Reading/Watching Log #112

I did it! For the first time in ages, I actually finished a Reading/Watching Log on time. Well mostly, it technically should have been posted yesterday, but that’s not that bad!

Because I found two documentaries on Greek heroes that I’d been searching for for ages, March turned into a fully-fledged Greek mythology month – especially where Medea was concerned. She appeared in four of the shows I watched these last few weeks, and was a strikingly different character in each of them.

Reading wise, I finished three more of my favourite authors as a belated birthday treat: Garth Nix, Susanna Clarke and Frances Hardinge, reminding myself all over again as to why exactly they’re my favourites. I finished another double-feature of period films starring Holliday Grainger, and the second season of Hustle.

Now, onwards to a chilly April and Arthurian legends...

Medea (Kennedy Centre)

I always put any theatre excursions at the top of these reading/watching logs, even if I didn’t actually visit in-person. Filmed back in 1982 at the Kennedy Centre, this was my first time watching a performance of Euripides’s play on the stage, and although I knew the myth, I had no idea how the story would unfold.

I didn’t recognize any of the actors, though Zoe Caldwell is clearly the centrepiece as Medea. It’s easy to see why this is such a coveted role (apparently more women have won Tony Awards for the role of Medea than any other female character) as she’s captivating from start to finish. As I watched, I had to keep reminding myself this was a play that was first staged thousands of years ago. It may have been in another language and in an outdoor amphitheatre, but the original performances of the story can’t have been that much different from ours; likewise the audience reactions to it.

It was also written by a man who manages an astoundingly complex and even sympathetic portrayal of a woman who commits filicide. Medea is a wronged woman: she and other characters often point out that she’s vulnerable as a woman, as a foreigner, and as a soon-to-be divorcee. She betrayed her own family to save Jason’s life and deliver the Golden Fleece to him, and with their impending separation (and his remarriage) she’s left with nowhere else to go.

So how are we meant to describe the climax of the story? Is it: “Medea killed her children, but Jason grievously wronged her,” OR “Jason grievously wronged her, but Medea had no right to kill her children.” Which clause comes AFTER the “but”?

Obviously most of us will lean toward the latter phrasing, but there’s a darkness lurking in all of us, and the scary thing about this play is that it’s horribly easy to understand Medea’s grievances, motivation, and ultimate decision. When it’s all laid down before you, there’s no other way that the story could have ended. As they say about tragedies: the protagonist may have total free will, but when specific circumstances are matched with a particular characterization, any other outcome is impossible.

And the dialogue makes it clear that Medea is doing this deliberately and clear-headedly. She’s not killing her children to protect them, or because she’s gone mad (as Heracles was when he murdered his family) or because she’s desperate to keep them with her, even if it means destroying them. Instead, she spells it out very clearly: “I have done it because I loathed you [Jason] more than I loved them.”

It’s an act of pure evil; it’s the choice she makes and has to subsequently live with. And live with it she does. Medea survives the play and escapes Jason for Athens, where King Aegeus has promised her sanctuary. (Of course, she’s only got his word for it, and as Jason proved, this doesn’t count for much in an ancient patriarchy).

As ever, the deaths aren’t performed onstage, but rather described by another cast member – in this case, Medea’s slave woman, who is equal parts sympathetic to her mistress’s plight and horrified as to where her dark thoughts are taking her. Furthermore, the Greek Chorus are three Corinthian women, making this a female-dominated story, even if the men initiate the plot and (until the final act) remain in control of the narrative. The women even pass the Bechdel Test!

It’s a captivating performance by Zoe Caldwell: the way she wrings her dress in her hands, the way her body language changes when she realizes what vengeance against Jason might look like, and there are some truly amazing line deliveries. Damn, it’s hard to believe this play came third place in the original competition Euripides entered it in.

It makes me even more interested in seeing the Helen McCrory version, which I’ve been unable to find online, as it’s very important that any actress steer away from portraying Medea’s state of mind as simply madness or rage. This is an act of cold, calculated cruelty, even if she’s filled with horror or pre-emptive regret at what she ends up doing.

If there’s one issue, it’s that her sons are just placeholders. The play does nothing to make them characters, and they’re only important as symbols of innocence and Medea/Jason’s offspring. They don’t even get names or lines, which would have humanized them a bit, help us see them as people who had a right to their own lives, instead of just victims of filicide.

Ultimately, it’s a story in which a woman’s entire world crumbles down around her, and she can see no recourse but to destroy the last remnants of it in an act of hatred for the man who took it from her (and gave it to her in the first place). This was her only way to save her pride and regain a semblance of control – and the chilling thing is that the Medea as-portrayed here is human enough to make us feel anyone could be capable of doing what she does... under the right circumstances.

Hilda and Twig Hide from the Rain by Luke Pearson

Hilda and Twig are back! In fact, they’re way back, as this story is a prequel, set chronologically earlier than any other graphic novel in the series. Hilda and her mother still live in the valley on the outskirts of Trollberg, and Hilda spends her days exploring the countryside – with her deerfox Twig, of course.

Interestingly, author/illustrator Luke Pearson even goes back to Hilda’s original design – with a long nose instead of the cute button one that later instalments (and the Netflix show) gave her. (It’s still not as sharp as it used to be though). In any case, Hilda and Twig take shelter in a large barrow during a rainstorm, where a host of other animals are similarly hiding out.

Twig goes outside to check on the weather and comes face-to-face with a gigantic white snake. The snake is quite taken with this “little prince,” though Twig is more concerned about keeping him away from Hilda. Like most of the books in this series, it’s a little strange and spooky, with a number of unanswered questions about the creatures they meet, lessons learned about responsibility and one’s place in the world, and the enjoyment of simple pleasures, such as being tucked up in bed during a storm. It’s all a bit uncanny, but there’s an internal logic at work if you pay attention, even if Pearson wisely leaves it up to the reader to discern.

It was nice to see this duo again, as I was sure the graphic novels in this series had wrapped up. Perhaps more are on the way…

Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick

Ages ago, James Gunn recommended this comic on his Twitter, and I always meant to put in a request-to-buy at the library. Turns out I didn’t need to, as what did I find a couple of weeks ago on the “new books” display? And this is a genuinely gorgeous book: big and bright and filled with amazingly detailed artwork. It covers the history of the Amazons, starting from the displeasure of the Greek goddesses over how women are treated, and concluding with Diana’s birth, having been shaped from sand and given life by Hera.

As stated, the artwork is incredible: so detailed and intricate that it’s far too much to take in at a single glance – you have to peer into each panel, examine each page, letting it all soak into your retinas. There are some fascinating variations on familiar figures: here, Athena is depicted as a helmet and war-mask, levitating above a disembodied cloak. Hecate is a conjoined triplet clad in spiked armour. Artemis is an elf-like girl with antlers and warpaint. There are nebulas and galaxies swirling through Aphrodite’s afro. These goddesses appear throughout the artwork as giants; their features crafted out of details in the scenery, fading in and out from one panel to the next, intrinsically part of the world, yet much larger at the same time. It’s a fascinating way to portray the presence of the divine.

But the story’s protagonist is Hippolyta, future Queen of the Amazons and mother of Diana, who starts off as a midwife ridden with guilt when she leaves an unwanted baby girl to be exposed to the elements. Running into the wilderness, she’s nearly captured by slave-traders when the Amazons come to her rescue; the immortal warriors crafted by the goddesses in defiance of the collective will of their husbands/brothers/fathers. Now seeing a purpose for herself, Hippolyta follows the Amazons in the hopes of becoming one herself, drawing women from all walks of life to her as she goes.

As befits the subject matter, it is epic in scope, spanning hundreds of years, touching on themes of power, justice, faith and hubris. Neither is it afraid of its subject matter. I wouldn’t say it’s misanthropic, but it is very much about attempting to destroy (or at least escape) the patriarchy for its crimes against women.

It’s also blissfully, unapologetically diverse. Amazons come in all sizes and body shapes, cover a multitude of ages and races, can be bulky or slender, broad-shouldered or petite – one is even a little person. Neither does it draw attention to this creative decision, asking us to appreciate or comment on it. It simply is.

Neither does it shy away from moral ambiguities: at one point an older Amazon prevents a younger one from slaying a boy who is part of a slave-trader convoy – yet later that night, one of the freed slaves says he was worse than any of the other men, having disfigured her face just for the fun of it. Subsequently, the younger Amazon goes out to finish the job, only for her decision to have far-reaching consequences for the tribe.

With their banishment to Themyscira, the Amazons are finally forced to compromise their own existence – they can live, but are never allowed to leave the island. But it was always going to be a bittersweet ending, and one that provides hope in the form of Diana’s birth. In a great full-circle touch, it’s hinted that she carries the soul of the baby that Hippolyta abandoned at the start of her story; a soul kept safe by Hera herself. As someone who was disappointed we couldn’t spend more time among Amazonian society in the DC films, this definitely helped scratched this itch.

Kristy and the Missing Child by Anne M. Martin

As another book I owned as a child, I was looking forward to re-reading this one, and so far it’s easily the best of the Mystery subseries, focusing as it does on a subject that hasn’t really been brought up before (unless you count the events of Dawn and the Impossible Three). That is to say, a missing child. And not one that disappears for just a couple of hours, as did Buddy when his dad nabbed him, but for an extended period of time. 

The book quite cleverly goes with Jake Kuhn as the missing child in question; a character who has appeared enough times that we care about his disappearance, but not enough that we’re reassured he’ll definitely be found again. (If Karen Brewer had gone missing, any reader would have known it was just a matter of time before Kristy tracked her down. Going with Jake Kuhn leaves a trickle of doubt in your mind – in fact, the narrative even mentions that this is the first time Kristy has ever actually babysat Jake and his little sisters, they having only ever appeared as part of Kristy’s Krushers before now).

In any case, a game between the Krushers and the Bashers wraps up, and Jake heads off by himself to run home before the brewing thunderstorm hits. Later that evening, Kristy gets a phone call from Mrs Kuhn, asking if Jake is still with her. Turns out he never arrived home, but Mrs Kuhn doesn’t sound too worried – she suspects that Mr Kuhn has taken him to Texas, given that the couple recently had an argument over visitation rights in their incumbent divorce settlement.

But Kristy’s not too sure. Her mother tells her that Mr Kuhn isn’t the sort of guy that would kidnap his own child, and Kristy knows that Jake was looking forward to his upcoming Ninja Turtles-themed birthday party. He wouldn’t just drop that to go off with his father.

(As an aside, it’s amazing how well these books have aged regarding pop-culture. I suppose we have the current obsession with eighties nostalgia to thank for that, and in keeping things like the Ninja Turtles relevant).

Given that she was the last one to see him, Kristy feels responsible for what’s happened and calls an emergency Babysitters Club meeting that’s so serious, even the associate members are present. (I recall being very impressed with this as a child. Shit just got real, as they say). The Club organizes search parties to comb the neighbourhood, and Matt Braddock proves invaluable when it comes to leading them to various hiding places – including the rainwater tunnel that contains the footprint on the iconic cover art.

Meanwhile, in the very banal B-plot, Mary Anne is struggling with home economics. Seriously. First of all, who cares? Second of all, I suppose it’s kind of funny that Little Miss Future Tradwife is failing this particular subject, taught by the improbably named Mrs Ploof. She even misses the super-important Club meeting about Jake’s disappearance because she needs to finish a sewing project (why should Mary Anne let a missing child get in the way of her grades?)

Of course, Jake is eventually found – just in case you were worried this would turn into a very dark story about child abduction. Turns out he sought out shelter from the rain in a nearby construction site and fell through a floorless house in the dark. He couldn’t climb out because his leg was injured, and during the day the workers couldn’t hear him shouting because of the noise of the heavy machinery.

In fact, it’s actually kind of funny just how much attention the ghostwriter draws towards this construction site before Jake’s disappearance, and one can only presume the police didn’t check this very obvious location (it’s literally right next to the park where the Krushers play) because Mrs Kuhn was so insistent her ex-husband was the culprit. For the record, Mr Kuhn couldn’t be contacted because he was in Mexico the whole time, and the trademark “single clue that never gets fully explained” is little Patsy Kuhn’s insistence that she’s seen her father’s distinctive green T-Bird in the neighbourhood. Everyone chalks it down to a little girl making a mistake.

This is also a story that explores the burgeoning maybe-romance between Bart and Kristy, complete with an almost-kiss and Kristy crying in front of him. Both big deals when you’re thirteen. In fact, Bart does pretty well for himself in this book. Early on, Kristy states he knows her well enough to not offer to carry the bag of baseball equipment for her, knowing that she’s capable of doing it herself. Later he offers to watch the kids while Kristy investigates the house at the construction site: “I liked the fact that Bart was going to watch the kids while I did the exploring. A lot of boys would have insisted that it should be the other way around.”

At the end of the story the school has an Awards Night, which feels like it should be an end-of-year thing, but Kristy gets a special award for having done so much to try and find Jake. It’s very “Class Protector Award” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and just as sweet. That said, Mary Anne wins an award and we’re told: “Mary Anne made Logan go up to the stage with her to pick up her little plastic trophy” – for Pete’s sake, doesn’t that make the whole spectacle MORE embarrassing, that you can’t even accept an award without a boy to walk you through it?

Other notable details:

There’s more amazing nineties economics when Kristy states: “fifty cents barely pays the tax on a CD.”

After Jake’s disappearance, Claudia makes a banner that says: “Mising sinse last nihgt!! Help Us Finde Him!” I mean, FFS. Nothing says: “we really care about this situation” than a banner that isn’t even spelt correctly. Can Claudia not take three seconds to just check a dictionary? Can’t someone just WRITE THINGS OUT for her to copy before she does stuff like this?

In drawing the reader’s attention to the construction site, at least it’s done in an amusing way. As Kristy states: “have you ever noticed how boys – no matter what age they are – can stand and watch heavy machinery or trucks, or even just a bunch of guys with hammers, for hours at a time? They never seem to get tired of it. Me, I’m bored within thirty seconds.” Hah! And also, yes, very true.

I was also tickled by Kristy listing the advantages the police have: “I didn’t have the resources the police did: walkie-talkies, squad cars, computers.” Heh, yeah computers are such an elite resource. Of course, these days the plot would have been resolved by Jake using his cell phone to simply make a call from the basement.

Jessi’s Gold Medal by Anne M. Martin

Um... not a lot to say about this one. Sorry Jessi. I can only assume this was published to coincide with whatever Olympic Games were taking place in the mid-nineties, because that’s essentially the subject of this book. Jessi and her class are at the local swimming pool when she’s spotted by the synchronized swimming coach (because the little town of Stoneybrook has something as specialized as a synchronized swimming team) who asks if she’d like to compete in the upcoming student Sport Day.

Jessi agrees and she’s paired with a girl called Elise, who has the experience but not the form, just as Jessi’s ballet training gives her the form but not the experience. Agreeing to cover each other’s weaknesses, the girls begin to train together – but like so many other books in this series (Mallory on Strike and Kristy for President) Jessi discovers it’s difficult to juggle all her responsibilities at once.

“Don’t overstretch yourself” is always the moral the ghostwriters come up with to justify why the girls never continue with their new hobbies, since they’re unable to extend them beyond the single instalment in which they’re introduced. Jessi and Elise end up winning gold in the competition (but then, the title kinda gives that away, doesn’t it) and promise to remain friends outside the swimming pool. We never see or hear from Elise again.

I mean, it’s certainly a thing that sometimes you can practice hard, convince yourself that you’re rather shite, and then discover that you were much better than you thought you were, but it’s a bit of an eyeroll that Jessi gets first prize after having no prior experience with synchronized swimming. It was rather more realistic when Mallory came sixth in her horse-riding competition.

You’ve probably already guessed this book’s B-plot: naturally the Club comes up with the idea to host their own Olympic Games, only for the neighbourhood kids to get too overcompetitive, and (as they did for the pet show) the girls giving out prizes such as “Most Determined” and “Most Summery Outfit.”

Other points of interest:

There’s a return appearance from kids called Scott and Timmy Hsu, who I’m pretty sure were introduced the Little Sister books, but have yet to be babysat by any members of the Club.

We’re told Kristy uses “an old babysitting trick” to get the kids’ attention, by telling them she has a surprise, but in my experience this can backfire, bigtime. On hearing the word “surprise,” any child’s mind will immediately leap to the puppy-candy-fireworks factory. Anything else will be a letdown in comparison.

When Kristy calls out for ideas for events, she gets the expected suggestions for potato sack races and basketball shooting – but Linny yells: “magic show!” This cracked me up, since he’s performed magic shows for the neighbourhood kids in the past, and I suddenly saw him as a young Michael Scott, desperately trying to win a prize for “magic.”

In fact, this is actually a very funny book. When Jessi has the idea to host Olympic Games for the kids, Kristy insists on putting it to the vote: “All in favour?” Kristy said. “Must we, Kristy?” Claudia moaned. “All in favour?” Kristy repeated. “Aye,” we said wearily.

Later, the Pike kids are training in their yard, leading to this exchange when Mal gets into a hopping race: “Watch out for the stump,” Buddy warned. “I know,” Mal said. “I live here, remember?” Mal ends up accidentally-on-purpose spraining her ankle so she doesn’t have to compete in Sport Day, which leads to an odd though mildly refreshing message: that if you don’t want to do something, just don’t do it. Anne M. Martin even says in her afterword that public speaking at schools: “wasn’t worth the anxiety it caused.”

Finally, Sport Day for the middle school students culminates with Krisy and Alan Gray competing in an obstacle course, and I ended up feeling pretty tense about it considering the loser had to be the other’s personal servant for a week. But Kristy pulls through, and milks her victory for all it’s worth, including making Alan clean up puke at the children’s Olympics. Absolutely no mercy from our Club President. Later, she makes him fix coffee for the adults, and Jessi notes: “judging from the looks on some of the parents’ faces when they took a sip, he must not have done it right.”

Oh, and a minor note on Stoneybrook’s time flux. In this book, the radio announces it as: “another bright, sunny, late spring day.” Sure, why not?

The Queen of the Silver Arrow by Caroline Lawrence

Caroline Lawrence is best known for The Roman Mysteries (essential reading for any eight to ten-year-old), but she also delivered this rather short tale about Camilla, the Roman answer to Atalanta, who appears briefly in Virgil’s Aeneid (though no one is sure whether she was a mythological figure that predated Virgil, or if she was a character of his own creation). 

Despite having studied that text in high school, I must confess not recalling anything about her character, though it would appear she was a princess who fought on the side of the Latins during their conflict with the Trojans and died in battle as a result.

The story is narrated by Acca, a young girl living in Laurentum, who discovers Camilla living wild in the forest and learns combat from her. It’s all told in Lawrence’s clear, straightforward prose, though my unfamiliarity with the character makes it difficult to discern what’s based on Virgil and what is Lawrence’s own invention – though naturally when characters like Turnus, Lavinia and Aeneas turn up, it all starts to align with the famous events of the poem.

Lawrence also has to grapple with the fact her heroine dies on the losing side of the conflict, seemingly in vain considering her Latin friends end up marrying and procreating with Trojan soldiers. Her answer is that Acca credits Camilla with teaching her how to be brave… which is a bit weaksauce, but there’s not a lot else she can do.

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

It struck me while reading this that even though I count Garth Nix as one of my favourite writers, I’ve only ever read the Sabriel books and The Keys to the Kingdom series (and The Ragwitch, decades ago, which isn’t even included on the list of Nix’s other works at the back of this book).

So it was great to settle down with a brand-new story from him. In the London of 1983, Susan Arkshaw is looking for her father, a man she’s never known. Various clues have led her to the crime boss Frank Thringley, but just as she’s about to question him, he’s turned to dust by the prick of a silver hatpin.

Said hatpin is wielded by Merlin – not the Merlin, but a Merlin, who quickly ushers her into a hidden world of magic spells, mystical creatures, strange occurrences – you know the drill. It’s one of those “secret supernatural realm impinges on the real world” type of stories (it vibes very well with Ben Aaronovitch’s The Rivers of London series and Lev Grossman’s The Magicians trilogy) but what sets Nix apart from the rest is the care and creativity with which he writes the rules of his magical setup.

Though magic itself still feels mysterious and otherworldly, there is an underlying logic to how it’s wielded by those that know how – a careful blend that I’ve never seen written with such precision by anyone else. (To compare, I was never that fond of how spellcraft worked in Harry Potter, as the magic there was too cartoonish and arbitrary). It’s also captured in the contrast between the wild ancientness of the magic our characters have to deal with, and the regulations imposed upon it by the titular Booksellers: the left-handed ones handle the fighting, and the right-handed ones are the intellectuals.

Nix spent some time in the army, and you can tell by the way his characters strategize with military precision, though he tries to cover for some of the book’s historical inconsistencies by saying this is the London of an alternate-world, and… no, please, no. I’m so tired of the multiverse. It’s truly, honestly okay if you just have a few things out of whack when it comes to the minutia of what happened in London on any particular date (especially when it doesn’t impinge on the story in any way).

This also very much reminded me of the ancient, specifically Celtic, atmosphere of books written by Alan Garner and Susan Cooper; that sense of deep and impossibly old forces lingering just beneath the reality of ordinary life; just on the outskirts of urban living – which has further whet my appetite for a return to those authors and their ilk. Just gotta get through the last pile of library books…

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Susanna Clarke published Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell in 2004 to wild acclaim and a deep interest in what she would do next. Alas, aside from a book of short stories a few years later, nothing else materialized – until 2020, when Piranesi was unexpectedly released. Like everyone else who loved her first (and for a long time, only) novel, I nabbed a copy of her sophomore offering, only to find it was a very different beast from its predecessor.

Jonathan Strange was a giganteum monster of a tome, filled with footnotes and narrative detours and rambling descriptions and excessive, wonderful detail. In comparison, Piranesi is short enough to almost be considered a novella. Where the plot of Jonathan Strange was a twisty-turney thing, which demonstrated such excellent mastery of the “show don’t tell” rule and in carefully parsing out relevant information to the reader, Piranesi is more straightforward. That is, there’s still something of a mystery here, but one that unravels smoothly and without any great surprises. If you were to call it a puzzle-box plot, it’s one that the reader will figure out long before the protagonist does. It’s so unsurprising that I was a little surprised.

A young man who goes by the name Piranesi lives in a place called the House, a world made up of galleries and hallways, stairwells and vestibules. Birds fly through rooms that are filled with strange and beautiful statues, but the only other human being is a man Piranesi calls the Other. While our protagonist explores and records everything he sees, the Other comes and goes, seemingly in search of a secret knowledge of some kind.

As the plot gently unfolds, it becomes apparent that the Other is up to nefarious business, and is certainly not a friend to Piranesi – though as stated, the reader will discern this long before the naïve Piranesi does. There is no grand reveal or shocking twist that recontextualizes everything you’ve been reading – what you assume is happening, is what is actually happening.

I have to admit I was a tad disappointed by the predictability of this, but that’s my problem. The story is clearly exactly what Clarke wants it to be, which is a slow and gentle meditation on identity and the nature of goodness. It reminded me a little of a less-Gothic Gormanghast, with a dash of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, what with Piranesi’s little daily rituals and record-keeping. But the real inspiration is clearly C.S. Lewis, whose The Magician’s Nephew is not only quoted at the start of the book, but lends a name to one of the major characters: Andrew Ketterley. Put all those citations together, and you’ve practically got a spoiler.

That Laika is apparently adapting this book is great news: perfect sympatico between a studio and source material. I’m not sure how they’ll manage things such as the tides and the flooding rooms, but stop-motion is prefect for capturing the eerie nature of the book, and Piranesi’s neat, precise way of life.

Unraveller by Frances Hardinge

I bless the day that my Open Polytech course on Library Studies required me to write reviews for an Older Fiction, Younger Fiction and Young Adult book, as that was how I first discovered Frances Hardinge, an author who (unbeknownst to her, of course) is writing books for me personally.

They tick all my favourite boxes: evocative descriptive prose, wonderfully complex female characters, intricate puzzle-box plotting, sharp insight into human nature, and fantasy world-building that’s beyond compare. Here, Unraveller very much based on the familiar tenants of old fairy tales, but with details that are entirely Hardinge’s own.

They’re fantasy books with a high concept premise, in which every plot-point and world-building detail fits into how the narrative unfolds from page-to-page, along with plenty of humour that doesn’t rely on pithy banter, and incredibly heavy themes (in the past she’s tackled colonialism and PTSD, here it’s the aftereffects of trauma and the slow but worthwhile path to recovery).

The world of Unraveller is one where if someone gets angry and bitter and hateful enough, they can unleash a curse upon another person. This may sound great in theory, but “cursers” end up being deeply disturbed by what they’ve done, as the curse makes no distinction between those that deserve it, and those that don’t. Many of them end up in the Red Hospital, which very much reads like an early-nineteenth century insane asylum.

Then there’s Kellen, a young boy with the ability to unravel a curse (thus the book’s title) if he can find out who inflicted it and why. He’s accompanied on his travels by Nettle, a girl he saved from a terrible affliction: in her case, she and her brothers were transformed into birds by their stepmother.

At the start of this tale, they’re commissioned to find a girl that’s recently escaped from the Red Hospital, someone their mysterious employer believes to be part of a wider conspiracy that’s secretly gathering the cursers together. In other words, someone is accumulating a group of assassins who could destroy a person’s life at any moment.

If that all sounds pretty dense, know I haven’t even scraped the surface of what’s in this book: there’s also the fact that Nettle’s brother chose not to change back in to a human, and is still in seagull form, and that the person who hired the pair of them to seek out the hidden cursers is a man that gave up one of his eyeballs in order to forge a bond with a marsh-horse (what we would call a kelpie).

There’s also “the Wilds,” which is a vast swampland with its own set of rules reminiscent of our understanding of the Faerie realms (the protective qualities of iron and rowan, the dangers involved in divulging your real name to strangers, the necessity of using your manners and offering gifts whenever you enter) and provides a dangerous setting for the second half of the story.

As in most of Hardinge’s stories, there’s a big fat web of intrigue that needs to be unravelled, and though this isn’t quite as elegant as some of her other books (Cuckoo Song remains her greatest offering – at least, of all the ones I’ve read) that’s a bit like saying a Porshe isn’t as luxurious as a limousine. It’s still an incredible ride.

But two interesting female characters meet rather grisly ends off-page when there was still plenty of mileage left in their characterization, and there’s a little too much overt “that’s what that evasive comment meant” explaining going on, which feels a little finnicky after a while. Sometimes it’s best not to explain everything, since a. nobody has that good a memory for the minor details of conversations that took place days or weeks ago, and b. it robs us of the chance to reread the story and see how clever it all was by ourselves.

(Forgive this comparison, but in one of the Harry Potter books, Petunia speaks critically of “that boy” who her sister befriended as a child, which Harry assumes is a cutting remark about his father. It’s not until a later book that it becomes clear Petunia was actually referring to Snape – but the book itself doesn’t draw attention to Harry’s mistake, and he never gives it a second thought. Why would he? Only someone that’s reading closely for a second time will notice, and that’s something I would have wished for Unraveller as well).

Now, please go and read a Frances Hardinge book instead of whatever J.K. Rowling is doing lately.

Jane Eyre (2006) and Jane Eyre (2011)

The last of the period-drama double-ups featuring Holliday Grainger, who (like in Anna Karenina) has only a very small part to play, appearing in only a few scenes.

With the power of hindsight, Jane Eyre has a lot to answer for regarding the romance tropes it spawned: the boss/employee power imbalance dynamic, the idea that a man will love a woman for her placid inner virtue despite plain outer appearances, that he’s sad and burdened and in need of a good woman to save him from the anguish of his own existence, that a woman is filled with hidden passion and power that only he can unlock, that he’ll be fiercely possessive and alpha-male-ish around her, but she’s the one secretly in charge by dint of her emotional power over him, and that he’s staggeringly wealthy and will indulge in a whirlwind shopping spree in which he’ll bestow clothing and jewellery and travel for his wife-to-be (she’ll demure of course, but accept it all anyway).

And of course, lines such as: “I daren’t touch you in case you’re not real,” and “you’re from another world,” and “I’d risk the wrath of God to have her,” and “I am the servant, you the master.” 

Any of this ringing a bell? Even stuff like a love triangle in which two men represent a woman’s potential pathways in life, or how her romantic rival will be either a snotty rich bitch or a sexualized foreigner, can find their genesis in Jane Eyre.

Mr Darcy and Mr Rochester are the two progenitors of Romantic Heroes everywhere: the former is rude and has to be taken down a peg by our heroine, who then provides the impetus for his self-improvement, and the latter is a haunted, broken, disillusioned wreck of a man who only needs the love of a good (albeit naïve) woman to redeem him. And so we have our “dark romance” prototype. Oh, the horrors these two have unleashed.

Of course, we can’t judge Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre for what followed in their wake, as it ignores the fact that these novels are actually good. They also contain far more character nuance than their imitators are capable of. Contrary to my constant complaining about it, I’m not actually adverse to what people might refer to as Gothic Romance – I just ask that they be well-written, which they almost never are. Most of Jane Eyre’s successors ignore the interiority of the female character in favour of upping the emotional constipation of the male lead so that he can spend most of his time tearing at his chest hair in anguish while wearing an unbuttoned white shirt, which is a huge disservice to what Charlotte Bronte achieved in Jane Eyre.

The 2006 miniseries with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens does the best job at this, capturing what Daniel Mallory Ortberg once described as “two absolute weirdoes,” in which “he’s all bark and she’s all bite.” Stephens keeps Rochester quite light, with lots of self-deprecating comments and (what I think is) his own innate sense of humour – his teasing of Jane is good-natured instead of negging, and the story itself leans into his dorkiness. Heck, he’s actually friendly at some points. You get the sense that this is simply a good but profoundly lonely man who has finally found someone to talk to.

This is in stark comparison to Michael Fassbender’s take on the character, who far more embodies the Byronic Antihero that Romance fans are used to. He’s mercurial, surly and brusque (Stephens is downright cheerful by comparison) but then makes his intentions to Jane too soon, too strongly. It’s jarring when he’s suddenly giving her The Smoulder only a couple of scenes into their interactions, and by the time he’s asking her if she’ll ever abandon him or that he knew she’d do him some good, you’re left wondering where on earth all this is coming from. Rochester from the miniseries at least gets some decent conversation and mild flirting in, and none of it seems at odds with his established demeanour.

But the secret weapon in all such depictions of Rochester is Jane herself, in whom he finally meets his match. She may be poor and plain, but she has the willpower and self-esteem and inner integrity to withstand whatever he throws at her, in whichever way he tries to bait her. The most important scene to demonstrate this is of course in the aftermath of the botched wedding, in which Rochester begs her to go with him to the Continent to become his mistress.

This is where the otherwise superior miniseries missteps a little bit, with Rochester explicitly saying that he won’t ask her to live in sin. The writer clearly doesn’t want to make him more of a bad guy (especially not on the heels of almost luring her into bigamy), but in doing so Jane is denied her crucial moment of conviction, in which she puts her own dignity and integrity and sense of right and wrong before what she truly wants. She’s tempted and she overcomes it (something that Rochester was obviously unable to do – see again, the whole almost luring her into bigamy thing). It’s important that she gets the chance to reject his offer, despite her love and loneliness.

In the film, you feel that Jane is in very real danger in losing herself. In the miniseries, it’s a little unclear as to why she doesn’t take Rochester up on his “safe” offer to live as brother and sister in a foreign land. Toby Stephen’s harmlessness and self-deprecation takes the edge off the character, and I wonder if fans of the hardcore “dark romance” genre would appreciate it, given it makes Rochester’s decision to take Jane to the altar seem cowardly instead of selfishly romantic, which provides the toxic thrill they seem to crave. 

(It also plays a bit of havoc with the fact that he’s blind by the end of the book – I always felt this was a deliberate ploy by Bronte to give Jane a physical advantage over him, as well as the moral high-ground when it came to his karmic punishment, and to assure her contemporary readership that he was suitably “defanged.”)

Yet in every other way, the miniseries is superior to the film, especially in the portrayal of Jane and Rochester’s love story. For me to ship something, I have to believe that when the passion has run its course, a couple will still be happy together. Do they have things in common? Do they enjoy each other’s company? If you removed sex from the picture, would they still want to be together? For Stephens and Wilson, I believe it absolutely. For Wasikowska and Fassbender? Erm, maybe. I’ve just sat through twenty minutes of him fetishizing her purity and innocence, and given that he’s the first man she’s ever interacted with, she never stood a chance at resisting his advances, but sure. Why not.

The flaws in the film are down to the truncated runtime, especially when any adaptation also has to include the lengthy sojourns at Lowood and with St John (and let’s be honest, no one really cares about either of those things) since the more meandering pace of the miniseries means we can see the pair of them simply get to know each other.

Knowing this, the film actually smooches Lowood and St John together, by way of a framing device with flashbacks inside it, ratcheting up suspense until Rochester’s first appearance just over half-an-hour in. There is no Grace Poole (save very fleetingly), no Rosamund, no distinctive house-party guests (and watching these two adaptations, it occurred to me that Bronte added the characters of the twins in order to create an analogy between Rochester and Jane, which strikes me as extremely funny).

There are also some weird omissions, such as Jane not advertising for the position at Thornfield (so how’d she get it?) and only the immediate aftermath of the scream in the night, in which the party guests are outside their rooms in distress for no apparent reason. Why wouldn’t you let the audience hear the bloodcurdling scream? Even knowing the story, it took me a second to figure out what was going on.

And of course, Hollywood simply cannot bear not having attractive people cast in the roles of people who are very clearly not described as such. No offense to Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson, who are obviously not unpleasing to the eye, but they still look like normal people you’d see in the street compared to Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. When Wasikowska’s Jane calls herself “plain,” it’s confusing (despite the godawful hairstyles they had in those days) and when she answers in the negative to Fassbender’s query as to whether she finds him handsome, it’s downright funny.

Finally, Judy Dench is there to add some extra class to the proceedings, but honestly – Dame Judy Dench as a housekeeper? Jane initially thinks that Thornfield belongs to her, and who could blame her?

On that note, there was plenty of surprise Retroactive Recognition in both film and miniseries: the former had Harry Lloyd, Sally Hawkins, Imogen Poots, Tamzin Merchant and Amelia Clarkson as Young Jane, who went on to play Rosina in Poldark, and the latter had Tara Fitzgerald, Georgie Henley (Lucy Pevensie!), Annabel Scholey (Contessina in Medici, Claire Brown in Doctor Who) and Georgia King (Princess Elena in Merlin). Did not expect to see any of them. Also, shout-out to Christina Cole as a great Blanche Ingram – the character is easy to dismiss, but Cole really captured how she’s an utterly frivolous creature who has been raised as a decorative doily in no possession of any other comprehension of how else to be. And naturally, Holliday Grainger, who was the entire theme of this little mini-project.

But both versions had one thing in common: absolutely terrible renderings of the burned-out Thornfield. Neither one looked remotely convincing.

The Return (2024)

This was an interesting adaptation of The Odyssey in that it skips the actual odyssey and concentrates solely on the very last part of the story: Odysseus’s return to Ithaca and how he deals with the suitors that have been pressuring Penelope to marry one of them for the last ten years (and stripping the island bare of its resources in the meanwhile).

I’m very firmly of the opinion that this final book of The Odyssey inspired Tolkien’s “The Scouring of the Shire” at the end of The Lord of the Rings, in which the hobbits return home only to discover that it’s been irrevocably changed in their absence, Mordor having stretched its ugly hand all the way to their bucolic corner of the world. They’re reached home, but they still have to reclaim it.

Likewise, Odysseus doesn’t find a happy homecoming for him – not straight away at least. First he must deal with the interlopers that have taken advantage of his absence and tried to take his kingdom for themselves. For the Ancient Greeks, this would have been about the abuse of hospitality; these days, I imagine it feeds into the anxieties of so many men that have bought into that whole “the foreigners are coming to cuckold you” nonsense.

It’s a slow and steady kind of movie, taking its time in showing us the geography of the island, the fraught situation that Penelope is trying to manage, the danger that Telemachus is in as heir to the throne, the various Ithacans who are suffering under the mismanagement of the place, and even the suitors themselves – one of them is genuinely in love with Penelope, and eventually tells Odysseus that had their roles been switched: “I would have never left her.”

It even manages a lot of minor details, such as Odysseus’s faithful dog recognizing him, and his old nursemaid identifying him by the scar on his leg.

Because the film omits the entirety of Odysseus’s journey, it needs must explore a completely different set of themes; namely that men like Odysseus can never fully escape war and bloodshed. When he’s recognized by his nursemaid, she says with glee: “now you can kill them all,” something that he can only respond to with a weary, silent resignation.

In short, it’s a film that deconstructs the idea of “victory,” and when the slaughter eventually comes, it’s not depicted as a triumphant reclamation of home and family, but a horrifying bloodbath, in which unarmed men scream and beg and try to hide before they’re duly executed. In a way it’s interesting: that by concentrating only on the very end of Odysseus’s tale, the story finds itself with a new set of themes: survivor’s guilt, the emptiness of war, You Can’t Go Home Again, and so on.

Juliette Binoche as Penelope gets a lot of screentime; in fact the film is probably divided evenly between herself and Odysseus. Embodying the I Will Wait For You trope, she’s the Grecian ideal of womanhood, as clever as she is faithful, and doing what she can to protect her husband’s property in his absence. Yet the film does more to capture the human cost of this struggle, which is essentially that of a woman going through the ordeal of a home invasion and barely being able to keep the wolves at bay.

Furthermore, one gets the sense this Penelope is fighting just as much for her own sake (in that she has no interest in remarrying) than Odysseus’s. When she hears news that Odysseus has taken up with another woman and is simply refusing to return home, her response is bleak acceptance. Like Odysseus, she’s fighting because she doesn’t know what else to do. When the reunion finally comes, it isn’t a scene of relief or catharsis, and their love isn’t depicted as a grand and epic romance – rather they’re awkward around each other having spent so long apart.

By the time the credits roll, it almost feels like the story still hasn’t begun, as we don’t get to see the rebuilding of Ithaca, or a full reconciliation between the married couple. Tension is established between Telemachus and the father he’s never known which is never resolved, as the youth takes off in the nearest ship as soon as he can. Without a happy homecoming, there’s nothing else afterwards; nothing to replace all the suffering and hardships.

I’ve no doubt that’s the point, and it’s even in keeping with the original myth, in which Odysseus can’t readjust to life on Ithaca, and takes to the seas again – still, you can’t help but feel a little empty afterwards. People have searched for centuries for some sort of message or moral in The Odyssey; this one decides that it’s: “war will destroy you, whether or not you survive it.”

 Jason and the Argonauts (2000)

The Hallmark Channel, of all things, did a reasonably good adaptation of this Greek myth back in 2000, though that’s not as surprising as it sounds if you give it a bit of context. Spring-boarding off the success of Merlin in 1998, the network actually commissioned several miniseries based on popular fantasy stories back in the late nineties/early noughties, all split into two-part ninety-minute instalments, ranging from actually-really-good (Arabian Nights, Gulliver’s Travels) to the total shite (The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Anderson: My Life as a Fairy Tale).

As a teenager I made it my mission to watch and record all of them, and there was a definite phase in which I was hyperfixated on this one specifically. I couldn’t even tell you why. I just recall having it recorded on VCR and watching it incessantly.

It obviously stands in the shadow of the 1963 Ray Harryhausen classic, but (contrary to popular assumption) isn’t a remake of that film, but rather an adaptation based on the original myth. In fact, its first half in particular is an astoundingly accurate portrayal of the traditional story, right down to details such as Jason losing his sandal as he’s carrying the disguised Hera across the river.

The problems start in the second part, in which certain story elements don’t become Aborted Arcs exactly, but rather just drift away to unsatisfying conclusions (maybe that was the reason I was obsessed with this as a teen; I was busy rewriting it in my head). For instance, Jason is joined on the voyage by his half-brother Acastus, who across the course of the adventure stows away on board the Argo, saves Jason’s life, advocates for his brother when the others think he’s abandoned them, and is mortally injured before being saved by Medea’s potions.

And yet on returning to Iolcus, he steals the Golden Fleece the first chance he gets, confronts his father and demands the throne, and is duly stabbed to death on the palace steps. Jason’s reaction to all this…? There isn’t one. His brother’s body isn’t discovered on-screen and no one ever mentions him after ascertaining that he’s presumably betrayed them (they don’t confirm this on-screen either). Also strange is that while Jason is completely torn up over the suicide of his mother while he was away, Acastus (the brother who actually grew up with her) couldn’t care less.

Here’s another annoying subplot: the story establishes a love triangle between Jason, his childhood friend Atalanta, and the mysterious, sexy Medea. This also goes nowhere: Atalanta pines for the entire voyage, is rather brutally shot down by the Oblivious To Love Jason after she confesses her feelings and he assumes she’s talking about their friendship (calling her a “brother” for good measure) and then… nothing else really happens. Atalanta obviously doesn’t like Medea very much, but Medea doesn’t even seem aware of Atalanta’s existence, and it all ends with Atalanta looking sad but accepting when Jason and Medea wed in the final scene.

I suppose there’s a half-hearted attempt to Spare The Pairs when she’s given some romantically-coded scenes with a thief that joins them on the voyage, but – really? The slimy, dishonest thief with blackened teeth? For Atalanta?

Then there’s the Golden Fleece itself. It’s the entire purpose of the quest, but we never actually find out why it’s so coveted, why Medea is its guardian, or what exactly it’s meant to do. It eventually loses its golden quality when it reaches the hands of Pelias (obviously demonstrating that he’s unworthy) but after that Jason just throws it aside and it’s never seen or mentioned again. I guess they were going for one of those “the magic feather wasn’t important after all; it was only the journey that mattered” anvils, but it really doesn’t work in this context.

Also, what was the point of Zeus attempting to seduce Medea in a dream-like liminal space? Or the squabbles between Zeus and Hera, which just sort of trickle to an end? Or the Dropped a Bridge On Him deaths of so many established crew members? Or the huge amount of attention that’s drawn to a palliative herb in Medea’s garden that never gets used in any meaningful way? Or the intense familial dynamics between Medea, her brother Aspyrtes, and her father Aeëtes, which are by far the most interesting part of the whole miniseries, only to get whisked under the carpet when the latter two are killed off anti-climactically? I guess I’m not surprised they omitted the part of the myth where Medea has parts of her brother’s body flung overboard so that the Argo can outrace her father’s vessel, but between Aspyrtes’s creepy obsession with her, and Aeëtes’s dismissiveness of his son (which he’d presumably come to regret after his death), they certainly set up for it.

Oh, and Heracles (inevitably and erroneously called “Hercules” here) didn’t die like that, and certainly wasn’t the son of Hera who had been sent on the voyage in order to protect Jason with his life.

Despite the great-start/disappointing-conclusion lopsidedness, the whole thing is still worth a look. The special effects range from surprisingly good (the harpies) to fine (the iron bull) to terrible (the skeletons, which Jason defeats through some nimble calisthenics). The scenery and cinematography are gorgeous, and Google tells me it was all filmed on-location in Turkey. And though I’m no expert on the subject, someone seems to have gone to a certain amount of trouble to make everything look relatively authentic, from the design of the famous ship, the armour and weapons, the coiled hair of the high-born men, and Medea’s dresses and jewellery. 

Plus, I did really enjoy the way the gods are depicted, especially on the heels of Wonder Woman Historia: Zeus and Hera look down on events from the clouds, which naturally reflect their moods with rumbles of thunder or beams of heavenly light. At one point the pile of clothes that Jason has left on the floor of a bedroom fades into a wide shot of the island of Lemnos, watched over by the two gods from above. Eros is depicted as a fiery young man small enough to be held in Hera’s cupped palm; he reappears in the fire that burns in the middle of Aeëtes’s meeting hall and shoots Medea with his love arrow, only for Zeus to later pull it from her heart and use it as a toothpick.

It’s all very fascinating to watch; the way the story plays with size and space and spatial relationships between the world of the numinous and the world of reality.

It also boasts a pretty impressive cast, with alumni such as Derek Jacobi and Ciarán Hinds popping in for a single scene just to show the kids how it’s done and collect their pay checks on the way out. Jason London is completely wooden as Jason, though it doesn’t really bother me that much since he looks so much like I’ve always imagined the character (cute with brown eyes and brown hair, basically) and the likes of Dennis Hopper, Natasha Henstridge, Frank Langella, Angus Macfadyen, James Callis (pre-Bridget Jones and Battlestar Galactica), Adrian Lester, Mark Lewis Jones, Brian Thompson (nice to see him as a good guy for a change) and Hugh Quarshie (who plays Chiron here, and coincidentally popped up as one of the suitors in The Return as well) have enough scenery to chew between them to make up for it.

Then there’s Jolene Blalock as Medea, and damn – the camera is completely in love with her. Every shot of her is gorgeous, every close-up is a work of art. And for a model-turned-actress, she’s not that bad! Jason London may embody Dull Surprise, but I feel her similarly expressionless face was a deliberate choice to capture Medea’s ambiguity and carefully-constructed façade of control. Heck, even if that was just an accident, it still works for the character.

And another shout-out to Olivia Williams, who embodies a perfect Queen Hera. This goddess is usually depicted as an ostentatious wicked stepmother, clad in jewels and peacock feathers, but here she’s very simply clad with flowing dark hair, which is a pointed creative decision given that she’s playing the patron of a hero rather than his enemy for a change.

Basically, it’s not a great miniseries, but there’s something oddly compelling about it nonetheless.

Ancient Greek Heroes: Myth and Modern Vision: The Odyssey and Jason and the Argonauts (2004 – 2005)

I’ve already shared the backstory of these documentaries in my last Links and Updates page, but to quickly reiterate: years ago a GIF-set featuring Angel Coulby as Calypso made the rounds on Tumblr, though it wasn’t until very recently that I discovered my library catalogue not only provided access to the documentary in which she appeared, but also the one that featured Anjali Jay’s turn as Medea.

As their titles indicate, the subject of each one is the nature of heroes and how different audiences relate to them – what the characterization conveyed, the themes baked into the tales, and so on. As far I can tell, The Odyssey and Jason and the Argonauts are the only two in the series, each made by the Worldwide Learning Department of the BBC. The production values are pretty low, but then, I only ever watched them in order to see two of my favourite actresses in roles that are so obscure, they’re not even listed on their IMDB pages.

Talking heads of various scholars are interspersed with short, dramatized scenes from both the myths, along with an unseen narrator who not only states the obvious, but talks as though the stories are actually conveying real events. For example, he’ll ominously intone: “Odysseus is haunted by his last words to his wife,” directly before the programme cuts to Odysseus saying those last words to Penelope. Later, he’ll redundantly ask: “Will Odysseus come back in time to claim his wife and kingdom?” Um, yeah, you just showed us clips of it happening.

The Odyssey has its various commentators draw the conclusion that it’s all about how a man attains immortality, as demonstrated by the ways in which Odysseus attempts to achieve it. There’s victory in battle, then a range of adventures (during which he’s careful to inform Polyphemus exactly who he is), then the glory of war (which he realizes isn’t worth it after the shade of Achilles tell him it’s better to be the living slave of a slave than the lord of the underworld), the possibility of renown in athleticism (embodied in the Phoenician Games) and of course – living forever as a literal immortal in the arms of a beautiful love goddess. The price is anonymity and never seeing one’s family again – and even Paradise gets a little dull after a while.

Ultimately, Odysseus learns that earthly immortality is best secured by the love of family and of begetting children and grandchildren. That’s our cue to cut to Penelope, who has been busy fending off the suitors with her tapestry trick. Here she’s played by Georgina Rylance, who later popped up in Poirot and Inspector Lynley episodes, though she’s been very quiet in recent years.

The dramatized portions are about as dreadful as you’d expect, from the bad computer effects on Polyphemus’s single eye, to the spooky “whoooo!” voice that Odysseus’s mother puts on when she appears as a shade – and the whole thing completely skips Scylla, Circe and the Lotus-Eaters. I guess they didn’t fit in with the hypothesized theme.

Jason and the Argonauts focuses more on what makes a hero (Jason, the charismatic orator, is contrasted with Heracles, the strong and silent type) as well as the battle between the sexes. It leaves out stuff like the harpies and the clashing rocks to concentrate on the Lemnos women, the Sirens, the Amazons and finally Medea, speculating that the whole thing is a coming-of-age narrative with a side-order of gender studies. Hilariously, they conclude that although most of the women Jason comes across in his travels are dangerous, Medea serves as a gentle reminder that every man needs “a good woman” in life. Um, yeah. That panned out well for Jason.

Neither documentary conveys anything that anyone with a passing knowledge of either myth already knows, and the conclusions they draw can only be accepted if you ignore vast swaths of the stories in their entirety, but then, I’m pretty confident that these projects were designed to be shown in the classroom. For me, I was just chuffed to finally get to see two of my favourite actresses in new material from very early on in their careers.

Hustle: Season 2 (2005)

Season two of Hustle is exactly what you’d expect from this show, which isn’t a bad thing. At this point you know that however dire the circumstances look, the team is going to pull through with the money. The fun is seeing how they manage it. Having enjoyed their vacation between seasons, Mickey, Ash, Stacie, Danny and Albie throw themselves into six more cons, though the show keeps things fresh by switching up their motivations.

One revolves around Danny swindling money from a guy who conned his grandmother, one has Stacie dealing out retribution on her ex-husband, another has the team trying to protect their base of operations when Eddie the barkeep is threatened by a crooked cop. Despite the now terribly dated technology (all those flip phones!) the production values are slick and glossy, and they keep the gimmick of characters breaking the fourth wall in order to explain how certain things are done. I now have a basic understanding of how poker is played.

Recognizing guest stars is always fun, to the point where it’s a little disappointing when I didn’t recognize anyone in a couple of episodes, though I still got to see Lee Ingleby, Stanley Townsend and Vincent Franklin.

There are some elements that were a bit questionable – this time around the grifters have to harass or abuse the staff members of various facilities in order to get their cons underway; people who are just trying to get through their day. Albie casually drops the f-slur while in-character, and Danny is still pursuing Stacie even though she’s obviously not interested. At one point they’re posing as an engaged couple and he insists they pretend to have sex to keep up the ruse, making noises and shaking the bed and giving her no option but to play along (of course, since she’s written as a Cool Girl, she has to find it funny instead of gross).

Yeah, I know the response is “it was 2005, lighten up,” but it was a sour note in what’s otherwise fun television.

Atlantis: Season 1 (2013)

After watching so many Greek myth-related dramas this month, the mood came upon me for – of all things – the short-lived Atlantis. It ran for only two seasons between 2013 and 2015, and I can tell 2025 is going to turn into the year of rewatching cancelled shows despite my annoyance of them.

I’ve already done a full essay on why this show didn’t do so well at the time it first aired, so I won’t repeat myself. In watching it, I just wanted to chase the Greek mythology vibe. But what’s it like all these years later? Was it a hidden gem that got cancelled before it’s time? Well, not really. It’s not great, or even good. There’s corny dialogue, flat acting, little sense of continuity, and a framing device that’s just baffling. It opens in the modern-day, in which Jason No-Last-Name takes a submarine to the bottom of the ocean in search of his father, only to get sucked into a bright white light and wake up naked on a beach somehow.

He’s on the shores of the city of Atlantis and integrates himself among the populace almost immediately. The fact that he’s from the present day is never brought up again. He’s astoundingly incurious about what’s happened to him. Occasionally he’ll have a reaction to a familiar name like “Medusa” or “Oedipus,” but he never confuses anyone by using contemporary vocabulary, never makes allusions to modern-day life, and certainly never seems to miss the comforts of the twenty-first century. It’s really quite bizarre, as it’s unclear why they even bothered with this angle. Jason could have just wandered to Atlantis from another ancient city in search of his father, and it would have made no difference to the plot or characterization whatsoever.

As is, we never get a chance to figure out why any of this stuff is happening in the first place. Seriously, why? Where (or when) is Atlantis meant to be anyway? Another dimension? The past, before it sank beneath the ocean? Is Jason’s purpose to save it from going under? Because the city isn’t even on an island; it’s surrounded by a desert and other cities that the characters eventually visit.

(I suspect that the very last episode of the proposed five season-run would have been Jason escaping with his circle of friends back into the real world in order to save their lives, or something along those lines).

It’s clear that the showrunners so desperately wanted this to be Merlin 2.0, without having the faintest idea of why that show was so successful in the first place. Like Merlin did with Arthurian legend, Atlantis contains a mishmash of Greek myths (Medusa grows her snake hair by looking in Pandora’s Box, the Atlantans sacrifice youths to the Minotaur in the labyrinth, etc) but this ignores the clear advantage that the King Arthur stories gave them: that they focused on a set number of people in a singular location with a narrative that contained a beginning, middle and end. In comparison, the Greek myths are all over the place, involving hundreds of different characters. (Not that I minded that much, I am a King’s Quest veteran after all).

But we’re given no reason to care about Atlantis as a city or a concept, and the whole show just feels empty and weightless as a result. The perfect example is in how this show and Merlin handled the whole “save an innocent child with a dark destiny” storyline: in Merlin, everyone pulls together to help a Druid boy who turns out to be Mordred, the boy destined to kill Arthur – it’s a great scene because it’s linked to the ultimate fate of one of our protagonists. Here, our heroes go to great lengths to secure the safety of an infant called Oedipus – and there’s no reason to care, as he’s destined to kill a guest star we never see again, and which will have no impact on the rest of the story as it unfolds. How could these writers not discern the difference?

Merlin had some indefinable quality (and I’m not just talking about the slash fodder) that made it conductive to fan engagement – this didn’t. And sure, fandoms don’t decide the success or failure of a show as much as they’d like to think they do (that’s up to casual audiences) but Atlantis had a built-in fanbase that the showrunners squandered.

But it’s an attractive and technically proficient show, something that this particular group of showrunners (if you listen to any Merlin DVD commentary) put a lot of stock in. For me, the most fun part is realizing exactly who is in this thing, as you would not believe who turns up, and not for anything particularly special either.

Although they don’t arrive until the second season, this was an early project for Lashana Lynch, Amy Manson and Anya Taylor-Joy of all people. It’s like, right there on their IMDB pages! HAHAHAHA! Among the regulars, there’s some decent talent all round: Juliet Stevenson, Sarah Parrish, Mary Addy and Alexander Siddig (amusingly, this took place after Mark Addy’s stint on Game of Thrones as Robert Baratheon, and Alexander Siddig is absent from season two because he made the jump to Game of Thrones as Doran Martell).

Aiysha Hart has gone on to have a pretty respectable career, as has Robert Emms, who appeared in Chernobyl and Andor. Then there are the guest stars: Anton Lesser, Julian Glover, Gemma Jones, John Hannah, Robert Lindsay, Lucy Cohu, Jason Watkins, Hannah Arterton (Gemma’s little sister)... and that’s just season one. How are they getting these people? Some of them only turn up for a single scene!

Among the main cast, Mark Addy is game (despite having to put up with a lot of fat jokes) and even gets top billing before Jack Donnelly, the ostensible lead. Speaking of, this seems to have been Jack Donnelly’s biggest role, as he certainly hasn’t done much in the years since. He’s not helped by the blandness of his character, a quintessential Vanilla Protagonist. Jason is nice – and that’s about all you can say about him. Unsurprising considering the show completely ignores his entire life prior to the start of the story, which means he’s pretty much just a blank slate.

Heck, maybe it’s just the character of Jason himself, as Jason London in the Hallmark miniseries ran into the same problem. Theseus had a dark streak, Perseus was the golden boy, Achilles was a psychotic disaster, Odysseus was the trickster – but Jason is just kinda bland.

Much like the show in its entirety.

Miscellaneous Observations:

It’s amusing to think that the likes of Howard Overman and Johnny Capps probably thought this was going to be their triumphant sophomore hit on the heels of Merlin. And you can just tell this was made by the same creative team, even without seeing the familiar names in the opening credits: it’s the style of direction, the familiar locations (yup, that’s Puzzlewood), the structure and content of the episodes (oh here’s the one about the hitherto-unmentioned sibling that’ll never be mentioned again), the massive problem with women these guys struggle with (the very second episode features a cult of evil women who brainwash other young women) and a few recurring guest stars.

Granted, there’s fewer Merlin faces than you might think, but a couple of them turn up: Simon Williams features, who played Princess Elena’s father, Mark Lewis Jones, who was King Olaf (and was also in Jason and the Argonauts this month!) and of course, the genuinely wonderful Sarah Parrish, who was the star of the infamous troll episodes. Here she plays Queen Pasiphae, with just the right blend of sincerity and camp.

But the sloppy continuity and weird family dynamics are pure Merlin. Remember how that show got through five seasons without ever telling us what exactly Merlin and Gaius’s familial relationship was? Or whether half-sisters Morgana or Morgause were related through their mother or their father? In Atlantis, Pasiphae has Circe as a sister and a guy called Heptarian as her nephew, but it’s unclear whether Circe is Heptarian’s mother, or if not, who exactly Heptarian’s parents were.

Likewise, Ariadne’s brother Therus turns up for a single episode, and is never seen or heard of again. By the start of series two, she’s been crowned Queen of Atlantis, with no indication that she’s done anything to bring her brother home again (who technically preceded her in the line of succession). In another example, Pasiphae seems to have various spies and agents all over Atlantis, including one who kills Jason’s friend in the second episode in a way that’s made to look accidental (though no one buys it). Yet the killer is never brought to justice and several episodes later, Jason actually meets his murdered friend during a trip to the Underworld. No words are exchanged as to how his friend died or who was responsible.

Heck, even in the very first episode it turns out that the Minotaur was really a man who had been cursed into that form because he betrayed Jason’s father. How? Why? You guessed it: no one finds out and it’s never mentioned again.

And of course, the bizarre tonal whiplash. In an episode in which Ariadne is trying to track down her long-lost brother, a mission which is tense and secretive and dangerous, there’s a subplot in which Hercules looses a racing beetle. Um, sure.

But the crazy thing is – I actually had a really good time watching this. Gone is the bitterness that Merlin left in me after these particular showrunners wasted the talent and premise attached to that show, and Atlantis exists as a curiosity piece now, whether it’s the unfinished nature of the story, the familiar faces that have since gone onto greater things, or the fact that so much money and talent was poured into something that left no mark on pop-culture or fandom whatsoever. There was plenty of Schadenfreude when this was cancelled back in 2015, but now I found myself wishing that it had been able to run its course, no matter how bad it would have been. All stories deserve the chance to finish properly.