Television

I am quite a big fan of gore and body horror so when I saw that hit U.S. series Dexter was available to rent on DVD from LoveFilm I knew I had to watch it!

Dexter is a serial killer with ethics; not your typical leading man! Working as a blood spatter analyst for Miami Metro he encounters the dregs of society and their actions on a daily basis.

Orphaned because his mother was murdered, then adopted by a cop hell-bent on justice, Dexter’s formative years were the catalyst for his now dominant penchant for the macabre.

Dexter seeks to make his little corner of the world a better place by eradicating heinous criminals who have slipped through the net.

Dispensing his own special brand of justice, Dexter plots, plans and meticulously executes his murderous endeavours, whilst ensuring that each victim realises why they are about to meet their maker.

On paper this sounds like quite an intense show, but it’s shot so well, with many varied story arcs and alternative points of interest, that it’s so much more than just another gore fest! (more…)

Here at DVDrental.co.uk we have realised that we offer our professional critique on a lot of films, but have never really concentrated on reviewing TV series, which can become more a part of our lives than the quickfire 90-minute movie.

We dedicate more time to TV series than we do with film; we watch a movie and if we don’t enjoy it then we forget about it, accept the lost hour and a half and simply move on, but with TV we make a conscious decision to continue to watch.  We have a greater opportunity to relate to the characters because we see them on a regular basis; we go through life with them and share in the plethora of compelling events and emotions that shape their fates.  We engage on a whole different level.

I mean, who didn’t cry when Madge Bishop passed away in Neighbours?

I could name brilliant TV shows all day, (Lost, Heroes, 24, ER, Prison Break etc) , but I think you would stop reading, so what I will do instead is tell you about a US series that has been showing on Channel 4 and More 4 over the last few months - Brothers & Sisters.

This show follows the life of a seemingly normal family, the Walkers, from idyllic Ojai, California, but looks can be deceiving and even as early as the first episode, it is clear that everything is not as it seems.

William Walker, the head of the family and founder of the family business, has a sudden fatal heart attack whilst talking to his granddaughter at the side of his pool, and soon after his death the skeletons in his closet slowly start to rear their ugly heads.

William leaves behind his wife Nora (played brilliantly by the legendary Sally Field), and five children, all of whom have not only their own issues to deal with, but now two more particularly pressing ones. Not only have they found out that Dad has been having an affair for over 20 years, but he has also seriously embezzled the family business, leaving them on the verge of not only bankruptcy, but a lawsuit too.

The characters in Brothers & Sisters make for a riveting watch, not least because of their intriguing individual issues that they must tackle.

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The slapstick tech support based sitcom written by Father Ted creator Graham Linehan returns to Channel 4 tomorrow night. If you’ve not seen The IT Crowd, now is the perfect time to get acquainted with Moss, Jen and Roy, who make up the entire IT department of the London-based Reynholm Industries, a company which once turned over “eighteen hundred billion billion,” in profits.

Moss and Roy are, in the words of Denholm Reynholm (the CEO, played by Chris Morris), just a pair of “standard nerds” who are outcast by the rest of the firm despite their reliance on their technical expertise.

The glamorous and ambitious Jen is appointed their manager after blagging her way into the job, even though it’s clear she knows next to squat about computers.

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Every so often a film or television series manages that most rare of feats, it becomes more than its medium and it is ranked alongside the pillars of culture that prop up our conversions and language for years to come.  The Wire is one of those works of art.

To dismiss it as a mere cop show does not do it justice but the show is set in Baltimore and chronicles the struggle of a detail of cops trying to trap a high end drug target, whilst dealing with the vagaries of bureaucracy that are present in all areas of public service.  The cops and the dealers are treated as part of the same puzzle and equal weight is given to both in the program.  The Wire has a high level of characterisation not seen in any other TV show going at the moment.  You will feel for the dealers and hate some of the cops as the line between what’s good and bad becomes increasingly greyed and dependant on context.  There is comic relief combined with searing tragedy and a majestic charm arises from even the most hopeless of situations.

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