Three separate British TV productions made their way to DVD this year, all sporting 90+ minute episode running times. There may be others, but the Red Riding Trilogy, Wallander, and Sherlock have seemingly set the table for a very intriguing and rewarding programming format, one that I hope catches on this side of the Atlantic.
As has been posted about before, the Red Riding series, made by Screen Yorkshire and Channel Four Film, is a collection of three stellar tele-films that stand amongst the best movies released this year, theatrical or otherwise. That they were made for TV is incidental. If you haven't seen them, do so at your earliest convenience. Wallander is a BBC-Scotland/Yellow Bird series with 3 episode seasons and run times of about 90 minutes as well. They suffer from a little overt miserablism, but Kenneth Branagh is excellent (and wonderfully dour) in the lead. They're based on the novels by Swedish author Henning Mankel (Bergman's son-in-law out of interest) and Season 1 is uniformly terrific. Season 2 is less so, but is still worth watching. Easy recommends to the Brit TV crowd at the very least.
The most recent example of the 90 minute TV-series I seen is an outstanding update of the Sherlock Holmes story, simply entitled Sherlock. Made by BBC Whales (didn't know such a beast existed, but the Internet does not lie), the first three episodes are riveting, most particularly the first and third. The casting is superb, the update to the modern world seamless (and wildly entertaining) and the pacing spot on. This is a home-run series and it's made a whole lot better by the extended running times. They are a perfect for for DVD as well, although I wish they had have done one episode per disk. As it is, they are difficult to split up for rental, but whatever.
I think this hour-and-a-half series idea has some real legs. It's a neat marriage of the perfect feature-length running time (+/- 90 minutes), but with the familiarity and audience comfort zone of the TV series format. In hindsight, six 90-minute Sopranos or Wire episodes per season might have really changed the dynamic of those shows (and perhaps even given them a shot at theatrical runs, they were certainly good enough). I gotta think that some cable/network gurus are working up something along those lines as we speak (and who knows...perhaps they've gone as far as getting their own whales alreadyt). If they can pull off something half as good as the Brit whales are doing these days, we may have something of a new format on our hands in due course.
Fingers crossed.
Sporgey.
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5 comments:
Pah, BBC Whales.
where'd you find out about sherlock? i noticed you didn't have it at the fbw, although the fbe's shipped-two-weeks-ago-but-yet-to-arrive blu-ray is mysteriously awol...hmmmm.
funnily enough, our normal-ray sherlock (which shipped at the same time) only found its way into the shop yesterday, after being held captive by the pelletiers for two weeks. two weeks!!! surely the three episodes have to be more than 90 minutes each...
on the bright side, at least we're lucky to have sherlock back. every night for the past three weeks, denis has regaled me with tales of the greatness of hbo's john adams (or samuel adams, if jules is to be believed). that series is 7 episodes, so i'm assuming they'll need another couple weeks. either jules et papa are watching 2 minutes per night, or they keep playing the same episode over and over, unable to remember if it was the one they watched last night through the haze of "medical" marijuana smoke.
and CLEARLY, valhalla rising's runtime is mislabeled on the box as 92 minutes. it's much closer to +/- 800 minutes. that's the only way i can explain jules' having had it for 5 days now. the many paying customers who keep inquiring about the film's availability understand, i'm sure.
denis asks me every day about the availability of the kids are all right, and as his beloved habs are playing tonight, he is getting frantic to get ahold of it in order to placate his better half while he watches the game. am i a bad person to keep telling him it's rented while hiding the two display boxes behind the counter until he leaves? i mean, we are a business after all. quandry...
/passive-aggressive sarcasm
If you were as directly aggressive as much and as often as you are passive aggressive, it would be like working with Bronson everyday. Keep on shoegazing!
lube me up, tommy, jules is coming into the cell.
The FBW has had Sherlock for a month. I have confiscated the FBE Blu-Ray copy because I can. Jules and Denis...bring your fucking movies back on time, or your fired/banned. See how simply that is Joe? Skip the passive part and concentrate on the aggressive. Tell Jules I'm serious.
Out loud.....
S
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