Here's my appearance on the first edition of the new online TV magazine show WAWOW hosted by Ruth Curtis at iconic Pinewood Studios.
WAWOW's website is wawow.co.uk and their YouTube channel is here.
The channel was launched this week - I wish them every success!
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Saturday, 28 February 2015
Sunday, 24 March 2013
This post is in 3D (Unless you have one eye)
You and I are luckier than most of the animal kingdom because we have stereo binocular vision. Our two eyes see the same thing from two slightly different viewpoints (parallax) which, when overlaid and sorted out by the brain, creates depth of field and distance.
For as long as photography and film have existed, people have been trying to achieve the same effect for entertainment purposes. In 1838, Charles Wheatstone invented an item called the Reflecting Mirror Stereoscope which consisted of a pair of mirrors placed in front of the eyes and angled at 45 degrees towards a pair of drawings of an object viewed at different angles. The effect was a very rudimentary version of 3D, but it is the same basic idea still used today. Wheatstone then asked photography pioneer William Fox-Talbot to provide him with appropriate Talbotypes. The trick was to take the photos from the same distance, with the same focus, but with a horizontal difference equal to that of the human eyes.
Stereoview cards, using the new technology were available by 1852 and, within 10 years, the London Stereographic Company alone had sold more than a million. Indeed V Jenkins, a photography historian, says that the viewers were as popular in post civil-war America as televisions are today. By far the most popular subjects for stereographic cards were portraits and landscapes, though other genres included comics, disasters and, of course, erotica. The 3D peep-show cabinet was patented in 1857 in America, and would consist of a chronological set of stereoscopic cards attached to an endless belt turned by hand. It's not hard to see the progression that takes us from this to Piranha 3DD, 150-odd years later.
The first moving 3D images were shown using the Bioscope, invented by Parisian Optician Jules Dubosq. But the first person to display these stereoscopic moving images for a paying public was Emile Reynauld, another Parisian. He was the owner of the 'Theatre Optique' but his catchily named Stereoscopic Binocular Praxinoscope caused him no end of financial problems,and he ended up throwing the whole thing into the Seine. The popularity of stereographic images was such that when movies began to be made it seemed obvious that they would be soon shown in 3D.
In 1901, a Charles Francis Jenkins filed a patent for a system of creating 3D movies which is basically the same as that which is used today differing only in the fact that rather than red-green or polarised specs, he would have mechanical glasses that shut each eye off alternately. It seems that he never built his machine. Rumours abound that Hollywood is close to glasses-free 3D but, actually, it did exist in 1940s Russia. Moscow's Stereokino theatre used an ingenious structure of 30,000 evenly spaced copper wires on which the movie was projected forming a kind of 'perspective grill'. The problem was that you needed to sit in a very specific position to get the effect (limiting the available seats) and not move; even the slightest movement of the head meant a constant wriggle to get back to the right point. The theatre ran for 18 years though.
Although today's polarised system of 3D was invented back in 1895 by British physicist John Anderton, it was the different-coloured lens system that first had its day. The anaglyph (red-green) system was first used for feature films in 1922 for 'The Power of Love'. However, the breakout movie for 3-D was 1924's 'Plastigrams' which had no storyline, it just involved vignettes such as a baseball being thrown into the audience and a hose being pointed at the camera. One of the brains behind this work of moving picture brilliance, Jacob Leventhal, also invented the bouncing-ball thing that you see on karaoke machines. For one movie, Leventhal took the ingenious move of having two endings, one happy and one sad, which could be viewed individually through either the red or green lens. From that point on, 3D was here to stay.
That said, it does tend to come in waves. We had actor and magician Andy Nyman as a guest on the most recent series of The Museum of Curiosity and he's a big fan of historical 3D gimmickry. His theory is that the great 3D eras all correspond with perceived threats to the cinema; in the 1950s it was the arrival of TV, in the 70s it was video and, here in the present day, it's the Internet and digital piracy. Here are some interesting facts to consider:
The 1953 3D movie 'The French Line', starring a buxom Jane Russell was advertised with the tag line 'She'll knock BOTH your eyes out!'.
'House of Wax' was the first 3D movie to feature stereo sound. Its director, André de Toth wasn't able to enjoy the 3D effect as he only had one eye.
The most profitable 3D movie ever (by cost to takings ratio) was 'The Stewardesses'. This 1969 movie cost just $100,000 to make but made $27 million thanks to its promise to 'leap from the screen onto your lap
Like it or loathe it, 3D cinema is here to stay. Critic and film historian Mark Kermode has commented that there's been such a huge investment in recent years that Hollywood can't go back now.
So why all this talk of 3D? It's because I, like Andy, also have a love of gimmicky 3D. But my particular love is the View-Master.
I have quite a collection now including a Model B (1944-47), a Model C (1946-1955), Model E (1955-1961), a Model F - which had a built in light source (1959-1966), Model G (1956-1977), Model J (1975-1994) plus a couple of novelty models from the 1990s. But it isn't the viewers that are the stars of the show here - it's the View-Master reels that they show that I love.
Extraordinarily, despite the View-Master being in constant production since 1939 until the present (and made by a number of companies including Sawyer's, GAF, VMI, Mattel, Ideal, Tyco, Fisher-Price) the reels have never changed spec. You can use the same reels in any model of View-Master viewer - how many other technologies can claim that?
This is why I have a fascination with View-Masters; they are a form of social history. The 'travelogue' reels take you all over the world, but also through time. I have reels showing London in the 1960s, New York in the 1940s and Berlin in the post-war 1950s. I have reels of events such as Elizabeth II's Coronation, the marriage of Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly and the Moon landings - all in glorious 3D. I also have reels that reflect popular culture, TV and films in particular. Tarzan, Hopalong Cassidy, Thunderbirds, Batman (Adam West) and The Flintstones all look great in three dimensions. It also brings children's books to life: I have Aesop's Fables, and many nursery rhymes and fairy stories. Reflecting the time it was made, I also have an adaptation of Helen Bannerman's 'Little Black Sambo' - something you'd be hard pushed to find today.
I'm reliably informed that there is such a thing as View-Master pornography. However, I've never found any. The closest I have is a Brighton-based swimsuit contest from 1970 and a 'glamour girls' reel of topless 3D black and white lovelies from the 1950s. You can also have bespoke View-Master reels made from your own photos - although to be properly 3D you need to provide two parallax images or use a 3D camera.
What makes collecting View-Masters even more pleasurable is that they are cheap. You can pick up a set of reels - even very old ones - on ebay often for under a fiver. The viewers sell regularly for less than a tenner and, lets be honest, you only really need one good viewer. Even a brand new Fisher Price (current owners) gift set (viewer and a set a reels) will only set you back about £15. But there is something much more pleasurable, for me anyway, in the tactile smoothness and hefty rasp and clunk of a Sawyer's Bakelite Model E.
Glorious.
For as long as photography and film have existed, people have been trying to achieve the same effect for entertainment purposes. In 1838, Charles Wheatstone invented an item called the Reflecting Mirror Stereoscope which consisted of a pair of mirrors placed in front of the eyes and angled at 45 degrees towards a pair of drawings of an object viewed at different angles. The effect was a very rudimentary version of 3D, but it is the same basic idea still used today. Wheatstone then asked photography pioneer William Fox-Talbot to provide him with appropriate Talbotypes. The trick was to take the photos from the same distance, with the same focus, but with a horizontal difference equal to that of the human eyes.
Parallax in action: Sit back and cross your eyes so the images overlap. Voila! 3D!
And a headache, probably. Image of comet Wild 2 (c) NASA
Stereoview cards, using the new technology were available by 1852 and, within 10 years, the London Stereographic Company alone had sold more than a million. Indeed V Jenkins, a photography historian, says that the viewers were as popular in post civil-war America as televisions are today. By far the most popular subjects for stereographic cards were portraits and landscapes, though other genres included comics, disasters and, of course, erotica. The 3D peep-show cabinet was patented in 1857 in America, and would consist of a chronological set of stereoscopic cards attached to an endless belt turned by hand. It's not hard to see the progression that takes us from this to Piranha 3DD, 150-odd years later.
The first moving 3D images were shown using the Bioscope, invented by Parisian Optician Jules Dubosq. But the first person to display these stereoscopic moving images for a paying public was Emile Reynauld, another Parisian. He was the owner of the 'Theatre Optique' but his catchily named Stereoscopic Binocular Praxinoscope caused him no end of financial problems,and he ended up throwing the whole thing into the Seine. The popularity of stereographic images was such that when movies began to be made it seemed obvious that they would be soon shown in 3D.
In 1901, a Charles Francis Jenkins filed a patent for a system of creating 3D movies which is basically the same as that which is used today differing only in the fact that rather than red-green or polarised specs, he would have mechanical glasses that shut each eye off alternately. It seems that he never built his machine. Rumours abound that Hollywood is close to glasses-free 3D but, actually, it did exist in 1940s Russia. Moscow's Stereokino theatre used an ingenious structure of 30,000 evenly spaced copper wires on which the movie was projected forming a kind of 'perspective grill'. The problem was that you needed to sit in a very specific position to get the effect (limiting the available seats) and not move; even the slightest movement of the head meant a constant wriggle to get back to the right point. The theatre ran for 18 years though.
Stereo anaglyph of the same comet, also by NASA. You'll need those funny specs though.
Although today's polarised system of 3D was invented back in 1895 by British physicist John Anderton, it was the different-coloured lens system that first had its day. The anaglyph (red-green) system was first used for feature films in 1922 for 'The Power of Love'. However, the breakout movie for 3-D was 1924's 'Plastigrams' which had no storyline, it just involved vignettes such as a baseball being thrown into the audience and a hose being pointed at the camera. One of the brains behind this work of moving picture brilliance, Jacob Leventhal, also invented the bouncing-ball thing that you see on karaoke machines. For one movie, Leventhal took the ingenious move of having two endings, one happy and one sad, which could be viewed individually through either the red or green lens. From that point on, 3D was here to stay.
That said, it does tend to come in waves. We had actor and magician Andy Nyman as a guest on the most recent series of The Museum of Curiosity and he's a big fan of historical 3D gimmickry. His theory is that the great 3D eras all correspond with perceived threats to the cinema; in the 1950s it was the arrival of TV, in the 70s it was video and, here in the present day, it's the Internet and digital piracy. Here are some interesting facts to consider:
The 1953 3D movie 'The French Line', starring a buxom Jane Russell was advertised with the tag line 'She'll knock BOTH your eyes out!'.
'House of Wax' was the first 3D movie to feature stereo sound. Its director, André de Toth wasn't able to enjoy the 3D effect as he only had one eye.
The most profitable 3D movie ever (by cost to takings ratio) was 'The Stewardesses'. This 1969 movie cost just $100,000 to make but made $27 million thanks to its promise to 'leap from the screen onto your lap
Like it or loathe it, 3D cinema is here to stay. Critic and film historian Mark Kermode has commented that there's been such a huge investment in recent years that Hollywood can't go back now.
So why all this talk of 3D? It's because I, like Andy, also have a love of gimmicky 3D. But my particular love is the View-Master.
Some of my collection. I have more ... lots more. And no life, apparently.
The old and the new. My Model B (1944-47) and my Model O (2000-present).
I have quite a collection now including a Model B (1944-47), a Model C (1946-1955), Model E (1955-1961), a Model F - which had a built in light source (1959-1966), Model G (1956-1977), Model J (1975-1994) plus a couple of novelty models from the 1990s. But it isn't the viewers that are the stars of the show here - it's the View-Master reels that they show that I love.
Extraordinarily, despite the View-Master being in constant production since 1939 until the present (and made by a number of companies including Sawyer's, GAF, VMI, Mattel, Ideal, Tyco, Fisher-Price) the reels have never changed spec. You can use the same reels in any model of View-Master viewer - how many other technologies can claim that?
This is why I have a fascination with View-Masters; they are a form of social history. The 'travelogue' reels take you all over the world, but also through time. I have reels showing London in the 1960s, New York in the 1940s and Berlin in the post-war 1950s. I have reels of events such as Elizabeth II's Coronation, the marriage of Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly and the Moon landings - all in glorious 3D. I also have reels that reflect popular culture, TV and films in particular. Tarzan, Hopalong Cassidy, Thunderbirds, Batman (Adam West) and The Flintstones all look great in three dimensions. It also brings children's books to life: I have Aesop's Fables, and many nursery rhymes and fairy stories. Reflecting the time it was made, I also have an adaptation of Helen Bannerman's 'Little Black Sambo' - something you'd be hard pushed to find today.
I'm reliably informed that there is such a thing as View-Master pornography. However, I've never found any. The closest I have is a Brighton-based swimsuit contest from 1970 and a 'glamour girls' reel of topless 3D black and white lovelies from the 1950s. You can also have bespoke View-Master reels made from your own photos - although to be properly 3D you need to provide two parallax images or use a 3D camera.
What makes collecting View-Masters even more pleasurable is that they are cheap. You can pick up a set of reels - even very old ones - on ebay often for under a fiver. The viewers sell regularly for less than a tenner and, lets be honest, you only really need one good viewer. Even a brand new Fisher Price (current owners) gift set (viewer and a set a reels) will only set you back about £15. But there is something much more pleasurable, for me anyway, in the tactile smoothness and hefty rasp and clunk of a Sawyer's Bakelite Model E.
Glorious.
Monday, 26 March 2012
A holistic supernatural review
I don't often write reviews because I generally don't read reviews. I like to watch/read/hear something and make up my own mind. It's always seemed to me that professional reviewers - and I know a few as friends - are just people with informed opinions and, therefore, their view is no more valid than my own. Admittedly, some of them have made films and TV and written books themselves and, certainly, they've built up a large mental storehouse for comparison purposes. But, when it comes down to it, films, TV, books, art etc. are 'good' or 'bad' depending on the individual viewer's perception. Almost every review I've seen of the John Carter movie has been negative and yet everyone I know who's seen it thoroughly enjoyed it. So who to believe? In just the same way that I can't say that a Gaugin is better than a Manet, I can't say that Coronation Street is better than Eastenders. Both have merits and demerits; all that I am entitled to say is which ones I like and which I don't.
Which brings me to two shows that have just finished their runs: Being Human series 4 and Dirk Gently series 1. This is not a review per se - more a flurry of observations about why both shows didn't quite work for me this year. In essence, the problem I had with both is that they seemed to have lost their essential qualities. Let me explain ...
When Being Human began, I thought it was one of the most interesting and original ideas for a comedy drama that I'd seen in years. A group of supernaturals - a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost - find each other and end up sharing a house while attempting to fit into human society. It's an inspired set up for a TV series. I met the show's creator, the very affable and talented Toby Whithouse (see my interview here), during the filming of series 2 and we talked about where the show could go. Obviously, he couldn't reveal too much but he said that he was looking forward to exploring as many facets of human behaviour as possible; to use his characters to challenge the concept of what it is to be human. There would be temptation, envy, lust, joy. He would write about the angst that parents suffer about bringing a child into a world where that child will always be under threat; whether to fall in love with someone who is immortal and who will watch you grow old and die; how to live alongside people who fear and hate what you are; how to be human. That is, after all, the name of the series and what distinguishes it from all of the other supernatural series on TV. Which is why, with series 4, I was disappointed by the sudden change to 'end-of-the-world vampire armageddon' story arc.
I will state categorically here that the change of cast was not an issue - the new people have slotted in beautifully and are every bit as entertaining and likeable as Annie, Mitchell and George were. It's the plot that I had trouble with. The War Child. The over-exposed Mark Gatiss 'Old One' character Mr Snow. Time travelling ghosts. In just eight short episodes it's stopped being about 'being human' and has turned into every other supernatural TV show/film from True Blood to Daybreak to Blade to Ultraviolet (the excellent TV series and the unrelated Mila Jovovich film). There were hints of this plot-line in the show's pilot back in 2008 where the original Mitchell (played by Guy Flanagan) was told by the original Herrick (Adrian Lester) that the vampire takeover is coming and to choose sides. That whole plot device was dropped for the revamped (sorry) pilot and series 1 and the show was all the better for it. Now, it seems, the vampire takeover plot has returned, for me, it's a big step backwards. I really don't want to see it drown in the sea of predictable supernatural cliches, especially when there is so much that can yet be done with the characters. Incidentally, the US Being Human is very good. It's taken a different path to the UK show but I love the ideas they are exploring there, such as their 'Annie' - Sally Malik - becoming addicted to possessing human bodies so that she can have a physical relationship. That's closer to what I think Being Human should be about than the UK show currently is. It was Being Human's originality that made it so wonderful and made me love it. I hope it gets back to that with series 5.
And then there's Dirk Gently ... which seems to have done exactly the opposite to Being Human. While Being Human has got too fantastic, Dirk Gently isn't fantastic enough. This is a show that demands big world-changing themes ... but it falls flat. Stephen Mangan is perfect in the role; he is Dirk. He's exactly how I always imagined the character to be and the always excellent Darren Boyd is great as sidekick Richard MacDuff. Yes, I know MacDuff's character is fundamentally different from the book but changes always have to be made when converting a book to a film or TV. They are different media and what works in one doesn't necessarily work in another. However, that isn't my beef.
Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently books are a showcase for the author's extraordinary gift for invention. The first book, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, featured a time-travelling Cambridge Don (who, as many of you know I'm sure, was a recycled character from Douglas's aborted Doctor Who story Shada), an electric monk that believes things for you, a ghost desperately trying to get a message to his sister, an alien spaceship at the dawn of time that is responsible for kick-starting life on Earth, an impossible sofa and a very funny horse. We also get to see the effects on the history of poetry when Dirk becomes Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Man from Porlock'. It's a work of genius. The second book, The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, had Norse gods destroying airports, jet fighters turning into eagles and giant green-eyed, scythe weilding monsters rampaging about killing music executives. Even Adams's unfinished The Salmon of Doubt - which may or may not have been a new Dirk Gently novel - has the main character(s) travelling (in Douglas's words) '... through the nasal membranes of a rhinoceros, to a distant future dominated by estate agents and heavily armed kangaroos.'
So why, then, is the TV series so damned mundane?
The essence of Dirk is there with his unorthodox methods of working and his obsession with the interconnectedness of things. But where is the vision, the inventiveness, the fantasy, the sheer lunacy of Douglas Adams? Dirk should be saving the world by accident while looking for a lost cat, not solving everyday murders. Now, I do realise that budget comes into the picture. I also realise that the show will draw inevitable comparisons with Doctor Who and Sherlock. But, if that's the case, why bother making it? I know that seems a little harsh but if something won't work properly on TV then why do it? I would personally draw a parallel here to two recent radio series that have transferred to TV - Bleak Expectations and Dave Gorman's Genius. Both worked brilliantly on radio as 'radio has all the best pictures'; a lot was left to the imagination of the listener. In Bleak Expectations, writer Mark Evans could do whatever he liked. Anthony Head's character -Mr Gently Benevolent - was killed, came back as a ghost and possessed a pigeon, was then killed again and resurrected as a Frankenstein's monster-type creature and then later orchestrated an abortive Martian invasion. However, when the show moved to TV, Evans created a new, albeit very similar, show called The Bleak Little Shop of Stuff and it lacked all of the sparkling originality and madness of the radio show. It was just a Dickens spoof. And Dave Gorman's excellent radio series Genius, in which the British public come up with fantastic ideas and inventions, it was easy to simulate the Isle of Wight being made more symmetrical or a giant spike on a steering wheel instead of seatbelts to ensure people drove more carefully. The move to TV wasn't unsuccessful but a lack of budget - radio shows cost a fraction of the cost of TV shows - and a rubbish time slot meant that the BBC killed it after just two series.
That's how I feel about Dirk Gently. If you can't afford to do it properly then why bother doing it? Writing in the Metro newspaper, Keith Watson said, 'There was no disguising the fact that Dirk Gently was a five-star script being filmed on a one-star budget, making it look like a designer label knockoff when set against the production values lavished on Sherlock.' As I said at the start, I don't always agree with critics and rarely read them, but Watson has hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. Howard Overman - the chap who gave us the excellent Misfits - is the chap behind the TV version of Dirk. He's a very, very good writer and what he's given us is very, very good TV writing ... but it just isn't Dirk Gently. It's Dirk Gently Lite. I want full fat, outrageously fattening, over-the-top Dirk Gently because that's what Dirk Gently is all about. Instead we have something that looks like a slightly bizarre crop of episodes of Morse or Midsomer Murders.
Despite everything I've written here, I watched all of the series I've mentioned and enjoyed them. There were some great performances, brilliant writing and many classic TV moments. I will be tuning in to the new series when they happen. But I hope, in the meantime, that Being Human and Dirk Gently return to the roots that made them such phenomena in the first place. I fear that if they don't, they'll lose that originality and spark that made us all go 'Wow!' I also hope that Bleak Expectations and Genius return to the radio where they both belong and are both quite brilliant.
But then again, this is just my opinion and, therefore, it carries no more weight than yours. You may disagree with everything I've said.
Which is how it should be.
Which brings me to two shows that have just finished their runs: Being Human series 4 and Dirk Gently series 1. This is not a review per se - more a flurry of observations about why both shows didn't quite work for me this year. In essence, the problem I had with both is that they seemed to have lost their essential qualities. Let me explain ...
When Being Human began, I thought it was one of the most interesting and original ideas for a comedy drama that I'd seen in years. A group of supernaturals - a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost - find each other and end up sharing a house while attempting to fit into human society. It's an inspired set up for a TV series. I met the show's creator, the very affable and talented Toby Whithouse (see my interview here), during the filming of series 2 and we talked about where the show could go. Obviously, he couldn't reveal too much but he said that he was looking forward to exploring as many facets of human behaviour as possible; to use his characters to challenge the concept of what it is to be human. There would be temptation, envy, lust, joy. He would write about the angst that parents suffer about bringing a child into a world where that child will always be under threat; whether to fall in love with someone who is immortal and who will watch you grow old and die; how to live alongside people who fear and hate what you are; how to be human. That is, after all, the name of the series and what distinguishes it from all of the other supernatural series on TV. Which is why, with series 4, I was disappointed by the sudden change to 'end-of-the-world vampire armageddon' story arc.
I will state categorically here that the change of cast was not an issue - the new people have slotted in beautifully and are every bit as entertaining and likeable as Annie, Mitchell and George were. It's the plot that I had trouble with. The War Child. The over-exposed Mark Gatiss 'Old One' character Mr Snow. Time travelling ghosts. In just eight short episodes it's stopped being about 'being human' and has turned into every other supernatural TV show/film from True Blood to Daybreak to Blade to Ultraviolet (the excellent TV series and the unrelated Mila Jovovich film). There were hints of this plot-line in the show's pilot back in 2008 where the original Mitchell (played by Guy Flanagan) was told by the original Herrick (Adrian Lester) that the vampire takeover is coming and to choose sides. That whole plot device was dropped for the revamped (sorry) pilot and series 1 and the show was all the better for it. Now, it seems, the vampire takeover plot has returned, for me, it's a big step backwards. I really don't want to see it drown in the sea of predictable supernatural cliches, especially when there is so much that can yet be done with the characters. Incidentally, the US Being Human is very good. It's taken a different path to the UK show but I love the ideas they are exploring there, such as their 'Annie' - Sally Malik - becoming addicted to possessing human bodies so that she can have a physical relationship. That's closer to what I think Being Human should be about than the UK show currently is. It was Being Human's originality that made it so wonderful and made me love it. I hope it gets back to that with series 5.
And then there's Dirk Gently ... which seems to have done exactly the opposite to Being Human. While Being Human has got too fantastic, Dirk Gently isn't fantastic enough. This is a show that demands big world-changing themes ... but it falls flat. Stephen Mangan is perfect in the role; he is Dirk. He's exactly how I always imagined the character to be and the always excellent Darren Boyd is great as sidekick Richard MacDuff. Yes, I know MacDuff's character is fundamentally different from the book but changes always have to be made when converting a book to a film or TV. They are different media and what works in one doesn't necessarily work in another. However, that isn't my beef.
Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently books are a showcase for the author's extraordinary gift for invention. The first book, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, featured a time-travelling Cambridge Don (who, as many of you know I'm sure, was a recycled character from Douglas's aborted Doctor Who story Shada), an electric monk that believes things for you, a ghost desperately trying to get a message to his sister, an alien spaceship at the dawn of time that is responsible for kick-starting life on Earth, an impossible sofa and a very funny horse. We also get to see the effects on the history of poetry when Dirk becomes Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Man from Porlock'. It's a work of genius. The second book, The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, had Norse gods destroying airports, jet fighters turning into eagles and giant green-eyed, scythe weilding monsters rampaging about killing music executives. Even Adams's unfinished The Salmon of Doubt - which may or may not have been a new Dirk Gently novel - has the main character(s) travelling (in Douglas's words) '... through the nasal membranes of a rhinoceros, to a distant future dominated by estate agents and heavily armed kangaroos.'
So why, then, is the TV series so damned mundane?
The essence of Dirk is there with his unorthodox methods of working and his obsession with the interconnectedness of things. But where is the vision, the inventiveness, the fantasy, the sheer lunacy of Douglas Adams? Dirk should be saving the world by accident while looking for a lost cat, not solving everyday murders. Now, I do realise that budget comes into the picture. I also realise that the show will draw inevitable comparisons with Doctor Who and Sherlock. But, if that's the case, why bother making it? I know that seems a little harsh but if something won't work properly on TV then why do it? I would personally draw a parallel here to two recent radio series that have transferred to TV - Bleak Expectations and Dave Gorman's Genius. Both worked brilliantly on radio as 'radio has all the best pictures'; a lot was left to the imagination of the listener. In Bleak Expectations, writer Mark Evans could do whatever he liked. Anthony Head's character -Mr Gently Benevolent - was killed, came back as a ghost and possessed a pigeon, was then killed again and resurrected as a Frankenstein's monster-type creature and then later orchestrated an abortive Martian invasion. However, when the show moved to TV, Evans created a new, albeit very similar, show called The Bleak Little Shop of Stuff and it lacked all of the sparkling originality and madness of the radio show. It was just a Dickens spoof. And Dave Gorman's excellent radio series Genius, in which the British public come up with fantastic ideas and inventions, it was easy to simulate the Isle of Wight being made more symmetrical or a giant spike on a steering wheel instead of seatbelts to ensure people drove more carefully. The move to TV wasn't unsuccessful but a lack of budget - radio shows cost a fraction of the cost of TV shows - and a rubbish time slot meant that the BBC killed it after just two series.
That's how I feel about Dirk Gently. If you can't afford to do it properly then why bother doing it? Writing in the Metro newspaper, Keith Watson said, 'There was no disguising the fact that Dirk Gently was a five-star script being filmed on a one-star budget, making it look like a designer label knockoff when set against the production values lavished on Sherlock.' As I said at the start, I don't always agree with critics and rarely read them, but Watson has hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. Howard Overman - the chap who gave us the excellent Misfits - is the chap behind the TV version of Dirk. He's a very, very good writer and what he's given us is very, very good TV writing ... but it just isn't Dirk Gently. It's Dirk Gently Lite. I want full fat, outrageously fattening, over-the-top Dirk Gently because that's what Dirk Gently is all about. Instead we have something that looks like a slightly bizarre crop of episodes of Morse or Midsomer Murders.
Despite everything I've written here, I watched all of the series I've mentioned and enjoyed them. There were some great performances, brilliant writing and many classic TV moments. I will be tuning in to the new series when they happen. But I hope, in the meantime, that Being Human and Dirk Gently return to the roots that made them such phenomena in the first place. I fear that if they don't, they'll lose that originality and spark that made us all go 'Wow!' I also hope that Bleak Expectations and Genius return to the radio where they both belong and are both quite brilliant.
But then again, this is just my opinion and, therefore, it carries no more weight than yours. You may disagree with everything I've said.
Which is how it should be.
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