Unconclusions

Continuing the thread about recent episodic television rather than doing something constructive with my time, the first seasons of a couple of shows have recently either ended or reached their penultimate episodes.

Orphan Black concluded last week with the introduction of yet another clone and the revelation that the least likely suspect for Alison's monitor - the one person she conclusively eliminated in her brief investigation - is actually her monitor after all. Because, let's face it, if you send a bunch of clones out into the world to observe them, you're not going to start observing them after they hit 30, it's going to be a lifetime deal.

Still more twists were thrown in with the arrival of the protagonist's (alleged) birth mother and the revelation that the doppelgänger who's been offing the others is her biological sister, not 'just another clone'. But that's not all... Going back to the previous bit about being monitored for life, it's been hinted that the protagonist's foster mother may not be all she appears... so the 'abduction' of the anomalous daughter is most likely very much staged... And now that the Police are aware that a number of women in their current investigation look identical, things are about to get complicated for all of the clones and the groups who are tracking them.

In spite of some of my less positive comments about the series, it kept me watching. I think my main gripe is that it feels like two very different ideas for the series were just thrown together. On the one hand, there's the science fiction story about a long-term experiment into human cloning... only, by the end of series one, we still don't know anything about the purpose of this experiment, other than its connection to the 'Neolution' movement, promoted by Max Headroom (sorry, but I cannot see Matt Frewer in anything without remembering his most famous role as a computer generated TV star, back in the 80s - I think he's a great actor and it's great to see him in TV shows like this, an especially in movies like Watchmen... but I'm always half expecting him to whip out a pair of 80's sunglasses and stutter). On the other hand, there's the sub-Dan Brown conspiracy thriller with a shadowy religious organisation out to kill all the clones simply because they weren't born naturally and so aren't 'real people'. The fact that this facet of the story took a back seat - turning up for an episode or two, then disappearing till the end of the series - made it feel very tacked on. It's also a massive cliché that only seems to exist because the protagonist's birth mother made the arbitrary, and thusfar unexplained, choice to hide her twin daughters separately - "one to the church, one to the state" - almost like the separation of twins Luke and Leia in the Star Wars movies... Kinda...

The way threads started tying together in the last few episodes was a big hint that the last episode wasn't going to be the conclusion of the story, just the first chapter. It was a huge cliffhanger of an ending designed to set up the next series which, in this day and age, is a very risky proposition.

Under The Dome reached its first season's penultimate episode this last weekend, and the clichés just kept piling in. Local businessman and aspiring tyrant 'Big Jim' Rennie decides he wants the dome to stay? Check. Four teenagers (with attitude!) set up to save the day, if only they can learn to work together and trust each other? Check. Anyone who can threaten or stop 'Big Jim' mysteriously turns up dead, yet everyone still believes him when he points the finger at someone else despite the fact that half the town now knows about his dodgy dealings? Check.

Never having read any Steven King (other than the Bachman books and his 'Memoir of the Craft', On Writing), I'm not sure how typical this is of his stuff, but this TV adaptation shares the common malaise of television series, in that none of the characters behave with any common sense. Far too many people are putting their own suspicions aside and following their budding tyrant, volunteering to have their personal freedoms cast aside 'for the good of the town' (fuck... is this some kind of metaphor for how 'the free world' is gradually - and without any apparent resistance or questioning - becoming less 'free' than many dictatorships? Politics masquerading as sci-fi?). The four kids are essentially the Power Rangers, just without any apparent skills - witness their useless attempts at concealing the 'mini-dome' and its 'egg' - and one of them is basically a complete loony, and the son of the villain of the piece.

Initially, I'd thought it was going to be a single mini-series - it is based on a single book, after all, not a trilogy - but it seems that almost 900 pages of novel can be happily spread out over more than thirteen episodes. Quite reasonable, I suppose, but annoying nonetheless.

Of course, as one series ends, another will always spring back... and the BBC's Ripper Street returned last week. It's just as ludicrous as ever, but fairly good viewing. This series introduced Joseph Merrick (aka the Elephant Man) and turned him into a key player in what is sure to be this season's main story arc (Reid vs his improbably named and very corrupt nemesis, Detective Inspector Jebediah Shine) only to have him killed off (linking to his actual cause of death) in the second episode. There's also a new addition to the team at Whitechapel, played by Damien Molony, formerly Hal in the last two series of Being Human. So far, they've made much of him being "a boy" (ie. too young for the territory), but shown him to be a shrewd investigator... which is what they probably need.

Still on the subject of TV, I've been reading lots of odd things about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. lately, most of which are "it's not (as good as) Firefly". This strikes me as rather silly and very unfair, not least because it's nothing like Firefly except inasmuch as it's another ensemble cast action drama with funny bits. It may be Joss Whedon's show, but it's a Marvel property so there are likely to have been some constraints placed on the production (not least, for example, they're not allowed to use the term 'mutant' because that 'belongs' in the X-Men movie franchise!).

But here's the critical thing: Every TV show Joss Whedon has created since Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been cancelled prematurely. Buffy ran for seven seasons and, frankly, had become more than a little repetitive and silly before the finale. Angel, the spin-off featuring a piece of wood as a vampire with a soul, started out running parallel to Buffy, but only lasted for one further year - one very rushed-to-conclusion season - after its progenitor ended. Firefly turned up alongside both, but was cancelled before it finished its first season. Dollhouse came about long afterwards and limped through two seasons with very little actually happening.

All this focus on Firefly is all very well - it was an excellent series and deserved to carry on. Not only that, but I was deeply unsatisfied with the open ending of the cinematic 'conclusion', Serenity. However, fixating on it as a template for success - even within the fandom - is counter-productive. It's highly unlikely, even following Whedon's success within the Marvel movie franchise, that Firefly will ever come back. It's a sad fact, but a fact nonethless. So rather than fixating on that, surely it's better to view Agents with fresh eyes, and take it for what it is - another entry into Marvel's TV history, alongside the likes of the Amazing Spiderman and Hulk series I watched as a nipper. Personally, I'm enjoying it immensely... though the revelations about Skye were predictable. It hasn't done anything outstanding it terms of human drama but, considering its pedigree (on the Marvel & ABC sides, specifically) that's not exactly a surprise. Besides, something tells me there's a big revelation to come about Coulson.