Reynolph
Joined Aug 2000
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Once in a while, there comes along a TV drama series that makes you glad the medium was invented. A series that makes you glad to be alive; a series that breaks your heart that you have to wait a whole week to see the next episode. Shameless is such a series.
The Gallagher family consists of dad Frank and his six children (their mum apparently abandoned them years ago). Frank spends most of his time out drinking, only returning to the family's council house on a run-down Manchester estate when he's dragged home comatose by the police in the early hours of the morning. The result is that the six kids more or less bring themselves up, with the eldest - 20-year-old Fiona - acting as the token mum.
From all this, it should make for depressing viewing. But the beauty of Paul Abbott's semi-autobiographical drama is that it's not even remotely depressing. The six Gallagher kids, their friends and neighbours form an extended family where everyone loves and supports everyone else; and the result is bawdy, rude, but above all uplifting, heartwarming and fun. The performances are uniformly excellent and to single anyone out would be unfair. The first episode does a wonderful job of introducing the large cast of characters - not just in a cursory way either, but in sufficient depth to make you care about this assortment of misfits enough to want to tune in next week to see what befalls them next.
This is what TV should be. Watch it.
The Gallagher family consists of dad Frank and his six children (their mum apparently abandoned them years ago). Frank spends most of his time out drinking, only returning to the family's council house on a run-down Manchester estate when he's dragged home comatose by the police in the early hours of the morning. The result is that the six kids more or less bring themselves up, with the eldest - 20-year-old Fiona - acting as the token mum.
From all this, it should make for depressing viewing. But the beauty of Paul Abbott's semi-autobiographical drama is that it's not even remotely depressing. The six Gallagher kids, their friends and neighbours form an extended family where everyone loves and supports everyone else; and the result is bawdy, rude, but above all uplifting, heartwarming and fun. The performances are uniformly excellent and to single anyone out would be unfair. The first episode does a wonderful job of introducing the large cast of characters - not just in a cursory way either, but in sufficient depth to make you care about this assortment of misfits enough to want to tune in next week to see what befalls them next.
This is what TV should be. Watch it.
Galaxy Quest successfully pulls off a pretty difficult trick. It first gets laughs out of the notion of a bunch of ageing has-been actors reduced to doing the promotional rounds of fan conventions for the cancelled SF series they once starred in. Subtly, almost imperceptibly, however, it also portrays them in sufficiently sympathetic detail that, when they then find themselves in genuine jeopardy and are forced to find depths of resourcefulness they never knew they had in order to survive, we actually care deeply about the outcome.
This feat requires the writing, direction and performances all to be top-notch. Fortunately, they are. There's a wonderful scene near the beginning of the film where Tim Allen, as washed-up actor Jason Nesmith, drinks himself into a stupor while watching his younger self saving the galaxy on TV. We cut between the hammy, Shatneresque heroics of Nesmith on screen, to Allen's beautifully played reaction in the here and now as he struggles to speak a few lines of dialogue in unison with his screen self before shutting his eyes in pain to block it out.
Repeated viewing reveals many wonderful gags and nuances that are easily missed first time around. Just one example: during the opening credits sequence where the cast are waiting backstage at a convention for Allen to show up, we see Fred Kwan (played by Tony Shalhoub) struggling unsuccessfully for several minutes to open a biscuit tin. Only later do we discover that Fred's character in the TV series is the ship's engineer.
Galaxy Quest has genuinely funny dialogue, and moments of enjoyable knockabout humour, blended with warm, likable characters. It has, ironically, better visual FX than The Phantom Menace (the hilarious sequence of the ship leaving space dock only works because the effects are flawless).
And it has moments of genuine poignancy. Recommended.
This feat requires the writing, direction and performances all to be top-notch. Fortunately, they are. There's a wonderful scene near the beginning of the film where Tim Allen, as washed-up actor Jason Nesmith, drinks himself into a stupor while watching his younger self saving the galaxy on TV. We cut between the hammy, Shatneresque heroics of Nesmith on screen, to Allen's beautifully played reaction in the here and now as he struggles to speak a few lines of dialogue in unison with his screen self before shutting his eyes in pain to block it out.
Repeated viewing reveals many wonderful gags and nuances that are easily missed first time around. Just one example: during the opening credits sequence where the cast are waiting backstage at a convention for Allen to show up, we see Fred Kwan (played by Tony Shalhoub) struggling unsuccessfully for several minutes to open a biscuit tin. Only later do we discover that Fred's character in the TV series is the ship's engineer.
Galaxy Quest has genuinely funny dialogue, and moments of enjoyable knockabout humour, blended with warm, likable characters. It has, ironically, better visual FX than The Phantom Menace (the hilarious sequence of the ship leaving space dock only works because the effects are flawless).
And it has moments of genuine poignancy. Recommended.
Russell T. Davies, the creator and writer of Channel 4's hit gay drama "Queer as Folk" (1999) has come up trumps again with this warm, touching comedy about thirtysomething schoolteacher Bob who, having been happily gay all his adult life, has a chance meeting with feisty Rose and finds - to his amazement - that he fancies her.
Alan Davies (BBC1's Jonathan Creek) is perfectly cast as likeably diffident Bob, while Lesley Sharp is excellent as no-nonsense Rose. The supporting cast, too, give beautifully judged performances: Daniel Ryan is heartbreaking as Rose's boyfriend, Andy, as is Jessica Stevenson as Bob's colleague, Holly, who secretly carries a torch for him. Penelope Wilton puts in a hilarious turn as Bob's mother, who regularly embarrasses him in public by being a vociferous campaigner for gay rights.
As with Queer as Folk, the joy of Bob and Rose lies in the way it skilfully blends laugh-out-loud comedy and painfully recognisable human dilemmas. You find yourself rooting for this unlikely couple, yet wondering how a writer of Davies's calibre will resolve the situation happily without recourse to sentimental cliché.
Alan Davies (BBC1's Jonathan Creek) is perfectly cast as likeably diffident Bob, while Lesley Sharp is excellent as no-nonsense Rose. The supporting cast, too, give beautifully judged performances: Daniel Ryan is heartbreaking as Rose's boyfriend, Andy, as is Jessica Stevenson as Bob's colleague, Holly, who secretly carries a torch for him. Penelope Wilton puts in a hilarious turn as Bob's mother, who regularly embarrasses him in public by being a vociferous campaigner for gay rights.
As with Queer as Folk, the joy of Bob and Rose lies in the way it skilfully blends laugh-out-loud comedy and painfully recognisable human dilemmas. You find yourself rooting for this unlikely couple, yet wondering how a writer of Davies's calibre will resolve the situation happily without recourse to sentimental cliché.