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Jan. 19th, 2011 12:50 pmEnded up watching the first 3 episodes of The Last Enemy last night before I finally decided I reeeeeally had to go to bed. Probably going to watch the last two in a little bit.
As a series, so far it is mostly just achingly stupid. I mean really rediculous paranoid thriller nonsense, broken up solely by moments of "Oh look, Cucumberpatch got kidnapped again," and "Oh look, he's naked again," and "Oh look, he's shagging his brother's wife again," mixed in mostly with a lot of faux political burble and the script trying to pretend that it's amusingly self-referential when it's mostly just annoying. (See my previous entry and my annoyance with the constant offhand references to bees, that wasn't funny the first time and doesn't get any funnier with constant repetition. Especially since the punchline- the fact that it has nothing to do with bees what so ever- is actually delivered BEFORE the repeated bee jokes start.)
It has issues with exposition too, which is probably where most of the problems arise. We do not see at any point that Stephen Ezard owns three identical outfits and just rotates through them because he's weird and obsessive, in fact you don't even really notice that he wears the same thing all the time, it is genuinely just stated at random halfway through the third episode like a known fact. It would have made more sense to show him unpacking three identical outfits at the beginning of the first ep when he's still in his prissy handwashing phase. Lazy, lazy scriptwriting.
It's that sort of mentality where we don't actually get to see stuff happening so much as get told about it after the fact by a series of interconnected scenes where people talk at each other and show around pictures and surveilance footage and introduce random bit-players we've never heard of before who are of course now completely important for the next five seconds.
Also all the computers have annoying digital voices that state exactly what they're doing at all times just in case you can't work it out from what's on screen. It would drive you mental if computers really did that. "Initiating browser," "Loading," "Accessing e-mail," "No new E-mails," "Connecting to Farmville," "Disconnecting from Farmville," "Search parameter: Free Porn. Six hundred and seventy three million results. Refine your search..."
Also also, and it really has to be stated, the whole thing opens with some dude using a Hawk (Yes, the bird) with an iddy bitty camera strapped to it, to get surveilance footage of an assassination. Amazingly enough, this hawk is a pretty fucking epic camera man. Considering the camera is static and strapped facing forward from the bird's chest, it figured out both how to circle and pan and track a moving target to keep it in frame completely accurately without being able to see the image output, even after it exploded! And all in glorious unwavering HD. From a camera the size of a matchbox.
That is one goddamn impressive fucking hawk. I want to see what he could do with a full studio setup.
Aaaaanyhoo. Plot inadequacies aside because if I start on those we'll NEVER stop, I want screencaps of this thing. I really, really do.
Oh, Mr Cucumberpants. Bless you for trying to make this shit sound plausible, but I really am just watching it cause you're pretty and get naked. I'm shallow that way.
As a series, so far it is mostly just achingly stupid. I mean really rediculous paranoid thriller nonsense, broken up solely by moments of "Oh look, Cucumberpatch got kidnapped again," and "Oh look, he's naked again," and "Oh look, he's shagging his brother's wife again," mixed in mostly with a lot of faux political burble and the script trying to pretend that it's amusingly self-referential when it's mostly just annoying. (See my previous entry and my annoyance with the constant offhand references to bees, that wasn't funny the first time and doesn't get any funnier with constant repetition. Especially since the punchline- the fact that it has nothing to do with bees what so ever- is actually delivered BEFORE the repeated bee jokes start.)
It has issues with exposition too, which is probably where most of the problems arise. We do not see at any point that Stephen Ezard owns three identical outfits and just rotates through them because he's weird and obsessive, in fact you don't even really notice that he wears the same thing all the time, it is genuinely just stated at random halfway through the third episode like a known fact. It would have made more sense to show him unpacking three identical outfits at the beginning of the first ep when he's still in his prissy handwashing phase. Lazy, lazy scriptwriting.
It's that sort of mentality where we don't actually get to see stuff happening so much as get told about it after the fact by a series of interconnected scenes where people talk at each other and show around pictures and surveilance footage and introduce random bit-players we've never heard of before who are of course now completely important for the next five seconds.
Also all the computers have annoying digital voices that state exactly what they're doing at all times just in case you can't work it out from what's on screen. It would drive you mental if computers really did that. "Initiating browser," "Loading," "Accessing e-mail," "No new E-mails," "Connecting to Farmville," "Disconnecting from Farmville," "Search parameter: Free Porn. Six hundred and seventy three million results. Refine your search..."
Also also, and it really has to be stated, the whole thing opens with some dude using a Hawk (Yes, the bird) with an iddy bitty camera strapped to it, to get surveilance footage of an assassination. Amazingly enough, this hawk is a pretty fucking epic camera man. Considering the camera is static and strapped facing forward from the bird's chest, it figured out both how to circle and pan and track a moving target to keep it in frame completely accurately without being able to see the image output, even after it exploded! And all in glorious unwavering HD. From a camera the size of a matchbox.
That is one goddamn impressive fucking hawk. I want to see what he could do with a full studio setup.
Aaaaanyhoo. Plot inadequacies aside because if I start on those we'll NEVER stop, I want screencaps of this thing. I really, really do.
Oh, Mr Cucumberpants. Bless you for trying to make this shit sound plausible, but I really am just watching it cause you're pretty and get naked. I'm shallow that way.
