Of Swords and Parasols

Call the Midwife 2013 Christmas Special: as always, the series somehow manaes to be simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting, though this year's Christmas Special was more tense and had less heartstomping than last year's. Like with a large part of the second season, Shelaugh's plotline was the most compelling.

Death Comes to Pemberley: 3-part miniseries that is a murder-mystery sequel to Pride and Prejudice. Wickham plans to crash Lizzy and Darcy's annual ball, but then his buddy runs off into the woods and gets shot, and everyone thinks he did it! And Lizzy and Georgiana are BFFs (their closeness was actually my favorite part of the series), and all the men are dark and brooding, and the cameramen really like Downton Abbey's cinematography. I actually really enjoyed this, in a thoroughly uncritical way, despite the fact that it has far too many dude-only scenes for something based on Austen to have. It's not wholly original and the characters aren't spot on, but it is very enjoyable, and while the cast may not have universally been the perfect choices for the characters, the cast is a very good cast (Anna Maxwell Martin as Lizzy, Eleanor Tomlinson as Georgiana, Matthew Goode as Wickham and Jenna Louise Coleman as Lydia were the standouts for me), and they have their period drama chops.

Though, I have to say, I've been very amused at seeing a lot of pearl clutching over the fact that Lizzy and Darcy don't have a 100% perfect and flawless marriage and the fact that their backgrounds and personalities lead to the occasional fight means that THEIR HAPPY ENDING HAS BEEN RUINED. RUINED.

I have been enjoying the complaints about Anna Maxwell Martin's looks considerably less. People have been complaining that she isn't pretty enough to play the lead in whatever drama she's in at the time everytime I've watched something that she's in, and it hasn't gotten any less annoying. (Though I suppose she's never played a character a fraction as popular as Lizzie Bennett before.)

Marple: Endless Night: Another non-Miss Marple book that got turned into a Miss Marple by ITV, I think more successfully than some others. I wish I hadn't remembered that I'd read the book shortly after I started it, as the twist is pulled off pretty well here, and I have no complaints about the slight sympathetic element the book gave the killer being taken away. Also, seeing Ton Hughes and Joanna Vonderham as lovers was a bit of a mental "Say what?" to me, as they played siblings in Dancing on the Edge which was the first thing I saw him in.

Moonfleet: 2-part miniseries about a young smuggler, John (Aneurin Barnard, who I understand is one of the current Hot Young Things. He has nice curly angst!hair?) searching for a diamond reputedly hidden away by Blackbeard. Along the way he falls for Blackbeard's aristocratic great-great-something granddaughter, Grace (Sophie Cookson) whose father is, of course, the new magistrate who's determined to wipe out the local smugglers. Ray Winstone is also there as one of the mains as John's grizzled father-figure, Elzevir, the head of the local smuggling ring, whose son is killed by Grace's father in the first 5 minutes. The characters and relationships are incredibly unsubtle and parts of it feel like at least half an hour or so of important scenes that move some plotlines along and explain how characters come to certain points were cut out at the last minute (particularly when it came to Grace), but it was a very fun adventure story with a hint of the supernatural that may or may not have only existed in John's imagination.

Really interesting to watch the second series (and rewatch the first) after reading Worth's memoirs. I was surprised that they adapted some of the stories they did (though pretty much all considerably toned down from the books) but I guess they figured that if they could do the incest episode from the first series and still get renewed, they could get away with anything.


The series is still wonderful and delightful and generally good at being thought provoking without being preachy or turning into a Message show. (I say "generally" because there was the Very Special Disabilities Episode, but pretty much everything in that episode except that subplot was pretty great.)

Also, I surprised myself a bit by how very willing I was to go along with the show's clear desire that I want Sister Bernadette to throw off her habit and run away with the doctor. (Not really a spoiler, as this element was present before the second series.) That plotline actually did a pretty good job of subverting most expectations for that kind of plotline, though.

 Know what's cool?  Amazon having decent prices on a lot of new/still airing TV shows with female (often in multiples) leads that not enough people are watching.  (What's not cool is having to remind myself that no, I actually DON'T have a lot of money to spare, most of what looks like fun money in my account is for WisCon.)

Season 1 of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries for $26.94.  1920s flapper runs around solving mysteries and flirting with stoic detective.  Exceptionally fun, and i think the only show I've seen in which the heroine is promiscuous for no reason other than that SHE LIKES SEX (no angst or self-punishment or any such) and with an ongoing romance plot where the female half of the equation regularly hooks up with other men without once being judged by the dude or the text, or showing us her sexlife through his POV.  Also, hats and adorable sidekicks galore.

Call the Midwife Season 1 for $22.86.  1950s London, midwives who work out of a convent.  Based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth (which are also a good read).  Sometimes lovely fluff, sometimes whimsical, sometimes utterly depressing, there's a large variety of personality types between the midwives and the nuns both, and tons of focus on women's relationships and the  changing world.

Parks and Recreation Season 1 for $11.49.  Presumably well known enough that I don't need to explain much?  Hilarious and sometimes awkward adventures of a small town civil servant who aspires to be president and make all women in the government ever proud.  Equally hilarious friends and coworkers galore.

Pretty Little Liars Season 1 for $14.96.  Take a Chrisopher Pike book, update it a bit, and then make it all about 4   BFFs trying to solve the murder of their friend, passing the Bechdel test in about 4 out of 5 scenes, while also having a ton of focus on their relationships with each other and their mothers, lots of gothic imagery, and just all around cracky and sometimes cheesy awesomeness.  Oh, and one is a lesbian WOC who gets a lot of action.

The Bletchley Circle for $15.59.  3-part miniseries (which will hopefully eventually have a second season?) about 4 women who were Bletchley Park codebreakers who reunite in the 50s to catch a serial killer.  A bit too devoted to the procedural aspect for me at times, but rather fabulous and a good look at what it was like to go back to being "ordinary" women after the war, especially if you did awesome stuff you can never tell anyone about.  Also, if you ever went "how would people treat Sherlock Holmes if he were a woman?" well, its a few decades later and Susan has considerably better people skills, but this is the closest to a direct take I've seen on that.

Continuum Season 1 for $26.14.  Time travelling cop saving the future from time travelling terrorists!  It has something of a bad habit of focusing more on the male supporting characters than the female, but most characters are interesting in their own right, and Kiera's awesomeness makes up for the rest.

Body of Proof Season 1 for $15.63.  Like Bones, something of a "female Sherlock Holmes" protagonist, with the brilliance largely focused on one medical field.  And, aside from Bones, the only case of a "genius/wrangler" setup where the wildcard genius is the female lead.  Protagonist is a former brain surgeon who can no longer practice due to injuries sustained in a car crash, and now works as a medical examiner and solves crime.  Adorable partners and coworkers galore.

Nikita Season 1 for $16.93.  Best known series in the list?  Unbelievably awesome ex-assassin working to bring down evil organization and save friends.  What  makes Nikita herself extra-awesome is that someone decided to take the trope of the damaged, stone-cold badass assassin on a mission and ditch the "stone-cold" part and create a character who, despite all the angst and traumatic background and badassery, is a warm and caring person who always sees the good in people and inspires loyalty as much for her warmth and determination to help you as for her badassery and drive.  Other great assassins and ex-assassins and soldiers and evil psychologists galore.

The Good Wife Season 1 for $25.55.  I've only seen the first 4 episodes of this so far and so can't say a lot about the series as a whole, but what I've seen I've liked a lot, despite early reservations about the premise.

Honorable mention:

The Hour Series 1 for $26.34.  Honourable mention because the technical main character is a dude.  (Who is quite annoying in the first season, but I found him more likable in the second.)  If you ever thought you might like Mad Men, but wished there was more focus on the female characters and that the men were less douchey, you'd probably like this.  Despite my description, this really isn't "BBC trying to have their own Mad Men," which it often gets described as (though the first episode does have something of a "wants to be Mad Men" feel to it).  I'm sure MM was something of an inspiration, but its less about nostalgia and deconstructing nostalgia, and more of a cold war-like thriller from the POV of journalists, many of whom are struggling with their assigned roles, and the creation of a new form of news programming.  Fair warning:  Series 2 was made with the belief that a third series was in the bag, and ends with a cliffhanger, and then BBC went and cancelled it.

149 x Call the Midwife





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