The Fascination of Magic (and other things that go bump in the night)

Voldemort and Harry

I've been reading some blogs and articles recently, about why we enjoy magic.

I like stories about magic. And horror stories, urban fantasy, speculative fiction, paranormal romance, the occult, fantastika etc. et al, ad infinitum.

The big question is, why?

No one else in my family shared this fascination, nor my desire to spend my free time immersed in vampires, ghosts and magic. Nor did any of my childhood friends. I was reading Dean Koontz then, my peers had never heard of him. Nor my English teacher, who declared horror books to be "pap" and so I wasn't allowed to do a book report on Hideaway. My interest has never been encouraged in the slightest, yet it continued to grow and prosper within me.

Why? I think the main reason is because the stories are just that, stories.

An American Werewolf in London

When I was 6 or 7 saw my first horror film, American Werewolf in London, which i think is rated 15 (possibly 18). Without parental permission, I must add. My sister (who is 5 years older) had nightmares; I slept like a baby.

I believe that a part of me has always known that those kinds of stories aren't real, and so I can simply enjoy the story without worring about a spell being cast on me, or a gremlin climbing in through my window at night (though that would be very cool) or Freddie Kruger hiding under my bed. Indeed, my favourite insomnia company is a horror film, because they keep you entertained, usually without requiring much effort on the viewers part.

I was also exposed to a lot of true crime movies in my childhood as my mother was a fan (still is). Now some of those films, even the PG rates ones, they terrified me.

The daughter in Small Sacrifices

There are some scenes that are seared into my brain to this day. A murdered wife being wrapped in carpet and dumped by the side of a road. The scene in Fatal Vision, where Gary Cole's* movements around his house could be tracked, long before the days of DNA, because his family all had different blood types. The Deliberate Stranger looking for victims at a lake and at the end of the day, a group of friends, frantically calling the name of their missing friend. A woman being stabbed in broad daylight, and no one lifting a finger to help her. Farrah Fawcett's** little girl, finally admitting the truth to herself by writing down the name of her attacker. (She was mute. And the attacker was her Mom).

My sister still claims that she cannot throw a pair of curtains open thanks to American Werewolf; she has to pull back one curtain, then the other, whereas I can't even remember that scene.

Damon Slavatore trying to escape an animal trap

Just today I saw Damon Salvatore trying to rip his hand out of an animal trap and it didn't bother me in the slightest. 127 hours though? I'm afraid to watch it because I know that suffering was real, and that someone actually endured what I'm seeing.

I think that real life is hard enough. I don't want to spend my leisure time immersed in real suffering and unimaginable cruelty that will haunt me. I'll stick to pretend bogeymen, thank you, because deep down, they don't frighten me at all.

So are you a fan of the fantastic? If so, what draw does it hold for you.


* I would like to add that Gary Cole was the actor playing the murderer and did not actually kill his own family
** Same for Farrah Fawcett, she played the murderous mom.

Sherlock

Sherlock with a gun

I love the new series of Sherlock on the BBC, both series 1 and 2 were brilliant. The writing is sharp, the chemistry between the leads is excellent and while I feel some stories are dragged out a little to fit their feature length slot, I very rarely check my watch which is a very good sign in my book.

However, there are two things that continually bug me and in my humble opinion are major flaws with the show.


First of all, Guns. 

Watson with a gun

This is the UK, we do not have easy access to guns. No civilian would ever be given a licence to carry a handgun and if caught carrying one, would receive a relatively harsh prison sentence.

Lestrade with a gun

Further more, no police officer would be allowed to handle a gun unless trained as an armed police officer, in which case (aside from a rare few who guard high risk targets like nuclear facilities or diplomats)  his/her firearms must be carried in a safe within a locked boot of a specially designed and equipped police vehicle. They must obtain permission before even being allowed to get the guns out! There are around 150,000 police officers in the England and Wales but less than 7,000 have been trained to use a gun and there are not even ten incidents per year where the police have opened fire.

Joe Public with a gun

I can buy the criminal element having access weapons because they're on the wrong side of the law anyway and I can buy the good guys using their weapons against them but we are pro gun control in this country! When you show everyone from police officers to Sherlock and even members of the general public who aren't criminally minded touting a handgun and no one even batting an eyelid, it throws me right out of a story.

We are the UK, not the USA. Please to be learning the cultural differences.

Actually what really irks me is that the writers are English and if they engaged with current affairs in even the smallest way through out the past 20 years, they could not have failed to notice that guns=illegal.

Clearly they have chosen to ignore this rather massive and important piece of legislation but why?

John Watson with another gun

Sherlock with another gun

Are they trying to sell the show to American audiences? Because in my opinion, ignoring this huge cultural difference is as jarring as then the Americans doing a bad British accent or we Brits doing a bad American accent. It doesn't sit right, it doesn't feel right and it throws you out of the story because it draws your attention to something that is out of place.

Sherlock showing off with a gun

My other big bug bear, which upsets me even more than the lackadaisical use of firearms, is Cliffhangers.

Each movie told its own complete story

When I read a book, watch a film or a TV show, I like to know that I will be left with a satisfying conclusion. Even serialised films and books leave you with a conclusion to that chapter in the story. Some successful examples include the Godfather trilogy, the Harry Potter books and films, The Star Wars Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings books and movies, the Southern Vampire Mysteries books and True Blood TV series, Dexter, the Alien films, James Bond books and films, Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and Lost World books and the Twilight books and films to name but a few.  Each manages to wrap up the story arc for that instalment and tempt the audience back for the next book/series/film without resorting to massive cliffhangers.

Each book told a complete story

When it comes to TV shows, I will tolerate an episode to episode cliffhanger sometimes but when they leave a series on a cliff hanger, I hate it.You don't have to tie up all the threads, just the major ones, you can leave small things unanswered or sew the seeds for the plots of the next book/film/series but when you leave me on a massive cliffhanger that I have to wait a year to see the conclusion to, I more than likley will not bother.

It's sloppy writing and to me it says "I'm really not confident that my writing is good enough to tempt the audience to tune in next season, so I have to leave them on a massive cliffhanger so that they will want to watch the next series to find out what happens".

The writing on Sherlock is strong enough to draw the audience back in next season without resorting to these silly and annoying theatrics.

The cliffhanger in season 1 wasn't too bad, they completed the arc of the series and episode leaving just one question unanswered, who would win the face off, Sherlock or Moriarty and to be perfectly honest, this ending felt like it was just tacked onto the end of the episode as an afterthought. I still thought that it was cheap and bad writing but on the whole season 1 left me satisfied.

No cliffhangers in sight!

This season the whole final episode is left unexplained. We can draw our own conclusions about some things but there are huge gaping questions left unanswered and while viewers can come up with their own theories, we will not get an answer for  another whole year. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating slightly. We wont get an answer for another 49 weeks, assuming the scheduling is the same for series 3.

Why can you not trust in your writing ability enough to give your loyal viewers a satisfying conclusion? Are you catering to the fan-boys/girls who love a good mystery and coming up with their own theories? Are you hoping that they will create an internet buzz? Because I have to tell you, doing that at the end of the series is the wrong time to get people interested.

95% or more of your viewing audience are not fan-boys/girls who will trawl the internet looking for answers and even if they were inclined to come up with their own theories, one week is ample time for anyone to do so.

To sum up my feelings on this, if you can't be bothered to give me a satisfying resolution, then I'm not sure I can be bothered to tune in next year.

Trust me, I have real life problems that last a year or more, I do not want my entertainment to be so problematic.

III

In the interests of fairness, this is Mark Gatiss's reply. Forgive the brevity, they're tweets.

Click to enlarge

"Re: guns. It's fiction and merely mirroring the accessibility of weapons in the original (Watson's revolver) Re: cliffhangers. As Wilkie Collins said "Make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make 'em wait."

It's nice that he would take the trouble to reply to a viewer, even if we must agree to disagree!

TV Drama needs more reality?

Jimmy McGovern isnt happy with British drama. He says

Commenting on the high viewing figures for costume dramas such as ITV's Downton Abbey and the popularity of arch adventure shows such as Dr Who, McGovern said he believed the best writing took itself seriously, as well as taking its audience seriously.

He goes on to say

Television drama should say more about the world we live in today and not rely on costumes, irony and pastiche.

And

The only way to tell stories on TV is to convince people that what they are seeing is actually happening now and is real. I just can't handle the tongue-in-cheek approach, the kind of thing you see on Dr Who. Though there are millions who can, I know

Now I do actually understand that way of thinking. My mother is very much like Jimmy McGovern and looks to real life for her entertainment. She only reads biographies or true crime and she watches true crime documentaries or crime drama's. The last science fiction film she watched was Star Wars in 1977, the year I was born. She accepts that I have very different tastes but she will not watch anything that couldn't be real.

I think however, that Jimmy McGovern misses the point of drama. Sure, some of it can tell real life tales and be relevant to the working man or womans life.

The trouble is, a lot of life is tough. Bloody tough. If he wants to spend his free time wallowing in more of the same misery (lets face it, his work is hardly a laugh fest) then he can do that.

Me? I want some escapist fun. I want to forget about my worries for a while and just enjoy a damn good story. I don't want to watch something that what will reminded me the prejudices I face, the bills I cant pay, the hopelessness of a dead end job, the misery of having been betrayed, the heartache of never being understood or the grief of losing a loved one.

What's more, I don't think that makes me a bad person or makes my views any less important than his.

I look to the news and the papers for real life. I look to the TV to be entertained.

I personally think my mother is obsessed with crime as a way to understand her violent father, and more power to her but she's 60 now and still doesn't seem to have come to terms with her past. I think Jimmy's obsession might also show he has unresolved issues regarding his upbringing and a lot of bitterness about being working class but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to wallow in our issues. Some of us like to deal with them, let go and move on.

But even assuming he's right, who's reality are we talking about? As a friend said

whose reality, exactly? Because mine, while not privileged, bears no resemblance to his. Would he write a drama about a quiet street where almost everyone is white and apparently comfortable, where if people are suffering discrimination, bereavement, fear and poverty - and I know they are - they are doing it politely behind closed doors and not talking about it? Where 20% of the teenage population walks to the station every day in smart Grammar School uniforms and everyone shops in Waitrose?

Thought not. But that doesn't make it any less real.

No. Reality is very subjective and issues vary greatly. There is a place for real life, gritty drams, and there is just as big a place for pure entertainment.

For the record, I chose to watch Single Father over Downton Abbey, but I somehow doubt many widowed fathers chose to relive their trauma.

Glee

When I first started watching Glee it was because it appealed to my closeted star. Most of us have one, he/she usually dreams of singing to packed houses but is either too scared to try, or knows they don't quite have the talent to match the dreams.


I'm mostly the former with a splash of the latter so this show was right up my alley. Even better, it was something i could watch with my teenage niece. There aren't too many programs around that we're equally crazy about.

Sure, the characters were mostly caricatures, the situations were straight from a soap opera and there wasn't a single character I really liked. Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike them, I was just indifferent.

As such, Glee was a fun piece of escapism and nothing more. It had charm and I forgave it it's flaws.

The disabled boy, the gay character, the pregnant teen, the fat girl, to me they were all just token characters, there to either be politically correct or to be sensationalist. I was very cynical.

I kept those views for the most of the first half of the season. We were slowly given an insight into a few of their lives, but for the most part Glee was a very superficial show.

Then things started to change. Will grew a backbone. Of all the characters I suppose Will Schuester was my favourite, though that's not saying a lot. He was a weedy, wimpy bleeding heart liberal who talked a good game but didn't deliver. Week after week I wanted to bash his head in for being a doormat to his wife and the cheerleading coach, I wanted to beat some sense into him so he could see the lies. I mean, come on, man! My dogs wouldn't have put up with his wife's behaviour, and they lick their own arses!!!

Then one day, Will finds out the truth. It was a fleeting moment of real anger, but it made me sit up and watch. Hmm, maybe there was more to Mr Nice Guy than just a good voice. I wondered if this could not only last, but even spread to some of the other characters.

And low and behold it did. The pregnant girl, Quinn's lies were discovered, then she got kicked out of her house when her parents found out about the baby. Fat became an issue for Mercedes, the fat girl. Homophobia became an issue for Kurt, the gay kid. The disabled boy, Artie's dreams of walking were horribly (but honestly) crushed.

Fat girls do not miraculously get slim over night and have all their problems solved. They have to learn to love themselves for who they are, fat or thin.

Pregnancy isn't pleasant. At the best of times it drives most women a little crazy and I don't mean that mothers to be are hormonal. I'm talking about peeing every five minutes, loss of mobility, the inability to tie ones own shoe laces, loss of self, financial worries and worry over doing the right thing. Most adults have a hard time with this, teenagers have it even harder.

Paralysed people rarely walk again. For some lucky ones the damage to the spine isn't permanent (eg it caused by pressure on the spine) or isn't total and some function can be regained. Sadly for the majority, spinal injuries are life long. Artie didn't just get up and walk again because he hoped hard enough or dreamed long enough. It sucks. That's life. But do you know what? Artie didn't let it ruin his life. He took the blows, dusted himself off and carried on.

Homophobia can be very damaging to young gay men. They learn that to be accepted they need to change, hide certain aspects of themselves, laugh along with the gay jokes and try to fit in. Then along comes Kurt. Flamboyant, fey and shameless. His father loves him but admits he doesn't know how to handle it. The bullies pick on him, but Kurt fires right back with his barbed wit. He knows who he is and he knows there's nothing wrong with him. He flirts with "playing it straight" but knows that's not who he is. I don't blame gay men (or women) who do chose to hide their sexuality to fit in, but I am glad they have an out and proud role model on network TV.

Real life was beginning to interrupt this sugar coated world, and I was liking the results.

As the series progressed there were some real hardships coming to the fore, some real emotions poking through the shiny façade, and some real strength of character being shown in over coming these obstacles.

Are there still cartoonish plots? Sure. Are some characters still over the top? Absolutely. The only real difference? Now the show has heart.

For every soap opera plot line, over the top acting and sickly sweet scenario, there's also a truth being spoken.

For every unbelievable scene, like a headmaster believing that vampires are real, there's a moving scene, like Kurt's father comparing f*g to the N word.

Glee is truly unique television. It takes the things you shouldn't like (like show choir and fat people) or the issues that society as a whole shuns (like disability and homosexuality) and by making them cool, hopefully make the viewers question their own prejudices.

I've just touched on some of the issues raised in Glee, the more prominent ones or the ones that most spoke to me, but I think most kids are represented here. There's something for everyone and I hope in season 2 and 3 that Glee never forgets when it's at it's best. In other words, when the sublime compliments the ridiculous.

The New New Who

I am a geek. Sure, I generally hide it well but I am a geek at heart, on par with an MIT graduate according to one personality test I took.

Knowing that, it should come as no surprise that I'm a Dr Who fan but I have a sort love hate relationship with the newest incarnations of the Doctor.

Russell T Davies was a hack. His plots were full of holes and as his seasons progressed, he seemed to become more and more enamoured of his own prowess and indulged in writing some of the worse TV ever.

Christopher Eccleston's series was the best. RTD's head wast too big and Christopher Eccleston has enough gravitas that I could overlook the gaping plot holes in favour of some great acting. Even Billie Piper was good, I think being with Chris made her up her game.

David Tennant was a fun doctor, i liked him, but he didn't have the same prowess as Chris so I could forgive less, and of course the show started believing it's own hype and the problems got bigger. There are some stand outs in David's era, but not many. And as for Rose's character, oh sweetheart, what did they do to you? Once you were a kick ass companion, by the end you were a whiney, love sick brat travelling between dimensions for a man who left you behind (and did so again when you found him, albeit with a pale imitation of himself to keep you happy). We must placate the wimens, after all. It's not like a woman ever survived having a broken heart and moved on to live a good life.

And don't even get me started about what they did with Martha. Talk about missing an opportunity.

I was pleased when I heard that RTD was standing down and Stephen Moffat was taking over. I had liked most of his episodes in the past and was hopeful he would improve the show.

I was also pleased when he said he wouldn't be bringing back any old bad guys. To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of the Daleks or Cybermen being behind every other plot.

However, after viewing the pilot, my hopes are fading. Talk about self indulgent!

The first 10 minutes were just about having fun. They told us nothing about the characters or the new doctor and the humour was childish in the extreme. The plot points that were revealed in those 10 minutes could easily have been compressed into 60 seconds.

And so it continued for the rest of the episode, culminating with a preview of the rest of the series and who should show up prominently in that preview. The weeping angels, the Daleks AND the Cybermen. Now the weaping angels we've only seen once, i dont mind them coming back, but must the Daleks and Cybermen show up every frickin series! Use some imagination! There's a whole universe out there, why not show a little diversity!

And while we're on that subject, aliens who have human looking eyeballs as their... communicators? most likely aliens wouldn't look a thing like us, so why would they model their technology on human eyeballs? Human eyes aren't even that good, as eyes go, many other species have much better vision than we do.

My high hopes have been dashed.

Will i continue to watch? Probably. It is Dr Who, a staple of my childhood.

But I wasn't desperate to see this episode, I didn't watch it when it aired as I used to in season 1 of New Who. Who has been relegated from cant miss TV to filler TV, what I watch when there's nothing else on. It's just such a shame, it has so much potential that's being wasted.

But to end on a high(er) point, I think I like the new companion, however the marriage and slight romantic vibes are giving me pause. And after both Rose and Martha, can you blame me for being worried?