Sense8 – ‘Who am I?’, ‘Obligate Mutualisms’, ‘Polyphony’ and ‘Fear Never Fixed Anything’

"Who am I? Do you mean where I'm from? What I one day might become? What I do? What I've done? What I dream? Do you mean ... what you see or what I've seen? What I fear or what I dream? Do you mean who I love? Do you mean who I've lost? Who am I?

"I guess who I am is exactly the same as who you are. Not better than, not less than. Because there is no one who has been or will ever be exactly the same as either you or me."

Okay, so... I'll be honest, I didn’t; review the first three episodes of this series before because I figured we'd binge through the season and I'd do it in a oner. Then the news of the cancellation and unresolved cliffhanger hit and we lost momentum. Now there's the promise of a last hurrah and resolution, so... Here we go.

Season 2 of Sense8 retains much of the feel of Season 1, with our multicultural cluster of Sensates(1) each doing their own thing, but there's a much stronger arc feel, not least because three of our characters are deep into the arc so that their thing is arc thing.

Will and Riley are still hiding from Whispers, with Will playing cat and mouse as each tries to locate the other. Whispers pins them down to Iceland, thanks to an elaborate ruse with yoghurt and seagull soundtracks, while Will ultimately gets the drop on him, allowing the cluster to set up a meeting with one of his superiors. Unfortunately, Whispers reverses the advantage by murdering his boss after he makes a deal with the cluster, forcing them back on the run but leaving Will with actual blockers instead of heroin.

Never alone.

Capheus is going about his business, but having attracted the interest of a journalist has become quite a celebrity, even beyond his neighbourhood. He is approached to consider running for office, and while he protests that he is not a politician, he is told that people don't want a politician; they want a leader. He goes to the journalist, possibly for advice, but is driven off by her jealous colleagues, who hint that he is a fiction she created and crudely asserting that his interest must be carnal and is thus hopeless, because she is gay(2), leaving him a little adrift.

Wolfgang and Felix hover on the edges of a potential gang war, and are unexpectedly offered a club to run. The owner's secretary makes eye contact with Wolfgang and starts turning up naked and sexy in his brain, revealing herself as part of another cluster, one apparently aligned to some extent with BPO for protection. I practically punched the air when Wolfgang actually told his cluster-mates about this instead of keeping it as a pointless secret.

Kala remains somewhat disconnected, although her pharmaceutical knowledge is key to understanding the blockers, and she begins to discover not only that her father-in-law's religious intolerance is deep-seated and hateful, but that her husband is more interested in making delivery dates than providing good quality drugs.

I'd completely forgotten that Sun fought the same cop on a roof in her
underwear.

Sun is forced to escape from prison after her brother hires guards to murder her. She goes on the run with the old lady who killed her abusive husband, although her partner in crime then hands herself in so that Sun can get away. Sun goes into hiding with her old martial arts teacher, who is then visited by what seems to be an honest cop, who fought Sun in their student days and was roundly thrashed.

Nomi remains in hiding with Bug, doing the cluster's hack work, until Bug suggests a way around her problems. Reaching out to 'the Guy', he arranges a meeting in a cinema showing one of Lito's films (giving us a lovely scene in which Bug remotely fanboys at Lito,) with a contact who shows in a V for Vendetta mask and offers 'e-death' – Sense8's version of The Dark Knight Returns' clean slate – in exchange for an unspecified but non-tawrdy future favour. Nomi's records and warrants promptly vanish.

Seriously, I'm pretty sure everyone else in the bar just saw Lito neck eight
tequillas.

Lito's career founders as he is typecast as doomed, gay characters, causing him to reject an invitation to be president of the Sao Paulo Pride Parade. He also reminisces about one of his first gay lovers, a photojournalist who turns out to have been part of Angelica's cluster and a victim of BPO's purges. Lito returns to the bar from last season to drink shots with the cluster (not sure how that works to an outside eye) in part in memory of Jonas, who is killed having outlived his usefulness. The bartender tells him that Lito's kiss inspired him. He proposed to his boyfriend and they have enjoyed the best year of their life. This not only shows Lito what he can achieve as a gay actor, but propels the cluster into their next big act of rebellion.

Their last run at Whispers revealed how big the organisation is, which they realise means that there must be lots more Sensates out there. Thus, Riley agrees to DJ a gig for one of her old contacts, in order to put the message out. Three conspicuous figures – one in saffron robes, one some sort of biker and Sylvester McCoy in a Barber hat – see the gig, and Riley draws McCoy to 'visit' the stage, prompting him to flee, but getting their message out before she and Will escape along the Thames ahead of Whispers and his goons.

Man this season is a rollercoaster ride, with first the cluster and then Whispers getting the whiphand week by week(3). Next episode is going to be a downer by that pattern, but on the upside, Sylvester McCoy!

(1) Although this term is actually dropped for the most part in favour of 'homo sensorium'.

(2) She may well be, but the immediate read of this is 'won't sleep with us'.

(3) Or however often we manage to catch it.

Houdini & Doyle

PC Adelaide Stratton (Rebecca Liddiard), Harry Houdini (Michael Weston) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Stephen Mangan)

Playing fast and loose with history, Houdini & Doyle is an historical detective procedural with a paranormal twist, set roughly in the period of the friendship of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories and many other works, including the 'serious' ones that he mistakenly believed were the ones he would be remembered for, and American escapologist and showman Harry Houdini. It's an obvious choice really, since the two men were close friends and later rivals, falling out over their diametrically opposed views on the paranormal: Houdini becoming a dogged debunker of spiritualists, media and psychics, while Doyle increasingly hewed to a fairly generalised belief in 'something'.

Houdini & Doyle gives us both men at the height of their powers in London, 1901. Doyle has killed off his millstone, Holmes (a decision which everyone seems to have an opinion on,) and Houdini is the toast of the town and an inveterate ladies' man. Of course, Holmes was written out in 1893 and by the time he became famous Houdini's constant stage assistant was his wife, but why let fact get in the way of a good story. On that front, when the two celebrities start to interest themselves in police cases with a potential supernatural twist as part of their drive to settle their dispute over the existence of the paranormal, they are assigned as liaison Constable Adelaide Stratton, a non-nonsense female officer determined to be taken seriously. In real life, the first female PC was Sophia Stanley in 1919.

So, it's not accurate, is what I'm saying, and I think it's inaccurate in a way that doesn't do it any favours. Unmarrying Houdini is supposed to create an opposition with tragic family man Doyle (I have no idea if his tuberculitic first wife spent the last several years of her life unresponsive, while Doyle tried to contact her unconscious spirit via media,) but also practically forces a romantic tension with Stratton which does neither character many favours. It also turns Houdini into a mummy's boy on an almost Norman Batesian scale, and for some reason leaves out the real-life soap opera of Doyle's 'other woman', his future second wife towards whom he maintained a chaste love until his first wife's death.

So far, the three leads are fairly even, even if one of them doesn't get to be in the credits, and that's all to the good. Doyle is imaginative and observant, Houdini questioning and pragmatic, and Stratton thorough and determined. It would be easy for Doyle to become the butt of the series, especially as maintaining the central dispute more or less requires that every case turns out not to be paranormal. Two episodes in, the show's determinedly skeptical stance is probably its greatest weakness, turning the central conceit into a huge red herring.

There may be a follow up at the end of season 1, but no episodic reviews on this one.

Sense8 - 'I Am Also a We'

Awkward.

The pilot episode of Sense8, 'Limbic Resonance', was absolutely packed, a necessary side effect of introducing eight primary characters. 'I Am Also a We' focuses in on a smaller sample, allowing us to learn more about that slice of the cast.

In London, Riley is dodging gangsters and sees Will in her mirror, even suffering a sympathy cut when he cuts himself shaving.

The principal focus of the episode is on Nomi, and draws many of its themes from her identity as a trans-woman. After a fall during a Pride parade, Nomi's evangelical mother - a storming, monstrous turn from actress Sandra Fish, as she strives to pin Nomi down and force her to accept the name Michael along with her family's medical insurance - isolates her from her girlfriend Amanita and effectively has her committed, pressuring her to have an operation on her brain. The threat of hallucinations is of course heightened by the impossible appearance of Jonah, but a call from Amanita grounds Nomi, who is determined to escape.

The conspiracy against Nomi's identity mirrors that against the Senseates as a whole. Will and his watch are given Jonah's photograph and told that he is a terrorist, presumably knowing that he would try to contact Will, leading to a car chase in which Will and Jonah jump perspective into each other's cars. Will is uncertain about his calling, since his fellow cops see him as a traitor for saving a young gangbanger's life, but still cop enough that he can't just let Jonah walk.

In Mexico, we learn that Lito is actually in the closet for the sake of his career, dating a string of girls to deflect suspicion. When the latest gets pushy and uncovers his secret, she is unexpectedly delighted that she gets to be the beard for a cute gay couple. This, along with Kala's engagement party and her fiance's Shah Rukh lipsynch provide moments of lightness which lift and heighten the drama elsewhere. Props also that the Indian woman having doubts about her wedding is engaged to a charming, handsome chap that she chose; her questions are deeper than that.

'I Am Also a We' makes Sense8's core themes apparent: Identity, persecution and connection across boundaries. The persecution of the Sensates mirrors that felt by all of the characters in some other aspect of their lives, and all are struggling with their identity. Sun and Capheus make little or no appearance, so hopefully we'll see more of them next episode, and I expect to see these themes appear in Capheus' life, as they already do in Sun's.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - 'All the Mirrors in the World'

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

With Mr Childermass having visions under the surgeon's knife and Lady Pole whisked away to a specialist care institute (briefly a magical school) in Yorkshire, scandal is but a heartbeat away from Mr Norrell's door, especially as the unassuming Mr Segundus reveals that he is able to see the roses at the mouths of the Gentleman's enchanted victims, Lady Pole and Stephen Black.

Meanwhile, the differing approaches of Messrs Strange and Norrell come to a head. Called to attend upon the King himself, Norrell declares again that magic can not cure madness, but Strange is willing to try. His efforts, however, almost lead to the abduction and murder of the king by the Gentleman, with Stephen Black as his unwilling executioner. Strange then learns that various persons believe themselves to be being instructed in magic by Jonathan Strange, as the result of a con perpetrated by Mr Drawlight. In seeking out Drawlight, he stumbles on the King's Roads - a set of magical paths behind the mirrors of the world, created by the Raven King - but is dissuaded from exporing them when he realises that he is becoming consumed by magic to the expense of his marriage. He then pens a scathing review of Lascelles' account of Mr Norrell's revitalisation of English magic and announces his intention to retire to Yorkshire. Lascelles encourages Norrell to view this as a betrayal and Strange as an enemy, even as the latter is being recalled to service after Napoleon's capture of Paris.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell continues to hammer along at a cracking pace. It's almost a shame how briefly we get to see things like the King's Roads, a network of broken paths and walls resembling little so much as the fast transit system in a better class of fantasy computer game. So far, the primary movement in the plot is due to the largely unseen hand of the Gentleman with Thistledown Hair, but it looks as if we'll get to see more Strange vs. Norrell soon, and one almost wants Lascelles to get his comeuppance as much as the Gentleman.

While it has plenty of set pieces - the Roads, the confrontation with King George and the gathering of the moss-oak - and quieter moments - Strange's recognition that magic is not worth his marriage, Lady Pole witnessing Honeyfoot and Segundus defying Childermass - the crux of the episode is the last meeting of the two leads, in which Norrell notes that without the other, neither can truly discuss magic, as no-one else understands.

Sense8 - 'Limbic Resonance'

Cast shot!
Back row: Sun Bak (Bae Doona), Will Gorski (Brian J Smith), Riley Blue (Tuppence Middleton), Kala Dandekar (Tina Desai); Front row: Capheus (Ami Ameen), Nomi Marks (Jamie Clayton), Wolfgang Bogdanow (Max Riemelt) and Lito Rodriguez (Miguel Angel Silvestre).

In a derelict building, a woman who is not pregnant is giving birth, watched over by two men who are not there. To keep from being taken prisoner, she kills herself, her suicide witnessed in the dreams of eight complete strangers.

'Limbic Resonance' is a slow and rambling sort of pilot, focused on introducing us to the characters and oddly untroubled with the ins and outs of its high concept. We haven't even heard the word 'sensate' yet (although the trailer assures me this will be an in-universe term.) Perhaps this is because it is the brainchild of the Wachowskis and J Michael Straczynsky and they feel they can take a pass on received pilot protocol, or maybe it is another advantage of Netflix instant release schedule. Season 1 is all there from the get go, so a throat-grabbing pilot is less important than what the creators feel is the relevant set-up.

So, what we get is a random walk through the lives of eight people: Capheus drives a minibus in Nairobi and cares for his sick mother; Sun Bak is a successful Korean businesswoman who is treated like the tea girl; Nomi Marks is a pride political blogger; Kala Dandekar, a moderately pious Hindu who is having second thoughts about her marriage; Riley Blue, a London DJ with a criminal boyfriend and secrets; Wolfgang Bogdanow, a Berlin locksmith and safecracker from a criminal family; Lito Rodriguez, a Mexican actor with secrets; and Will Gorski, a Chicago cop.

That's a lot of people even if they were only involved in one plot, but they each have their own bit even before they start experiencing each other's lives. Capheus is in competition with a rival minibus company (his minibus, Van Damn, suffering from the relative popularity of Bat Van,) while Sun is struggling to be taken seriously compared to her playboy brother. Nomi's struggle is for acceptance into an LGBT community that sees a transwoman as a male interloper*, while Kala sees the death of her independence in her marriage. Riley's boyfriend uses her as a lure to try to rip off a drug dealer, Wolfgang is determined to beat the safe his father never could and put one over on the more ambitious criminals in his family, Lito has some sort of creative block and Will is troubled by the way the system is giving up on the ghettos.

And then all eight see 'Angel' committing suicide in their dreams, and begin to experience auditory and visual hallucinations which are in fact the perceptions of other members of the disjointed group. What does it all mean? Who is the man hunting them? As yet, we do not know, but it's an intriguing enough group to want to come back and find out.

* This seems to be the character and plot attracting the most buzz, and I can see why. It's currently the most compelling - perhaps because it's the least done - even though I struggle a little to get past her partner Amanita's accent (it's probably a good enough American accent, but I'm so used to Freema Agyeman being 'London' that it's weird; like Kenneth Branagh in Dead Again**, and equally with a character who doesn't really need to be American.)
** Oddly, I never had this problem with House, despite years of watching Hugh Laurie play variations of his native posh British.

Sleepy Hollow - 'Magnum Opus' and 'The Akeda'

"Who would win in a fight..."

Abbie and Ichabod are in pursuit of the weapon which Abbie's mother told them of (in the second of two episodes I straight up failed to review, 'Heartless' and 'Mama'.) They identify it as the Sword of Methuselah, a blade that can slay anything on Earth, but Henry bluejacks Katrina's mirror message to confess she was duped out of finishing Moloch until he was too strong for her and learns what they are after, dispatching the Horseman to claim it first. When Abraham is driven back by the dawn, they uncover a hidden cavern full of statues and flee the gorgon within before adding to their number. In a burst of inspiration, they let the Horseman - who has no eyes with which to gaze on the gorgon - fight the monster while they end run for the sword, but even as they claim it the horn blows for the start of Armageddon.

'Magnum Opus' cranks the crazy up to eleven, as the Witnesses discover the ancient burial place of the sword - which is nicely rough-hewn and run down - and conclude from the array of statues therein that basically the entire colonisation of the Americas might have been inspired by the search for the blade. On a more personal note, Ichabod suffers doubts, recalling that Abraham persuaded him to go to America and fearing that all of his decisions belong to other people.

Orlando Jones auditions for the dictionary definition of badass.

In 'The Akeda', Ichabod and Abbie rescue Katrina from Abraham's binding ritual (a sort of unilateral wedding/brainwashing,) but learn from the captured Abraham that using the sword will result in the death of the wielder as their soul is consumed (despite it being claimed that Methuselah himself slew a thousand demons with it.) Thus they call on Captain Irving to be their executioner, as his soul is already claimed. Armed with weapons from Hawley's arsenal, empowered by Katrina's magic, they battle a zombie hordette and the armour of War. Irving destroys the latter, but receives a mortal wound in return.

Yeah; that well.

Confronting Henry, Ichabod appeals to his humanity instead of going for the kill, and as a result the entire party is captured. As all seems lost, Moloch picks up the idiot ball and explains to Henry just how meaningless he is, Horseman of War or no Horseman of War, while Henry is holding the Sword of Methuselah, which ends about as well for Moloch as you might expect.

So, that was the midseason finale ('Magnum Opus') and a midseason pickup in which one of the main characters died and the primary antagonist was shanked by his own dragon while the heroes were all tied to trees (they don't call them Witnesses for nothing, it seems.) It will be interesting to see where they go next, and I'm hoping that - still being in hock to Henry - we might yet see more of Irving before he finds his final rest. Better than than have Hawley promoted to regular, because he's still a pain.

Only Lovers Left Alive

Adam and Eve are quintessential 60s survivors; a musician and a devourer of literature still mired in a psychadelic haze. Yet they are not what they seem, for they are centuries older, two of a dwindling population of vampires battling to balance their need for blood with the lethal pollution of their food supply by humanity's folly. Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive follows the two over the course of about a week as their carefully ordered lives are disrupted by Eve's anarchic sister, threatening their very existence.

In many ways, Only Lovers Left Alive is a movie about drugs and music which happens to have vampires in it. Faced with a human population full of chemicals and environmental toxins, Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) feed only on 'the good stuff'; carefully sourced, decanted blood free from contamination which they acquire from their 'dealers', a Detroit doctor for Adam and 16th century poet Christopher Marlowe* (John Hurt) for Eve. They are disdainful of the destructive natures of the 'zombies' - and it is telling that only humans are ever referred to by a monstrous title - and Adam in particular is almost consumed by the tragic destruction of the scientists and musicians he has sponsored over the centuries.

As an essentially character driven piece, the film rides on the performances of Hiddleston and Swinton, who are both excellent. Hurt, Mia Wachowski as Eve's sister Ava and Anton Yelchin as Adam's human fixer Ian are also superb, and in the film's enclosed world, wrapped in Velvet Underground-esque jangling guitars and long, loving montages, that is enough.

If I had a quibble with the film it would be that the blood = drugs theme is too direct, the feeding scenes too reminiscent of Trainspotting, but it would be a minor quibble.

* There's a reference to his waistcoat which feels almost like a nod to Shakespeare in Love, but that seems odd from a hardcore indie like Jarmusch.

Constantine - 'Waiting for the Man'

John Constantine, now with 100% more firearms.

Satanists, voodoo kings and zombies; we're going back to New Orleans for Constantine's mid-season season possibly-series finale, 'Waiting for the Man'. A teenage sort-of-runaway is lured by three tripped out waifs into coming with them to 'marry the Man', and receive a 'wedding ring' in the form of a neck brand. When a detective investigating is desiccated and branded with 'the Devil's Mark', Jim Corrigan (he of the 'second-husband of the action hero's ex-wife' beard and glowing future in undead vengeance) calls in John and Zed to help investigate while Chas... isn't here. Meanwhile, the Brujeria have put out a hit on John - a fact he is warned of by dead friend Gary (making what amounts to a stunt appearance, animating a corpse, quite possibly tacked on when they knew they weren't getting the second half-series) - and Papa Midnight is inclined to collect.

'Waiting for the Man' is a decent enough monster of the week story, intended to show the impact of the Rising Dark on ordinary human evil. The Man is a garden variety serial killer suddenly able to suspend the souls of his victims in some sort of thrall and use them to trap the unwary and incredibly stupid (seriously, the show does not provide an adequate reason for the victim to follow the creepy brides home, and although it does imply she was in some sort of trance it isn't really shown enough.) This part of the episode plays like an occult themed episode of Criminal Minds or a crossover with True Detective, and is pretty damned creepy, as ordered.

Where it falls down is as the conclusion of the series, or even the season. The producers were clearly confident of a pick-up when they made this one, because it hits the beats for a mid-season break, not a closer, and even that it doesn't do as well as 'The Saint of Last Resorts'. It's a shame, because the show had been getting very strong, and this is only okay.

Constantine - 'Angels and Ministers of Grace'

Some days are tougher than others.

It might be hard to admit it, but John is missing his backing group. Chas is back in play, but Zed is hiding out in an extraspatial meditation chamber since her powers overwhelmed her in confronting Felix Faust. Constantine encourages her to get back on the horse, but she suffers a seizure as they try to track a source of 'dark matter'. Zed is taken into care at a hospital full of murders, and John - needing another helper - binds Manny into a human form to force him to actually get involved for once.

'Angels and Ministers of Grace' is a significant episode for Manny, but also for John, who is forced to confront the fact that he still needs people, and that Zed is more than just a handy psychic receiver, when she is diagnosed with a brain tumour that may or may not be the source of her visions. It is also a watershed for Zed, who wants to know where her gift comes from, but seeing John visibly racked with guilt for pushing Zed to use something that may be killing her was a real turning point for the friend-sacrificing, nun-snuggling hard man of urban sorcery.

It's tough to be human.

After his total absence last week, Chas had a bit of a side role here, but less through lack of inspiration than to give John the impetus to force Manny to be his sidekick, I suspect. Much of Manny's role in the episode was as comic relief, but he also gained a new appreciation for the problems of the humans he usually only observes. He also signaled a sea change in the series by destroying Liv's scrying map, calling it a prop.

Of course, we're almost out of episodes now, the series having not picked up a second half order and with renewal looking dicey. Here's hoping it at least goes out on a high note.

Alphas - Season 1

Season 1 Cast - Ryan Cartwright, Laura Mennell, Warren Christie, Malik Yoba, David Strathairn and Azita Ghanizada

Once more, Netflix helps me to catch up on another now-cancelled series.

Dr Lee Rosen (Strathairn) is a man with a mission, to discover humans with extraordinary neurological abilities - Alphas, in his parlance - and to help them to achieve their full potential. He is not an Alpha himself, although it emerges at the end of the season that his daughter Danielle is. Rosen is a psychologist and the leader of a team of Alphas who work under the auspices of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service to track down and contain dangerous Alphas. Throughout the season they work against both individual Alphas and the Alpha supremacist organisation Red Flag, but all the while it becomes increasingly apparent that their own side is more sinister than at first they might appear*.

Alongside Strathairn's Academy nominated heavy talent, the team - each with their own ability and downside - are played by either relative unknowns or TV stalwarts: Bill Harken (Yoba) is an FBI field agent and hyperadrenal, who gains superhuman strength from his adrenaline rush but is exhausted afterwards and always cranky. Nina Theroux (Mennell) is the veteran of the team and a 'hyper inductive', able to override the will of others through speech and eye contact. Rachel Pirzad (Ghanizada) has the ability to heighten any one sense to an incredible degree, but only by dulling the others to near-insensibility; an ability that the series calls synaesthesia, which kinda makes me want to punch things. Gary Bell (Cartwright) is a transducer; he can sense any electromagnetic radiation and interpret it as images, sounds or patterns. The new guy is Cameron Hicks (Christie), who sounds like he ought to be fighting aliens on a spaceship and is in fact an ex-Marine/ His hyperkinesis allows him uncanny agility and hand-eye coordination.

The basic format is a monster of the week anthology, with the team tracking down Alphas who are, deliberately or unwittingly, causing harm. A double-edged arc plot concerns the rising activities of Red Flag and the increasing evidence of Guantanamo-style abuse at the facility set up to house the Alphas that the team brings in.

The meat of the show is in the characters and their interactions. Bill is constantly aggravated by his amateur teammates, but it is the same informality that sets the show apart. Nina struggles with her compulsion to use her ability to simply take whatever she wants with no consequences. Rachel struggles with a family who consider her ability an illness and Cameron labours under the white man's burden or something (seriously; of all of them, Cameron is the one most cursed with awesome. He's a natural ninja who sometimes chokes up under pressure.)

The show loses points for having the Hulk be the African-American character, but pulls something back for making him the highly-trained professional agent genuinely struggling with his anger management issues and the fact that they keep him from getting back to the job he loved. Likewise Rachel is in some ways a stereotypical sheltered, over-controlled Asian girl, but without succumbing to most of the more obvious signifiers (her parents fix her up with dates, but don't try to arrange her marriage.)

The real triumph of the show is Cartwright, however, whose nuanced performance as Gary eschews typical autistic stereotypes. Of particular note is the relationship between Gary and Anna, a Red Flag strategist and omnilinguist whose own combination of autism and profound intelligence made her the one person in the world that Gary could ever felt truly close to.

It's easy to see why Alphas didn't make it past two half seasons. It's a decent enough show, but it's not doing anything new enough or well enough to stand out from twenty years in the shadow of The X-Files. Still, it did get two seasons, so expect another review somewhere down the line.

* And they first appear as a team of black-suited, faceless government goons who disappear 'bad' Alphas to an upstate compound for remedial time in the maximum fun chamber.

Sleepy Hollow - 'Go Where I Send Thee...' and 'The Weeping Lady'

You have to take the journey...*

As my darling daughter prevented her parents watching anything new this weekend, here's a couple of episodes of Sleepy Hollow I'd been meaning to review for a while.

In 'Go Where I Send Thee...' we revisit Abbie's past, as a child kidnapping leads her back to a woman who helped her when she was orphaned. Recognising some family memorabilia (and taking umbrage at the canonisation of an ancestor he - naturally - knew personally to be a cad,) Ichabod realises that the Lancaster family's surse (to lose a daughter each generation) is the work of a Pied Piper in the service of Moloch. With a little help from mercenary artefact hunter Nick Hawley (a man with a truly ludicrous collection of magical gizmos to  not believe in magic even a little bit) they rescue the kidnapped girl, but her mother takes her back into the woods, because the curse has a second edge to its blade that forces a truly terrible choice.

** Well, it certainly ends badly for someone.

The Piper is immensely creepy, thanks to a combination of costuming and eerie camera effects to visualise his sonic powers. The added element of child threat makes this episode good, old-fashioned nightmare fuel. As a cherry on the sundae, former captain Frank Irving tries to fire his attorney on the grounds that he is the infernal Horseman of War, only to learn that due a trick pen he's already signed his soul away in blood. He is also given a sneak preview of how that will end for him**.

It's okay; I wasn't planning to sleep anyway.

Following up the creepfest of 'Go Where I Send Thee...' is 'The Weeping Lady', which is probably as close as Sleepy Hollow is going to get to doing The Woman in Black. It begins with the mysterious death of Caroline, a lovely Civil War reenactor with a sweet crush on Ichabod. There's a  La Llorona in town and she has a personal beef with anyone laying a hand or even an overfamiliar eye on Ichabod.

Once more, the villain is a personal acquaintance of Ichabod's (I'm mostly okay with this, because 'destiny') and indeed was his promised bride when they were both children. This woman, Mary Wells, even went so far as to try to 'save' him from the clutches of the colonies (and the trashy ginger witch who seduced him from his kin and country) but supposedly went home again when he wouldn't turn. Once the day is saved and the Weeping Lady put down, it emerges that she was killed in a confrontation with Katrina, who wrote a letter in Mary's handwriting so that Ichabod wouldn't take her body home to England and screw up his destiny with the sense of damned decency that leads him to turn up and personally apologise for giving the doomed historical seamstress the wrong idea**.

I liked the way this episode was put together, with Henry raising Mary through her connection to Katrina's sin (the lie she told Ichabod) in order to put a wedge between them. It plays back nicely to his sin eater gift. It also led on to a new revelation, that Katrina is something important to Moloch - a 'Hellfire Shard' - and that compared to her the Horseman of War is a disposable asset, suffering a major executive arse-kicking for putting her in danger.

'Go Where I Send Thee...' and 'The Weeping Lady' play to all of Sleepy Hollow's core competences: Historical coincidence, high octane nightmare fuel, sinister John Noble, and the lovable awkwardness of Ichabod. I am hoping to see more definite progression of the arc plot soon, and maybe some sign of a third Horseman*** before the season is out.

* No, I don't forsee myself running out of Into the Woods references any time soon.

** An adorable scene; I am so sad they killed her off essentially as ablative armour for Abbie and Katrina.

*** I say man but I won't lie; as much as the new Captain annoys me, it would be awesome if she turned out to be the Conqueror on the White Horse.

The Librarians... and the Loom of Fate

I give you... the Librarians.

One of my favourite shows of the past year comes to an end with the finale The Librarians... and the Loom of Fate.

Flynn returns once more with a plan to restore the Library; a plan which can only work thanks to an assortment of the artefacts that the Librarians in Training have gathered over the course of the series, including the Book of Tales, Morgan le Fay's smartphone app and Tesla's dimensional stabiliser. But when Dulaque interrupts the spell and hijacks it to break the Loom of Fate, the world is altered and only Eve can remember how it once was. With the aid of a rather lost non-Librarian Flynn, she must travel through a series of possible worlds and find a way to fix what was broken.

In the first world Eve died fighting the Serpent Brotherhood and her Librarian, Jake, is now travelling the world trying to keep magical artefacts out of the hands of bandits, mercenaries and anyone else who might abuse them. In the second, Katie the serial killer from ...and the Heart of Darkness managed to unleash a tide of ghost-zombies on the world, with only 'Team Jones' (Librarian Ezekiel having franchised the Library) to oppose them. In the third, magic has gone feral and dragons rules the skies, and Librarian Cassandra is a mighty white witch and the former student of Morgan le Fey.

In each instance, Eve is dead, having taken a stab wound from Excalibur that Flynn would have taken if he'd been Librarian, but the news is softened by a lovely running gag where she reacts with horror to learn that she and Librarian Jake were involved, or that Librarian Ezekiel looked on her as a mother figure. Also in each instance, non-Librarian Flynn brings something to the table that the Librarian in action lacks, because Flynn is a one-man band while the Librarians are a beat combo. Between the different worlds and the device and the denouement, basically everything from the past nine weeks is woven together.

Hey kids! It's Jerry O'Connell from Sliders! (Also Rebecca Romjin's husband.)
I love this show so much I'm not even going to bitch about that sword hilt.

Eventually, of course, they must return to the Loom, defeat Dulaque and restore the weave using Ariadne's thread, but to do that they need to return to their own timeline with the aid of all three alternate Librarians. The three accept that they are about to be written out of existence, happy with lives of adventure well lived. Flynn and Eve face off against Dulaque and are thoroughly outmatched by the rejuvenated Lancelot, until the (still aged) Galahad/Jenkins shows up and kicks his ass.

Eve is fatally stabbed (because she dies for her Librarian in every timeline,) but Flynn calls bullshit on fate, weaves the Library back to the Annex and uses his healing potion to save her. So very much huzzah!

I cannot adequately quantify the degree to which I have loved this series. It's done so much with such a limited budget and sparkling writing, and the season construction was splendid (even the Santa episode is relevant.) I so want it to go for another season.

Constantine - 'A Whole World Out There'

John goes visiting another old friend.

With his usual backing group on hiatus to recover from their clashes with Felix Faust, John is enjoying the chance to wallow in self-pity; at least until Manny provokes him into seeking out another old friend. Ritchie Simpson, not seen since the pilot, is making a quiet living as a teacher, until an ill-chosen class project leads four of his students into another dimension, and not one occupied by fauns and friendly dryads.

The antagonist of the week is Jacob Shaw, a mystic and architect who fled from persecution into a world of his own creation. Accessible through Egyptian spirit projection incantations in his journal, this world takes the form of a house which he controls through his mind, and through which he stalks the spirits of those who come to him... potentially forever. As John and Ritchie strive to save the last surviving student, for once is it not John who has the knowledge to take on the enemy, but Ritchie; if he can overcome his own Newcastle-induced self-loathing.

'A Whole World Out There' manages a pretty decent balancing act, showing us Constantine's guilt over Gary's death in 'A Feast of Friends' without ever letting the audience be certain he isn't setting Ritchie up for a similar fall. In the end, however, it is John who convinces Ritchie to come back to the world - albeit in a typically jerkass fashion - yet also John who remains trapped by the past, having helped Ritchie to find a new purpose in his philosophy lecturing.

It is also an effective creepfest, with wounds appearing on bodies in trance-states and Shaw stalking his victims through reflective surfaces. As in The Librarians and the Heart of Darkness, it has a lot of haunted house material to draw on, explained by Shaw's obsession with games and murder and games of murder.

Ritchie's condemnation of Shaw as a man who could have created like a god but chose to destroy as a monster actually covers a lot of Constantine's villains. Not the demons, obviously, but the mortals who use their magic for dominance and destruction.

Warehouse 13 - Season 1

Artie, Myka, Pete and Claudia. Although technically members of the US
Secret Service, Warehouse Agents are pretty much on a universal first name
basis.

Another one I've been catching on Netflix, Warehouse 13 is a series that has my name written all over it.

Secret Service Agents Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) and Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) are recruited by the mysterious Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek) to work at Warehouse 13, a storehouse of bizarre and dangerous Artifacts (their term, so I'll use the i) that have acquired powers largely as a result of narrative significance in the great story of humanity. Other Warehouse employees include their almost-preternatural 'caretaker' Mrs Frederic (CCH Pounder), pastoral care superviser Leena (Genelle Williams) and stroppy tech diva Claudia Donovan (Allison Scagliotti).

The Warehouse is located in America as a consequence of the United States' dominant position in the world stage, and the agents who work there are American because it is the 'host' nation. I always like it when a series bothers to explain why mystical stuff is centred on America. Warehouse 13 is the 13th iteration of the facility, which was originated by Alexander the Great (I also loves me some in-universe historical weight) and is filled not only with an assortment of random crap that happens to possess world-threatening powers, but a variety of cobbled together maintenance and defence systems ranging from the ultra-modern to the dieselpunk. The organisation is headed by a board of Regents apparently drawn from very ordinary walks of life.

The series has a good balance of characters. Of the two field agents, Myka is the sensible, disciplined one, possessing an eidetic memory and high intelligence, while Pete is the intuitive one and possesses a degree of extrasensory perception. Although Pete is established as an ex-Marine, Myka is nonetheless noted to be the better shot. Artie is the vague but endlessly knowledgeable mentor, especially to Claudia, the rebellious teenage daughter he never had. Leena is... in all honesty a bit bland, but the season actually uses that to its advantage.

The Artifacts are the show's USP, and are a splendid mix of weird devices and simple curios, from Native American cloaks to Hashishin exoskeletons and Edgar Allen Poe's pen and notebook.

The show is a lot of fun, with a sparky cast - although I prefer the support to the leads, finding McClintock a little too glib and Kelly's eyes often alarmingly huge - and a great sense of joy in its X-Files/Indiana Jones/Moonlighting mash-up premise. When it gets into legendary items it's a bit close to The Librarians, and I prefer Warehouse 13 when it's focused on more contemporary Artifacts, but there's a lot to like.

Constantine - 'Quid Pro Quo'

What is it they say about a good man going to war?

A city plagued with mysterious comas and a little girl in peril. It's all in a day's work for John, except that this one is personal. The little girl is Chas's daughter, and the rising darkness might be about to learn how good it is for anyone bad that Chas is such a decent guy.

So, as you can probably tell from the synopsis, we're leaving Zed's father and all that jazz for another time and it's Chas's episode this week. Returning home for his weekend with his daughter, he finds her in a mystery coma and calls in John to help. Discovering that her soul has been stolen, John is wary of such a power, but Chas has no patience in this case.

'Quid Pro Quo' delves into Chas's backstory, the secret of his 'survival skills' and the motivation that drives him to risk life after life helping John. The title refers both to Chas's belief that he must pay the debt of the 47 lost lives that keep him from dying, and to DCU guest star Felix Faust's attempts to bargain for Geraldine's soul. The latter is right up Constantine's alley, of course - certainly more so than going toe-to-toe with the suddenly badass Faust - but when Chas offers to bargain nicely with the man who stole his daughter's soul... Well, you don't have to be a dad to know how that will end*.

* It doesn't end well.

This is another strong episode, pitting the eternal sidekick Chas against long-time occult runner-up Faust in a main event. It also brings out a rare flash of conscience in John, who continues to use Chas in his fight but clearly understands both how much he owes his friend and how much Chas has given up.

Constantine - 'The Saint of Last Resorts: Part 2'

So... that went well.

Oh deary me; things look bad for our - for want of a better word - hero: Riled by his blase attitude, his ex-lover (now 'with' Jesus) Anne-Marie left him gut-shot in a sewer while she rescued a pair of babies. He soon gets out of that quandary... by inviting the Demon King Pazuzu into his body to heal him and scare off the unkillable Invulche, figuring that he'll evict it later. Said eviction - or exorcism, this show being more trad than Dominion - takes up the bulk of Part 2, along with John occasionally Pazuzing out and killing a few people.

Pazuzu you ungrateful gargoyle, I put you through college and 

this is how you repay me?!

Back from the mid-season break, Constantine shows us that John is pretty much willing to sacrifice anyone to get the job done, but that if it's him being sacrificed, he'll work to the bitter end to find another way. Arguably he'll do the same for others, but as that is rarely the focus of an episode it's hard to say. In this instance, his rescue costs at least nine lives, although admittedly all bad people (eight hardcore gangsters and a corrupt diplomat.) Was it worth it? I'm sure John thinks so, although as Manny points out, it's telling that he'll welcome a demon into his own flesh rather than ask Heaven for help.

Zed gets some early focus as she escapes from her kidnappers, but really it's Chas and Anne-Marie who get the lion's share this week, Anne-Marie finding her strength to exorcise Pazuzu and Chas generally providing the loyal core of decency and niceness that prevents us just giving up on John as a bad job. After all, if someone as gosh-darn stand up as Chas rates him, he must have something going.

The Librarians... and the Rule of Three

Because high school.

It's back to school for the intrepid Librarians this week, as the book of cuttings leads them to a STEM fair in Chicago, where the nerds fight with science for prestigious scholarships. Unfortunately, this particular science fair is dogged with bad magic, which is causing various contestants to fall prey to 'accidents'. All eyes are on top prospect Amy (or her super-competitive mother,) but the true culprit may be someone just a little older and much more dangerous.

Cassandra and Stone get to shine this episode. Cassandra is in her element as the former nerd-queen, while Stone knows what it's like to wear a mask to try to fit in, allowing him to bond with the early red herring outsiders. After a couple of weeks of Ezekiel Jones hail Mary's, Stone and Cassandra also get to make the save this week, with a dazzling science/magic theory and architectural surveying combo. Ezekiel has a few moments, but is basically lost in this world, not least when faced with a science fair contestant determined to prove that sea otters are the most evil and dangerous creatures on the planet.

The eventual solution to the mystery is kind of awesome; the big bad has created a smartphone 'brain gym' app which actually allows the use to cast a spell to create an advantageous situation by messing with your rivals. This has allowed people to unknowingly bring misfortune on others, with the ultimate goal of harvesting the magic from the eventual threefold backlash (a solid and fairly accurate invocation of the titular rule of three) from using magic to do harm. 

And who is our big bad? 

"Does my ambition look big in this?"

It's Morgana la Fey, a sassy, snarky red-head with awesome magical power and a take no bullshit attitude.

Jenkins: This is Morgana la Fey.

Blair: I know that name.

Morgana: You're a Librarian?

Blair: Where do I know that name from?

Morgana: Oh. Guardian.

This also gives us another piece of the puzzle in the larger 'war', as she refers to Jenkins as Galeas (the old name for Galahad - although I initially misheard it as Peleas the Fisher King - which would tend to make him Dulaque's son.)

The Librarians... and the Rule of Three is another fun episode, with a slightly dark edge. It's not as good as ...and the Fables of Doom, but it's still pretty good.

The Librarians... and the Fables of Doom

If it helps, that abnormally large wolf was not good.

The Librarians are called to a small town where the third and largest of three vehicles crossing a bridge has been attacked by a troll. It soon becomes apparent that town is under a spell which is causing fairy tales to displace reality. As they investigate, they become aware that whatever it is is beginning to affect them too, with Eve becoming a princess, Stone the huntsman, and Cassandra for some reason Prince Charming. Soon the effect is everywhere, and with the whole town against them only the one character immune to harm can save them; the reckless, roguish Jack.

Rene Auberjonois guest stars as a small 'l' librarian.

Once more, The Librarians scores over other, higher budget shows in terms of pure fun. The characters' transformations, and their reactions to them, are hilarious, from Jacob spontaneously manifesting a falconer's glove and owl (Baird: "You've got bird on you.") to Ezekiel's gleeful acceptance of his preternatural luck. Baird's frustration with going from the team's protector to a helpless damsel is especially effective (Baird: "Why am I in heels?") The episode also represents an interesting twist in the Jacob and Cassandra double act, with the implications of her role as an initially bashful Prince Charming potentially foxing the earlier shippy overtones.

Perhaps it's the fairy tale content, but this is one of my favourite episodes of the series to date.

The Librarians... and the Apple of Discord

How do we follow up Bruce Campbell as Santa? How about Cary-Hiroyuki
Tagawa as a dragon? Yes please!

The world is in uproar, literally, with earthquakes, storms and volcanoes popping up anywhere that they can. Flynn Carson, actual Librarian, returns to the Annex to announce that the problem is dragons, only for Ezekiel to stumble into the role of the Library's arbiter, first in negotiation between the Eastern and Western dragons and then a full conclave of supernatural beings (thankfully with Jenkins as his Counsel.) As the other Librarians search for a stolen pearl to restore peace between the dragons, Dulaque throws his hat into the ring, asking the conclave to dissolve the Library entirely.

This episode allows Noah Wyle to come in and be incredibly manic at people (seriously, I don't think he pauses for a second ever,) and for everyone else to get the chance to do what Ezekiel did last week and play their character in reverse. The pearl is just a shell hiding the Apple of Discord, which brings out the worst version of you, so Jacob becomes a bullying know-it-all and trashes a gallery for organising its collection wrong, while Cassandra turns into a trampy, vampy maths ninja, dismissively disabling Dulaque's sidekick Lamia before attempting to create a catastrophic power grid failure that would plunge Europe into an effective dark age. Flynn and Eve both want to rule the world, while Ezekiel... is already the worst possible him.

Props to the series for having trampy, vampy Cassandra discard her floral print dress to reveal some of the weirdest sensible undies in TV history instead of uncharacteristic lingerie.

Also, my suspicions regarding Dulague are confirmed when the fey envoy at conclave vouches for 'the son of Ban.' It also confirms the link between him and Jenkins. I'm currently guessing Merlin for Jenkins, but he could be someone less pivotal. John Laroquette gives it his all in his 'nothing ever changes' speech to Ezekiel; it's moving and reveals a lot of the rationale behind his grumpy, misanthropic exterior.

The conclave itself provides a lovely teaser of the depth and order of the supernatural world, and hints at these various secret groups hungering for a taste of the magic that the Serpent Brotherhood returned to the world in episode 2 (and I still want to smack them for murdering poor Cal, the bastards.) Plus, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as a scheming dragon. Fuck yeah!

The Librarians... and Santa's Midnight Ride

One of these men is not what he appears to be.

At Christmas, a gunman attacks a soup kitchen in London and is talked down by a jolly man in a distinctive hat (guest star Bruce Campbell.) But it's a trap, and soon the Serpent Brotherhood have drugged and kidnapped Santa, a living battery of the magical energy of human goodwill, and plan to sacrifice him as Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day. The Librarians have a matter of hours in which to rescue Santa and save Christmas!

Jenkins: "That’s why everyone’s always cranky around the holidays- because we’re running out of good will."

The Librarians' Christmas special is a romp, with Campbell hamming it up as the mercurial and timeless spirit in his many guises (drugged and bereft of his anchoring totem, he cycles through his past 'aspects', from the impish Nicholas the Toymaker to freaking Odin.) Throughout, he refers to himself in the third person, and impressively this stops short of being completely annoying.

"Somebody jacked Santa's ride."

In terms of the regulars, Lindy Booth plays Cassandra's delight in learning that Santa (whom her parents 'outed' to her as fictional at age three) is real with infectious enthusiasm, while Rebecca Romijn gets some big character moments as Santa presses Baird to deal with her hatred of the holiday season. Christian Kane's Stone gets some nice byplay with Matt Frewer's Dulaque as he and Baird threaten the Serpent Brotherhood's art collection to keep their enemies at bay, but it's John Kim's Ezekiel Jones who gets to shine, wearing Santa's hat as a decoy and, as a result, becoming the embodiment of goodwill and generosity against his thieving tendencies.

The Librarians and Santa's Midnight Ride is a joy; not for all tastes, perhaps, but for me it manages the delicate balance of sweetness and savour that makes a Christmas episode more than just a disposable treat.

Also, it has Bruce Campbell in it.