vinyl toy line is a stylized version of Jareth that stands all right, despite its giant head. Outside the head, none of the joints are in any way articulated. The head turns only a few degrees, but it acts more like a statue than an action figure.

Collectibility

The Jareth is part of the Pop! Vinyl Movie collection. Despite my not being grabbed by the concept of the stylized figures, other people seem to like them and this is #364 in the ever-expanding line of Pop! Movie vinyl figures. Because there are so few pieces of Labyrinth merchandise, the Jareth Pop! Vinyl figure has, at least, maintained its value since it sold out in the primary market.

Overview

The Pop! Vinyl Jareth toy is all right, but the sloppiness in its construction is a little disappointing compared to the quality of the sculpt and coloring.

For other Labyrinth merchandise and Pop! Vinyls, please check out my reviews of:
NECA 12" Talking Jareth Figurl
Toy Vault Plush Worm
2014 Comic Con Exclusive Blood-Splattered Sharknado Pop! Vinyl

6/10

For other toy reviews, please check out the Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Agent Dale Cooper's Horrific Version Of The Odyssey: How David Lynch Thrilled And Disappointed Twin Peaks Fans!

The Good: Most of the acting, A lot of good direction, Moments of engaging plot, Basic concept
The Bad: The end (seriously, way to piss on your legacy, David Lynch!), Drifts and tangents that go nowhere, More information undermines the strong concept . . .
The Basics: Twin Peaks returns for a long-awaited third season to bore, confuse, delight and ultimately infuriate the fans of the beloved, surreal series.


I admire an ambitious concept. I truly do. And it is hard to argue anything other than the idea that David Lynch is one of the reigning masters of ambitious concepts. David Lynch has a long history of making television shows and movies that demand attentive, engaged viewers. So, when David Lynch publicly confirmed that Twin Peaks would be returning to television for a third season - after being off the air for more than twenty-five years, the reactions of the die-hard fans was more of an indifferent, "we know; you told us it would be back around this time in the last episode!" than the enthusiasm some might have anticipated.

The third season of Twin Peaks, somewhat commonly known as Twin Peaks: The Return because all of the episodes were called "The Return Part X," was an ambitious concept and David Lynch met a number of serious challenges in executing the season that he had more than twenty years to conceive and tinker with. At its core, Lynch described the new season of Twin Peaks as The Odyssey for Agent Dale Cooper and it was widely reported before even the first episode aired that Lynch wrote the entire series as one massive script and then broke the story up into the episodes. That is an ambitious idea . . . and it shows in the execution of Twin Peaks Season Three. In fact, the episodes themselves often hold up much poorer as individual episodes than the season holds up; the sheer volume of detail and callbacks throughout the eighteen-episode third season of Twin Peaks virtually begs for a single binge viewing by an audience that is alert, engaged, and able to handle a lot of screaming.

Conceptually, David Lynch had a Herculean task in creating a third season of Twin Peaks. Since the very end of the original Twin Peaks (reviewed here!), viewers who invested in the concept of the show had plenty of time to accept the sad reality of the show's protagonist. Agent Dale Cooper was trapped within the ethereal abode of evil known as The Black Lodge, while a doppelganger of him - possessed by the ultimate evil entity Bob - was free on Earth. Within (what used to be) the series finale, Agent Dale Cooper was told that he would be trapped in the Black Lodge for twenty-five years. The thing is, for all of its faults, the second season of Twin Peaks was constructed pretty solidly in terms of its lore about the Black Lodge and some of the concepts pertaining to it. The Black Lodge was not, in the original Twin Peaks simply a place; it was a place that existed in physical reality only in specific times. So, right off the bat, David Lynch was somewhat hamstrung by his own concept; given all of the established information of the original Twin Peaks, saving F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper should have been a matter of his doppelganger being returned to the right place and time to push him back into the Black Lodge and Agent Cooper escaping at that time.

There is, alas, not much of a television show in that. So, David Lynch threw out his own book; in the new rendition of Twin Peaks portals are all over the fucking place. In fact, from the moment Agent Dale Cooper manages to escape the Black Lodge through one of the many, many other exits that manifest, the attentive viewer has to ask, "Why the hell did Dale Cooper wait twenty-five years to leave through one of these other exits?!"

Twin Peaks Season Three picks up with Agent Dale Cooper right where Season Two left off. Dale Cooper is in the Black Lodge and the twenty-five years have passed and he has aged. He encounters Phillip Gerard (the one armed man) and The Arm, who encourage him to take an alternate route out of the Black Lodge, noting that Dale Cooper's doppelganger did not return to the Black Lodge. Bob, still in Cooper, has become a crime lord who is doing everything he can to avoid returning to the Black Lodge and he has managed to avoid his old friends from the F.B.I. by using a laptop from a long-missing agent. When Agent Cooper manages to make it to our plane of existence, Cooper is in a car accident and incarcerated, which puts him on the radar of F.B.I. Deputy Director Gordon Cole, Agent Albert Rosenfield and their protege, Agent Tammy Preston.

Dale Cooper, however, has not managed to simply return to our plane of existence. He is insensate in the body of Dougie Jones, who has a wife, son, prostitute and gambling problem. In Jones's body, Cooper is deposited at a casino in Las Vegas where he wins a lot of money by following stimuli from the Black Lodge. While Dougie's wife, Jane, strong-arms Doug's debtors, Dougie is sent back to work at an insurance company where Dale Cooper manages to point out insurance irregularities to his boss and get on surprisingly good terms with the mobsters who run the casino. While Dougie is hunted by assassins hired by Cooper, Cooper manages to get released from prison, survive one of his compatriots attempting to assassinate him and avoid other attempts to get dragged back into the Black Lodge using technology from that place and ethereal beings who heal him whenever he is mortally wounded.

While Agent Cooper slowly asserts himself and Cooper cuts a swath of carnage across the U.S., Rosenfield and Cole enlist Diane to help them figure out just who Cooper is. And in Twin Peaks, Margaret (the Log Lady) sets Deputy Chief Hawk on a search that clues him into the idea that there are two Coopers and that the case of the long-missing F.B.I. agent is soon to be resolved!

The third season of Twin Peaks has its highs and lows, but for the most part it does tell one long, somewhat absurd, story with a bunch of nostalgia-driven tangents thrown in. One of the greatest limitations of the third season of Twin Peaks was that David Lynch had to tailor the story around the actors who were still alive, still acting, and still interested in participating. To his credit, Lynch got actor Everett McGill to come out of retirement to play Big Ed Hurley again. It's nice, it's very Twin Peaks and, sadly, it is entirely unnecessary.

Unfortunately, Michael Ontkean could not be persuaded to return to Twin Peaks for the revival. Within the narrative of the third season of Twin Peaks, Ontkean's absence as Sheriff Harry Truman is explained and not prohibitively conspicuous (there is a lot going on in the season!), but for fans of Twin Peaks, Lynch pushing the project along without his participation becomes a tonal unforgivable sin. One need not rewatch much of the original Twin Peaks at all to see that the lifeblood relationship of the series was the one between Agent Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry S. Truman. They had a relationship built on mutual respect, professionalism and a shared desire for the truth that made them bond quickly. Twin Peaks had tons of relationships that were, essentially, soap operatic connections between the characters, but Truman and Cooper had a bromance long before the term was ever coined!

Within the third season of Twin Peaks Sheriff Harry S. Truman's absence is glossed over with medical excuses delivered by his brother, Sheriff Frank Truman, who has taken over the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department. Frank Truman is played quite well by Robert Forster, who manages to be the least-obtrusive new addition to the Twin Peaks cast (for those keeping score, Chrysta Bell breaks out in Twin Peaks Season 3 as Agent Tammy Preston, but David Lynch uses her frequently for window dressing and there are several scenes where Bell seems to be trying desperately not to look like she is a supermodel playing an F.B.I. Agent . . .).

The third season of Twin Peaks is fundamentally two narrative streams - the story of Agent Dale Cooper, Cooper (Bob) and the law enforcement officers that are figuring out the long-cold case of the missing F.B.I. agent (Chief Hawk and Agent Cooper's former F.B.I. colleagues) and a series of nostalgia-driven scenes that pertain to Twin Peaks. Indeed, most of Cooper and Agent Cooper's narrative occurs well outside the Washington state town of Twin Peaks . . . and much of the drama within Twin Peaks has absolutely nothing to do with the dual-Coopers' narrative.

The second narrative track includes scenes with Norma Jennings (who is franchising the RR Diner), Shelly (who is still working at the RR Diner and has a troubled daughter), (former) Dr. Jacoby doing a podcast, Nadine Hurley listening to that podcast, and (eventually) Audrey Horne popping up to indicate that she suffered a psychotic break. There is a high nostalgia aspect to the Twin Peaks scenes involving the cast from the original - Norma Jennings has an opportunity, she changes her mind, she and Big Ed get a delightful happy ending, it's cute to see and it offers some minor catharsis for two characters who did not spend a lot of time at the narrative forefront of the original Twin Peaks. Similarly cute is the lone appearance of Andy and Lucy's son, who was named after the bird who witnessed Laura Palmer's murder and provided the sheriff's clues. The scene with Wally is dull as hell, but hardcore fans will find it cute that Lucy and Andy named their kid after the bird. Ironically, Jerry Horne being lost in the woods plays into the main narrative more directly than almost all of the other tangent storylines.

And the nostalgia storylines are not all thrilling or happy. Shelly and Bobby had a relationship, it burnt out, and they now have a cocaine-abusing daughter who shoots up a door. Shelly and Bobby's daughter is a distant tangent storyline that gets dropped mid-season as it appears part of Cooper's agenda is keeping drugs flowing into Twin Peaks High School, but that fizzles out after Cooper is captured in South Dakota. Those who love Audrey Horne will be excited when she eventually pops up in the narrative . . . until they follow the clues back and realize that after leaving the Black Lodge, Cooper raped Audrey while she was in a coma following the bank explosion and the ass hole hellion who has been running around killing people and beating up others, Richard Horne, is her son and she likely went crazy as a result of that abuse.

To the credit of David Lynch, Twin Peaks Season Three contains some explanations for the evil in the woods in the form of nightmarish, surreal divergent scenes that show how the entities from another place interacted with the Earth, seeding both Bob and Laura Palmer into the mix. Also to Lynch's credit, if he was going to break his own wheel, his cheats were pretty clever. Phillip Gerard prepared for the battle between Dale Cooper and Cooper, seeding manufactured people like Doug Jones (and another, far more spoilerific one) onto Earth to be a part of Agent Cooper's escape hatch. The second doppelganger gets explained, but the Doug Jones storyline is initially irritating, especially given that Jane Jones does not seem to stop to notice what the audience immediately observes; that Doug is simply repeating the last thing said to him. Lynch even insinuates that there is another person attempting to leave one of the alternate realities the same way that Agent Cooper is (i.e. by using a back door from The Other Place and replacing a manufactured doppelganger already on Earth), in the form of a prisoner at the Twin Peaks jail who exhibits the same repeating trait as Doug Jones. But, like so very many plots in the third season of Twin Peaks, that is not actually resolved and is unceremoniously dropped before the end of the series.

The third season of Twin Peaks is an investment for fans of Twin Peaks. So little of the third season occurs within Twin Peaks that viewers have to watch a lot of the season and take on faith that the show is going somewhere. Twin Peaks Season Three meanders, but it does return to Agent Cooper and his struggle to return to Earth after twenty-five years sitting on his ass in another dimension. The faith viewers place in David Lynch is justified in the seventeenth episode of the season . . .

. . . and then utterly shat upon in the season finale. Without any spoilers, Twin Peaks Season Three climaxes an episode before its end. The final episode of the series proves in the first few moments what most viewers will easily suspect coming out of the prior episode and then it turns the entire series upside down. And not in a good way. David Lynch had an audacious storyline for the third season of Twin Peaks, but its resolution is one of the most insanely conceived, poorly-executed finales that one immediately suspects will be one of the episodes fans of Twin Peaks watch the least. Seriously, watch up to the end of the seventeenth episode and you'll be happy. If you have a hankering to watch the final episode, go back and watch the second season episode of Twin Peaks with the "Miss Twin Peaks" Pageant. You might say, geh! This is terrible; whatever is in the eighteenth episode of the third season of Twin Peaks cannot possibly be this bad. You would be wrong. It's like David Lynch said to himself, "I hate every one of my fans and I want to not just undermine my classic Twin Peaks, I want people to think of how I end this season and make it hard for them to ever want to watch any part of the series again." Yeah, the end of the third season of Twin Peaks was enough to drag the entire season rating down by at least a point. Why? Because a season review is about how the whole story holds together and what it does and says. With one episode, David Lynch makes the viewer forget about the annoying, surreal tangents, the mysticism, the pointless added characters, the beloved classic characters, the essential struggle between good and evil, the delightful quirks of Twin Peaks and just get a sour taste in the mouth and a headache that cannot be cured by coffee and cherry pie.

All that said, Kyle MacLachlan is amazing in the third season of Twin Peaks. Straddling three roles with an effortless quality, MacLachlan makes viewers care about Agent Cooper once again and feel genuine emotions for him. When MacLachlan plays Dougie needing to go to the bathroom (having forgotten such basic things), it is painful to watch - expertly performed by the actor. Similarly, MacLachlan manages to make Cooper a stone-cold villain that raises the level of tension every time he appears on screen.

The supporting cast of Twin Peaks Season Three is good, but the highest praise should be reserved for the late Miguel Ferrer. Ferrer plays Albert Rosenfield and the magic of his performance is that Albert has mellowed considerably over the twenty-five years, but Ferrer plays him in a way that the viewer never once doubts they are watching Albert at work. Given that an acerbic quality and angry deliveries were the hallmark of Albert in the original Twin Peaks, it is no small feat to reinvent the portrayal of the character and make him feel like the same old guy!

Fans of Twin Peaks who were waiting for the event to be complete and for a final analysis before watching will want the bottom line. It is this: Binge watch the third season of Twin Peaks. Find one day you can devote to it, watch episodes one through seventeen and stop there. The event is worth it . . . up to a point and David Lynch rather politely gave a clear point where the season stops being worth watching.

For a better idea of exactly what this season entails, please check out my reviews of the specific episodes at:
"The Return Part 1"
"The Return Part 2"
"The Return Part 3"
"The Return Part 4"
"The Return Part 5"
"The Return Part 6"
"The Return Part 7"
"The Return Part 8"
"The Return Part 9"
"The Return Part 10"
"The Return Part 11"
"The Return Part 12"
"The Return Part 13"
"The Return Part 14"
"The Return Part 15"
"The Return Part 16"
"The Return Part 17"
"The Return Part 18"

6/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Dense, "The Return Part 15" Takes Twin Peaks From Delight To Misery

The Good: Performances are fine, Direction, Moments of character
The Bad: Plot meanders entirely, Nothing remotely close to a coherent story
The Basics: "The Return Part 15" starts out as a weird, but coherent Twin Peaks episode and degenerates into visual and storytelling nonsense.


After a week with virtually no Cooper or Dougie, the instant pressure on "The Return Part 15" is to remind the viewer of where the primary protagonist and antagonists are in Twin Peaks. While "The Return Part 15" does not begin with either of Kyle MacLachlan's characters, it does not take long to return to them . . . after taking care of some entirely tangential Twin Peaks business first.

"The Return Part 15" continues on the momentum of "The Return Part 14" (reviewed here!), which put a number of supernatural elements in play - around supporting characters in Twin Peaks who had not previously experienced exceptional and unreal elements. The supernatural elements of the third season of Twin Peaks are confronted with more of a straightforward quality than ever before as Cooper finds himself at the convenience store/gas station seen in the flashbacks and in the alternate dimensions.

Nadine walks all the way out to Big Ed's gas station, with her golden shovel. Once there, Nadine tells Ed that he should go be with Norma, knowing that Ed truly loves her. Ed rushes over to the Double R where Norma is involved with her new business manager. Norma tells her business manager to buy her out of the franchises and she turns back to Ed to begin a relationship with him in earnest. Cooper arrives at a convenience store where he and his ethereal guides enter another place (like the Black Lodge) and he asks for Philip Jeffries. Jeffries, in the form of a boiler, tells Cooper about Judy, whom Cooper does not believe he knows, but Jeffries says he has met.

Richard Horne pulls a gun on Cooper when Cooper leaves the surreal place, but Cooper easily incapacitates him. As soon as Cooper and Horne leave, the gas station disappears from our plane of existence. Out in the woods near the trailer park, a young man kills himself and that night, James goes to the bar where he sees Rene. His coworker ends the ensuing fight with his magic, gloved, hand. In Las Vegas, Doug and Jane Jones arrive at the F.B.I. for interrogation, but they are the wrong Jones's. James and Freddie are locked up at the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department, amid the growing menagerie of weirdos there. Dougie, meanwhile, stops eating cake to turn on the television and when he becomes upset by what he sees, he puts a fork in an electric socket. Hawk receives a final call from the Log Lady.

"The Return Part 15" is a treat to fans of the original Twin Peaks in addition to a necessary component of the third season. Norma and Big Ed and Nadine have had virtually no presence in the main storyline of the third season of Twin Peaks, but Norma and Ed's relationship was one of the last big "fuck you's!" of the second season of Twin Peaks. Just as they were about to find happiness, Nadine got her memory back and the relationship was crushed. "The Return Part 15" allows that whole relationship to get a happy ending and it allows that door to be closed if Lynch decides not to include them in further episodes.

The "appearance" of Philip Jeffries in "The Return Part 15" is a bit of a letdown compared to the appearance of David Bowie as Jeffries in the prior episode. Having to use a surreal image in the place of David Bowie reprising his role acts as a cautionary tale for those who want to revisit their universes. Bowie is one of four major performers who died before or early in the filming of the third season of Twin Peaks and it is a shame that his only participation could be through archival footage (his voice was not used for the portrayal of the symbol of Jeffries in "The Return Part 15").

"The Return Part 15" is another episode of Twin Peaks that feels like exactly what it is - a small component of a much larger story. The episode does not stand particularly well on its own, but it resonates in big ways for fans of Twin Peaks (especially the past version of it). Actress Catherine E. Coulson died almost two years ago, but David Lynch managed to film all of her parts before the rest of the season shot. So, including the death of the Log Lady in "The Return Part 15" manages to be both sad within the story and to those who know the reality of the filming of the third season of Twin Peaks.

The weakness of breaking up the long story into individual episodes is revealed well in "The Return Part 15" is that some hours are going to pack in a lot of little things without any truly big and well-developed moments. So, while Cooper and Horne are now together and Dougie electrocuted himself, not much else happens that is instantly recognizable as important in the larger arcs in "The Return Part 15."

For other works with Wendy Robie, please visit my reviews of:
"Destiny" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Twin Peaks

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Twin Peaks - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the temporally displaced season of the surreal show here!
Thanks!]

5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Minimal MacLachlan, But Bowie Returns! Twin Peaks "The Return Part 14"

The Good: Good performances, Wonderful special effects, Awesome blending of reality and surrealism
The Bad: Virtually plotless, Some of the character leaps require real suspension of disbelief
The Basics: "The Return Part 14" meanders, but it does it so well most viewers will just recall how they fell in love with Twin Peaks instead of being bothered by the ambling!


As Twin Peaks rushes towards its conclusion for the new season, the show has exhausted the pleasant shock factor of revealing the return of characters from the original Twin Peaks (reviewed here!) and now it is in something of a "put up or shut up" place. The new season has to deliver on the promise of the disconnected threads seeded throughout the earlier episodes and move toward some sense of closure in the storylines of Dale Cooper and Cooper (Bob). As "The Return Part 14" begins, that burden seems like it is being lifted as the episode starts making concrete connections between the two main investigative bodies of the show - the F.B.I. and the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department. Between that and the vintage footage in the episode, "The Return Part 14" puts more characters in touch with the fantastic elements of Twin Peaks than ever before.

"The Return Part 14" follows on "The Return Part 13" (reviewed here!), which managed to focus most of the plot's events on Twin Peaks and elevate the menace of the Bob-infested Cooper. "The Return Part 14" is cool in that is starts to link Doug Jones and Agent Cooper in new and interesting ways . . . through Diane. The sense that the episode is getting more concrete takes a weird turn when Director Cole discusses his Monica Bellucci-related dream.

FBI Director Cole calls Lucy Moran at the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department. Truman informs Cole that they have found diary pages that might indicate there are two Coopers. Agent Rosenfield fills Agent Preston in on the Blue Rose investigations starting with the first case that Cole investigated with Philip Jeffries and involved a doppelganger. Diane arrives and claims that Cooper mentioned Briggs to her the last time they met. Diane reveals that her half-sister is Jane, married to Doug, living in Las Vegas. While describing his current dream, Cole and Rosenfeld recall a time Agent Cooper told them about one of his dreams. In Twin Peaks, Chad (the corrupt cop) is arrested and the Sheriffs make a trip out to Major Briggs' listening station, but they find the Jack Rabbit's Palace to be nothing more than a stump now.

Making the trek according to Garland's directions, the four encounter a woman from the surreal dimension and when a vortex opens above them, Andy is taken. There, he encounters The Giant and comes to understand that the woman on the ground is important. Andy comes out of the experience much stronger and articulate. Returning to the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department, the mysterious woman is put in protective custody and she is mocked by the other two residents of the jail. Working security at the Great Northern, James learns from his co-worker, Freddy, that the younger man's hand is now gloved because The Fireman (The Giant) told him to after an experience with a vortex of his own. And at a bar, Sarah Palmer's dark side comes out when she is accosted by a drunken asshole.

It's hard not to get excited for anything these days that includes a surprise cameo by David Bowie and "The Return Part 14" is no exception. The archive footage that Lynch used to return younger versions of himself, Kyle MacLachlan and David Bowie to the screen makes for a delightful interlude in the middle of a weird dream sequence analysis.

"The Return Part 14" once again raises the level of surrealism in Twin Peaks as more people in the town encounter the extraordinary. The woman from the other place speaks in static and has no eyes, which is freaky. Andy disappearing when the vortex opens and seeing generally random images that he does not understand is deliberately unsettling. Andy makes for an interesting character to be teleported into the other dimension because he is a character who has, historically, had difficulty articulating thoughts and being taken seriously.

On the literal front, "The Return Part 14" suffers some because it pushes the boundaries of suspension of disbelief. Viewers are expected to believe that the two young ruffians from the original Twin Peaks both grew up to be in law enforcement?! Seriously?! Both Bobby and James became law abiding citizens - Briggs as a deputy sheriff and James working in private security. While James has only been seen in the new season of Twin Peaks before as a lurker and a singer, his sudden appearance in private security seems strange. Similarly, Bobby Briggs was a pretty literal, pragmatic, kid - how he came to accept the surrealism of his father's work makes much less sense than James completely buying Freddy's story. James was always characterized in the original as a dreamer, so his character arc for the twenty-five year leap makes less sense for his occupation, more sense for his acceptance of the fantastic.

Part of the magic of "The Return Part 14" is that the episode is almost over before it occurs to the viewer that Kyle MacLachlan has only appeared momentarily as part of Andy's out-of-world experience (as a visual implication of the two Coopers) and very briefly in the vintage footage that Bowie completely upstaged him in. It is fairly impressive that the show manages to go that long and be that engaging without its protagonist or antagonist.

On the acting front, Harry Goaz and Grace Zabriskie steal the show. "The Return Part 14" actually allows Goaz to play Andy as something more than a fool and that is refreshing to see. Zabriski manages to expertly transition with the most subtle of face movements. Zabriski plays Sarah Palmer and the moment Palmer is approached in a bar, all the viewer can think is "this is the woman who lived in the presence of the ultimate evil longer than anyone else" and Zabriski makes that idea pay off. The scene she is in includes a pretty wild special effects sequence, but it is the acting whereby Zabriski turns on a dime from horrifying to horrified to threatening with a change of her expression, mobility and voice is the true special effect of the episode.

"The Return Part 14" is an episode that feels smartly dense, but it starts to open cracks in the Twin Peaks universe. The Black Lodge was a mysterious alternate dimension with near-impossible entrance and exit points before. Cooper's escape from the Black Lodge earlier in the season is minimized some by Andy's easy transition to and from an alternate dimension and Freddy's story that indicates the same. The burden as "The Return Part 14" concludes is on David Lynch to explain why the Black Lodge was so difficult to escape from when the vortexes appear to be much more common than anyone knew before.

"The Return Part 14" gives viewers hope that Lynch might be able to pull it off.

For other works with Monica Belucci, please visit my reviews of:
SPECTRE
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Brothers Grimm
The Passion Of The Christ
The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Reloaded

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Twin Peaks - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the temporally displaced season of the surreal show here!
Thanks!]

8/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One Year Later . . . We Continue To Mourn David Bowie With No Plan

The Good: Good vocals, Some decent lines
The Bad: SHORT, Poor cohesiveness as a self-sustaining album, Entire EP is available already as a second disc!
The Basics: David Bowie fans who overlooked the Lazarus Original Cast Recording are rewarded for holding out with a chance to buy the second disc's contents from that album with the "new" No Plan EP.


One year ago today, David Bowie died. Bowie's death is one that has resonated in my household for the entire year as my wife is a huge fan of David Bowie's works and one of her bucket list goals when we first met was to see him in concert. Bowie's final album, Blackstar (reviewed here!), has been played on pretty high repetition in our home for the past year. And recently, when we rewatched Gilmore Girls (reviewed here!) in preparation for the revival, the most angry my wife ever became at the antics of Lorelei Gilmore was when Lorelai acts like a spoiled brat about going to a David Bowie concert because she is not all that fond of the guy. When that episode came up, it took less than half a second before my wife realized that the episode would have been set during what was actually David Bowie's final U.S. tour and she was screaming at the television, "It doesn't matter who the guy is, you go see Bowie!" So, when the new posthumous EP No Plan was released as a digital download, that was big news around our home.

For those who have a similar affinity to David Bowie and his enduring legacy, the bottomline on the No Plan EP is: skip it. It is short and it is already available. No Plan is identical to the second disc in the Lazarus Original Cast Recording Album. More music (Michael C. Hall singing Bowie!), identical content and less-exploitative, the Lazarus Original Cast Recording is a far better value for fans than the No Plan EP.

That said, No Plan is the work of David Bowie from one of his last major projects. The EP has four songs, clocking out at 17:59 and all four were written and performed by David Bowie. The version of "Lazarus" that appears on No Plan is identical to the one that appeared on Blackstar. The EP was co-produced by David Bowie, so it is hard to argue that it is not the vision he intended for the music presented upon it.

The three songs "unique" to No Plan are "No Plan," "Killing A Little Time," and "When I Met You." All three feature David Bowie's distinctive voice, which is enough to make listeners pine for him all over again. The songs might have gelled well in the context of the musical Lazarus, but they have less cohesiveness when put one after another on the No Plan EP.

There is something tragic about listening to "No Plan," in such a familiar way that fans might be surprised that Bowie left the song off of Blackstar. When Bowie sings "All the things that are my life / My moods / My beliefs / My desires / Me alone / Nothing to regret / This is no place, but here I am / This is not quite yet" ("No Plan"), the listener is reminded of how prepared Bowie seemed to be for his death. "No Plan" is a slow, soft, sad track that is carried on the majesty of Bowie's vocals and the longing tone of his voice is tear-evoking. "No Plan" is the highlight of the album.

"No Plan" leads very poorly into the guitars of "Killing A Little Time." Drums and guitar on "Killing A Little Time" make a swirling, noisy sound that is antagonistic after the quiet beauty of "No Plan." "Killing A Little Time" is derivative of "Bring Me The Disco King" for the way Bowie's vocals are sublimated to a musical accompaniment that is more unpleasant than it is anything remotely melodic. And, it's not like his lines "I'm falling, man / I'm choking, man / I'm fading, man / And broke and blind" ("Killing A Little Time") are much of an upper to get one away from the miserable feelings evoked by the guitars and percussion.

"When I Met You" is a percussion-driven love song that is frenetic and has an almost angry sound to it. By the time Bowie comes in with his vocals, the listener is on edge from the cacophonous instrumentals that precede his voice. Even so, when Bowie breaks through with lines like "When I met you (You're feeling depressed) / I could not speak (You're drowning in pain) / You opened my mouth (You're walking in midst) / You opened my heart (You're leaving again)" ("When I Met You") it is hard for his passion not to break through the noisy musical accompaniment and touch the listener. Bowie's voice carries the song and in some ways, "When I Met You" makes the listener recall the moment they first fell in love with the music of David Bowie all over again.

The contents of No Plan are not bad, but they are not enough to sustain even its own EP. The release of the No Plan EP is the musical equivalent of releasing DVD bonus features as their own release and expecting fans to lap it up happily. Given the quality of the Bowie recordings unearthed and released since his death, there are far, far better options for fans than No Plan.

For other David Bowie reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Man Who Sold The World
Hunkey Dory
The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Aladdin Sane
Pinups
Diamond Dogs
Christiane F. Soundtrack
Let's Dance
Labyrinth
Labyrinth Soundtrack
Never Let Me Down
Eart hl i ng
Best Of Bowie (1 Disc version)
The Best Of Bowie (2 Disc version)
Best Of Bowie (DVD videos)
Heathen
The Next Day (Deluxe Edition)

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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R.I.P. David Bowie: The Artist Leaves Us With Blackstar!

The Good: Good vocals, Engaging lyrics, Interesting musical diversity
The Bad: Short, Frequently overproduced vocals
The Basics: The final creative push from David Bowie was Blackstar and it acts, as it was intended, as a gift to Bowie's fans who understood the artist's experimental nature.


Late last night, my night took an abrupt right turn when my wife, sitting at her computer next to me, suddenly went into shock and a frantic sadness entered her voice as she told me that David Bowie appeared to be dead. The disbelief and hurt in her voice was heartwrenching. My wife is a huge fan of the works of David Bowie - so much so that the last surprise gift I gave her this year for the holidays was a Bowie-themed print from an artist she once met and when I had the print matted and framed, I made sure that it was done in such a way that we would be able to remove the glass to have Bowie sign it when we finally met him. Bowie was one of only two celebrities my wife ever gushed about or felt a connection with from her childhood. Following on the heels of Robin Williams dying barely more than a year ago, and getting a tribute in my review of The Fisher King (that's here!), my wife has had a rough time with her role models and her own bucket list has taken a real kick.

David Bowie has, indeed, died, just days after his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, Blackstar. Blackstar was released so quietly that my die-hard fan wife did not know of its existence until news started pouring in about Bowie's death (good job with the advance press, eight David Bowie Facebook pages she follows!). The reason Blackstar and Bowie's death have been so inextricably linked is that it seems Bowie knew of his impending death and created the album accordingly. Now that Bowie has died, his co-producer on Blackstar, Tony Visconti, has been quoted confirming that and, given how effectively Bowie hid his medical deterioration from all but his inner circle, it seems likely to be true.

Blackstar, then, is the final experiment from an artist who was committed to being an artist more than a pop icon, a musician, or a rock god. While the pre-death press universally praised Blackstar and noted how far it pushed the envelope for David Bowie, those articles appear to be largely written by people who ignored Bowie's works from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s. Yes, Blackstar is experimental and artistic, but it is not the furthest thing he has created from his peak of commercial success in the 1970s and 1980s. Instead, Blackstar is a diverse collection of songs by David Bowie that is an interesting musical statement that allowed the artist to close his own book, but it is hardly a cohesive album. In fact, it is hard not to listen to Blackstar and feel like Bowie was attempting to put together a collection that showcased his diversity, more than create one final, cohesive creation. In some ways, Blackstar sounds a lot like Bowie was trying to create a collection of "lost singles" from his six decades of public life (and then adding his "goodbye" song).

With only seven songs, clocking out at 41:13, Blackstar is short and very much the work of David Bowie. Bowie wrote all seven songs and provided the lead vocals on the entire album. He also plays guitars on the tracks and was involved with the arrangements of the songs. Bowie also co-produced the album, so it is very much his intended final work.

Musically, Blackstar is all over the place, which is not a surprise for most fans of David Bowie's works. While he never goes quite as dark and edgy to the ear as he did on his collaborations with Trent Reznor, on Blackstar Bowie showcases his appreciation and abilities with various musical styles. The title track oscillates between being a hymn and a techno number; "'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore" is jazzy and "I Can't Give Everything Away" undertstates the musical accompaniment to let the voice and lyrics shine. No two songs on Blackstar sound alike and the common thread of Bowie's voice acts as a loose tether keeping the album together. That said, despite not coming together ideally as an album, the tracks on Blackstar are each interesting, engaging to the ear and entirely listenable.

Vocally, Blackstar is a blend of David Bowie's distinctive, smooth, soft vocals and production elements. He goes computerized on "Blackstar" and his voice is stripped away to honest and emotive on "Lazarus." Bowie's voice reaches comfortably to his higher registers on "Lazarus" and "I Can't Give Everything Away" and he illustrates pretty impressive lung capacity throughout the album. Blackstar is entirely clear on the vocals and show that to his last breath, Bowie could sing!

Lyrically, Blackstar is very much an artist aware of his own mortality. Bowie did not attempt to hide the album's themes of death, endings and mortality. Indeed, it is not a clever metaphor when Bowie sings "If I never see the English evergreens I’m running to / It’s nothing to me / It’s nothing to see / I’m dying to / Push their backs against the grain / And fool them all again and again" ("Dollar Days"). His musical protagonist is struggling to reconcile past and present and experience all he can in the time left to him. Unlike Goth songs, most of the music on Blackstar seems to celebrate the living of life and going out with purpose, rather than mourning.

Bowie seems incredibly self-referential on "Lazarus." Foreshadowing his own death, he opens with "Look up here, I’m in heaven / I’ve got scars that can’t be seen / I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen / Everybody knows me now" ("Lazarus"). The song seems autobiographical with lines like "By the time I got to New York / I was living like a king / Then I used up all my money" ("Lazarus") and it makes one stop and consider the incredible life of David Bowie.

While most of the album is incredibly well-written, not all of the songs are as well-conceived and executed as "Lazarus," "Blackstar" and "I Can't Give Everything Away." Despite the incredibly catchy refrain of "Where the fuck did Monday go?" on "Girl Loves Me," much of the song is lyrically gibberish: "You viddy at the cheena / Choodesny with the red rot / Libbilubbing litso-fitso / Devotchka watch her garbles / Spatchko at the rozz-shop / Split a ded from his deng deng / Viddy viddy at the cheena." For sure, Bowie was going for a tribal sound with much of the song, but the song needs a decoder ring to figure out what he's saying (the words are from two fictional languages!). It's a musical experiment that does not work out so well.

Fortunately, though, each song on the album has its redeeming qualities and its own hook and Blackstar is a distinct end point for what Bowie wanted for his own creative vision. For sure, in coming years, listeners will be inundated with floods of unreleased tracks, alternate versions of Bowie's iconic works and albums to fill the shelves, but for the icon's own, desired, stopping point for the journey he wanted to make as an artist, Blackstar is it and it is a fitting end. The best tracks are "Lazarus" and "I Can't Give Everything Away" and the weak link is "Girl Loves Me."

For other David Bowie reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Man Who Sold The World
Hunkey Dory
The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Aladdin Sane
Pinups
Diamond Dogs
Christiane F. Soundtrack
Let's Dance
Labyrinth
Labyrinth Soundtrack
Never Let Me Down
Eart hl i ng
Best Of Bowie (1 Disc version)
The Best Of Bowie (2 Disc version)
Best Of Bowie (DVD videos)
Heathen
The Next Day (Deluxe Edition)

8.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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We Waited A Decade For This?! David Bowie’s The Next Day Has The Artist In A Slump!

The Good: Musical variety, Some good lines
The Bad: Obvious vocals, Derivative of other Bowie works, No hook, Short
The Basics: David Bowie’s first album in a decade disappoints.


A few weeks ago, my wife very excitedly introduced me to a brand new video that was released that day. It was David Bowie’s Valentine’s Day gift to the world, a new song and video for his song “Where Are We Now?” I could tell that my wife, like many David Bowie fans, was absolutely starved for anything new from David Bowie. After all, the video was in no way extraordinary (and what the hell is it with Bowie always appearing in music videos as a spouse of some comparatively young white woman, how come he never appears with Iman in his videos?!) and the song was nothing special. While my wife was excited, for both the song itself and the fact that it presaged The Next Day, I was less impressed. The song – musically and vocally – reminded me of Bowie’s song “Thursday’s Child.”

The Next Day, now that it is out, was an album I was excited to buy for my wife for our anniversary. However, before our anniversary came, I was shocked when she told me she had heard the album online and did not want it. My wife is a huge David Bowie fan and The Next Day was an album she waited eagerly for for the last decade. So, when she insisted she did not want it, that was a huge thing for us. I picked the Deluxe Version (with two additional tracks) up anyway and I’ve spent the day listening to it on high replay.

And I see why my wife was not thrilled by it.

That said, I don’t think the album is terrible (which is what she thought), but it is in no way extraordinary. Thematically, David Bowie branches out from where he has been before and The Next Day is a surprisingly political album for Bowie. Unfortunately, that does not make it good. At best, it rises into average territory.

With seventeen tracks, clocking out at 61:30, The Next Day is very much a David Bowie work. Bowie wrote or co-wrote every song on the album and he provides the lead vocals for each of the songs. As well, he plays keyboards and other instruments. Given that Bowie co-produced the album, it is hard to argue that this was not his musical vision.

Unfortunately, Bowie has little new to say or new ways to say his old thoughts. Musically, The Next Day is a pretty standard pop-rock album. While Bowie occasionally experiments successfully, like the way “Love Is Lost” is cacophonic illustrating well the chaos that comes after romance is shattered, most of the tunes are unremarkable or derivative. The instrumental accompaniment that opens “Dirty Boys” sounds a lot like something off Gotye’s Making Mirrors (reviewed here!). “Dancing Out In Space” sounds a lot like his song “A Better Future” and that was distracting. On the production side, “Valentine’s Day” blends some with “Where Are We Now?” which precedes it.

Vocally, The Next Day is utterly unremarkable. David Bowie makes all of his lines easily understood, but none of the vocals stretch Bowie’s established range. In fact, the vocal leaps Bowie takes on The Next Day tend to be more unfortunate than clever. There is a mechanized quality to his vocals on “If You Can See Me,” producing over his natural voice. And the “Na na nyah na’s” in “How Does The Grass Grow?” On one of the songs, Bowie actually sounds like Bruce Springsteen more than he sounds like himself!

Lyrically, Bowie actually managed to save much of The Next Day. The album is more political than many of his prior albums. With poetics like “Such sadness and grief / The trees die standing / That’s where we made our trysts / And struggled with our guns / Would you still love me / If the clocks could go backwards / The girls would fill with blood and / The grass would be green again / Remember the dead / They were so great / Some of them” (“How Does The Grass Grow?”), Bowie illustrates that he is not afraid to make a statement. The song is not as dated as many other political songs by contemporary artists and that works.

Ironically, Bowie takes a strange turn on one of the most listenable songs on the album. For a change, David Bowie sings about celebrity on “The Stars (Are Out Tonight).” The thing is, when Bowie sings “They watch us from behind their shades / Brigitte, Jack and Kate and Brad / From behind their tinted window stretch / Gleaming like blackened sunshine / Stars are never sleeping / Dead ones and the living” (“The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”), he seems to be trying to distance himself from celebrities. Like David Bowie is not a celebrity! It is somewhat hard to take the song difficult because it is not like David Bowie is out being sociable with all the rabble (hell, he’s been off the radar for almost a decade making this album!).

Ironically, the best song on the album is the political song that seems like it might just be a random pro-weed anthem. Instead, though, Bowie captures the spirit of today’s disenchanted soldiers on the song “I’d Rather Be High.” More than just dumb kids who want to be stones, Bowie articulates the frustration with unjust warfare with his poetic “I'd rather be high / I'd rather be flying / I'd rather be dead or out of my head / Than training these guns on those men in the sand” (“I’d Rather Be High”). It might not be the cleverest rhyme scheme, but it gets its point across.

But that’s The Next Day; it’s not the most clever or the best Bowie, but it gets its point across.

The best track is “I’d Rather Be High” and the low point is “Valentine’s Day.”

For other David Bowie reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Man Who Sold The World
Hunkey Dory
The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Aladdin Sane
Pinups
Diamond Dogs
Christiane F. Soundtrack
Let's Dance
Labyrinth
Labyrinth Soundtrack
Never Let Me Down
Eart hl i ng
Best Of Bowie (1 Disc version)
The Best Of Bowie (2 Disc version)
Best Of Bowie (DVD videos)
Heathen

5.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Gruesome Build-Up To An Imaginative Last Act: The Last Temptation Of Christ!

The Good: Direction, Acting, Final act
The Bad: Alternatively boring and gory, A LONG way to go before it gets original and interesting.
The Basics: The Last Temptation Of Christ works its way up to being a theological recasting of Jacob’s Ladder.


My relationship with the film The Last Temptation Of Christ is an interesting one. Until tonight, I had not seen the movie, but it had a profound effect on my development as a liberal and as a rational human being. When I was in middle school, The Last Temptation Of Christ was released theatrically and one of the people in my class, a Ukrainian immigrant, was part of the local protests against the film. His mother and him were out picketing against the showing of The Last Temptation Of Christ in the local art theater and I remember asking him, “What is so bad about the movie?” And he told me that the movie was blasphemous and I asked him what about it was blasphemous. He dodged the question with pat answers and I distinctly recall asking him what he saw in the film that was so disturbing as to be worth protesting, a question I asked with my usual youthful, earnest curiosity. His response was that he had not seen the movie and that caused me to ask instantly, “How can you criticize and protest something you have not even seen?” Yup, that was the moment I credit as being the moment I became a fully rational being.

So, tonight, my wife and I sat down to watch The Last Temptation Of Christ. I had been told – in the intervening years – that it was something of a death dream, like Jacob’s Ladder (reviewed here!). Having finished it, my disappointment comes more from the fact that the hype was once again far greater than the film that it surrounded. The Last Temptation Of Christ is hardly an audacious film. It is not as creative as Dogma (reviewed here!) and I cannot really understand why the film garnered so much controversy. It is not as gory or pointless as The Passion Of The Christ (reviewed here!) and most of the film is a surprisingly straightforward retelling of the story of Jesus Christ. It takes a very long time to get around to being anything truly original. It is also worth noting that I have never read the novel upon which The Last Temptation Of Christ is based; this is a pure review of the film only.

Jesus Christ is a crossmaker for the Romans who has no particular agenda. Judas, working for the Zealots, killing Romans and working against the Empire, is given orders to kill Jesus. Judas does not carry out the directive and journeys out into the desert. There, he is tempted by the devil for forty days and forty nights and is then baptized by John The Baptist. After that, he begins preaching love and the philosophy of the ax (cutting away the old ways), which makes him a target for the Israelites.

Eventually, Pontius Pilate sentences Jesus to death on the cross, where the devil appears before him. Then, he has a vision of his life as an ordinary man who is able to marry, have children and live under the radar while his disciples are persecuted.

The Last Temptation Of Christ features a ridiculous disclaimer at the outset announcing to the viewer that it is a work of fiction and given how it resolves itself, it is hard for me to imagine why the Religious Right actually had an issue with the film. The Last Temptation Of Christ is much more the story of Jesus Christ than it is not. The final resolution puts Jesus on the familiar path after a remarkably brief interlude where Jesus experiences temptation. It’s a lot of boring and familiar story until the last act.

The characters of Jesus and Judas in The Last Temptation Of Christ are interesting characters. Jesus is filled with self-doubt and the desire to get the voices out of his head. Willem Dafoe plays Jesus with uncertainty and in a way that makes it almost seem like he is schizophrenic in the beginning. Harvey Keitel’s Judas is mercenaric and angry and he and Dafoe play off one another exceptionally well. The Last Temptation Of Christ is a good character study of an uncertain character finding his way and a righteous, angry character.

But we see that in innumerable movies. The fact that it is set in biblical times and/or that the characters are recognizable religious icons is unimportant. This is, for the most part, just another retelling of the story of Christ and its original aspects hardly justify the first two hours of the film. Martin Scorsese directs the film well, but the story is hardly as audacious as it originally promised.

On the Criterion Collection DVD, The Last Temptation Of Christ has an engrossing commentary track and featurettes. For those who find the source material engaging, the bonus features are impressive enough to make one want to buy the DVD.

For other films with a theological bent to them, check out my reviews of:
Ben-Hur
Constantine
Left Behind

4/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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In Its Second Season, Extras Dazzled Before It Disappears!

The Good: Funny, Clever, Decent commentary
The Bad: No real character development, Light on DVD bonus features
The Basics: A fun season, more big stars arrive on Extras, which makes its point early and never grows beyond it.


I suppose one of the nice things about watching and reviewing HBO and BBC DVD boxed sets is that they are short. With the crossover between those two giants of original programming, there was the show Extras. A few weeks ago, I took in Extras Season 1 (reviewed here!) and liked it enough to pick up Extras - Season 2 on DVD.

The series takes an interesting turn and it is a strange balancing between being stagnant characters (much like they were in the first season) and an almost entirely different show in terms of plot. The first season of Extras followed Andy and Maggie, two non-speaking background actors in various BBC productions. Each episode had a basic quandary (like Andy trying to get lines by having a victim of war crimes push for them or Maggie trying to date a black man without appearing racist) which put the two extras on set near some famous actors and ultimately they just trundled through their lives.

The second season of Extras is exactly the same for Maggie, but it's completely different for Andy. Andy is now working on his own show, "When The Whistle Blows." Unfortunately for him, it has been co-opted by the BBC producers and made into a lame, catch-phrase-driven sitcom that he loathes to be associated with. And while the reviews of it are terrible, the ratings are phenomenal and Andy finds himself still trundling along unpleasantly.

Because this season is only six episodes and there is no real character development, it is most germane to see what happens in this season. In season two, the episodes are:

"Orlando Bloom" - While rehearsing for the premiere of "When The Whistle Blows," Andy takes a stand against the direction it is headed in, including rejecting the wig and funny glasses the producers insist he wear. He is extorted into continuing the production, though it is very much not what he wants to do. Meanwhile, Maggie works as a juror on a movie with Orlando Bloom only to discover he has a superiority complex and he wants to date her. Her indifference only turns him on more,

"David Bowie" - With the success of "When The Whistle Blows," Andy has his first run-in with geekish fans who essentially demand he perform his catch phrase for them. Trying to avoid fans like that, Andy, Maggie and Andy's agent Darren head out to an exclusive club where they are bumped from the V.I.P. room to let David Bowie in,

"Daniel Radcliffe" - As "When The Whistle Blows" continues to shine in the ratings, the critics pan the pathetic comedy and Andy more or less agrees with them. However, while out at a fancy dinner one night, he objects to a child making noise and asks the waitress to suggest they leave, only to discover that the child has Down's Syndrome. While Andy works to reconcile his public image, Maggie finds herself on set with Daniel Radcliffe and Warwick Davis on a shoot that has Radcliffe desperate to get it on with Maggie,

"Chris Martin" - Against his express wishes, the producers to "When The Whistle Blows" allow the lead singer of Coldplay to come on the show to play a song to promote his album "The Best Of Coldplay." After the critics take Andy to task for this, he is nominated for a BAFTA only to have Darren crash the ceremony with merchandise and Maggie tell an old flame of Andy's how late in life he lost his virginity,

"Sir Ian McKellen" - Eager to escape the bad press of "When The Whistle Blows," Andy has Darren line him up a play to perform in. As it is, he ends up working in a play directed by Sir Ian McKellen, but Andy finds himself remarkably uncomfortable with the play's homosexual themes, especially once an old rival shows up to see him perform,

"?????" - Frustrated at his performance and the direction of "When The Whistle Blows," Andy prepares to fire Darren. Darren makes a desperate deal, which is to arrange a meeting between Andy and Robert De Niro. While Andy and Maggie are caught up with visiting a sick child in the hospital, Darren struggles to keep his job as Andy's agent.

Extras is fairly funny in its second season, though much the way it was in the first. Andy is roped into various situations because he does not have the heart or spine to stand up for himself. Similarly, the average joke pertaining to Maggie has to do with her being an absolute dimwit. As a result, she will usually say something she shouldn't, the person she is speaking with will react in a shocked manner, she will realize she has said something wrong and she simply responds with a blank stare and a "hmm?"

This is amusing the first time around, but I have serious doubts about how it holds up over multiple viewings. Indeed, it is often not the main cast who is given the chance to be the funniest. So, for example, in this two-disc boxed set, the funniest bits come from Sir Ian McKellen. When Andy arrives at his audition, McKellen takes several moments to describe to him what acting is and it is utterly hilarious.

But largely, the series goes nowhere in the second season. It begins with Andy deeply distressed over the lousy quality of "When The Whistle Blows" and it ends with him in the exact same predicament. Maggie and Darren, similarly, do not grow or change (though they do have a date).

The acting by Ricky Gervais and Ashley Jensen is consistent and believable. Both have amazing comic timing with Gervais able to deadpan brilliantly and Jensen takes on a completely simple demeanor that makes her character hilarious to watch.

On DVD, there are deleted scenes for each episode and a few featurettes. These are about what one would expect from a comedy and the behind-the-scenes elements are interesting. Particularly annoying is the menu on the second disc which has the opening jingle to "When The Whistle Blows" repeated over and over again.

This is a good way to kill an afternoon and it is enjoyable, but it is hard to believe it is essential for anyone's permanent collection.

For other works with Stephen Merchant, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Hall Pass
The Tooth Fairy
The Invention Of Lying
Run, Fatboy, Run

7/10

For other television reviews, be sure to check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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