Flavours of the Month: January & February 2024...

Bone-crunching action, mysterious woodland happenings, and the rediscovery of creativity is just some of what's been setting the tone of my January & February 2024...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...

 

LOOKS:

Reacher: Season 2 - it's probably fair to say that the villain doesn't get an awful lot to do all-said-and-done, and that there's something a little 'superhero-like' to some of the action, pulling some of the more realistic grit away from the show at times, but it never really bothered me that much as I thoroughly enjoyed this second season of Amazon's runaway hit that has been an absolute smash with both men and women. Considering how much money has been wasted (and continues to be wasted) on the likes of The Rings of Power, a poorly-conceived and hyper-expensive exercise in how NOT to adapt source material that is beloved the world over regardless of race/sex/gender/religion/etc, Reacher brings classic meat & potatoes action thriller TV back to our screens in a way that is surprisingly unusual when compared to much of the thoroughly mixed output that has been swamping our eyeballs for the past several years.

Fargo: Season 5 - the running theme of 'the war of the sexes' feels leaden in its execution, somewhat dated, and about as subtle as a brick to the goolies. Considering the sheer quality of the writing in the first two seasons (which are some of the best television I've had the pleasure of viewing), and the solid writing of the third and fourth seasons, this fifth season comes partially-hobbled by some catastrophically heavy-handed writing at times. The nuanced, complex, and richly-drawn characters of past seasons have, for the most part, been replaced with quite cartoonish individuals. Chief among them is Sheriff Roy Tillman, an ultra-conservative, Bible-thumping lawman who believes women are property and spouts Trumpisms with the aforementioned subtlety of building materials to the jubblies. His son is similarly cartoonish, the vape-sucking son full of impotent rage and self-importance behind a badge. Even Dorothy's mother-in-law, the head of a billion-dollar debt collection company is text book 'rich bitch', replete with the clichéd encounters with crusty old chauvinists who are bettered with a mere swat of withering humiliation.

Being that one of the narrative threads in the series revolves around Domestive Violence, a considerably serious and weighty topic (help information is displayed on-screen in certain episodes), the above-mentioned sub-par characterisations and blunt force dialogue surrounding any and all matters of the sexes only serves to clash with, and diminish, the more dreadful realities at-play in the story. It's all the stranger considering Noah Hawley, the creator of the series, described season five as being "more comedic" in tone.

James May: Our Man In India - only three episodes this time around, compared to the usual six for the trips to Japan and Italy, and it's evidently not enough time to explore such a large and varied country as India. Opting to travel from west to east, the areas that are explored do provide a fascinating peek under the surface of the nation. One of the most fascinating segments centred on the 'slums', comparing outsider impressions with the opinions and daily lives of those on the inside.

Obliterated - created by Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald (who created the superb Cobra Kai television series), this eight episode action comedy set in Las Vegas follows a special ops team who, having saved Sin City from nuclear obliteration, go on a celebratory bender only to discover the recovered bomb was in fact a fake with the real one still very much in-play. It gets off to a brisk, breezy, and chaotically entertaining start, sags quite a bit in the middle, and then rallies for the final sprint to the finish. Eight episodes is certainly too long, so six would've been much more suitable, but in this day and age it was refreshing to watch something that was just seeking to entertain its audience and not hammer them over the head with lectures and political pandering - and yet still with a very diverse cast. It may be a cheeseburger of a show, and one that won't be returning for a second serving, but all said and done it was a good bit of fun.

True Detective: Night Country - HBO's crime thriller, created by Nic Pizzolatto, returns after a five year hiatus. However, this season is headed up by Issa López and is two episodes shorter than all its predecessors. The unique setting (a remote Alaskan community where a mining operation and native peoples uneasily live side-by-side) certainly gives Night Country its own identity and feel, López drawing inspiration from the likes of The Thing and The Shining. The lead characters, played by Jodie Foster and professional boxer turned actress Kali Reis, make for an intriguing clash of personalities, even though the material they are given proves to be a bit of a mixed bag and sometimes feels like its retreading the same small patch of ground. Indeed, some narrative threads are left dangling and unexplored, with many side characters feeling quite undeveloped as mere functional blocks to deliver a few lines of dialogue. As such, Night Country can prove to be frustrating as there appears to be so much more lurking beneath the surface, but it's rarely engaged with.

Overall it's okay, certainly not terrible, but it's a very long shot from the previous three seasons (the first and third in particular). The story is full of promise, even boasting some truly nightmarish moments, but is often left clawing in the dark in search of propulsion in episodes two through five. The clash of the sexes theme can also be distractingly cartoony (e.g. buffoonish male officers taking silly selfies with a tangle of dead bodies), with certain characterisations weighed-down with albatross levels of righteous fury. It also seems a little strange to try and link this season with the previous three as Night Country is overtly supernatural, while its predecessors are only tangentially so, and in a more metaphysical and figurative manner. Indeed, come the finale, the show can't seem to make up its mind about just how supernatural it wants to be, having already fumbled many detective genre elements, leaving a muddled and disappointing aftertaste paired with the sense that this season will fade quickly in the memory.

The Walking Dead: Season 11 (Blu-Ray) - a re-watch ahead of the arrival of the latest franchise spin-off "The Ones Who Live", which will feature the return of departed fan favourite characters Rick Grimes and Michonne.

Masters of the Air - created by John Shiban and John Orloff. From the producers of Band of Brothers and The Pacific, this miniseries focuses on the 100th Bomb Group during World War II, who performed a series of dangerous missions bombing targets deep within German-occupied Europe. Right, from the get-go, let's get something clear - much like with The Pacific, Masters of the Air simply cannot recapture the lightning in a bottle that was Band of Brothers, which was a nigh-on perfect miniseries and one that I have rewatched several times.

One of the reasons that Band of Brothers was so successful was the storytelling, aided by the true story of the 101st Airbourne having a natural structure that seamlessly gelled with the nature of linear narrative storytelling. The Pacific faltered somewhat due to the coming-and-going of various characters, though true to life, was much harder to follow as a story. Band of Brothers also benefitted from its very clearly defined and portrayed characters, the bulk of whom were perfectly established in a lengthy opening episode that allowed the viewer to get to know them during their training. Masters of the Air, conversely, seems too impatient to get us into the action, and we're left forever playing catch-up. Who exactly are these men? What are their names? Which plane are they in? Who's dead and who's alive? Naturally, having your cast all dressed the same, wearing oxygen masks, and all in identical-looking planes doesn't help the audience understand what is happening, and to whom, for a lot of the time, so the emotional impact of character deaths is restrained behind a general lack of clarity in portraying the events of each episode.

It's still worth a watch for fans of Band of Brothers and The Pacific, but be forewarned that you'll likely find yourself regularly trying to understand what is happening and to whom, further complicated by how much of the cast look very similar to one another. The characters are also very thinly written, further hampering the audience's ability to emotionally connect with, or even recognise, numerous characters. Further narrative troubles include some thunderously poor characterisations of any Allied nationality other than Hollywood hero Americans, bordering on the point of xenophobia, with Masters of the Air coming across as actively hostile towards the British, who are all depicted as posh, sexist, bullies thoughtlessly bombing with self-righteous abandon, or other simplistic clichés with a binary choice of accents that are either 'cor blimey, guv'nor' or the Queen's perfectly plummy English. Indeed, a side character in an exceptionally dull (and almost entirely pointless) subplot in episode six is supposedly Scottish, but her accent is most certainly not from North of Hadrian's Wall. There may only be a handful of these offensive scenes, but fuck you all the same. At least the air battle sequences are pretty gripping, while scenes of airmen trapped behind enemy lines carry their own nail-biting peril, all highlighting the almost impossible odds faced by the 100th Bomb Group and others like them.

Ted: Season 1 - created by Seth MacFarlane, this spin-off series is set in the early 1990s. The episode length is a mixed bag, sometimes the 45-ish minute episodes work and sometimes they feel too long, so perhaps a more strict half hour for, say, ten episodes would enforce a more reliable sense of pacing. There's plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, but there is also certainly too much 2023 turning up in this 1993 setting. Even if you're trying to make a joke from 'identity politics' issues, nobody actually talked like that in 1993 and it's just kinda grating. Still, a couple of wobbles aside, it was a good, fun watch and I'd certainly be up for a second season.

Formula 1 Drive To Survive: Season 6 - naturally, as a big F1 fan I'm always eager to dig into the behind the scenes glimpses that this show provides, despite the evident editing techniques - but at least they've got rid of the utterly fake narrative subplots as glimpsed in the past couple of seasons, which is a significant improvement in itself. There is, however, the growing (almost meme-like) problem of Will Buxton's increasingly distracting talent for super dramatic soundbites. Still, kudos to the team for including Alex Albon's humorously on-point spoofing of the show's style.


SOUNDS:

Green Day "One Eyed Bastard"

Rakel "Follow You Into The Dark"

Motorhead "Everything Louder Forever" (album), "Eat The Rich", "Hellraiser"

John & Jane Q. Public "Watermelon"

M83 "Fantasy" (album)

Old Gods Of Asgard "Herald of Darkness"


VIBES & FLAVOURS:

Alan Wake II (Xbox) - Remedy Entertainment's 2010 third person action horror thriller game Alan Wake no doubt found itself somewhat under the shadow of the major release of Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption (in the UK they were a week apart, and in the USA they were on the same day). The game was well received by those who played it, but it didn't garner a wide audience upon initial release. However, the game had legs and built a faithful cult following, teased in numerous following projects from Remedy, who have been consistently dedicated to returning to the world of Bright Falls.

The release of Alan Wake II has certainly been plagued by numerous bugs and glitches, suggesting the money men were pushing for a release and not a bug-fixing delay (players prefer the latter), and so I held back on getting the game until some of the bugs were patched. Kudos to Remedy for continually working hard to fix the technical issues with the game and for clearly communicating their developments with the players. Mind you, the continuing issue of totally random hard crashes on Series S is one particular problem that desperately needs to be fixed.

Elsewhere in the cultureverse, there were certain folks who pissed and moaned about the character of Saga Anderson being 'race swapped', as she was a previously established character. Now, I'm a big fan of Remedy and have played all their games since Max Payne multiple times each, but I couldn't for the life of me remember any Saga Anderson. Turns out she was a small character who appears in an easter egg moment in Quantum Break alongside Sam Lake's FBI agent Alex Casey. So it's not exactly as if they took, say, the fan favourite Mona Sax from Max Payne 2 and turned her into a little old Asian man, is it? Indeed, this Saga Anderson is a fully fleshed-out character, not a vague easter egg. She is an agent of the FBI who comes to Bright Falls to investigate mysterious cult activities and the appearance of a long-lost agent who went missing in the original game.

Now, some might say that the titular character has been swept aside, that this is a 'bait and switch', but it wouldn't make sense to call the game 'Saga Anderson', would it? She is entering an already established world, and from a storytelling perspective, especially with an IP that has been somewhat lost in the shadows for over a decade, it makes sense to take the perspective of a character entering this world for the first time. It's a richer, more interesting approach to the narrative, and makes sense considering that Alan Wake himself also 'went missing' (from our reality) at the end of the original. And yet the game also allows you to play two parallel stories, one for Saga and one for Alan, in two very different but equally well-realised settings.

It is fair to say, though, that there are moments where the meddling of an outside company does rear its head. I'm fundamentally opposed on principal to companies seeking to change the artistic output of others (especially as a means to grift money). However, after more than twenty-six hours of playing the game (so far), I have only encountered very few instances of these 'outside alterations'. It's good that they're few and far between, but that in itself also suggests their utter pointlessness. Indeed, the bulk of the few objectionable lines of cringe-inducing dialogue is featured in the first two hours of the game. For instance, a pair of 'true crime bloggers' from New York compare Bright Falls to 1960s Alabama, which makes zero sense whatsoever for anyone who has played the original game, as it just doesn't chime with what we previously experienced (or even experience in this sequel, in fact!). It also smacks of the lack of perspective these 'outside meddlers' have, as these bloggers consider themselves victims, even though they knowingly with-held evidence in a murder case for their own personal gain.

There's another moment prior to that where two bumbling deputies assume that Alex Casey is 'in charge', when in fact Saga is. It's a very clunky scene, especially when you consider that Casey is deliberately leading the way for the player's benefit (showing us where to go), and therefore it would make sense for someone to assume the first person to approach them is the one in charge. I've experienced that myself, simply because I reached a member of staff first. It's just a very simple misunderstanding and there's no need to throw in a couple of half-witted lines about chauvinism or whatever else.

One other moment, again rather small but nonetheless obvious when it occurs, is Saga's strangely offended assessment of the 'Mother' doll. Being that these are crude carvings meant to depict specific things, it's quite obvious that a 'mother doll' would perhaps be shown to be pregnant - it clearly conveys the notion of the doll, much like a wizard would have a pointy hat, or a monster would have scary teeth. Indeed, being that Saga is herself a mother, why would she be in the slightest bit offended? These brief lines of dialogue are, quite honestly, decidedly sub-par compared with the rest of the admirable and involving writing that populates the entire rest of the game, and yet again further makes the point of why these meddling outsider companies (and their lack of actual talent) should have no business at all tinkering with other people's work.

That all said, though, 'culture warriors' who have written-off Alan Wake II as 'woke' are fucking morons who clearly didn't bother playing anything more than two hours of the game, and got hung-up on the 'race swap' of an exceptionally minor and undeveloped easter egg side-character from two games ago. Indeed, Alex Casey's actor remains the same because he's played by Remedy's Creative Director Sam Lake - so he's readily available and has often cameoed in his games (he was famously the original face of Max Payne). The above point about outside meddlers fiddling with someone's else's writing is still very much valid, though. But enough of that shite and back to the artistic achievements of Remedy, who once again deliver a beautifully realised and thoroughly immersive world, split between the 'real world' of the Pacific Northwest, and the 'dark place' where Alan Wake must explore a twisted Noir nightmare version of New York City in order to break free from his shadowy prison.

There's the odd little quibble, like having too many versions of a similar weapon - e.g. flares, gas bottles, flashbangs, and rocket flares. Four of them, really? Two would suffice - flares and rocket flares only, please. Keep it simple. It's also far too fiddly to heal during boss fights (three different items to choose from, too!), and I've also experienced numerous random crashes, the cause of which is still a mystery as it happens so randomly - and it's why I'm forced to save very regularly indeed. It'd be nice to be able to rely on the game not randomly crashing, but this is what happens when the money men force you to release instead of delaying for some serious bug fixing time. I've also found, even on the easiest difficulty, that there are some sudden difficulty spikes (usually the Overlap bosses where a mere handful of hits snuffs you out), which is a similar bugbear I had with their previous game Control. I do hope I'm not going to reach a point where I'm stuck, because not only am I a paying customer, but I'm very much invested in this story and these characters and I want to see how it all shakes out in due course.

Minor flaws aside, the game is dripping with chilling, atmospheric brilliance and artistic design, as well as Remedy's trademark sense of humour and fondness for unusual moments - such as the 'Herald of Darkness' rock musical sequence. Quite rightly the game is hoovering up numerous awards, and despite having not quite turned a profit at the time of writing, the game seems to be selling well (1.3 million units and counting), and I'd further expect the sequel to have similarly long legs to the original; Alan Wake II certainly already has the feverish cult following. Perhaps this goes hand-in-hand with releasing a game with too many bugs, but look at what happened with Cyberpunk 2077, which had a disastrous launch only to now be reaping much praise for how it has completely been turned around into the game it was always meant to be. The money men, eh? They don't understand creative industries. Sometimes you can't rush it, and if you do it will have a negative impact on your sales from which you will have to recover. But that's another rant entirely. The point is, Alan Wake II is a delicious creative achievement, crafted with love, and it most certainly deserves all the praise it has received.

"The Devils of Port Rose" - I had the idea for this horror feature back in November 2022, got to planning some of it out before setting the notebook aside. Then there was a sad turn of events in early 2023 and my creative juice just up and vanished completely. November 2023, feeling a little glimmer of creativity peeking out of the darkness, I forced myself to go back to that notebook, refamiliarise myself with the story and finish mapping it out. Then, in January 2024 I sat down and got back to writing for the first time in a long time and hammered out the first draft in less than three weeks. Come February I went back for the second draft, aided in my polishing by some recent script read-throughs on some other active projects, and it feels good to get back into the storytelling mode again.