mitya_ilx

I am a huge fan of Toast of London, and so I was very excited to hear Toast would be returning. Unfortunately this series was a massive disappointment. The first thing I'll mention is far from the biggest problem with the series, but it will jump out at you pretty quickly: the returning players are all noticeably older. There's no reason that this should distract from the show, but somehow it's just jarring almost any time there's a returning face (Ed, Danny and Clem, Jane). The bigger problem is the writing: it's just not funny. There are lots of clever moments, but when one of the highlights of the show is "Oh, look, they're copying the end tiles from Columbo"... well, that should just be an easter egg. Fred Armisen's character fills the Ed slot in the series, as Toast's housemate-landlord, but he's annoying and not much else. Rashida Jones is the one highlight of the series as a recurring character -- one of the few normie and sympathetic portrayals in the whole Toast canon. And the last episode and ending... well, obviously it's keeping with the referential nature of everything else in the series, but it feels like a slap in the face. Finally I'll just mention that there are no songs. They seemed like random moments of bathos in the original series, but now that we don't have them, they're sorely missed.

There probably isn't a one-size-fits-all review of this series, which is based on the books of PD James but has the difficult task of following on the screen versions of the books produced by Anglia in the 80s (starring Roy Marsden). The Anglia series were remarkable for stretching most of the books out over six episodes, which gave them the opportunity to dig into all the characters. They were slow, but purposefully so.

The new versions condense each book into two beautifully shot 45-minute episodes, which means something that may have been one or more scenes in the 80s version gets condensed into a sentence. For me, this means the new series feels rushed. However, if you haven't seen the previous versions, you may not notice. It's definitely a quality production, and so should satisfy your need for a mystery. But ultimately it feels formulaic.

There are basically three groups of reviews of this show: people who like Jimmy for his offensive material and therefore think he can do no wrong (and any criticism is invalid). People who find his material beyond-the-pale offensive and hate him. I'm in the third category. I'm a big fan and have watched all of his standup shows many times. His first Netflix special was great, although I had a vague feeling at times that I'd heard some of the material before. His second Netflix special -- the "greatest hits" show -- was by definition disappointing if you already knew his material. So I had great hopes for this show, which I expected to be all new. And although he does hit the mark occasionally, you can kind of guess where he's going all the time. He's still a fantastic performer, but there's definitely less of the sharp wordplay that was a big part of his fame.

The high concept for the series is that of copycat killers replicating classic London crimes in the present. An oddball trio of detectives must catch the killers, and it's here that things go a little wrong, as we get cookie-cutter characters - a smart but inexperienced DI leading the team, who we gradually learn has some character flaws; a gritty DS with decades of experience leading a team that doesn't welcome an upper class outsider; and an eccentric civilian whose deductive skills are key to understanding what's going on. The plot keeps it interesting - Jack the Ripper in Season 1 and the Krays in Season 2 - but the character development beats will make you groan. Still, Rupert Penry-Jones and Steve Pemberton are a pleasure to watch, in their own way. My only other compliant is that the arcs seem a bit rushed, as if seasons were plotted for four episodes and at the last moment had to be cut down to three.

I have mixed feelings after finally watching Tenet. The basic concept is intriguing, as long as you don't go into the film expecting no problems with the science and no plot holes, you should be fine. You won't follow everything but you'll get the basic idea. That said, the film takes a good hour to set up (the film as a whole is 2.5 hours), and in the middle there's some terrible, melodramatic acting from Kenneth Branagh, as yet another cliched Russian supervillian.

Although an enjoyable watch, the film hasn't aged well. The first half of the film features some offensive and hokey dialogue and absurd Bondian plot elements that simply don't work in the film's "paranoid 70s" environment. But the cinematography is excellent, and the second half's suspense is more in keeping with the film's overall tone.

I very much enjoyed seasons 1 and 2 - another "cozy" mystery series, gorgeously filmed and well-acted. The mysteries themselves are self-contained from episode to episode, while character development story arcs take place in the background to tie things together. As other reviewers have noted, the writers have made hero Sidney Chambers remarkably liberal and modern in his views. Perhaps in 1953 there were small-town vicars with such attitudes, but after a while it feels unrealistic.

For whatever reason, season 3 fell flat for me, to the extent I thought they might have changed writers. Perhaps it's the peaking of a couple of those story arcs in season 2, but I found that I no longer cared very much about the characters, while the mysteries began to feel secondary to the characters' stories. I'm unlikely to come back for season 4.