We are now halfway through the season, and what to make of it so far? I’ve found myself comparing it to the BBC’s Robin Hood a lot, mostly because that show looms so large in my imagination, but it strikes me that the biggest difference between long-form storytelling and a series of standalone episodes is how it effects the overall quality of any given project.
When you’re watching episodes that each have a beginning, middle and end (even if they plug into an overarching storyline) then it doesn’t really matter if there are a couple of duds. You know there are going to be ups and downs, and a solid episode usually makes up for a few weaker ones.
But in long-form storytelling, it’s either all good or all bad (or all average) since it’s all part and parcel of a single story. There’s no room for comparison, as the run-on effect makes it difficult to discern one episode from another.
That’s probably the most crucial structural difference between this show and the BBC’s version (and Robin of Sherwood, andThe Adventures of Robin Hood, and any other show based on these legends), making it impossible to tell if it’ll be worth our while until it’s over. Right now it’s levelling out at “it’s fine, I guess.”
Well, the most important news of the day is that my Reading/Watching Log for June is finally UP! Hopefully you’ll understand why it took me so long once you see the size of it.
The very day after I thought to myself: “hey, it’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about Laika’s Wildwood,” the studio goes and releases a behind-the-scenes promotional video. And damn, it looks gorgeous.
I’m so excited to see this one, and I have high hopes it’ll be a balm to my soul after being exposed to so much slop recently. Speaking of Laika…
Fifteen years after Paranorman, the studio is releasing a short film set in the same world, with Anna Kendrick returning as the voice of Courtney. Though it’s CG animated rather than stop-motion, it keeps the visual style of the original movie, and as a cute little bonus, we’re finally given a look at Mitch’s boyfriend (who was perpetually off-screen in the film itself).
Aww.
I can’t remember if I’ve posted this before, but Cartoon Saloon has a new animated short film coming up, called Éiru. As ever, it looks amazing, and very aesthetically similar to Wolfwalkers. Now the only question is: where can I watch it?
By the time this gets posted, most of fandom will have already absorbed the first four episodes of Stranger Things’ final season. I’ve got my viewing plans lined up, but I’m going to hold off commenting on it until I’ve seen every episode, which won’t be until the beginning of next year (the grand finale airs on New Years’ Eve). I’m casually looking forward to it, as it’s been a reliable source of entertainment since 2016 – yikes! – and I have faith that the Duffer Brothers will stick the landing. Of course, it helps that I’m not desperately invested, which means that if it does crash and burn, I can shrug it off and move onto the next thing. But I don’t think that will happen, and I’m ready for (as the trailers promised) one last adventure with these characters.
With the end of the year in sight, I’m looking ahead to more posts and projects. I’d like to write more about how our understanding of vampires has changed across the years, and continue my deep-dive into the portrayal of Rowena and Rebecca in various adaptations of Ivanhoe. Philip Pullman’s The Rose Fields is officially available, but I think I’m going to hold off reading it until I can read it in tandem with Philip Reeve’s Bridge of Storms, his new upcoming Mortal Engines book (and the third book in Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy). Those books just vibe so well with each other.
Come December, I’m reading my last two Babysitters Club books of the year, and am continuing my newfound fascination with Yuletide ghost stories: I’ve ordered a bunch of appropriately-themed anthologies from the library and downloaded a bunch of the most recent A Ghost Story for Christmas episodes. I’m also currently watching the latest season of Doctor Who, which ended up being the last for Ncuti Gatwa. It’s mildly devastating, but perhaps he’ll turn up again in future seasons. I mean, why not? David Tennant and Matt Smith have certainly done so!
And the Christmas festivities are in full-swing here in Christchurch. I took my nephew to the Santa Parade last Sunday, and this coming weekend is the annual Christmas in the Park (basically a lot of guest performers on a public stage – my friend and I usually head in a bit later just to watch the fireworks). Then there are the Christmas markets, and the carol singing at the local church, and the mall Santas, and the Christmas tree decorating… I’m getting myself into the spirit!
Oh, and my review for the latest episode of MGM’s Robin Hood is also forthcoming…
This is a bit of a patchy episode, the goal of which seems to be moving pieces around the board so that everyone is in place for the second half of the season. And introducing Friar Tuck, of course.
It’s also a Four Lines, All Waiting situation, as the writers’ room is now juggling a fairly massive cast of characters, all of whom are off in their own plotlines that barely intersect.
In which Robin’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (or Week) continues, and Marian kickstarts her own plot at the court of Queen Eleanor. The showrunners promised us something like this for her, and I’m glad it looks like they’re going to try and deliver.
This second episode of Robin Hood (which aired on the same night as the first, it’s just taken a while for me to write about) isn’t quite as good as the premiere. That was better structured, being bookended either side with scenes of Hugh: opening with him telling stories to his son, and ending with his death.
This episode probably should have ended with Robin and Marian parting in the rain given the emphasis on their relationship throughout this episode, but it decides to carry on for a bit longer and conclude with a cliff-hanger instead.
Don’t worry – this will be a much shorter review than the first.
And so it begins, a new Robin Hood show arriving with very little fanfare, virtually no promotion (I counted a teaser, trailer and a couple of interviews with the cast), on a streaming service that no one’s heard of. Still, it did have one very good poster (below), in which Robin holds the bow and Marian pulls the bowstring, which is hopefully an indicator of teamwork and equity in the episodes ahead.
Is there any point in getting invested, or will this be another one-and-done with an unresolved cliff-hanger finish?
This is the first time I’ve added an entry without an image of the woman in question, because the whole point of Daphne du Maurier’s famous novel is that we never get a glimpse of Rebecca, just as we never find out the name of the story’s narrator, the second Mrs de Winter.
Rebecca is a posthumous character, yet despite being really, most sincerely dead by the time the story starts, she is the novel’s main character, her presence still looming large over Manderley and all its inhabitants. Heck, it’s right there in the title. She’s the subject of the book, and our actual protagonist is so overshadowed by her that she doesn’t even warrant a name.
SPOILERS
The new Mrs de Winter is at first cowled by tales of her predecessor, the beautiful, glamourous, vivacious Rebecca, and struggles to assert herself – especially when it comes to the housekeeper Mrs Danvers, who was devoted to Rebecca and resents the arrival of her replacement. She’s convinced that Maxim could never possibly love her as much as he did his first wife, but just over halfway through the novel the truth emerges: Rebecca was a cruel and manipulative woman with clear psychopathic tendencies.
Yet once you finally get the whole story, you can’t help but admire her just a tiny bit. As it transpires, Rebecca was terminally ill with cancer, and in order to spare herself prolonged suffering, she goaded her husband into shooting her dead by taunting him with a lie about how she was pregnant with another man’s child. Her plan worked perfectly: she got her relatively painless end, and her husband was left guilt-ridden and paranoid.
Even when the reality of Rebecca’s true nature becomes public, Mrs Danvers ensures Maxim and his young wife will never enjoy her true mistress’s home without her, and burns it to the ground. Rebecca has won, did win, and was always going to win.
The allure of Rebecca is her unknowability – she’s dead before the narrative starts, so all our protagonist ever learns of her is second-hand. There are plenty of Sapphic undertones in her relationship with Mrs Danvers, and it’s made clear she was carrying on a love affair with her first cousin, as well as many others. Her husband says of her: “she was not normal,” and that she had told him things about herself that he would never repeat. To some she was a virtuous and charming woman, to others a pathological liar and narcissist. But the final word on her must simply be: “She did what she liked. She lived as she liked.” And ultimately, she died in the way of her own choosing.
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