hcavn

Tongue in cheek/spoof/whatever, the acting by Darby was abysmal. I've not seen any of his work before, so I thought maybe this was not indicative of it, but I checked with two extremely reliable sources of mine, and according to them, this was par for the course for him. What was in CC's head, when he was casting this episode? Why do people fall for this rubbish NZ accent BS? A six episode return for The X-Files should have been tight and focused with us on the edge of our seats after every episode. Episode 1 and 2 were far from stellar, but still, nowhere near what you would call dogs either. But with this, we are now half the series down, and one third of what we have seen is a total write off. Honestly, I struggled to get through this episode, and not only nearly gave up on it, I nearly gave up on watching the second half of the series.

Struggling to see how at the time of my writing, this episode has a score of 8.1???? I've scored this a one, as I can't give it a zero, but for those still reading, take it as a zero.

I don't have a TV anymore, but stumbled upon the back to back premiere of the first two episodes, when I went around to a friends house for a birthday party. He said there was a programme showing later that night about WW1, so all the boys there sat down to enjoy when it screened (no John Wayne for us this night).

Now context is very important here. The series is about New Zealand's entry into WWI. The episodes screened in the middle of a long weekend here, sandwiched on a Sunday (26 April) between the actual date (25 April) of our national war memorial day (ANZAC Day) and the (for the first time) statutory observed national holiday (27 April). And, this was the 100th anniversary of the Battle Of Gallipoli. Pretty high national feeling all over the country that weekend for those that had given their lives for us all. So the expectation was the show had potential (and from what I was told, it was three years in the making).

Now, I'm not an easily offended guy, but I was cringing twice in the first 10 minutes, and desperately feeling sorry for the average viewer. Within the 5 minutes we had a male tutor in medical school having sexual intercourse with his female student. Five minutes later, another guy is having his way with a prostitute in a brothel. Pretty insensitive start if you ask me, even if was (and I don't know if it was) based on fact. And it never got any better from there.

To rub salt into the wounds, NZ$6.1 million of the nations tax dollars went to funding it. Needless to say, I never watched any episodes after the first two. I've been generous and given a score of 2, even though the first episode was a 1 (as I can't score it a negative).

Anything good? Well, it had the stunning Shavaughn Ruakere in it, but even she was not enough to get me back for more.