Reading/Watching Log #116

Okay, I suppose you’re wondering: where’s the Reading/Watching Log for June? Between work, annual leave, and then a flu bug that’s still dragging on, I just couldn’t get around to finishing it – but it’s on its way. My two weeks off coincided with terrible weather, and so I made it my mission to catch up on every bit of franchise fluff that I’d deliberate skipped in the last five or so years.

But then it got a little out of hand, when I decided to watch something from every big-budget franchise, from The Matrix to The Muppets, under the proviso that I’d never seen it before. There was simply no way in hell I can write a full review for everything that I binged in those two weeks – but limiting myself to just a couple of sentences also takes quite a while when you watched as much as I did in a fortnight.

It'll turn up eventually. For now, July saw a return to the Tudors and murder-mysteries, which were linked by the Lady Grace Mysteries, a series of mysteries set in Tudor England (I mean, duh).

Watching another batch of Tudor-related programming just makes me realize just how extraordinary those times were. If you tried putting even half of it in a fictional story, you’d be slapped by your editor. The story of Anne Boleyn alone is incredible: that Henry the Eighth would go to such lengths in order to marry her, only to cast her away when she became an inconvenience. And that their child would end up as one of the most famous monarchs of all time is just… I mean, what word would you even use to describe that?

Mallory Hates Boys (And Gym) by Anne M. Martin

The most relatable book title ever?

This is another sad-sack Mallory book, and the title pretty much sums it up. I’ve no idea why the “gym” part of the title is in parenthesis and not the “boys,” since both have equal billing as terrible things to be endured throughout the story, but suffice to say that Mallory grapples with both across fifteen interminable chapters.

That said, I can relate when she reacts badly to the news that volleyball is the next sport on the agenda in gym class (I still remember the red welts on my forearms), all the more so when it transpires it’ll be co-ed (though that was a little confusing since all my gym classes were co-ed. Why wouldn’t they be?)

Mallory doesn’t want to play with boys, mostly because she doesn’t want them seeing her in her grubby gym clothes, but also because in her experience, they go nuts when it comes to sport. And she’s right. Soon realizing that she’s the weak link, the boys on the opposite team immediately start biffing the ball in her direction, and her inability to successfully get it back over the net gets her criticized by the gym teacher. Eventually Mallory takes a volleyball to the face and is benched by the seriously awful Ms Waldon, who comes across as one of those drill sergeant gym teachers who honestly can’t fathom anyone not taking sport as seriously as they do.

Again, I can relate to Mallory. I’ve never sported in my whole life. I do not care about it at all.

Still, the punishment gives Mallory an idea: to avoid the agony of playing volleyball, she’ll just bench herself before every session, detention be damned. (Though she sneaks home early to get the detention slips out of the letterbox before her parents see them).

In the babysitting B-plot, all the boys that the babysitters regularly look after are being incredibly badly-behaved, and Mallory comes to the conclusion (since Logan, Ben and the other Hobart boys are courteous and easy-going) that it’s a Stoneybrook thing. She puts her theory to the test by having the triplets and Nicky go to the Hobarts’ house for the night, while Ben’s three younger brothers come over to the Pikes. And you know how this goes: turns out that the Pike boys are beautifully behaved, while the Hobarts run wild.

Everything is resolved when Mallory’s parents find out about the detention and advise her to talk to Ms Waldon. She finally starts acting like a proper teacher when she agrees to tell the boys to get off Mallory’s case, in exchange for Mallory actually making an effort while playing (which she was doing to begin with until Ms Waldon made it unbearable, but whatever).

But by this point, volleyball is over and the class moves to archery instead, something Mallory turns out to be so good at that she makes the team. This made me laugh because what public middle school has an archery team? It’s like a few books ago when Jessi joined the synchronized swimming team. Are the ghostwriters aware of how specialized these disciplines are? And much like Mallory becoming class secretary in Kristy for President, we never hear about the archery team ever again.

(Though this book did have a sliver of continuity when the Pike boys mention their Zuni pen-pals while over at the Hobarts).

The Mystery at Claudia’s House by Anne M. Martin

Another mystery that isn’t really a mystery. Seriously, this subseries is really not living up to its name. We’ve had a missing ring which played out more like an awkward babysitting situation, a child that fell into a hole, Mary Anne discovering she still has living grandparents, and Mallory try to deal with a cat that may or may not be a ghost (which admittedly was so mysterious that no one had any idea what was really going on, including the writer).

The only book so far that I would classify as a genuine mystery would be Beware, Dawn! Ah well, the next one involves disappearing dogs, in which the babysitters crack their first crime-ring.

Here, the initial mystery is solved pretty quickly. Claudia finds that her room has seemingly been ransacked (that is, it’s messier than usual) and some of her makeup has been used. The following morning, Janine comes downstairs wearing Claudia’s red sweater and badly applied eyeshadow. So the real mystery is: what’s Janine up to?

Of course, it’s pretty blatantly obvious, but Claudia point-blank refuses to consider the possibility that her older sister has a boyfriend. But given that Janine is trying to look more attractive, lying to their parents about her whereabouts, using Claudia’s private landline, and coming home at the ungodly hour of eight-thirty (seriously, eight-thirty) Claudia’s brain takes her to possibilities such as kleptomania and drug dealing. This is the girl who decided she was adopted on the basis of there being no baby photos of her in the house.

On that note, I love the cover art. You can just tell Claudia is in panic mode and saying “oh my lord!” to her own reflection. The way she’s grabbing her hair and how her fingers are splayed on her other hand is just a pitch-perfect depiction of how teenagers overreact.

In the mildly connected B-plot, child actor Derek Masters (from Jessi and the Superbrat) returns to Stoneybrook during the filming hiatus of the show he stars in. He’s getting teased by the neighbourhood kids about an upcoming episode in which he has to kiss a girl onscreen, and so makes up stories about how he’s a kissing expert, which in turn leads to several hijinks with the other kids demanding that he prove it by demonstrating on various sisters. He eventually fesses up and all is resolved.

But aside from his sitcom, Derek has also appeared on a show called “Kid Detective” which leads Claudia to asks his advice on how to find out what’s going on with Janine. Because, you know, that makes him an expert on mystery-solving. The pair of them (along with Derek’s little brother) end up tailing Janine a few times and seeing her meet a cute guy who drives a car.

In one very cute scene, Claudia witnesses them shake hands, and Janine later explains this was because she and her boyfriend hadn’t yet reached the physical affection stage of the relationship, so they’d just formally shake hands instead. I also liked the part when the Kishi parents ground Janine after she’s been caught out in a lie, and Claudia seizes the opportunity to be “the good child” by doing the dishes and helping out around the house – only to realize it’s kind of a drag.

Eventually the truth comes out, Janine introduces Jerry to the family, and all’s well that ends well. I have no idea if we ever see Jerry again, or if he falls into the narrative black hole along with Lewis, Stoneybrook’s recycling centre, Mallory as class secretary, and the shitty racist family.

Perhaps the book’s most memorable aspect is its dark purple cover, a colour we’d never before seen on the books of either the main series (which were usually pastels) or the mysteries (which up until this point, all had been dark blue). Also worth noting is that they kind of adapted this story in Netflix’s short-lived The Babysitters Club series, though they merged it with Claudia and the Sad Goodbye, and Janine’s secret boyfriend became her secret girlfriend.

Murder at Wintertide by Fleur Hitchcock

Fleur Hitchcock has been writing standalone murder mysteries for young readers for several years now, and I’ve been diligently reading all of them as they appear. They’re not part of a series like the Murder Most Unladylike or The Afterschool Detective Club books, as each one involves a different cast of characters and an unrelated murder to solve – though all of them, as far as I can recall, are set in England and involve a mismatched pair of tweens working together to solve a crime.

This time around it’s George and Isla, complete opposites who are thrown together one Christmas thanks to the complicated relationships of their extended family. He’s a standard sporty, pop-culture saturated young teen, and she’s a brainbox with some social awkwardness.

On their way to a holiday home in Lyme Regis, George and his father spot an altercation on the road between two cars and a white van (it’s always a white van...) Later, George sees what looks like a light plummeting from the top of a high clifftop after dark. Then it’s only a matter of time before the police turn up, asking questions about a body that’s just been discovered washed up on the shore. Are the three occurrences connected? George thinks so, but naturally no one is willing to believe him except Isla.

The plot moves between the complicated family dynamics (involving step-grandmothers, step-cousins, a black sheep uncle and a forthcoming half-sister), the history of Lyme Regis (specifically concerning the legends of the missing Crown Jewels) and the unfolding murder mystery. Hitchcock has never shied away from including real darkness in her stories, and more than any of the other “young detective” books out there (from Nancy Drew to The Sinclair Mysteries to Enola Holmes or Lady Grace) you get the sense that there is very real danger in the world these characters inhabit. Perhaps that’s just because they’re set in the modern day instead of the distant past, and that each new story contains brand-new protagonists, but there’s always the sense our amateur sleuths could come to true harm.

On a minor note, I occasionally struggled with the fact that most of the characters had such generic names, which made it difficult to remember who was who, and it got a little silly after a while that the kids kept getting let out of the house by themselves when there was clearly a dangerous criminal on the loose. If there was even a hint of a dead body during a family holiday when I was a kid, my parents wouldn’t have let me out of their sight.

I also jolted a little in my chair when the ending referenced “the king” instead of “the queen” (I’m still not used to that) but was delighted when George enters a bookstore and looks for “the latest from Philip Reeve.” That’s a boy after my own heart.

The Body in the Blitz by Robin Stevens

It took almost a year for me to get my hands on this book; that’s how long I had it on reserve at the library. Not because it was in that much demand, but because something went wrong in the delivery process and it got caught up in transit for the better part of eight months. The point I’m trying to make is that it feels great to finally get hold of another Murder Most Unladylike book (even if it’s technically from the continuation series, starring our former protagonist’s little sister).

In the spring of 1941, May Wong (the aforementioned little sister of Hazel), Finnula O’Malley (or “Nuala” to her friends) and Eric Jones (a refugee from Germany) travel to London to begin their training as the newest recruits in the British Intelligence Service. That’s perhaps a little hard to swallow considering they’re all under the age of twelve, but once you get over that hurdle, you’ve got another enjoyable historically-based mystery to solve. Nuala is our first-person narrator this time around, and while staying with the others in Hogarth Mews, she ends up following a neighbour’s dog into a bombed-out house on the corner. There she discovers a dead body.

As May points out, a street like this is just like a large dormitory, in which everyone is embroiled in everyone else’s business. Someone must know what happened to the unidentified woman. When the trio sneak back to investigate the flat of an absent resident, the realize that her attic gives them access to all the houses on the street – and of course, prime eavesdropping opportunities (what does that remind you of? Twelve points if you thought of The Magician’s Nephew).

Robin Stevens does a great job at capturing the underlying stress and fear – but also the “keep calm and carry on” attitude – of London during the Blitz. At any point the sirens could start wailing and everyone would have to head for the shelters, not knowing if they were about to be blown to bits or not, but even this is normalized to some extent.

The mystery itself gets a little convoluted, and some of the twists are a bit too obvious (as soon as the victim is described as a busybody, you know she was a blackmailer) but I mostly liked hanging out with this next generation of Unladylike characters. Even the likes of Lavinia Temple and other ex-students from Deepdean are present in cameo appearances.

I’m surprised the series in its entirety hasn’t been adapted for television yet, though I suppose it’s just as well these days. We’d only manage two books before it was unceremoniously cancelled.

The Lady Grace Mysteries: A for Assassin, B for Betrayal and C for Conspiracy by Patricia Finney

Much like Enola Holmes and The Roman Mysteries, the hook for Patricia Finney’s Lady Grace Mysteries is to pick a historical context and have a young heroine solve mysteries specific to that particular time and place. In this case it’s Tudor England during the reign of Elizabeth I, who is currently in her mid-thirties.

Grace Cavendish is a lady-in-waiting whose mother was killed thwarting an assassination attempt against the Queen (that is, she drank poison that was originally intended for Elizabeth) and so the now-orphaned Grace finds herself in a favourable position – which isn’t necessarily a good thing. There’s a lot of rivalry and jostling between the women at court, and when Grace takes up the side-hobby of solving murders, things can get a little tense.

There are twelve books in the series, each one with a single-word title whose first letter matches the chronology of the alphabet from A to L (Assassin, Betrayal, Conspiracy, Deception and so on). I’m not entirely sure why the series stopped after L, as apparently two other authors took over in the writing of later books, but oh well.

The stories are presented as entries in Lady Grace’s daybook, where she keeps a record of daily events. This has the usual advantages and pitfalls of epistolary novels: an immediacy and intimacy in the first-person narrative, but also a lack of suspense since if everything is being written in retrospect, Grace clearly made it out alive of any dangerous situations she finds herself in.

Every hero needs at least two sidekicks of different genders; in which case we’ve got Ellie Bunting the laundry maid and Masou Al-Ahmed, a Muslim tumbler from a travelling troupe of acrobats. The friendship between the three of them is kept a secret due to the class differences, but they can go places that Grace cannot, picking up on gossip and secrets and other nuggets of information that can then be passed back to their friend.

I’ve currently read the first three books in the series, and though they’re fun little romps, it’s clear why they’ve never reached the same fame as the aforementioned Enola Holmes or The Roman Mysteries. The characters aren’t as vividly drawn, and the mysteries aren’t as clever. Most of all, Nancy Springer and Caroline Lawrence were able to completely immerse the reader in the sights, sounds and culture of Victorian London and Ancient Rome respectively; something that never really occurs to the same extent in any of these books.

By the end of the first book Grace is dubbed Lady Pursuivant by the Queen, in her unofficial capacity as an investigator within the court. So far she’s foiled an assassination attempt, a kidnapping with the aim of forcing a noblewoman into marriage, and political sabotage. They were fun and diverting enough, and fit perfectly into the whole Tudor theme I had going this month.

Anne of the Thousand Days (1969)

I saw this one years ago, maybe as a teenager, and was struck on this rewatch that Natalie Dormer in The Tudors was by no means the first sympathetic portrayal of Anne Boleyn. Geneviève Bujold got there first in 1969, and with considerably less screentime she depicts the ill-fated queen as strong-minded, clear-headed, and with a staunch moral compass (despite some stumbles into temptation).

The film focuses more on Henry and Anne’s relationship than any of the religious or political upheavals that went with it, and is leans heavily how inescapable the king’s will really was. He deliberately withholds his blessing to Anne’s marriage to Harry Percy, he relentlessly pursues her, and ultimately he eventually tires of her when she fails to produce a son and continues to raise objections to her treatment, long after she was meant to have morphed into a dutiful wife.

But the film also gives some degree of humanity to Henry, which I had no patience for (in fact, watching all these versions of Henry put me increasingly in mind of a certain American President – the venality, the pettiness, the tantrums, the way he discarded anyone and everything that displeased him…)

The film beautifully plots the course of the relationship, and the no-win situation that Anne finds herself in from the very start. An example is set by her sister Mary (whose mistake was that she “gave everything and asked for nothing”) which only solidifies Anne’s determination not to be treated as chattel. The film covers her anger over losing Harry Percy, her refusal to become a mistress out of pride and self-worth, and how Henry’s decision to divorce Catherine is actually seen by Anne as her escape from him, since she agrees to marry him if he does it only because she believes such a thing is impossible.

We see the dizzying effect that power has on her, as well as the great lengths the king goes to in order to attain her – which would be a difficult thing for any woman to grapple with. Altogether, it captures a sense of Shakespearean fatefulness based on a person’s temperament and the inevitable choices they’re going to make based on the circumstances they’re stuck in.

In this film, there was really no other way this could have gone for Anne. What else could she have done? Just submitted immediately and let Henry have his way with her as he did her sister? Married Harry Percy in secret and so risked his life? Given birth to a son? Well, that last one really wasn’t up to her. Still, she manages to give Henry a fantastic The Reason You Suck Speech before her death, one which outlines that her Elizabeth will go on to rule a greater kingdom than his.

The moment is a complete fabrication, but Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne is of course the final ironic cherry on top of this entire sordid affair: that it was the child of Anne Boleyn who ruled over the Golden Age of England.

Also interesting is how each retelling of this period recontextualizes certain events: in Wolf Hall, it is Anne who has Harry Percy sent to arrest Wolsey as revenge for how he destroyed their marriage prospects; here it’s Henry that appoints Percy, in order to test whether or not Anne still has any lingering feelings for him.

I do enjoy watching old films, for the theatrical style of acting and the pleasant graininess of the film (as opposed to the too-pristine digital quality of contemporary movies) and Geneviève Bujold really was a powerhouse. Richard Burton is obviously a perfect match for Henry, and the chemistry between the two leads was apparently enough to make Liz Taylor, Burton’s then-wife, suspect them of having an affair. She cameos as a masked reveller that interrupts Catherine of Aragon at prayer, apparently because she was always on set to keep tabs on her husband.

Lady Jane (1986)

I’m surprised there aren’t more films about Lady Jane Grey, the erstwhile queen who ruled for a grand total of nine days after the death of Edward VI but before the reign of Mary I, and who was soon thereafter executed for high treason. Considered little more than a pawn used by various actors pursuing their own ends, hers is a deeply tragic tale, all the more so since she was only about seventeen when she died.

I suppose one of the advantages of dying young is that the entirety of one’s life can be conveyed within a manageable runtime, in this case from Jane’s upbringing as a staunch Protestant, to her arranged marriage with Lord Guildford, to her truncated reign as queen, to her execution via beheading (complete with the true-to-life detail that she was unable to find the block after being blindfolded).

The story obviously takes a highly sympathetic view of her, with Jane a reluctant participant in both her arranged marriage and her forced coronation, only to find the wherewithal to enact new reforms for the good of the country – which of course is what brings the whole house of cards crumbling down.

The film’s greatest liberty is in idealizing the love story between Jane and Guildford, which is initially a marriage of convenience for their parents, before a few conversations has the two of them embarking on a grand romantic affair. You have to admire the whimsy of these two scamps trashing an entire banquet worth of wine goblets as a demonstration of their solidarity with the poor, but I’m pretty sure someone else had to clean up the mess they left behind.

Wikipedia tells me this film was Helena Bonham Carter’s first lead role, though I initially heard of its existence while reading Cary Elwes’s autobiography about the making of The Princess Bride, in which he recalled the fact that Hadden Hall was used for exterior shots in both films. Carter handles herself well, Elwes is his usual smarmy self, and perhaps the most amusing thing about the film is that everyone looks so young… except for Patrick Stewart, who has looked exactly the same for the past forty years.

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

Have you ever wanted to see the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn on a speedrun? Told from the perspective of a figure who was only tangentially involved? I hate myself a little for watching this, as I knew it would be absolutely terrible, but I committed myself to the Tudor theme, and had to follow through.

Spare a thought for Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johanssen, who probably had every reason to believe this film would be a home-run: the chance for each to play against type, a story in which the bond between two sisters is the centrepiece, and an opportunity to wear some sumptuous period gowns. Unfortunately, they may have been unaware this take on the Great Matter was penned by Phillipa Gregory, which meant it was always going to end up as a turgid soap opera.

Perhaps Gregory’s greatest crime, aside from reinvigorating the historical romance genre with poorly researched bodice-rippers, is the fact there isn’t a single bit of slander levelled against women throughout history that she doesn’t wholeheartedly believe in. Elizabeth Woodville was accused of witchcraft? Totally true. Catherine of Aragon swears her first marriage was unconsummated? She was lying. Anne Boleyn had sex with her own brother in a desperate attempt to conceive a male heir? Well, this adaptation has them stop themselves at the last moment, but I’m under the impression that the book has them go through with it, even though the incest charges laid against Anne were hardly believed even by her own contemporaries.

Portman and Johanssen are both respected actresses, but there’s not much for them to work with here, with each of them stuck as one-dimensional archetypes: Mary the virtuous good-girl and Anne the green-clad serpent. Most of their screentime is spent sniping and snarling at each other, which is a pity considering other dramatizations of this period give precious little attention to the extraordinary reality of their situation: two sisters that are both pursued by the King of England at different points.

The only other joy the film gave me was the lineup of familiar faces, most on the cusp of their big breaks, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Juno Temple and Alfie Allen. Apparently Andrew Garfield was in there too somewhere, but I missed him. Plus, it made me laugh to see Mark Rylance as Thomas Boleyn so soon after his stint in Wolf Hall as Cromwell (see below).

But my favourite part of the whole thing is when the film ends with Mary straight-up kidnapping the Princess Elizabeth from the palace and taking her to live in the countryside with her. Altogether now: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Hustle: Season 3 (2006)

I actually watched most of this season last month, but the very final episode was watched on the first of July, so it’s being counted here. The thing is, once the formula of a show has been established, there’s not a heck of a lot to say about it. Our team of con-artists have hit their stride, and carry out six more hustles across the course of the season.

Obviously it can’t be that easy, and so there are some variations along the way. One episode involves a bet between Mickey and Danny regarding who’s the better con-artist, which starts when both are deposited stark naked in the middle of London. The winner is naturally the individual with the biggest haul at the end of the day. Another has the team try and pull off a Bollywood-related con, only for the self-absorbed mark to get a head injury and turn his life around. Since the grifters have a strict rule on only conning those that deserve it, they have to extract themselves from the situation without anyone knowing what they were up to in the first place.

There are also some fun sequences, such as an episode that has the main cast members reenact a historical con in the format of an old vaudeville film. And as ever, there are plenty of familiar guest stars: Mel Smith, Richard Dillane, Kenneth Cranham, Paul Kaye (Thoros from Game of Thrones), Christine Adams (Lynn from Black Lightning) and of course – Angel Coulby! I knew she was making an appearance sooner or later, and it was fun to see her this early in her career. What’s she been up to lately? I checked her IMBD page and apparently she recently appeared in something called What It Feels Like For a Girl. Better check that out…

Wolf Hall: Seasons 1 – 2 (2015 – 2024)

In a way, the two seasons of Wolf Hall are quite an extraordinary thing. The first aired back in 2015, and the second nearly ten years later, in 2024. But a surprising number of actors reprised their original roles: practically the entire main cast, including Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, Kate Phillips, Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Lilit Lesser. Many of those that didn’t return have the excuse of having passed on (Bernard Hill) or becoming actual Hollywood movie stars in the interim (Tom Holland).

Both seasons are based on Hilary Mantel’s novels on the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, though the first season (a little bafflingly, considering that a lot of the material feels very truncated) adapts the first two books, Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies, while the second takes on The Mirror and the Light.

I watched the first season back when it first aired, and despite all the accolades that were showered upon it, found it a bit plodding and slipshod. Mark Rylance’s blank-faced, dead-eyed performance as Cromwell continues to baffle me – he’s obviously a respected enough actor to deserve the benefit of the doubt and an acknowledgement that he’s playing the character this way on purpose, but I’ve no idea what he’s going for. A disaffected detachment? Some sort of inability to demonstrate emotions? A deliberately constructed shield brought on by childhood trauma? I have no idea who this man is or how he feels about anything, because Ryland gives us nothing.

The whole thing is presented as a “slice of life” drama in which we’re thrown into the past with virtually no introductions or exposition, a creative choice I usually enjoy and appreciate – though in this case, there are so many characters in such a complicated web of intrigue that a lot of the time it’s difficult to discern exactly what’s happening. Other subplots and minor characters (such as Cromwell’s abusive father, or Cromwell dealing with a self-proclaimed prophet) are raised, only to be forgotten about after a few scenes.

That is no doubt part of the design. As stated, the show is going for a very immediate, very realistic portrayal of this fraught period of history, but if anyone didn’t have prior knowledge of these events, I suspect they’d be completely bewildered.

There was some fun Retroactive Recognition going on, most notable with Tom Holland approximately five minutes before he was cast as Spiderman, as well as Luke Roberts as Norris (who would go on to play Woodes Rogers in Black Sails) and a little Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Elizabeth Barton, currently starring in Slow Horses as Shirley.

Season two I enjoyed much more, specifically because it pulled off the extraordinary feat of making Jane Seymour interesting. When it comes to structuring a narrative around these events, it’s inevitable that she’s always depicted as the “good girl” replacement to Anne Boleyn’s wanton wiles. Let’s be honest, Jane is utterly overshadowed by her immediate predecessor in the annuls of history, and she was probably intelligent enough to just keep her head down and focus on embodying the role of the obedient wife.

And yet this ignores the fact that stepping into the place of a woman who was beheaded for not producing a male heir must have been a terrifying prospect. The Jane in this drama is acutely aware of this, and almost wearily resigned to the fate that’s gathering around her. One of the most striking scenes in season one depicts Jane’s brother and Cromwell coaching her on what she must do if the king’s interest in her becomes too aggressive. Her brother advises her to scream, to which she calmly responds: “what if no one comes?”

Cromwell instructs her to instead quote something from the Bible that will appeal to Henry’s sense of chivalry and honour. It’s the casualness with which all of this is discussed that makes the scene so chilling. Such were the concerns of a woman in the sixteenth century (or, well, any time at all really – and it was impossible not to be reminded of a certain president after watching so many iterations of the spoiled, mercurial, bloodthirsty Henry VIII).

But where Anne played the seductress, Jane (deliberately, or so the show gently hints) goes for that of the virtuous, slightly dim-witted maiden. There are times in which she’s clearly feigning ignorance or working the room, and at one point she even demonstrates her “humble face” to Cromwell. Ultimately, she kept her thoughts to herself, and as a result is usually overlooked in any feature that dramatizes the Great Matter.  

My main takeaway from this is just how quickly a despotic leader churns through his faithful followers. Anne goes to the block, and in his turn the architect of her downfall, Thomas Cromwell, goes too. The show ends on a quick montage of the surviving characters, but we already know that Katherine Howard is on borrowed time, as is Lady Rocheford. All on the whims of a king who cared for none of them in the end.

Onyx Equinox (2020)

I’ve had this show on standby for so long that I’ve forgotten where I originally heard about it (probably a gif-set on Tumblr). It’s a step away from the usual animated fare, firstly by being firmly directed at adults, with plenty of blood, gore and nudity, and secondly by drawing upon Mesoamerican mythology – which was the main drawcard for me.

That said, the plot itself is a little garbled, and if it wasn’t for the fact I have absolutely no time to do so, I would probably benefit from rewatching it again from start to finish. As far as I could discern, the God of the Underworld is stealing the blood sacrifices needed by the other gods to sustain themselves, leading to a wager between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, the gods of wind/fertility/creation/learning and night/hurricanes/obsidian/war respectively to keep him under control.

The former bets the latter that he can find a champion for humanity that will close the obsidian gates to the underworld, thereby nullifying Mictlantecuhtli’s power. If he fails, then Tezcatlipoca will go ahead with his plan to destroy humanity, as he has already done many times before. Quetzalcoatl opts to choose someone who is “the lowest of the low,” to be humanity’s champion – a young slave boy called Izel, though Tezcatlipoca sends along his emissary Yaotl (a giant jaguar spirit) to ensure that no cheating occurs.

There were plenty of things I liked, namely the animation and the designs of the gods involved (one of them was the splitting image of Garraka from Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – or perhaps this inspired the design for Garraka since it came out four years earlier) not to mention the refreshing change of setting. I can’t think of any other animated project that’s set in Mesoamerica save for The Road to El Dorado, and that’s not exactly a sterling example of accurate representation. The clothing, the culture, the food, the animals – it all contributed to a visual buffet. My favourite detail was a scene in which the characters are in jail cells, and a number of white butterflies drift lazily through the air between them. They have no plot relevance, they’re just there to lend some ambiance.

The problem is that the plot is tough to follow and the characters difficult to get a handle on, which is a shame since I get the feeling Avatar: The Last Airbender was used as a rough template for how the show would be structured. But Izel spends most of the show being incredibly whiny, and not enough screentime is afforded to his growing band of sidekicks to really invest in their wellbeing.

Despite being released in 2020, it wasn’t until 2023 that the cancellation was officially announced. There’s very little information available as to what was going on behind-the-scenes, and so Onyx Equinox has become yet another promising projected relegated to the shelf of unfinished stories. It’s a real shame, as I can’t think of any other stories that made use of this particular time and place for its setting.

Surface: Season 1 (2022)

This is one I’ve been watching on a weekly basis with mum, though it took us longer than expected to get through it thanks to various illnesses and other delays. We chose this one after seeing Gugu Mbatha-Raw on Graham Norton, talking about the upcoming season two.

The story has a solid, albeit very unlikely hook, based on Easy Amnesia. Yes, that old chestnut. Sophie Ellis is living the high life: gorgeous house, adoring husband, rewarding career… she’s essentially one of the beautiful elite and all that entails. But when the story opens, it’s several months after she suffered a head injury after plummeting from the side of a ferry. According to everyone around her (therapist, husband, best friend), she jumped – but she can’t get over the lingering question that if her life is just so perfect, why did she try to end it?

The story unfolds at a somewhat slow pace as Sophie delves into her own past and the slightly dodgy figures that inhabit her present: the undercover cop that seems fixated on her, the best friend who is a little too supportive, her husband’s work colleague who clearly doesn’t like her for some reason, the therapist who is oddly persistent about how she move on with her life, the husband who is clearly holding back something…

It’s one of those series that’s engaging while it lasts, but never goes anywhere truly rewarding. It’s not until the final episode that we get a clear idea of who Sophie is and what she wants to do next, and though there’s something to be said for a deep character study, the whole point of a story like this one is that you don’t really know these people. They’re deliberate enigmas in order to maintain the mystery. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is great, even if she has to spend most of the runtime as a confused blank slate, and she’s got a solid supporting cast to back her up: Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ari Graynor, François Arnaud, Marianne Jean-Baptiste. By the looks of things, season two is even more stacked.

It's not bad by any means, just a little… vague.

Shardlake (2024)

For some reason, I was under the impression that this four-episode miniseries would be comprised of four standalone mysteries. False! It is one singular mystery divided into four parts. Based on the books by C.J. Sansom, it’s a dark and moody period piece set in Tudor England during the dissolution of the monasteries and the height of Cromwell’s power.

The most interesting component about both books and adaptation is that the title character, Matthew Shardlake, is a hunchback (or has scoliosis, as we would say today) and the actor playing him, Arthur Hughes, has radial dysplasia. I’m not sure how similar these conditions are, or if Hughes’s gait is real or affected (in keeping with the character’s) but it’s interesting to watch an actor with a real disability play a character who is likewise impaired. Even today there’s a stigma around this sort of thing, and one can only imagine the prejudice back in the sixteenth century.

A barrister in the employ of Cromwell, Shardlake is sent to the monastery of Saint Donatus to investigate the murder of a monk, while his associate John Barak (played by Anthony Boyle, who between this, Say Nothing, Masters of the Air and Manhunt, had an incredible 2024) prepares to accept its surrender to the crown. In fact, the gruesome beheading is a perfect pretext to seize control of the monastery’s assets by demonstrating the corruption of the church.

But of course, nothing is ever that easy. There are close-mouthed monks, a cloaked figure running around, a second dead body found on the premises, and a missing murder weapon. Every detective needs some degree of inner conflict, and Shardlake’s is that despite his innate decency, his physical capabilities make him an object of scorn, suspicion or pity to those around him. Naturally, he has to overcompensate in some areas in order to make up for the negative perception people hold towards him. 

Sean Bean is here in what amounts to a glorified cameo as Thomas Cromwell, along with Andy Serkis’s daughter Ruby, Babou Ceesay, Peter Firth, and hey – Paul Kaye turns up again! Plus, it was funny seeing Tadhg Murphy so quickly after watching him on Black Sails (which I’m currently binge-watching) as a completely different type of character.