Another New Year

Missed out on my almost-traditional, pointless 'last post of the year' thing, largely because I was 'busy' watching Jules Holland's Hootenanny (my other almost-tradition, since I've been living on my own). Well, that, and more sketching. Interesting how one little doodle can lead to so many more...

Having spent the last few days (when not sketching or playing Skyward Sword) catching up on the few bits of Christmas television that I considered worth watching, and yet still conspired to miss (one of the three Christmas Lectures, the last episode of the latest BBC adaptation of Great Expectations... not much else!), I suppose some sort of TV round up is in order, if only because it leads to a rather unexpected twist.

The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are always worth a look. This year there were only three... it's worrying that they've been so heavily cut back (always used to be five at least - one for every day of the week following Christmas), but the fact that they are still running, and still being broadcast by the BBC is something of a relief. Taking the human brain as his subject, Professor Bruce Hood presented a very lively, engaging and very interesting set of talks with well thought out and amusing demonstrations. I may even watch them all over again, because of a couple of distractions that occurred during the original broadcasts... neatly proving one of the points he demonstrated about concentration.

I am not being ironic when I say that I did not have great expectations of the BBC's latest Dickens adaptation. Something about the cast didn't seem right. But with David Suchet as Mr Jaggers and Ray Winstone as Magwitch, how could it possibly go wrong?

Well, casting a wooden pretty-boy as Pip would be a good start. Then not making Estella icy enough would be another nail in the coffin. And allowing Gillian Anderson (too young to be playing Havisham, if you ask me) to put on a cartoon voice for the role was just plain silly. Scene by scene, it was a decent enough adaptation, but Douglas Booth really needs to develop some range... Being generous, one could say that his usual expression was 'inscrutable', but even that doesn't (shouldn't) fit the character of Pip. The thing that really killed it for me, despite the excellent supporting cast, brilliant (though usually muted) photography and a very decent script, was that they decided to give the story a happy ending. Seriously, BBC?

Also, I must confess, it suffered in comparison to the BBC's own 1999 effort, starring Ioan Gruffudd as a rather more believably rough-around-the-edges Pip, Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham (her typically composed brand of frigid madness, rather than the sing-song "I'm MAAAAaaaAAaAaaaad!" approach unfortunately adopted by Anderson), and the utterly ethereal Justine Waddell, whose performance as Estella set the bar almost impossibly high for any who follow.

Granted, that was over ten years ago, so Great Expectations was ripe for a remake... but the fact that the performances from 1999 have stuck with me for so long clearly shows that it was superior. Only a day or so after watching the final episode of this new version, I can barely remember most of it. Even the previous supporting cast were memorable in a good way (Ian McDiarmid played Jaggers in a remarkably similar way to Suchet, but I guess the character is, by nature, inflexible, and Nicholas Woodeson's Wemmick had far more interesting stuff to work with than Paul Ritter's, while Bernard Hill's Magwitch was just as strong as Ray Winstone's though the latter just wins out for finding more of the humour in the man) where this new version seemed to focus far too rigidly on Pip (who was, in turn, far too rigid).

The 'surprising twist' in this set of brief summaries is the first of three new stories in the contemporised Sherlock Holmes series, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Considering how much I loathed the original run of three episodes (so much so, in fact, that I can't find any reference to it on this blog found it!), I very nearly didn't bother with it. If this first episode is anything to go by, while still not perfect, it's substantially improved over the original - less flippant and annoying, something closer to proper detective work is in evidence, and it's clever without being overly smug about it. The introduction of Irene Adler was the one and only reason I watched the show (the trailers made it look very interesting), and I wasn't disappointed. I have to admit that, even in the excellent Jeremy Brett series, Irene Adler seemed a little downplayed, and you just had to accept it when the story told you she'd outwitted Holmes. This version very clearly did... Or did she? Really, the only thing that was clear by the end is that neither one was quite ready to lose the other... And that must count for something.

Martin Freeman is still not convincing as former military... And it's disappointing to see Watson reverting to almost Nigel Bruce levels of dippiness with a few hints of something more interesting, but the rest of the show was impressive, and very far removed from (what I remember of) the original three.

In other news, Skyward Sword continues to impress... and now I've reached the lava/volcano stage... traditionally my least favourite. I seem to be progressing quite well, though, so I'd imagine I'll soon be facing off against that giant lava monster from the trailer...