Reading/Watching Log #39

Looking at my reading/watching log for this month is a strange thing, as everything here is divided in my mind between those I experienced before March 15th and those that came afterwards. A lot of what I saw in the wake of the attacks was deliberate comfort-watch material, while stuff that spanned the entire month occasionally took on a drastically different tone within the new violent context of current events. As ever, stories provide both an escape and a mirror.

In any case, I've been trying to track down and complete many of the book series and television shows that I started in the past but never got around to finishing, which here includes a prequel by Danielle Jensen and the second season of Reign. In keeping with the theme of female royalty, I also tracked down the third season of Victoria, though much preferred the more grounded, lower-class lives of the Derry Girls and Nadia Vulvokov from Russian Doll.

Two magic-themed blockbusters managed to completely disappoint me, but there was enjoyment to be had in two books from my Treat Yo Self pile, not to mention the mixed bag that was The Dragon Prince and True Detective.

But I find that everything I consumed this month (barring Ghost Stories) was inherently hopeful in nature, from the Derry Girls dancing during the news that a bombing had taken place, to Nadia finding a meaningful connection in her chaotic life, to Rayla and Callum working together to save the baby dragon, to Ivy finding her way to a loving home and Sir Wilfrid forming a partnership with his long-suffering nurse. In dark times, these are the things you have to hold on to.

The Illustrated World of Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

The Peter Jackson adaptation of Mortal Engines may have flopped (I haven't seen it yet) but at least it opened the door for more material based on Philip Reeve's post-apocalyptic world. This included new editions of the original seven books, a short story collection based on Anna Fang, and this: an illustrated manual on the history, wildlife and traction engines that are so central to the book series.

It's presented as a manual written by someone within this particular universe, which means entries on certain characters and events are rudimentary - in many cases, you'd have to turn to the omniscient narrator of the actual stories to find out what really went on (which was more than enough to spur me into a re-read, if only I had the time!)

Along with Reeve's incredible powers of world-building (I was especially impressed by the way he integrates cultural motifs and traditions into his vision of the future) it's also infused with his quirky sense of humour, with more than a few puns and bits of nonsensical trivia (such as the traction city that thought it was a good idea to put itself on pogo-springs).

There are also over half-a-dozen illustrators on hand to provide the illustrations, particularly David Wyatt and Ian McQue, who did the cover art for the original and latest publications. Between them all, they bring Reeve's vision to vivid, colourful life, up to and including the war zebras. WAR ZEBRAS! I almost cried with joy.

The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden

The last three stories in Rumer Godden's doll-themed story collection are extremely short, and most of them are only published these days as part of a larger set. This one seems to have predicated on The Little Match Girl and the question: what if that story had a happy ending?

An orphanage is closed over Christmas, and all the children are sent to various foster homes for the holidays. But Ivy has been left out, and so she jumps a train and heads for Appleton, wishing that the village holds her (non-existent) grandmother. Meanwhile, the toys in Mr Blossom's toy store are being purchased for the holidays, though a Christmas doll called Holly is overlooked.

A series of coincidences eventually bring the girl and doll together, in a story that is pure, undilated sentimentality. It's treacle and sweetness and puppy-dog tails. Yeah, I fell for it. Apparently it was turned into an animated television series back in the nineties, and you can bet I'm tracking that down as soon as I've posted this.

Candy Floss by Rumer Godden

This one captures a lot of Godden's favourite tropes: a pretty doll, a spoiled brat, and the power of wishing. The titular Candy Floss is a ballerina doll from a travelling carnival who serves as the "luck" of the coconut shy owner and his little family of dog, horse and doll.

But one day the fair stops by a village where Clementina Davenport lives. Like most spoiled girls, she has everything and so values nothing, and after making her way through the fair's attractions, spots Candy Floss and steals her when Jack refuses to sell.

It's a short book that follows the usual Godden formula, with the same interest in the internal life of a doll, and the weight of one's conscience when you know you've done something wrong (helped along by the passive-aggressive energy of Candy Floss herself).

Impunity Jane by Rumer Godden

Of all Rumer Godden's doll stories, Impunity Jane is definitely the shortest. Set across several generations and with the striking difference that it's a boy and not a girl who becomes the loving owner of a doll, this ended up being my favourite of the collection.

Impunity Jane is a four-inch doll made of china who doesn't want to be played with as much as she wants adventure. At the time she's sold to a little girl called Effie, London is still filled with gas-lamps and horse-drawn carriages. As the years go by she's passed down from one daughter to another, but none of them are much interested in dolls and she begins to gather dust in the dolls' house.

But finally she falls into the hands of a boy called Gideon, and so begins a series of adventures involving mud, water, snails, paper planes and the great outdoors - Jane is having the time of her life, though Gideon is terrified that the other boys will find out what he's doing.

It's impressive that a book first published in 1955 could make the argument that boys should be allowed to play with dolls, and though it stumbles a little here and there (Gideon eventually gets away with his love for Jane by declaring she's "a mascot", as well as "a model" for his miniature train, which is not quite the same thing as just accepting that a little boy should be able to play with a doll without harassment) its heart is in the right place.

Even all these decades later, it could provide a helpful text for little boys who DO want to play with dolls without impunity (see what I did there?)

A Pocketful of Crows by Joanne Harris

This is one of those books you absolutely judge by its cover: black hardback, golden embossing, a stylistic crow - it immediately became part of my "treat yo self" collection of books that I'm working through this year. But of course, the judging a book by its cover adage exists for a reason, and A Pocketful of Crows isn't exactly the dark and creepy fairy tale I wanted it to be.

Based on child ballads, the calendar of the year, and Old English traditions, the story takes place over a single year, in which an unnamed wild girl of the forest becomes the lover of a high-born lord. Naturally, he disappoints her, and her love curdles into hatred.

As the moon waxes and wanes, the girl begins to plot her revenge, despite the warnings of various denizens of the forest. There's plenty here for fans of Celtic mythology and folklore, though there isn't any bite to the story, or any reason to care about the protagonist as anything other than an idiot who ignored all the many red flags surrounding her terrible decisions.

The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo

This was more like it: dark fairy tales that deliver. It's actually based on Leigh Bardugo's Grisha trilogy, which was set in an alternative-Russian setting, but the roots of her story are very much grown from the realm of ancient myth and folklore.

The premise behind this collection of short stories is that these are tales characters would tell to one another, set in recognizable parts of their world and with concepts unique to the trilogy such as Fabrikators and Tidemakers. You could enjoy this without having read the original trilogy, but there's definitely much to be enjoyed from having the full context of the tales.

There are six altogether, and most of them are clear analogies to familiar fairy tales, from Beauty and the Beast to Hansel and Gretel, The Nutcracker to The Little Mermaid. One even reminds me of an Aesop fable, what with its talking animal protagonists and clear moral message. And I loved it!

As with A Pocketful of Crows, it's a physically beautiful book, with gorgeous binding and a neat trick in that illustrations grow around the borders of each story as you turn the pages, till the final spread reveals something meaningful about the tale you've just completed. The stories themselves are gloriously dark and creepy (though not without hope) and contain everything you'd expect from YA fiction: subversive narratives, proactive heroines and complex morality.

Bardugo also knows when to hold back on sentimentality. There is true darkness and cruelty here; the macabre and the grotesque as well as the beautiful. And since Netflix has recently green-lit an adaptation of the Grisha trilogy (presumably starting with Shadow and Bone), then now is as good a time as ever to get reading.

The Broken Ones by Danielle Jensen

A prequel to what's known as the Malediction trilogy, and part of my other required reading list for this year: book series that I've started and not yet finished. In all honesty, I didn't find the original trilogy (starting with Stolen Songbird) to be very memorable, and so the nuances of a prequel (which usually exist at least in part to provide "a-ha!" moments to the audience) was rather lost on me.

Set in the underground realm of Trollus, it concerns the lives of several familiar characters before they meet Cecile, the protagonist of the trilogy. Under the rule of a tyrannical king, young Marcus and Pénélope struggle to conceal their feelings for one another and negotiate the delicate web of political intrigue that involves Prince Tristan secretly planning a coup to overthrow his father.

As the trilogy didn't make much of an impression, I wasn't able to be particularly moved by the lovers' plight, and I was surprised that Jensen didn't make any accommodations to readers who may not have started the series with Stolen Songbird. There is literally no exposition here regarding Trollus, the reason it's crumbling, the rules of magic or the disfigurements of the trolls themselves, which will render any newcomer completely baffled. Even I had trouble remembering some of the specifics.

It was nice to get a bit more detail on Pénélope given the way her shadow loomed throughout the trilogy, but honestly the best part of this was the concluding short story which introduced Cecile and her fraught relationship with her family.

Witness for the Prosecution (1958)

This is one of those movies I'd been hearing about for years but never sat down and watched properly. Based on a stage play by Agatha Christie and directed as a court drama/classic noir mash-up, it focuses on the trial of Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) a charming and amiable young man accused of murdering an elderly woman who has left him a considerable amount of money in his will.

Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton) is a defence lawyer at the end of his career, suffering from ill health and caught in an ongoing battle of wills with his pushy nurse. But he's galvanised into taking Vole's case after meeting the man, struck by his forthright manner and the circumstantial evidence that seems likely to send him to the gallows.

But the standout performance is easily Marlene Dietrich as Christine Vole, Leonard's mysterious wife. Having been saved from post-war Germany by her husband, she's a cold and practical woman, and everyone seems to have a wildly different opinion on the state of her marriage. Whatever the truth, she holds the truth to the case, and Dietrich delivers an incredible, unforgettable performance.

I love watching black-and-whites, as there's a lovely stage quality to them that requires actors to really work their scenes: moving around, interacting with props, and carrying on long conversations without breaks. By this stage I've read enough Christie to have guessed the solution, though watching it all unfold is the where the enjoyment of the film derives.

Perhaps the highlight are the scenes between Wilfrid and his nurse Miss Plimsoll, which start out horrendously sexist (there's no way you could root for Wilfrid as a modern protagonist) but end on a note of surprising partnership and understanding - one almost wishes for a sequel.

Ghost Stories (2017)

SPOILERS

Not sure why I picked this one up, but it has an interesting idea behind it: a skeptic who goes around debunking physics and other paranormal activities is invited to meet his idol Charles Cameron, a scientist who inspired him in his career and who has been missing for several decades.

Cameron ends up giving him three case files to investigate: ghost stories that can't rationally be explained by science. One by one, he hears the testimonies of each victim (a night watchman, an anxious teenager, a chipper countryman) and grows increasingly uneasy at the strange atmosphere and recurring details that pop up.

Unfortunately, the twist ending renders everything completely pointless. Turns out that the investigator tried to commit suicide in a car and has been in a coma ever since (as with The Wizard of Oz, everything in the case files reflect someone or something in the hospital where he's staying).

So nothing here had anything to do with ghosts or the supernatural at all, it's just the hallucinations of a man in a coma. It's incredibly frustrating if you were waiting for some kind of coherent answer to everything (whether it be rational or supernatural) as the twist pretty much renders everything as pointless. For instance, it initially seems to be a pretty big plot-point that Charles Cameron was missing for several decades before contacting our protagonist - but nope. It's not real and is therefore a detail that means nothing).

Honestly, the whole thing instantly made more sense to me when I discovered this was originally a stage play, as no doubt the stories would have played out much more effectively in the context of the theatre. There, it would have been all about the visceral thrill of special effects and jump-scares, all of which becomes cliché on the big screen.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

Does anyone know what these films are about anymore? The whimsical adventures of a magical naturalist? The complex backstory between Dumbledore and Grindelwald? A series of winks and nods at the audience when they trot out inexplicable revelations on minor characters and artefacts from the original books? It's everything and nothing, and takes all of your concentration just to understand what's going on.

By this point the story has become so wrapped up in its own mythology that a fair chunk of the screentime is just people explaining things to one another, and although Rowling is usually good at her puzzlebox plots, this one just spirals out of control. A search for character's true identity, an unbreakable bond, a switched-in-the-cradle twist, the half-brother of one character trying to kill what he thinks is his stepbrother but who is actually someone else entirely... this was baffling.

There's not a lot to say really. So many of the cameos and in-jokes are just pointless (turns out Nagini was actually a young woman doomed to eventually turn into a snake permanently... mmkay. And there's Nicolas Flamel, here to do absolutely nothing important!) and the things I did enjoy are over and done with in this single instalment: the palatable air of tragedy that surrounds Leta Lestrange, and the charming depiction of Jude Law's Dumbledore (who captures more of the character than either of the original actors), a young Mrs McGonagall (played by Fiona Glascott - such perfect casting, so of course her big scene with Dumbledore got cut) and some of the fantastic creatures.

Jacob and Queenie are underused (turns out the spell that wiped his memory in the last movie...didn't work? Or something?), Tina is still the most boring character played by the most uninspiring actress I've ever seen (I swear my eyeballs just slid off her every time she was on screen) and I just didn't care about anyone else. By the time Grindelwald whispers Credence's true name to him, I realized that what should have been a game-changing revelation meant nothing to me at all. I just don't care.

But hey, kudos for bringing back Tony Regbo and Jamie Campbell Bower as the very young versions of Dumbledore and Grindelwald. They had blink-and-you'll-miss-them appearances in Deathly Hallows, so it was impressive they kept tabs on them.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)

It's so aggravating when a story rich with adaptation potential is completely botched, especially when it otherwise looks and sounds so glorious. E.T.A. Hoffman's fairy tale is a weird little thing, and yet its central premise could have been fleshed out in several interesting ways: a boy is put under a curse that only a young girl can lift, in an adventure that involves living dolls, a magical realm, a three-headed mouse, and a leap of faith.

Granted, Hoffman's assembling of these pieces leaves a lot to be desired, but with a deft hand there could have been a beautifully strange and intriguing story that moved between Clara's experiences on Christmas Eve, Drosselmeier's dealings with Princess Pirlipat, and an adventure into the Land of Sweets to lift the curse from his young nephew. It falls quite easily into three acts, and though there would naturally have to be some changes made to make it more cinematic, it would have made much more sense than what we got here.

This film takes the bare bones of the tale, along with a dash of Tchaikovsky's ballet and the animation from Disney's Fantasia, and turns it into something that's virtually unrecognizable: a random collection of overused tropes churned into a typical "hero's journey meets fantasy adventure" mosh pit with flat characters, too much CGI, and yet another tired example of a trusted mentor figure being a secret baddie.

It's such an infuriating waste, especially considering the beauty of the costumes, set design, cinematography and atmosphere. When Clara first discovers the Four Realms, emerging from a passageway that turns out to be the rootwork of a toppled tree, looking around at a wintry forest lit by an evening sun, you forget that it's cribbed directly from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe*, and simply soak in the ethereal beauty of it.

Pity about everything else. And it's a shame since you definitely get the feeling that the screenwriter was familiar with the original book: enough to give the family the last name of Stahlbaum, an older sister called Louise, and to cover for the name inconsistency between book and ballet by calling Clara's mother Marie. Although it only vaguely hints at this, the setup suggests that Marie is the girl from Hoffman's original tale who became a Queen of the Four Realms, making this a sequel of sorts, in which Clara is the next generation of royalty. 

(Kind of like how the Alice in the Tim Burton films was making a return trip to Wonderland, rendering the original story canon, but not hugely important. And in this case, it doesn't explain the fact that Marie originally married the Nutcracker and went to live with him permanently in the Land of Sweets. As we'll see later, this film doesn't even HAVE a nutcracker).

As it is, the relationship between Marie and the Four Realms is unclear. Did Marie invent it or just discover it? Dialogue somehow suggests both these things at the same time, which only makes things more confusing. Why did she leave? What was Drosselmeier's connection to the place? Was it just a dreamland or is it an actual realm?

Given the mysterious nature of the original story, there could have been a glorious Freudian soup of symbols and reflections and motifs between the real world and the Four Realms, in which a little girl tries to untangle the complexities of her deceased mother's psyche, but of course the film doesn't go within a million miles of that possibility.

Instead we get your standard "save the kingdom" narrative, in which Mother Ginger is presented as a villainous foe and Clara is tasked with finding a key to power a machine of her mother's invention that can create tin soldiers to defend the Land of Sweets (said key is originally hanging inside a tree. Who put it there? And why?)

Only it turns out that the Sugar Plum Fairy is the real villain acting out of some misguided sense of abandonment after Marie left. I've said before that this twist has become such an exhausted cliché that now it's surprising when "wise mentor" doesn't end up evil, but that they chose to make the Sugar Plum Fairy of all characters as the villain is pretty insulting. Look, the character isn't exactly a symbol of goodness in the same way Aslan or Gandalf or Father Christmas is, but still... she's the Sugar Plum Fairy! The embodiment of elegance and sweetness! Now she's a squeaky voiced psycho who makes gags about her army of big strong men.

It all leads to the most bizarre aspect of this whole affair: that a movie literally called the Nutcracker is completely without an actual nutcracker. Okay, so Fritz (not Clara, but Fritz) gets a nutcracker for Christmas which he waves around for about two seconds, and in the final act characters randomly start addressing Philip (a soldier that becomes Clara's companion/bodyguard) as "Nutcracker" for no apparent reason, but all things considered, we're still left with a story that has no bearing on its title. (There's no three-headed mouse king either. And when you're given the opportunity to have a three-headed mouse king in your movie, why on earth would you turn it down?)

Which makes Dosselmeier more or less obsolete, as it turns out he has no connection to the story at all. Forgive me for assuming that the only two black characters in the film had to have been related, but can you blame me? The nutcracker is meant to be Dosselmeier's nephew, and they clearly cast actors that had a passing resemblance to one another. But since the whole Princess Pirlipat backstory is abandoned, and Philip isn't the nutcracker anyway, and they totally cringe away from the possibility that their white protagonist might fall in love with a black soldier, it's all rendered pointless. Weird and pointless.

Also, I'm pissed that we never got to see Morgan Freeman impersonating an owl on top of a grandfather clock; surely the strangest and most mysterious part of Hoffman's story. Even the ballet keeps that part in! And this film even gives Dosselmeier a pet owl! Someone explain this movie's choices to me!!

*(This isn't the only thing it shamelessly steals, as the climactic scene involves Clara deciphering her mother's last message to her - "everything you need is inside" - and finding a mirror in the Fabergé egg she gets for Christmas. It's the same lesson we get in Kung Fu Panda, playing out in exactly the same way, with the exact same materials. KUNG FU PANDA).

Reign: Season 2 (2014 - 2015)

I'd forgotten just how insane this show could be. As part of my "finish what you started" phase I headed back to Reign in order to see how season two panned out. Back when it first aired I had some mutuals on Tumblr who were passionate about Mary and Condé, and I ended up half-shipping them solely through the attractiveness of assorted GIF sets. At the same time, I knew that fandom was pretty horrendous about them, and it's safe to say that the writing left a lot to be desired.

Of course, that's no surprise given what the first season delivered, and part of the show's charm is the fact that it's completely bonkers. I mean, we've got women called Kenna, Greer and Lola swanning around 16th century France in outfits from Hot Topic, discussing things like secret sex journals alongside the dangers of a Protestant uprising.

It should be great fun, and it would be were it not for a fly in the ointment: about nine episodes in Mary is attacked and raped in her own bedroom. Um...what? To say it's jarring is an understatement, and its shadow casts a pall over the rest of the season. The writing gamely tries to explore the psychological ramifications that a rape has on someone, but since it inevitably involves Mary growing distant from Francis and subconsciously blaming him for the attack, you can bet your ass that fandom turned on her with all the fury of a viewer who believes their self-insert character isn't treating their imaginary boyfriend the way they deserve. 

The worst thing is that it IS pretty much Francis's fault for keeping secrets from people who he knows will be both sympathetic and helpful, for the patronizing reason that he wants to keep them safe. What begins as an arc about the ways in which women can handle power inevitably starts paying more attention to its male characters instead: how women hurt them, how they make choices that effect women, and how they can redeem themselves in the eyes of said women. 

The worst thing is that Reign initially had a pretty good handle on what was and was not acceptable in a relationship. Despite the historical context, modern sensibilities are applied to Leith's nice guy persona, Narcisse's manipulative creepiness, and Francis's controlling nature - or at least you'd think so, until it becomes clear that we were actually meant to sympathize with them all along.

As well as this, everyone is stuck in a subplot that has absolutely no bearing on anyone else's. Catherine spends the first half of the season chasing ghosts around the castle, her daughter Claude turns up and proceeds to do nothing of interest, Bash starts investigating all manner of supernatural occurrences in the forest, and Kenna is just sort of there. I will concede that Lola and Greer do get pretty good storylines, the former struggling to adapt to her new role as mother of the king's bastard, and the latter unexpectedly becoming the madame of a brothel, but there are so many characters to juggle this time around, and they get precious little time to interact with each other.

Still, the season ends with the introduction of Queen Elizabeth. I have to say, she's enough to get me to season three.

Brooklyn 99: Season 2 (2014 - 2015)

Um...not much to say about season two of Brooklyn 99 that wasn't already said about season one. As ever, it's a fun watch, with every character not only amusing in their own right, but developed enough to have a great rapport with any other character of the ensemble.

Season two continues the Jake/Amy romance, leading to one of the funniest episodes when they're forced to go undercover as a couple, but also sorts out some arcs for the rest of the crew, including Holt's ongoing feud with Deputy Chief Wuntch and Rosa's awkward relationship with her (incredibly boring) boyfriend. As ever, Gina is the role model that I strive to become, and Terry Jeffords remains everyone's dream man.

Star Trek: Short Treks (2018)

We're halfway through season two of Star Trek: Discovery, and it was my friend who showed me how to access the short films on Netflix. They're pretty cute supplements of varying degrees of importance, from the superfluous (Runaway) to the humourous (The Escape Artist), from one that should have been in the actual show (The Brightest Star) to one that has no visible connection to anything that's taken place in the series (Calypso).

The Brightest Star is the best of the lot, which delves into Saru's backstory and his life before joining Starfleet, though The Escape Artist is a lot of fun in exploring an elaborate con-job contrived by Harry Mudd. Runaway is more to do with showcasing Tilly's heart (and why she's perfect captain material despite all evidence to the contrary) while Calypso does something a little different in exploring the relationship between a stranded astronaut and a self-aware AI.

They're definitely worth a look, even if they're not totally essential to the bigger picture.

Derry Girls: Season 1 (2018)

Endless GIF sets of this show have been crossing my dashboard lately, and I was in desperate need of something light to watch after the 15th. Turns out that though Derry Girls is a comedy, it had a lot in common with the current state of affairs in Christchurch. Set in Ireland during the Troubles, it focuses on the lives of five teenagers against the backdrop of constant bomb threats, police presence and civic unrest.

And yet, the five of them simply get on with their lives. What other choice do they have? That they attend a Catholic girls' school under the droll and disinterested supervision of Sister Michael is a scenario ripe for laughs (especially since one of them is an English boy who couldn't go anywhere else for fear he'd get beaten up) supplemented by the usual sitcom antics of their families.

As was pointed out on Tumblr, it's a show that truly captures the endearing stupidity of teenagers. These are kids who decide to look for a job by stealing the noticeboard at the local fish and chip shop instead of simply taking down the relevant fliers. If you don't think that's a perfectly logical solution to their problem, then you've never been a teenager.

Erin was a particular eye-opener. She's obnoxiously self-righteous, constantly on her high-horse, a moral crusader without much caring about the causes she champions, and a wannabe writer whose talents don't live up to her inflated opinion of them - yup, it's me as a teenager. As Tumblr would say: I feel so called out.

With only six episodes per season, it's easy to binge your way through them, and I gotta say: I really needed this.

Victoria: Season 3 (2018 - 2019)

Wow, this was pretty bad. I've enjoyed Victoria without necessarily loving it in the past, but season three veers heavily into bad fan-fiction territory, with the characters of Victoria and Albert in particular becoming virtually unrecognizable. In the interests of keeping conflict on the screen, the two spend most of the season fighting with one another - I'm talking full-blown shouting matches in front of servants, family, and members of parliament at the dinner table. It's ludicrous.

Then there's the arrival of Victoria's sister Princess Feodora, who is so over-the-top evil, with her creepy demeanour and shifty eyes that you can only shake your head in disbelief. She tries to drive a wedge between Albert and Victoria for reasons only vaguely hinted at (jealousy, I think?) and actually manages to succeed when Albert inexplicably starts to value her opinion over his wife's.

A bright spot is Laurence Fox being his usual smarmy-yet-somehow-endearing self as Lord Palmeston, and the nods here and there to the history going on outside the palace drama - the appearances of John Snow and Florence Nightingale for example.

But whatever happened to Diana Rigg's Duchess of Buccleuch? Or Wilhelmina Coke? Or Ernest and Harriet? They've disappeared entirely, without a word of explanation. They're replaced by a lady-in-waiting called Duchess Sophie of Monmouth, who ends up in a torrid love affair with a footman called Joseph. It's straight out of a cheap Mills & Boon, and there are no words to fully capture how uninteresting it is.

Stuff like the Great Exhibition is brushed over, even though there was enough material here to cover an entire season, and for the most part the show feels incredibly uninterested in itself, judging by the trite dialogue and endless stream of screenwriter clichés (as Sophie sneaks out of the house to escape to America, her young son randomly appears on the stairway, complaining of a nightmare in which he couldn't find her. Ugh).

True Detective: Season 3 (2019)

The hype surrounding this season of True Detective was so intense that it ended up being advertised in previews at the cinema (never seen that happen before), which is what made me decide to watch without having ever seen the first two seasons. Knowing that each were self-contained made it easy to jump into the action, as did the exemplary cast. Mahershala Ali is the obvious standout, but Stephen Dorff is also impressive, and clearly someone who never got the career he deserved.

But outside the cast and the atmosphere, it's a pretty rote mystery. Two children go missing on their way to a friend's house, and though the boy's body is found hidden in a cave soon after, the girl seems to have disappeared entirely. Wayne Hays and his partner Roland West are put on the case, but all their leads come up short.

The selling point of the show is the way the case takes place over three decades: the inital disappearance in the eighties, the reopening in the nineties when it becomes apparent the missing girl is still alive, and finally in 2015, when Wayne is being interviewed about the case in his old age.

It's cleverly done, with Ali capturing his character throughout all three stages of his life (including the onset of dementia) and yet there's not much beyond this performance (and some ruminating on the nature of time) that justifies the story being stretched across three decades. It's a great idea, and it plays well, but it's not essential.

To be essential, it should have delved just a little deeper into the theme of everyone in Wayne's circle becoming utterly consumed by the open-ended nature of the case. As it is, the conclusion is bittersweet, but not profound.

Russian Doll: Season 1 (2019)

I binged this entire thing across a single Sunday, something I've never actually done before (though I suppose the relative shortness of the episodes made it easier). Nadia Vulvokov is celebrating her thirty-sixth birthday with a resigned air of someone who believes the best of life is already behind her, when she's hit by a car... and ends up back at the mirror in her friend's bathroom, listening to the same song, surrounded by the same people, several hours before her fatal accident.

Yup, it's another take on the Groundhog Day Loop, which opens up the usual meditations on life, death, the human condition and our complicated connections with the rest of humanity, structured around Nadia desperately trying to figure out why her death keeps resetting time.

There are several twists and surprises along the way, but my favourite part would simply have to be the care with which Nadia's life is explored. There are so many striking beats that exist for no other reason but to enrich the story, and plenty of characters who clearly have their own problems going on outside the confines of her point-of-view.

It's a slice of life drama that just happens to involve the phenomenon of time resetting every time the protagonist dies, which means there little in the way of explaining how or why this is happening - what matters is how she changes and what she learns.

The Dragon Prince: Season 2 (2019)

It's not that I don't like The Dragon Prince, it's that the show is taking soooo long to get anywhere. Given that the comparisons to Avatar: The Last Airbender are inevitable, it's worth saying that at the end of their season two, the Earth Kingdom had fallen, Zuko had defected, Iroh had been taken prisoner, Aang was in a coma, Azula had taken control of the capital city, and our heroes were completely scattered and demoralized.

At the same point of this show, our two main characters finally get where they've been heading for the duration of the past eighteen episodes. Imagine an Avatar in which the gang only reach the Northern Water Tribe at the end of season two! Granted, the seasons of The Dragon Prince are much shorter (only nine to Avatar's twenty) and so far have eighteen episodes in total to the Avatar's forty in the same amount of time.

And yet the overall eighteenth episode of Avatar was The Waterbending Master, and it doesn't take much to see that they had covered much more ground in the same span of episodes.

The interesting thing is that many viewers (including myself) pointed to the absence of Aaron Ehasz as the reason The Legend of Korra initially wasn't as good as Avatar, and yet now we're looking at an Ehasz-led show without Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. It should be obvious that all three were crucial in making Avatar the masterpiece it was, as The Dragon Prince can't quite capture the same magic.

The characters are interesting and likeable (especially Soren and Claudia, two walking disasters) but the plot, animation and humour is lacklustre. For some reason our main villain spends the entire season talking to a mirror, a flashback episode that sheds light on the fates of several characters doesn't have half the resonance it should do, and an attempt to recapture some of the quirkiness of Avatar just doesn't work. (A blind sea captain. Ha...ha? And trying to pull laughs from a scenario in which a sister is grappling with the paralysis of her older brother is just bizarre).

Yet though all of this, there are things that I truly loved. Soren and Claudia, as mentioned, and their complicated relationship with their father. The design of the elves, with their horns and tattoos and strange facial markings. The careful and considered way our protagonists discuss their plans and how said plans intersect with their definitions of right and wrong. And if the combat between Amaya and the sunfire elf that the internet tells me is called Janai (in which both are clearly enjoying fighting each other) doesn't end with them kissing passionately, then what was even the point of it?

One thing that made me laugh though: fandom's immediate and overpowering thirst for Aaravos. Seriously, I went into the Tumblr tag before watching just to give myself an idea of what to expect and 80% of the content is easily Aaravos-related.