Reading/Watching Log #87

Lots of books this month, but only one movie, which surprised me. It’s probably because my weekend viewing has been taken up with my determination to finish several shows that I started a while ago but have yet to finish (Crash Landing on You, The Umbrella Academy, The Crown) and I’ve got at least thirty books out from the library that I’m eager to get through.

As ever, I finished two more Babysitters Club books, as well as two more picture books illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton, two children’s books by A.M. Howell, two characters called Claudia, and three YA graphic novels. I also got back to Joseph Delaney’s Spook series, and (totally coincidentally) rewatched the very first series of the BBC’s Spooks from 2002. The third season of Sailor Moon is in the bag, and the one movie I did watch was so epic that it was pretty much the equivalent of five movies.

Top Twelve Best Film/Television Moments of 2022

Browsing through my reading/watching logs for 2022, I found myself struck by the fact that this year it was remarkably easy to pull together twelve list-worthy moments featured in film and television, even though few of the things I watched this year really enraptured me. Compare this to 2021, in which I had the exact opposite problem: having to shave the list down to only six entries, but which were comprised of scenes and set-pieces that completely blew me away.

This year’s Fear Street trilogy (by which I mean a project I wasn’t expecting much from, only for it to end up living rent-free in my head for a couple of months) was Andor, the latest entry into Disney’s Star Wars canon, which ended up being so good on so many levels that every other Star Wars project that’s come out of the studio since its acquisition should feel embarrassed.

It also had the side-effect of making other shows, which I probably would have enjoyed just fine otherwise, feel clunky and strained in comparison. House of the Dragon, The Rings of Power, even The Sandman simply did not measure up to the absolute mastery of Andor’s world-building, pacing, dialogue, suspense, and characterization. And unlike the Fear Street trilogy, which does come with my caveat that it’s great for what it is (a YA shlock fest with clever twists and weighty underpinnings), I have no qualms about recommending Andor with the most effusive of praise. It really is that good.

So most of what you’ll find below the cut are impressive scenes within projects that were a tad lacklustre... or at least didn’t engender the powerful response in me that I would have liked. But there was still a lot here to enjoy, much of it based on either grand spectacle or emotional torque, and featuring – as you’d expect – a lot of great female characters.

Here, in no particular order, are my personal top twelve film and television moments from 2022:

Woman of the Month: Camille Bordey

Camille Bordey from Death in Paradise

I finally got around to watching the first season of Death in Paradise to find it’s an extremely formulaic police procedural, albeit one set on the Caribbean Island of Saint Marie. But sometimes that’s exactly what the doctor ordered: a chance to switch your brain off (or at least put it on low-power) and enjoy the lovely scenery while some entertaining characters solve a murder.

Annoyingly, the twist regarding Camille Bordey’s character is spoiled in the opening credits of the very first episode: although she’s initially introduced as the major suspect in a murder case, it turns out she’s working undercover in a drug-smuggling ring – something any viewer could easily deduce since she’d hardly feature in the opening credits if she wasn’t going to be a recurring character.

Like everyone else on the show, she’s a fairly stock character: the easy-going cop to contrast the uptight, fish-out-of-water Richard Poole, who struggles to acclimatize to the culture, temperature, wildlife and very different way of doing police work on the island. Camille’s role is largely to provide local context to the newcomer, but for what it’s worth, I think the show mostly side-steps the bad optics of Camille having to play second fiddle to an Englishman, since she’s a talented investigator in her own right and doesn’t suffer fools – particularly Poole – lightly.

It's hardly a deep character study, but Camille is competent, intelligent and quick on her feet – and like I said, sometimes that’s all you need to enjoy a show (or a female character).

Reading/Watching Log #86

So that was January, which always feels like the shortest month. It involved a lot of drama this side of the hemisphere, what with the arrival of torrential flooding in Auckland and the resignation of Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister. Regarding the former – well, it’s climate change. Get used to it. As for the second, I’m extremely happy for her. I actually felt a great wash of relief when I heard. The past few months have seen an increase is misogynist rhetoric and she’s been the subject of death threats, harassment campaigns and everything else under the sun.

The feeble-minded conspiracy theorists and right-wing nutjobs are “celebrating” (at least, the ones that aren’t busy dying of Covid) but you can tell there’s an existential crisis to their behaviour: now that the villain of their deranged narrative is leaving the stage, they’re starting to look around and realize there’s no one left to blame all their problems on. Whether they’ll transfer it to another person or whether the poisonous online misinformation machine will simply peter out without its main target remains to be seen.

She leaves with her dignity intact, knowing that she never sunk to the level of her detractors (though that would be quite a feat considering one of these clowns is spending the next three years in prison for trying and failing to sabotage the Auckland power grid, and another has well and truly dived off the deep-end by trying to prevent a baby from getting a life-saving blood transfusion, complaining about it on Alex Jones’s show, and claiming Ardern is personally trying to kill her. We’re talking the very bottom of the intellectual/moral barrel here).

But Ardern knows the best way to win is to simply leave the playing field, and that’s what she’s done: she’s secured her legacy, will be remembered fondly by history, made friends in the international community, and best of all, denied anyone the chance to vote her out. She can get married and raise her daughter and hopefully go on a long, relaxing holiday.

But you’re not here for that, you’re here to see what I’ve been reading/watching this past month. It involves checking off another of the shows from my Ten Pilots, One Day project, making a dent in my never-ending pile of library books, watching several of the films I was meaning to watch in the final months of 2022, and a surprising amount of Hannah Waddington cameos (well, two – but you know that saying about getting two nickels and how it’s strange it happened twice).

Speaking of my Ten Pilots, One Day post, I’ve moved onto Interview with the Vampire, after which I have only Vampire Academy and Wednesday left. The former has already been cancelled so there’s no real incentive to continue with it, and I’ll probably hold off on the latter until October, seeing as it’s perfect Halloween viewing. Right now I want to dive back into Legend of the Seeker and the third season of His Dark Materials, and the long weekend seems a perfect opportunity for catching up.

Oh, and hopefully I’ll get my Top Twelve Television/Film Moments of 2022 posted soon as well.  

Women of the Year: A Retrospective 2022

Another year, another bevy of female characters that didn’t quite make the monthly cut, but which are still worth appreciating and discussing. In general, I feel that 2022 was a good year for female characters. Most of the stuff I watched avoided any gratuitous fridgings or assaults (even the Game of Thrones spin-off had a profound decrease in rape and nudity) and there was an uptick in unapologetic portrayals of women who are difficult, unlikeable, messy or all of the above.

Fandom still has a lot of trouble with this concept (the truest dictum I ever saw on this subject was: “ya’ll want complex female characters until you actually get them”) but it’s heartening to see that writers in general are feeling brave enough to commit to more multifaceted portrays of women, depicting them not as either devils or angels, but as people.  

There’s still a lingering fear I think, that female characters have to be presented as strong and good and better at things than everyone else; that they have to be role models for fear of criticism or accusations of sexism. I like watching an assertive woman strut her stuff as much as the next person, but when you end up with identical women girlbossing their way through stories, you just end up with bored viewers (and probably fending off tedious Mary Sue accusations).

This was also the year in which there was vocal pushback against internet trolls that lose their minds over female or non-white leads in their favourite franchises. Spoiler alert: both She Hulk and Scream 5 explicitly acknowledged this phenomenon and baked it into their storylines, with She Hulk depicting an MRA-type organization who launch a campaign of physical and sexual harassment against its protagonist, and Scream 5 eventually revealing its killers to be entitled fans who are literally murdering people in an attempt to get their beloved IP back to its roots.

Ignoring toxic fans is no longer an option, and creatives are fighting back. For better or worse, they’re now recognized elements of pop-culture. And what do you know? By an amazing coincidence, more than one of the women below the cut are characters that have enraged them...

Recommendations: The Best of 2022

I guess it’s time for the yearly roundup, in which we all take a quick look back on the ups and downs of the year, and the most enjoyable material that I read or watched.

It hasn’t been a great year, what with Covid still plaguing our shores, though the truly frightening spectacle was that of fellow countrymen and women deciding that temporary safety measures put in place to protect everyone was too great a price to pay for their personal convenience. It’s truly frightening to see just how deranged some people can get and how easy it is for them to justify violence; imagining themselves as heroic freedom-fighters instead of just belligerent assholes.

Some cold comfort can be derived from the fact that many of them found out the hard way that the virus is in fact, very real, and suffered the worst effects of it without the vaccination – but I know plenty of people who have lost friends and are now estranged from family members because of the lies that have been spread.

Things are starting to calm down in public, but that underbelly of arrogant anti-intellectualism remains.

We also lost some great talent this year: Angela Lansbury, who I will remember most fondly for her role in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a movie I was completely obsessed with as a child. Forget Mary Poppins, Eglantine Price was the only stern but supernatural lady I needed in my life. She also voiced Mrs Potts in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, one of the absolute pillars of my childhood, and I have some very fuzzy memories of playing in front of the television at my Nana’s place while Murder She Wrote was on (now that’s a show I have to binge-watch one of these days).

Nichelle Nichols passed after a difficult illness, but she was extremely cognizant of the huge impact she’d made by playing Uhura in the original Star Trek, and news of Sidney Poitier’s death made me realize I’ve never seen a single one of his films – hopefully I’ll get to rectify that in the new year.

I was too young for Cheers, but Kirstie Alley was a familiar presence in the Look Who’s Talking films, as was Olivia Newton John in Grease (which I was probably also too young for, but watched it religiously anyway). Robbie Coltrane’s lasting legacy to a generation of children will no doubt be as Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, while Kevin Conray will always be the definitive Batman/Bruce Wayne to me – that voice was imbued with so much clarity, strength and underlying kindness.

And of course, Christine McVie, who performed my favourite love song of all time.

It always feels a bit strange writing brief obituaries for celebrities – I’ve never met any of them, and their families are the ones that are going through the actual grieving process, but when someone’s talent touches your life, it’s worth saying something, however briefly.

In the wider world of media and entertainment, it was all a bit of a mess. Actors abruptly quit their projects, Netflix committed to cancelling all sorts of strong and interesting projects in favour of more shows that will in turn get cancelled before completion, and God only knows what’s going on with HBO and the DCU. Westworld is over despite having only one more season to complete its story, as is The Nevers, which never even got a chance to finish its first season. Batgirl got pulled despite being nearly finished, Patty Jenkins has left Wonder Woman III (which will probably never get made at this point) and after the big song-and-dance about Black Adam changing the face of the franchise and bringing back Henry Cavill as Superman, all that’s been canned as well.

It's so wearying. This obsession with “expanded universes” means that everything has to be interconnected with each other, crammed with Easter eggs and cameos and fanservice, and essentially operate as movie-length trailers to other upcoming projects. But when that’s the case, you don’t get a complete story – and if one thing fails, then everything does. I’m so tired of getting invested in something only to see it go off the rails or get cancelled before it can end properly.

Dialing back to my own blog, 2022 marks the least number of posts I’ve made in a year since starting it in 2014, which is one of the drawbacks to fulltime work. Looking over my stats, I’m surprised to realize I didn’t write any original meta this year, focusing instead on single-episode reviews (largely for Xena Warrior Princess and Legend of the Seeker) plus anything else I thought deserved an in-depth look.

I managed a long (almost exhaustive) review of the Fear Street trilogy, which still blows me away by how good it was, especially compared other franchises’ attempts to do similarly update properties, combine a nostalgia kick with contemporary issues, or even just tell a coherent story with a beginning, middle and end. I replayed The Colonel’s Bequest and its sequel The Dagger of Amon Ra for the first time in ages, and wrote out a summary/review of The Adventures of Maid Marian, my favourite bad film of the year. I also played and wrote about the first King’s Quest game, and definitely plan to continue with the series in 2023.

Finally, I spent a Saturday watching pilot episodes, my rundown of which ended up being one of my most popular posts for the year. Now it’s just a matter of watching everything else on the list – though I’ll probably hold off on Wednesday until the Halloween season. Next up is The Sandman and Interview with the Vampire – and I’ll also finish my episodic reviews for the final season of His Dark Materials, which has already come out.

So much to do, but here are my personal favourites of 2022...

Woman of the Month: Kahlan Amnell

Woman of the Month: Kahlan Amnell from The Legend of the Seeker

There are three types of female characters: those you relate to, those you enjoy watching, and those you admire. Kahlan falls into that last category, as she’s very much characterized by her restraint, her moral compass, and her commitment to the cause.

Kahlan belongs to an order of women known as Confessors, all imbued with the terrifying power to remove an individual’s free will, rendering them her devoted, life-long servants. The more you think about this, the more appalling its implications become. Just recall Killgrave from Jessica Jones or King Randa from the Graceling books as examples of how the misuse of an ability like Kahlan’s can be utterly catastrophic.

As a result, Kahlan must hold herself to almost excruciatingly high standards, not just for other people's safety but her own as well, knowing that the respect she commands as a Confessor could very easily curdle into hatred and fear.

There’s another drawback to her power: because it is so linked to her emotions, she’s unable to enjoy any physical intimacy with a partner lest they become confessed (naturally, this turns out to be the main source of tension between herself and Richard). We’re left with a character of unspeakable power whose most important, maintained characteristic is her self-control. At no point is she able to indulge in her emotions or act without consideration. And casual sex is way out.

Yes, a lot of this is inherently silly, in the way only a fantasy about mind-control and magical powers and an author’s obvious sexual hang-ups can be silly – but in performing such a role, it takes a careful balancing act to treat Kahlan's condition seriously without getting too po-faced about it.

With that in mind, there’s no understating how much Bridget Regan brings to the table, pouring no end of nuance and conflict into a role that could have easily made Kahlan an uptight scold or a self-righteous moral guardian. Instead she parses through the character’s strengths and vulnerabilities, her inner poise and self-doubt, lingering traumas and gentle sense of humour, making sure it all stems from the same source: a woman who is acutely aware of her own terrifying, overwhelming power.

What she manages to do in the season one finale in particular is just extraordinary: in just a handful of scenes she sells us on the passage of several years, her growing despair as the walls close in around her, a strong rapport with a young serving girl, her despondent love for a man she’ll never see again, and a steady resolve to do what has to be done – whether it’s marrying her worst enemy or killing her own son. She not only pulls it off, she makes it look effortless.

And this woman has an aesthetic like no other. I don’t care how impractical it is, watching her swirling into battle with her hair loose and her long white sleeves flying is a thing of beauty. It’s ironic that I was originally planning to make Éowyn January’s Woman of the Month, another Defrosting Ice Queen in an iconic white gown, whose character follows the same trajectory of being cold and shut off from the world, only to gradually lower her defenses and open herself up to love and hope (in her case, I decided to hold off until I’ve re-read the books).

I’m currently making my way through season two of The Legend of the Seeker, and we’re in the midst of Kahlan coming to terms with the fact a Mord Sith – the natural foil and enemy to the Confessors – is slowly but surely becoming her friend. It’s a fantastic arc for her and Cara to take, and the writers have even been so kind as to remove Richard to an entirely different plot so the women can hash things out between them.

The burden Kahlan carries is one she takes seriously, for she knows better than anyone the horrific toll that the abuse of her power might inflict. From a traumatic childhood in which her hands were bound by her father to protect himself, to an alternative timeline in which her abilities resulted in a genocidal monster of a son, she's aware that strict discipline over herself is the only way to keep her loved ones safe.

And so watching the slow-but-steady incursion of hope into her life is one of the great joys of the show in its entirety. It’s one of the things I love most about the Richard/Kahlan relationship: that in many ways, Richard is the one that takes the “feminine” role of providing emotional nurture and care to the more constrained Kahlan, who ever-so-gradually begins to dismantle her defenses not just against him, but the entire world.