Critique: Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles #3) (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl)

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

I have three miscellaneous observations.

After three novels, I have a confession to make: I hate Lena’s poetry. It’s awful and painful.

They just walked across dead grasshoppers. Gross.

Ethan notes than Liv says ‘strawberry’ in two syllables. It never occurred to me that Americans didn’t say it with two syllables.

 

The Giggles

 

This book made me hungry for me. The humour from the first book was revitalised in a glorious comeback. Like when Amma saves watermelon rinds for Link’s mother because they’re both sour.

Ridley made me chuckle a lot. ‘It begins with B and rhymes with bitch.’ Perfect! (Well, ‘bitch’ should have had quotation marks but we can’t have perfection.) Also, ‘Books? Carry?’ left me in hysterics.

One of Ethan’s aunts repeatedly shouts, ‘Fanny!’ Considering what ‘fanny’ means in the UK, I couldn’t help but giggle. The aunts made me laugh again because they’re convinced ‘if’ is short for ‘iffin’.

Mrs English is with Ethan’s dad and Ethan thinks, ‘But here she was, existing all over my father.’ Brilliant.

Aunt Grace claims she read a fact in the ‘Reader’s Digestive.’ Sounds like my kind of magazine!

 

 

Thinkers

 

When a novel makes you stop reading and ponder a thought for a moment, that shows a level of depth that is not required but greatly appreciated.

Macon notes that being hungry is an ‘incredible inconvenience.’ Firstly, yes, it is: it’s something so normal that people don’t think about it. Secondly, even though Macon says it like it’s new despite him having experienced hunger before, even though he was a caster (not an incubus) until he was at university. So he has experienced hunger before. Perhaps it’s only having lived without it that he realises it’s inconvenient?

It’s good to see Ethan correcting Link’s perception of voodoo. Correcting bad misconceptions was especially important in this book because we only see the negative side of voodoo.

We have a touching moment when Ethan thinks about his dead mum: ‘on a bad day it meant maybe she had never existed at all.’

‘The future can be changed. Fate cannot.’ This is brilliant, solving the conflict people have over free will and determinism.

Another interesting thought is Ethan wondering ‘if wishing was the same thing as praying.’

The final observation is that the maths ‘test really didn’t matter… the pie really did.’ I can sympathise with that.

 

 

Problems

 

These weren’t massive problems but they were still distracting.

In the same paragraph, we have Link speaking and internal monologue from Ethan. If it’s not Link, it shouldn’t be in Link paragraph.

Lena and Liv’s argument at the party is epic. Apart from one line of thought. Lena blames it on a furer cast. Yet two pages later, Liv repeats this observation and Lena scoffs, asking if Liv really thinks it’s ‘some kind of cast’. Then when Liv says it’s a furer, Lena boasts that she said it was a furer first. What a mess.

Link is a quarter incubus and yet food is completely inedible. Surely the three-quarters mortal in him still needs some food? Surely as most of him is mortal, most of his nutrition would need to come from mortal sources? Food could still be less pleasurable so Link would still be justified in missing his full enjoyment of food. So having these facts as more consistent would remove the humour.

Abraham says Ethan’s had a few trysts with a Caster. But since the first book, we’re constantly reminded how mortals and casters can’t physically be together. Does Abraham not know the meaning of ‘tryst’? (Or is it the authors?)

When Ethan says goodbye to the departed Prue, Amma slaps him and tells him not to scare her like that again. I’ve read this book several times but I don’t understand what scared Amma.

It’s mentioned that Serafine accidentally set herself on fire. But no, it was clear that Lena used the fire Serafine created in order to burn Serafine.

The book ends with Amma trying to stop Ethan killing himself. It’s really emotional. You feel for Amma, her love and loss. But Ethan has to die for the order of the universe to be restored. So you feel for Amma even more because you know she won’t win. It was truly a beautiful construction. One thing let it down, though: the bokor releasing enslaved spirits. They did nothing other than be sent away by Macon. They didn’t properly seem like a threat that could disrupt Ethan’s plans. They should have been either amplified or cut from the script.

 

 

The pace of this whole book was consistently speedy and it managed not to trip over its own feet. The story flowed nicely. It was leagues ahead of book two in terms of quality. I regained my hope for the series.

 

Critique: Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles #2) (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl) 2/2

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Grammar

 

There weren’t so many glaring mistakes in this book’s punctuation.

Okay, so the first mistake made me chuckle: they wrote ‘Ya’ll’. This is to mean ‘you all’, clearly. But the abbreviation is the ‘ou’ so that’s where the apostrophe of abbreviation should be, hence ‘y’all’.

Quite often a character will say a sentence with the explicit purpose of making reference to a specific word. This word should be in quotation marks but this doesn’t happen in this book. There’s ‘an activity the Sisters referred to as exercising.’ The ‘exercising’ should be in quotation marks. ‘Thelma always called the Sisters girls.’ The ‘girls’ should be in quotation marks.

 

 

Culture Shock

 

This book didn’t have as many as the previous one. Yet somehow these are more shocking.

Ethan pronounces mayonnaise like ‘mann-aise’. Um, what?

They’re dissecting pigs in summer school. Does this really still happen?

Prue finds it weird that Liv puts milk in her tea. But why wouldn’t you?

Aunt Prue asks Ethan to reach into her handbag (it says ‘purse’ but here in England, ‘purse’ refers to a small case in which money is kept). Yet Ethan refuses because it’s not polite. But she told him to do it, so it wouldn’t be rude. In fact, isn’t refusal to help a lady rude?

 

 

Plot Weaknesses

 

These weaknesses aren’t dents: they’re more like holes with jagged edges. If events are flimsy, so is the plot; if events are impossible, so is the plot. Everything from that point on becomes impossible (in this book and, more worryingly, the rest of the series). Of all the problems a plot could have, this is by far the worst.

            Ethan and company bump into a group of incubuses. Ridley uses her siren powers to make them leave. Earlier the readers were told sirens couldn’t control an incubus. How then can Ridley control a whole pack? Yet the whole plot relies on this event (otherwise the characters would’ve died and thus the plot ends): the fact that this event is incompatible with what we already know, it’s a serious plot hole.

            Macon’s light magic drives off the vexes and the incubuses. It doesn’t dive off the Dark Casters, however. They should have stopped Ethan from going up the alter but they didn’t. They let him do that, even though they knew it would stop what they wanted to happen?

 

 

Thoughts

 

These moments gave me pause for thought.

Lena feels cold. We already know that Dark Casters feel cold so this is worrying, showing which direction Lena is leaning. It’s interesting to note that Dark Casters are aligned to fire. Maybe they need the fire to warm up?

Link kicks the box in Aunt Caroline’s attic. But why would you kick someone else’s property? How could anyone be that rude and disrespectful? So much for being a southern gentleman.

Why have the authors called ghosts ‘shears’? Just changing the name for the fun of it? I know ‘caster’ is used for ‘witch’ and ‘incubus’ for ‘vampire’ but that doesn’t mean everything should be changed. It should only be changed for a genuine reason.

It says ‘Liv had been quiet until now.’ She last spoke half a page ago and they’ve all been having a general conversation since then so it’s not like Liv is acting in a noticeable way.

Ethan tells us that ‘Link had never liked the dark.’ Link just gave a speech that provided us this information so we didn’t need to be told. People don’t forget that quickly! (Also, why show and tell?)

Lena thinks she hurts all who love her. John convinces Lena to go to the Great Barrier because magic has no ‘labels or judgements’. But this just makes Light and Dark actions more acceptable, hence Lena would use Dark magic more often. So she’d hurt her loved ones more often, completely destroying the reason she went to the Great Barrier in the first place.

Ethan mentions people, incubuses clearly aren’t included within this classification. This seems rather odd. It’s a common mistake to think ‘people’ and ‘humans’ are synonyms. Even if this was a true synonym, this would mean incubuses aren’t human. But clearly they are. Not only can incubuses interbreed (and create fertile offspring) with humans but when an incubus is created with a bite, their genetic make-up doesn’t change. On both these counts, incubuses are part of the human species.

 

 

My biggest question surrounds Serafine taking Ridley’s powers away and returning them to the Dark Fire, where caster magic comes from. In essence, Ridley has to live like a mortal.

This made me think: is it possible to take powers from the Dark Fire and giving this to a mortal, hence making them a caster? Hence making it possible for mortals and casters to touch?

If this were the case, has it happened before? Considering Serafine’s a Dark caster (who despise mortals), I doubt she’d do it. Light casters, on the other hand, would be inclined to do so.

Serafine can only return Ridley’s powers because she’s super strong and a Catalyst, having an affinity for fire. Light casters don’t have an affinity for fire so they might not be able to take powers from the Dark Fire and put them inside a mortal.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Unfortunately, this isn’t a positive section.

After the slow start and middle, the latter stages of this novel had a far better pace. A lot was done but it never felt rushed. That was good writing.

The conclusion of this book was necessary for the events of the third book to make any sense. (This may seem like an obvious point but it applies especially strongly in this situation.) So most of this book felt like filler, in all honesty.

The fact that there were such massive plot holes was disappointing. Whilst these plot points don’t seem major, their consequences are problematic.

All-in-all, I don’t reread this book. Apart from Liv, it isn’t a good way to spend my time. The thing of real interest are my questions about the Dark Fire but this doesn’t really count because it’s my speculation, not world-building provided by the authors themselves.

 

Critique: Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles #2) (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl) ½

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Ethan being Stupid. Again.

 

I know Ethan is still legally a child but my goodness he is stupid sometimes.

Take when he thinks, ‘The songs never lie.’ Yet this is only the second Caster song he’s heard. There aren’t enough examples of the songs being truthful to say they always are. If he said he believed this song because the last one was truthful, that would be fine.

About Lena and John, Ethan wonders, ‘How long has she been hanging out with him without telling me?’ Excuse you, Ethan, but she doesn’t have to tell you anything. And she can be friends with whomever she chooses.

About Liv, Ethan says ‘every time we were together, we found our way into trouble.’ This statement simply isn’t justified. In this instance, it’s only the possibility of trouble. No trouble has actually occurred yet. Plus they’ve only found themselves in trouble once before. Plus Ethan and Liv have been together plenty of times without getting into trouble. So Ethan’s statement is bizarre in its inaccuracies.

Ethan says he never told Marion about the Arclight in the visions. But he had that vision a day or two ago and this is the first time he’s seen Marion since then so of course he hadn’t told Marion about the Arclight yet.

Talking about a frisky dream, Ethan says, ‘All my dreams are that kind of dream, L. I’m almost 17.’ Surely you’ve been having those kinds of dreams for far longer than that? Is 17 the magical turns-you-horny age?

 

 

Ethan and Lena

 

Ethan is being possessive over Lena and it’s a bit creepy, to be honest.

Within the space of a page, twice there’s mention of the electricity that Ethan feels when he touches Lena. Both times they were presented as new information which was rather lazy. Heat is always a by-product of the couple’s interaction and then randomly a chandelier swings wildly. Not only is this the only instance of movement but this is the only instance of anything but heat being produced during their touching. This is a lack of consistency.

The first one hundred and thirty-four pages are spent Ethan whining that it’s not the same between him and Lena. It doesn’t feel like much is happening, with no sense of suspense to justify the delay. So one could rightly perceive this as padding. Yet this makes the reader feel exactly how Ethan is feeling: lost. So this long delay in plot could equally be terrible writing or brilliant writing.

Lena spends a lot of energy and emotional capital telling Ethan that John was just a friend. And yet in the same breath she refuses to accept Liv as just a friend to Ethan. Come on.

 

Amma

 

Amma spends this book being… peculiar.

We still have the occasional howler. My favourite being, ‘You look like you fell into a cookie jar and couldn’t find your way out.’ Fantastic. However, every other time Amma uses ‘into’, she says ‘inta’. This is the only time she says ‘into’. This mistake should have been noticed by the editor.

Amma bangs her spoon, the One-Eyed Menace, on the table which breaks a spell. We never see the One-Eyed Menace is a magical context ever again. Ethan does steal the spoon but he does nothing with it. He doesn’t even think about it. We don’t see it again. So why bother showing the readers he stole it?

 

 

Olivia

 

Olivia is an English Keeper-in-Training.

It’s really refreshing for the cleverest character to also be funny. Not only that but she’s the funniest character. She calls one person a prat and then calls herself a genius, with neither shame nor pretence. When Link tells Ethan off for not telling him Liv was ‘hot’, she replied, ‘I find that rather tragic.’

She regularly picks up on everyone else’s shit. Like when the boys say, ‘Ladies first’, Liv replies, ‘Men only say that when it’s something horrible or dangerous.’

            I know it’s stereotypical but I really connected with Olivia over tea. At one point she says, ‘Tea is meant to be hot, sir.’ My soul curdles with the thought of intentionally drinking cold tea.

            There’s one thing about Liv I don’t like: instead of ‘Caronlina’, she’s written as saying ‘Carolin-er’. No. American accents have a rhotic R and most English accents do not, so ‘runner’ would be ‘run-urrr’ and ‘run-uh’ respectively. But just because English accents turn ‘er’ into ‘uh’ sounds doesn’t mean it turns ‘uh’ sounds into ‘er’ sounds. Otherwise we’d be saying ‘peet-zurrr’ for ‘pizza’. So for the authors to say Olivia say, ‘CArolin-er’ has no basis in fact. (We know Liv has a Standard English accent from other characters’ perceptions of her speech, meaning she doesn’t have a rhotic R.)

 

Critique: Tick, Tick... Boom!

This musical is about the musical writer Jonathan Lawson.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

We see the fictional depiction of Jonathan performing a musical in front of a crowd (also called Tick, Tick… Boom!), explaining the backstory of Superbia, another musical he wrote. But then this turns out to be the origin story of Rent, his breakthrough musical. So this musical is about a musical about a musical about a musical.

 

 

The songs were great.

They had clever lyrics, excellent backing music and the songs fit their scenes perfectly. The only problem is they’re not songs I’d ever want to listen to again. The final song and the song beginning ‘I feel bad that you feel bad that I feel bad’, but they’re applicable to life whereas the other songs are only applicable to the circumstance they’re sung in. This demonstrates Lawson’s ability to write songs about literally anything. This makes the audience feel his frustration all the more when he can’t write the key song for Superbia.

Coming back to the ‘I feel bad’ song, the choreography was amazing. The singers sat on stools and didn’t move their legs yet they were still so expressive with their movements. That was such an amazing scene.

Jonathan goes swimming and on the bottom of the pool, a stave and musical notations appear of the lined tiles. This was so clever. Plus it means he has that crucial key song.

This key song is a solo. When we hear it at the presentation, Jonathan hears his singer sing it as well as his girlfriend. They sang as a duet in harmonies, something that’s impossible when singing alone. Sometimes one would start whilst another was finishing and then they would sing together, yet the latter wouldn’t have time to say all the lyrics between finishing and then re-joining. Singing together and taking it in turn to sing different verses would have been perfect but the solo was altered into being a duet. Credit where it’s due, the song did make a pretty duet. Still, the decision to have this solo song as a duet was a poor one.

 

Jonathan and his bestie have an argument, in which the bestie shouts, “You’re writing musicals in your living room. You’re not saving the rainforest!” So hilarious.

But the argument takes a more serious turn because the bestie, being gay, can’t marry or have kids. Their friends are either dying of HIV or are afraid they’re next.

“So excuse me for enjoying my life while I still have time.” That sentence really hits home. Especially because Jonathan keeps on saying he’s running out of time: Jonathan’s version pales in comparison to that of his bestie.

 

Now for some miscellaneous points.

Jonathan thinks his time is running out because he’s turning thirty. Why are Americans obsessed with turning thirty and feeling like their life is over? It’s a common troupe in American television and film. We just don’t have that in the UK. This theme of running out of time is why he hears the ticking of the clock. But his best friend puts this into perspective by revealing he’s HIV positive.

We only find out Lawson has a cat sixty-nine minutes into the film when he cleans the litter tray. It was such a random scene, especially because we don’t see the cat again.

Jonathan gets to his presentation room and finds it empty and he’s devastated that no one has come. Someone tells him what the actual time is and he replies, “Oh. That’s good.” The relief was clear and it was just so sweet.

 

As a whole, this musical had a flare and the main character had such a sense of desperation. On the outset, a musical about someone struggling to write a song doesn’t sound particularly appetising, yet the film itself was a buffet. Having the cat was a small oversight so the only thing that really let it down was the key song, the one that Jonathan had been struggling to write. It was like finding a worm in your salad, a mistake that didn’t need to happen.

Critique: Close to Me

Jo fell down the stairs and lost an entire year of memories. This series follows Jo as she reclaims her past and remembers the night of the accident.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

On multiple occasions, the scenes are unusual yet remarkably brilliant.

One of the first scenes is of Jo being wheeled in a hospital bed through a fancy party. The necessity of health care being paired with the frivolity of a party is such an odd pairing that the audience can’t help paying attention.

At the end of the first episode, Jo had a beach hallucination, seeing a shoal of mermaids had beached themselves. Really quite unusual. Mermaids are the only bit on animation and whilst rarely used they’re used well.

Whilst it’s neither brilliant nor unusual as a piece of film, I did think this next bit was brilliant despite being unusual as a life hack. Jo and her friend had a dinner plate full of jelly sweets. That’s excellent.

 

Whilst the show itself was dark, there were a fair few bits of humour thrown into it.

An early scene is of the doctor telling Rob that Jo may never recover her memories. So Jo pipes up, “I can hear you! It’s a curtain, not a fucking wall.”

Jo asks her gardener if they’re close and he replies, “Well I’ve handled your lobelia.” So funny.

Someone tries to rob Jo. At first I thought it was a hallucination (bad things so far had been hallucinations) but surprisingly it was real. Jo responds by whacking the mugger with her crutch over and over again. I’m not fond of violence but this scene did rather tickle me.

At Jo’s support group, a lady called Helen repeatedly introduces herself with a joke about working in a coffee shop and being fed up of the daily grind. Jo’s response? “Imagine being stuck inside that shit joke for the rest of your life.”

A funny bit of inner monologue happens as Jo gets into a car. ‘I’m going to Hell anyway. Taking out the odd pedestrian won’t make much of a difference at this stage.’ One, I had to pause the show because I laughed so hard. Two, the ‘at this stage’ is unnecessary.

At the fundraiser for the refugees, Rob’s speech thanks everyone, finishing with, “And thank you to the people who use this centre who we’ve seemed to forgot to invite.” That has to be the funniest line in this show.

 

Several times, Jo’s inner monologue comes up with heart-wrenching statements.

Jo refuses to take her medication, deciding it’s better to be in pain than confused. Meds can confuse you and if someone’s as confused as Jo already was, I can see how they’d come to that conclusion. But to be in that situation, where you have to choose pain and clear thoughts or less pan and foggy thoughts, is awful.

She describes the confusion in her head in an excellent way. ‘It’s like someone came in and trashed the place and now I can’t find anything.’

The one that hit me the hardest was ‘I don’t feel safe inside my own head’. To lack a safe environment is bad enough, but to not have safety in yourself? It’s a horrible sensation and not one to wish upon anyone.

‘How many bad things do you have to do before you become a bad person?’ Just sit back and think about that one.

 

At times, Jo’s behaviour is questionable. Not surprising for someone who suffered as badly as she did but it still seemed problematic.

Jo vomits into and then flushes the toilet. Nothing wrong with that. But then she doesn’t wash her hands afterwards. Considering all the dirty jobs people do before they flush the loo, why don’t people wash their hands after touching the flusher? Disgusting.

Several times Jo has arguments at the top of the stairs. In the place that caused all your issues, Jo! Yes being there helps you remember but is it worth it when you could lose even more?

 

Jo’s husband Rob is such a dick.

He’s definitely more controlling than protecting. Seeing him throw Jo’s phone into the river cements his guilt.  We learn it’s because Jo was going to break up with him before the fall yet Rob wanted another shot at his marriage. That’s so wrong.

He told lies so as not to overwhelm Jo all at once. But they soon catch up with him, especially the lies he tells to protect himself rather than her.

When Jo realises there was someone else in the house the night she fell, Rob goes ballistic and takes her to the police. Clearly the police won’t believe her because she’s hazy and medically has lost her memories. Maybe that’s the point, for Rob to get out of the firing line.

 

Other good elements are as followed.

Rob’s mistress suggests to Rob to get a loan from Jo, Rob’s wife. The mistress works at the company that needs to loan so she’s using Jo to her full advantage. Now the mistress isn’t the one at fault, it’s the cheater, but there’s no need for the mistress to kick the wife in the teeth.

Episode Five cuts off right before Jo falls down the stairs. Urgh! Such good suspense. (Obviously I wish I had the answer straight away but it’s at that point that you know the suspense works.)

Jo finally remembers the night of the fall. She confronted Rob for being a cheater and decided to leave him. She tells him to not blame her ‘for your wandering dick’ (too right). Then we see Jo start to fall down the stairs but Rob catches her. Then we see Rob let her go. The show leads you up to know Rob pushed her but then it reveals this?! Somehow this seems so much worse than if Rob had pushed her down the stairs.

 

On occasion, there are events that let the show down.

Jo runs over a fox and picks it up straight away. It’s stiff but rigor mortis wouldn’t have set in that quickly. She picks it back up later, when rigor mortis would have set in, yet it’s all floppy. That was rather weird.

I’m not quite sure what to make of Wendy, the lady with the Dobermans. Each time she sees Jo it’s like she has a different personality.

Twenty per cent of the time Jo says ‘fuck’ or ‘fucking’, it seems really unnatural. It doesn’t flow with the words or the sentence, as if it’s shoehorned in.

 

This show was thought provoking.

It literally demonstrates what can go wrong if you put your life into the hands of the wrong person. But you’ll only ever know they’re the wrong person to be trusted when they do something wrong. Trust is a beautiful gift but it’s open to corruption.

The adverts portrayed the programme as a dysfunctional family. Which it was. But that wasn’t what the show was about. If the adverts had truly reflected the show, I would have been eager to watch it. But with things as they stood, it made for a nice surprise. Hardly any programmes deal with memory loss and how this befuddled confusion affects the individual so this was fantastic.

Critique: A Teacher

This programme was… interesting. It follows the relationship (and fallout) between a teacher Claire and Eric, her student. Admittedly the dialogue was off a lot but this was made up for by the superb acting from the two lead characters.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Claire’s teacher friend pesters her to say who she’s having an affair with.

I can’t believe Claire actually did so! Why would you do that? Why risk destroying your career and marriage? At first her teacher friend thought it was a joke and Claire could’ve agreed: she’d just been given a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Considering Claire’d only just had the one drink, there’s no way the alcohol would have kicked in by then. Besides, even if it had, she wouldn’t be drunk enough to be so stupid. She went to a good university so she’s clearly intelligent. The writers could have done better.

 

The town finds out that Eric has been sleeping with Claire and chaos breaks loose.

When this happens, Eric convinces Claire to run away with him. The police treat it like a kidnapping. But he’s eighteen, a legal adult. If it’s their idea, it’s only kidnapping if they legally can’t give consent, such as being disabled or a child (neither of which applies to Eric). So I don’t quite understand what happened there.

Claire went to jail for shagging Eric when he’s seventeen/eighteen, i.e. above the age of consent Why, I don’t know. I can understand losing your teaching job for sleeping with a student but jail seems a bit extreme. I suppose the laws on age and consent could be different in the USA but my British perspective, nothing seems to line up. (I’m not trying to justify what Claire did. She definitely shouldn’t have done it. I’m just looking at it through a legal perspective.)

 

We see from Claire’s perspective once she gets out of jail.

On one of her first jogs, she gets given a pastry for free so we expect the rest of her day to go well, like going into a shop to get a job. But then someone reveals to the shop manager Claire’s criminal history, Claire runs out. By putting a good event before a bad one, the writers made the bad one feel worse. It makes you feel almost sorry for Claire. The audience definitely needed some kind of boost to feel for her.

We also see her having sex with her date and he calls her ‘a dirty slut’ for sleeping with her student. Why on Earth would anyone say that during sex? You could see her face drop and then holding it in her hands. You could see how uncomfortable she was. So even if you were weird enough to say this, how could you be dysfunctional enough to not stop?

 

Ten years on, Eric comes back to town. He’s shown whistling in the car which was a good and clever way to make him appear older. He bumps into Claire. He blames her for the fallout (like how he quite university). That’s fair, considering she slept with her student and that power imbalance isn’t healthy.

But Eric’s reasons are bizarre.

Apparently her agreeing to tutor him and for him to use her first name were part of the problem. Agreeing to tutor a student is very common in the USA so I don’t see how that applies.

Getting Eric to use her first name would have broken down the official barrier between the two. This could have added to the general sense of closeness that led to the sex.

So those two reasons, out of all the reasons he could have chosen from, were an extremely weird choice.

 

Two episodes are spent pursuing the relationship. Three episodes are spent on the relationship. Five episodes were spent on the fall out of the relationship.

The fallout section was the perfect size. But this seems poorly balanced compared to episodes spent on the relationship itself. The fallout can only happen because of the relationship, after all, so it seems rather out of proportion.

The emotional fallout for Eric means his feelings were deep (whether love or obsession I don’t know) but from what the writers showed us I’m not convinced that his feelings did run that deep. They were there, to be sure, but not at a convincing level.

 

Whilst there was a lot of things that could’ve been better, this programme was one of the most engrossing shows I’ve watched and I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it’s because you know your school friends had crushes on teachers and you wonder what would happen if they’d acted on it, or if they did act on it. I think a new set of eyes for final editing would have smoothed out the kinks and to make this programme a more rounded show.

Critique: A Wrinkle in Time (Film)

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Seeing as they travelled in space (to tesser), I initially thought that ‘A Wrinkle in Space’ would be a more appropriate title. But only initially: the actual title is appropriate (and far catchier). To travel through space instantaneously, by not taking the time that the journey should have took, is sort of travelling in time. More importantly, space and time are in physics considered to be one thing (space-time) so saying ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ is essentially the same as saying ‘A Wrinkle in Space’.

 

Usually when a child acts, you can appreciate how well they did even if they’re not as capable as the adults. Yet in this film, the child actors were phenomenal, being equal to the abilities of the adults.

 

Meg is a black girl with curly hair. So when she sees the version of herself that she likes, a girl with straight hair. Meg hates her naturally curly hair and that hurts. She thinks she would be a better, more likeable person if she had straight hair. That hurts even more.

 

The three Mrs (who help Meg) are made of light. They say that tessering is done via love. The Mrs tesser a lot. So love moves light. That’s sweet.

 

When Meg first meets Mrs Who, she falls asleep after a few quotations. When awake, Mrs Who is calm and collected. So when she says, “Dang!” into her fist, it was pure perfection. But when they tessered to the final place, the three Mrs couldn’t stay long (because they were getting weak) so Mrs Who spoke in her own words. This was odd at first but finding the right quotation is taxing for her. If she’s already weak (like she is in the last location), it makes sense for her to speak with her own words.

 

The start of the film was frustrating.

Everyone was being horrid to Meg, the main character. Other kids celebrate the anniversary of Meg’s dad going missing and they wish Meg disappeared too. Um excuse me but no one of any age would say things like that.

It’s not realistic but the bullying is important for understanding Meg’s character. Toning down the bullying to something believable would be make understanding Meg better.

This was the only negative thing I have to say about this film.

 

This was a pleasant film with fantastic animation. There was a theme of female empowerment but it was gentle and ‘not in your face’, meaning even sexists couldn’t complain. Meg builds up her self-confidence and self-acceptance, qualities with which all people can struggle.

Critique: Why Women Kill (Series Two)

It was amazing how similar and how dissimilar Series Two was to Series One. The thing about Series One that hooked me was that the main characters all lived in the same property but at different time periods. It was a really interesting way to present and frame the story. I am glad that Series Two didn’t mimic this (instead the story was set in one time period).

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

The plot was quite intense at times, particularly for a comedy. The plot also had a habit of zigzagging, yet this was disorientating.

Alma is married to Bertie. Alma wants to join Rita’s garden club. Rita is married to Carlo. Rita is sleeping with Scooter who’s also sleeping with Dee, Alma and Bertie’s daughter, and Catherine, Carlo’s daughter. Pretty early on you have an idea of who will kill whom. As the series progresses, this impression is reinforced. But in the end, all this was a shoal of red herrings: nothing goes as planned.

Alma has Bertie kill Carlo and frames Rita for it. So Rita, the woman you thought most likely to go to jail, does but for a murder she didn’t commit. Plus Alma, the woman you thought least likely to kill, is the one behind the death. Then Alma outright kills Isabelle! Yet the action that hurt the most was Alma’s betrayal of Grace, just so Alma could climb the social ladder.

The most touching moment happened when Dee and Vern spent their first night together. Dee kisses Vern’s extensive scars, the same scars that scared his previous fiancé away, and then Dee rested her head against them. That was beautiful. Then Vern cried a little bit. Such a wholesome scene!

 

The humour was sublime.

Quite a lot of the best bits are related to Bertie euthanizing patients. Bertie justifies performing one on someone who misses their dead husband but Alma tells him not to arrange a reunion. Bertie tells a priest that it’s hard not to ‘help’ people and the priest responds, ‘What’s hard? You wake up. You go to work. You don’t kill. You come home.’

Isabelle, Rita’s maid and cousin, tells Rita that people would kill for a life like hers. (It’s funny because later on, that’s pretty much what happened). Rita responds, ‘I’m looking for sympathy not perspective.’ I real life, we all have moments where we wants sympathy rather than perspective but this is the first time I’m heard that emotion being explained so well.

When Rita notes Catherine to be a good mood, Catherine tells Rita not to ruin it by ‘speaking. Or breathing.’ Also when  Isabelle tries to blackmail Catherine with a picture of her sleeping with Scooter, Catherine is put off. Not for the obvious reasons: instead, she wants a ‘better angle’ because her ‘breasts are far more impressive than that.’

Catherine ordered the autopsy for her father as a final gift. So Rita says she knows what she’s getting Catherine for Christmas.

Dee tells Rita she has a message from Alma. Dee slaps Rita and says, ‘Did you get that or do I need to repeat myself?’

 

The show was managed well but a few things fell through the cracks. Unfortunately, most of this happened in the final episode.

When Alma comes out the restaurant, her stole is completely uneven. Then the very next shot, her stole is completely even. There wasn’t enough time, or even the hand movements, for Alma to have straightened her stole.

Catherine wasn’t in the final episode. This really annoyed me. It was almost like her character was in the way so they took the first opportunity to get rid of her. Indeed, the way the final episode was written, there was no room for Catherine. This was such a shame because Catherine wasn’t a minor character!

The final issue wasn’t restricted to the final episode alone. Bertie has an English accent. A flashback to his early childhood reveals an American accent and his teenage years sounded oddly Australian. Whilst accents can and do change over the course of a lifetime, as the programme didn’t go on Bertie’s life journey with him, Bertie having different accents wasn’t appropriate.

 

This show could’ve started a conversation about euthanasia. Indeed, in Bertie’s flashback of killing his mother, she says, ‘When I die I will finally be free of suffering which is something to celebrate.’ So you sympathise.

But no. Instead Bertie didn’t do it on people’s requests so he was being murderous. So this equated euthanasia with homicidal activities. Truly this was a missed opportunity.

All the writers would’ve needed to do was make the ‘patients’ say they want out, Bertie offers then the patient accepts. Yes, the euthanasia would still be illegal but at least it wouldn’t be immoral.

This would have made Bertie’s realisation that Carlo didn’t ask for euthanasia even more shocking. Hence Alma’s personality change and motivations would have appeared even more shocking.

 

So yes, there was a lot this show needed to do to improve. Perhaps I’m being more scathing than usual because I expected so much from series two. Yet the costumes, the settings, the camera shots, the humour… all individually would have warranted the show being labelled ‘good’. So together they made something ‘great’.

Critique: Vigil

A death happens on board the British submarine HMS Vigil in Scottish waters and Amy, a detective, is sent aboard to investigate.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

A lot of good decisions were made during the creative process of this programme. One of the simpler ones was Amy’s cat who was called Kat. A cat called Kat! Admittedly that’s short for Kathryn but it still tickles me.

There were so many twists in the plots, both on land and at sea. Yet it never became muddled or confusing, even though there were few episodes. For the writer to not end up with a Spaghetti Junction situation is really rather amazing. Episode Five in particular handled the plot very well, gripping me so much that I didn’t look away, not even to drink water.

We see flashbacks, including Amy trying to start a relationship with fellow detective Kirsten (the day after Amy walks out after Kirsten kisses her). In this flashback, Kirsten said, ‘”I thought you don’t like women?”’ and Amy replied, ‘”I don’t. I like you.”’ Pulling on my heartstrings!

The last shot was of Amy embracing her stepdaughter Poppy. Any other show would have shown Amy hugging her reconciled-lover Kirsten: lovers always take precedence over children on screen. But in not following this norm, this solidified ‘Vigil’ as a drama, not a backdoor romance.

 

 

I do wonder why Amy’s chosen to investigate the death.

I would have thought the Military Police would have investigated, considering it happened on MoD property. Or maybe that only applies to the ownership of territory (e.g. an MoD base) rather than ownership of property (i.e. the submarine)?

From her boss’ point of view, Amy is the best detective so of course she’s sent. This is realistic, whatever the personal circumstances. But in one of Amy’s flashbacks, we see her car sinking with her partner and Poppy. Amy could only save one and she chose Poppy. Unsurprisingly, Amy has PTSD over this and yet her boss thinks she should be the one to investigate on a submarine. An enclosed space surrounded by water. Surely that decision breaks ethics and basic humanity?

 

I do have two issues with the programme, however.

            If the naval base sends messages to Vigil, it risks others knowing Vigil’s location. Yet Vigil can send as many messages to base as they like without risking their location. Why would receiving be risky but sending not?

Due to a poisonous substance, an area of the ship is sealed off. Amy and the coxswain go in whilst wearing dive suits. This is all fine but what happens afterwards is problematic. The coxswain’s suit tears really easily: surely the material would be stronger, considering a tear results in drowning? Also, the lights aren’t on. Why? Working with torches makes their jobs more difficult and more dangerous.

 

Poppy isn’t allowed to live with Amy. (If only Amy married Poppy’s father, like he and Poppy wanted, this wouldn’t have been an issue!) Instead Poppy lives with her grandparents and they hardly let Amy see her. It seems harsh, considering Poppy calls Amy ‘Mummy’.

Later we learn Amy wants joint custody but the grandmother thinks Poppy travelling between the two houses wouldn’t provide stability. Not being allowed to see her Mummy is much more destabilising that a few extra car journeys.

I imagine the grandmother blames Amy for her son’s death. Sure, she can understand that rescuing her granddaughter, a child, is good, but her son still died because of Amy’s choice. But surely this decision shows how much Amy cares for Poppy, thus shows how much Amy and Poppy should be together?

 

In the end, the navy blamed the sinking of a British fishing boat on a Russian submarine, even though it was an American one. Considering everything that Russia caused on Vigil and its consequences (both the successful and the intended), Russia gets off pretty lightly.

If something like this happened in real life between allies, I hope there would be an apology and compensation, even if it had to be done secretly.

Then this brings questions because the compensation should go to the families but as soon as they know, everyone’s bound to find out and that brings political embarrassment. Plus it’s not like the government can give the families money without explanation and not expect questions and suspicion. So nothing would happen for those that needed it most.

 

This programme was far removed from my usual genre. Sometimes this means I lose interest but not so with ‘Vigil’. The intrigue kept me fully occupied and kept me itching, waiting for the next episode to air. I almost wish I’d binge-watched it but then I wouldn’t have been able to savour it as much as I did.

Critique: Domina

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

This made for an interesting watch. Simply, it was fascinating.

 

The plots and intrigue carried out by Livinia and Antigini were so, so clever.

It does get them in a tangle a few times but then they unknot themselves with another plot. Outcomes in the distant future are often as thought through as those in the short-term.

She married her enemy, the reason why the republic her father favoured fell and became an empire. Everyone thinks she’s betrayed her father. But it was all a plot to be close to power and then revive the republic.

Livinia’s dad freed Antigini to please Lavinia. Plus he had her educated, something that made a lot of men uncomfortable around her. Indeed, as one of Caesar’s friends said, “Your wife is cleverest man in Rome.” So her ability to manipulate the men of Rome is fully believable.

 

Honestly, the first episode should have been its own series.

The amount of time that went by, the amount of events that happened and the amount of characters that had to be remembered were simply too much. It was almost like the first episode was an hour-long catch-up of the programme so far. It was disorientating.

Also I preferred Livinia’s younger actor to the actor we get in the rest of the series so it was a shame to only get her in two episodes. Plus the older actor had a completely different accent to the younger one which seems a massive oversight concerning continuity.

 

Tiberius is creepy in a sexual way towards his mother.

He watches her have sex and goes to touch her breasts whilst she sleeps. He even asks a prostitute to be his mother! I wanted to vomit so much.

When we next see that prostitute, her throat had been slit, showing that Tiberius wants his mother dead. This doesn’t come as a big surprise, considering how his mother talks to him/treats him, and how angry he was with her that episode. This seemed to get it out of his system, however, because he then agrees to help her.

 

There were too many scenes of people using the toilet than I would have liked. It could be presenting the completely different attitude Romans had to privacy and bodily functions. The fact that doors and walls had series of small patterned holes so perhaps privacy wasn’t a real, major concern for them? This is all conjecture on my part and I don’t care enough to do research. Still, personally I’d not have so many toilet scenes.

 

The older a piece of history is, the more intriguing I find it. Yet the history within the Italian peninsular has never grabbed me (in regards to Europe, I’ve stuck with British and Greek, mostly). So trying out the history of Rome itself was new for me. Whilst Domina is fiction, it’s nonetheless been a good introduction for me.