The Librarians... and the City of Light

Well... I'm sure glad I don't look stupid in this.

You spend time with people who don't do something and you start feeling like you can't do it. That's how it goes.

This week, the Librarians are off to small town New York in search of aliens, after a UFO hunter goes missing. Jenkins insists that there is no such thing as UFOs - minotaurs, fairies, magic swords and Santa yes, but no UFOs - but Ezekiel is already working on his pitch to sell humanity down the river if it should become necessary. The truth, as ever, is stranger than the initial supposition can encompass, and it emerges that the town is occupied by the body-riding displaced energy waves of the population of Wardenclyffe who were knocked out of phase by Tesla's wireless energy experiments a century ago and that the archivist Jake takes a shine to is the semi-immortal human grounding wire keeping them stable.

This episode gets props for the Tesla, and for Ezekiel in goggles following energy signatures, and for its central dilemma: do the bodysnatching discorporated townsfolk of Wardenclyffe deserve the Librarians' help after a century of 'borrowing' the corporeal forms of the people of Collins to do their dirty work? For once, Ezekiel is taking the - or at least a - moral high ground.

Jake: "We're Librarians... doing research on... local histories."
Mabel: "That makes sense."
Cassie: "It does... for once."

Unfortunately, a lot of this one is very talky, not in the sparky snarky badinage way, but in the expository. There's usually a bigass plot dump round about the third act that slows everything down, but this week it's a mountain, not a hill. Jake's doomed romance is also hurt by the fact that it is so obviously doomed, which kills the tension in the otherwise very sweet denouement.

Next week (because UK SyFy may be messing around with running order, but it isn't running double episodes) we have the season finale. After that... Well, I'm hoping for a renewal, since even the less gripping episodes have had Tesla in them.

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.

Continuum - Season 1

'Nice' Time-Travel Terrorist, Nasty Time-Travel Terrorist, Basically Honest Cop, Lying Time-Travel Cop, Innocent Tech-Nerd Who Grows Up to be the Chessmaster, the Lounge Lizard from Time-Travel Accounts.

Thanks to a Netflix account and a weekend of hideous blurgh, I have been catching up on some series that I missed first time out. One of these is Continuum, which is kind of like Time Trax for the arc-plot generation.

In 2077, the world - or possibly just Canada/North America - is run by a congress of representatives from the major corporations following a bail-out of the government(s). A group of terrorists demanding a return to representative government and personal liberties blow up the Congress and are sentenced to death, but dramatically escape by smuggling a small time machine into the execution chamber. Protector (police officer) Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols, which is presumably why she didn't appear in the GI Joe sequel) is caught up in the field and finds herself in 2012, along with half a dozen terrorists with knowledge and methods far ahead of their new time.

Cameron teams up with tech geek Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen,) a young man whom she knows will one day be the head of the most powerful corporation in the world and will create most of the technology she has brought back with her - a high-tech suit, a handgun that unfolds from its own handle and a multitool which is fortunately not quite as omnpotent as a sonic screwdriver. She is able to communicate with Alec through a compute in her head, and also connects with the Vancouver PD in the form of hunky Detective Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster). Throughout the first series her main goal is to get back to 2077 and the husband and child she has left behind.

I do not know why Tony Amendola isn't in the cast shots.

On the flip side of the coin are Liber8, lead by Edouard Kagame (Tony Amendola). Kagame represents a flawed balance between peaceful protest and violent activism. Of the remaining Liber8 members, three are more for violence and three for a more measured approach, although one of the former is killed early on and one of the latter essentially sets out on his own to profit from his future knowledge and live large. Liber8 are interesting mostly because they have valid arguments, but employ unacceptable methods (to assassinate the Corporate Congress they set off an explosive device and killed 10,000 innocents.) They are directly compared - and linked - to Alec's stepfather, a peaceful grass-roots activist, and stepbrother, who is played by the guy with the scary intense eyes who is Murphy in The 100 and so you know he's going to be trouble.

It's this measured approach that makes Continuum interesting. While Kiera is the good guy and Liber8 the bad guys, the system that Kiera defends is clearly a terrible one and many of Liber8's arguments are valid. They are also presented in a - sorry - continuum from peaceful protest to mass murder which makes it harder to draw sides, especially after an information gap leads to the death of a peaceful protester by a police sniper's bullet.

All-in-all, Continuum is an interesting series with decent action and technothrills accompanying a more than usually nuanced social position.

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 Heart of Darkness

It doesn't look so bad...

Cassandra: You think you're death? I face death every day in the mirror!

In the wilds of Slovakia the Librarians encounter a scared, bloody girl fleeing from the house where someone - or something - took her friends. The bad news is that the house is at a convergence of fractured leylines. The worse news is that the house is The House, the source of all the really bad Haunted House stories.

...and the Heart of Darkness is... a bit weird at first sight. After several weeks of development, the team are all spiky and no-one trusts Cassandra or thinks her capable, despite her proving otherwise several times over. This is, it turns out, because the episodes are showing out of order. The preferred order is in fact:

1 & 2 - ...and the Crown of King Arthur/...and the Sword in the Stone
3 - ...and the Horns of a Dilemma
4 - ...and the Fables of Doom
5 - ...and the Heart of Darkness
6 - ...and Santa's Midnight Ride (clearly moved for Christmas)
7 - ...and the Apple of Discord
8 - ...and the City of Light
9 - ...and the Rule of Three
10 - ...and the Loom of Fate

So, this episode should actually have shown quite early on, while ...and the Apple of Discord should have been a later episode, such that the betrayals of the characters effected by the Apple would be more pronounced.

Anyway, moving past that to judge on its own merits, the episode manages the spooky haunted house vibe pretty well, especially given that the entirety of the action takes place in the day. The idea that all of the houses in the various urban myths are the same house - or one of six, anyway: The House of Refuge, The Ur-Adobe, The Dionaea House, The Shatterbox, The Final Rest, and The Soul Cage - is creepy as anything (if you don't believe me, just read the masterpiece of electronic horror writing that is The Dionaea House) and I loved the way that Jenkins' list of possibilities once more blended modern and traditional ideas.

This is very much Cassandra's episode, and suffers from the change in running order by addressing issues which were not in evidence in the past weeks. The haunted house stuff is effective, if conventional, but the episode hits a twist at the third act break which knocks it up a gear as well as giving Lindy Booth her moment to shine.

I'm a little sad that there are only two more episodes to go, but on the plus side maybe I'll go back over the episodes in the right order.

Ex_Machina

Caleb Smith (Dohmnall Gleason), a coder with the company behind the world's largest search engine, BlueBook, wins a competition to spend a weekend at the remote wilderness home of his boss, reclusive genius Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Here he is asked to take part in a psychodrama update of the Turing test and assess whether Ava (Alicia Vikander), a sophisticated computer in a lithe, female form, is a true, conscious artificial intelligence.

Ex_Machina, directorial debut of writer Alex Garland, is a stark, almost Spartan film. It has only four speaking roles - Caleb, Nathan, Ava and a pilot who is in the film for about three minutes at the very beginning and plays no significant role in the actual narrative - and one silent - Sonoya Mizuno as Nathan's unspeaking domestic, Kyoko - is set in perhaps five rooms of a single complex and shot in a suppressed palette of muted traffic light pastels. It focuses on the relationships between Caleb and Ava, and Caleb and Nathan (with Nathan and Ava only sharing a couple of scenes) over the details of the AI itself. The three leads are excellent: Gleason as a slightly colder version of his usual loveable nerd persona, Isaac as the misanthropic lovechild of Steve Jobs and Grizzly Adams, and Vikander as the wide-eyed cyber-gamine.

"Pay attention: Here comes the science part."

The mechanics of the AI are, in as much as they are discussed at all, moderately bunkum, and a piece of code that Caleb hacks out would apparently only serve to find prime numbers up to 100. This is, however, because the film is not concerned with how to make an artificial intelligence, but by the standards by which we might judge one. This means that, unlike say The Machine, this is a film that very much cares about the motivations behind giving an AI a human body, and in particular an attractive feminine form. Its discourse is on what makes us human, more than how to make a conscious machine, a question which manifests in Caleb's increasing uncertainty in his own nature.

Ex_Machina is a sophisticated, slow-paced technothriller which takes a bleak - some might say harsh - attitude to alpha-nerd masculinity and perhaps to humanity in general. I don't think it's a misogynist film, but it is definitely a film about misogyny, which means that there is a fair bit of it on screen and it can get pretty skin-crawling in places.

It isn't a feelgood film, but it's well worth a look.