![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
victorian thriller plotholes
Dec. 31st, 2007 10:56 amI have bugger all idea what I'm doing tonight. Unless something comes up, suspect it will be very little. Possibly involving Monty Python Life of Brian thingy on tv.
Had migraine yesterday which was ... fun. And then felt the urge to kick half the robin hood lot due to the fact that I put up the 'review post, stick links in comments please' and then when I groggily got on t'internet yesterday evening, I found about twenty individual review posts. :snarl:
Me and mum watched The Shadow in the North, the sequel to The Ruby in the Smoke (Phillip Pullman Victorian thriller starring Billie Piper). It's one of those things where all the individual stuff is really cool, but like the review said, me and mum agreed that you're left feeling wanting/slightly empty, due it not being the sum of its parts. Forthright girl detective, explosions, steam engines, seances, supporting cast of cool - all extremely cool things individually, but put 'em together and they don't quite gel for some reason. Plus the cliches you can see coming a mile off in places - heroine reconciles with her on-again-off-again-boyfriend, they shag, the villain sets fire to the house that night, boyfriend dies trying to get everyone out. Sally goes off on revenge whatsit, and at the end of the story, me and mum facepalmed and went 'oh, christ, she's pregnant, isn't she?' If I wanted cliched melodrama, I'd watch Dickens. Though even Dickens doesn't do stuff that you can see coming from *that* far off.
Mind you, it seems the Beeb has firmly settled on 'Victorian thriller/detective story to round off the year', considering they did Hound of the Baskervilles and the Silk Stocking in the years prior to the Sally Lockhart stories. Wonder what the ratings are for. Though the Sherlock Holmes stuff worked a bit better. Probably had just as many plot holes, but the stories are so entrenched in the British psyche that we accept the plot holes and would pout mightily if they tried to fix them. New stories we're not as familiar with, not so much.
Had migraine yesterday which was ... fun. And then felt the urge to kick half the robin hood lot due to the fact that I put up the 'review post, stick links in comments please' and then when I groggily got on t'internet yesterday evening, I found about twenty individual review posts. :snarl:
Me and mum watched The Shadow in the North, the sequel to The Ruby in the Smoke (Phillip Pullman Victorian thriller starring Billie Piper). It's one of those things where all the individual stuff is really cool, but like the review said, me and mum agreed that you're left feeling wanting/slightly empty, due it not being the sum of its parts. Forthright girl detective, explosions, steam engines, seances, supporting cast of cool - all extremely cool things individually, but put 'em together and they don't quite gel for some reason. Plus the cliches you can see coming a mile off in places - heroine reconciles with her on-again-off-again-boyfriend, they shag, the villain sets fire to the house that night, boyfriend dies trying to get everyone out. Sally goes off on revenge whatsit, and at the end of the story, me and mum facepalmed and went 'oh, christ, she's pregnant, isn't she?' If I wanted cliched melodrama, I'd watch Dickens. Though even Dickens doesn't do stuff that you can see coming from *that* far off.
Mind you, it seems the Beeb has firmly settled on 'Victorian thriller/detective story to round off the year', considering they did Hound of the Baskervilles and the Silk Stocking in the years prior to the Sally Lockhart stories. Wonder what the ratings are for. Though the Sherlock Holmes stuff worked a bit better. Probably had just as many plot holes, but the stories are so entrenched in the British psyche that we accept the plot holes and would pout mightily if they tried to fix them. New stories we're not as familiar with, not so much.
