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Notes -
How about some television talk.
I was looking for a show to watch on a second screen while I played the new Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter and came across Slow Horses - BBC spy show about MI5 and a group of remedial agents. My parents have been watching for years and always recommend it. I loathe most modern television but for whatever reason decided to give it a shot.
It’s very much as expected. The first half of season 1 is all about a “loathsome” right wing terrorist cell, the Sons of Albion. Get this - these right wing youths kidnap an innocent British British-Asian boy and plan to behead him live on the internet in an ISIS style video. But wait, it’s actually a rouge opp carried out by the evil girlboss intelligence minister. They then do a double fakeout where the Sons of Albion get wise to the setup and the scary right wing guy goes on a rampage and attempts to carry out the beheading.
This is a completely ludicrous plot line and it appears that Apple’s Slow Horses is going to be every bit as awful as I expected for a show developed after 2016. Does Hollywood imagine there are actually these sort of right wing terror cells just waiting to activate? Despite all evidence to the contrary and dozens if not hundreds of other instances of racial and political violence perpetrated against white people? Or is the goal to get boomers all worked up about dangerous right wing ideologies. Are they stupid or liars?
For anyone here who’s watched it, does Slow Horses get better? Is there anything of value here?
I’m separately on season 4 of Le Bureau des Legendes - a French foreign intelligence tv drama produced by Canal and very highly regarded by anyone in the Anglosphere that’s seen it. It’s the show that Paramount’s The Agency is based on. And I must say the The Bureau is truly excellent. Season 1 aired in 2015 so it’s only mildly annoying with politics. Very mild. It’s really great and worth a watch if you haven’t seen it. I have a lot of thoughts on it that I can share if anyone is interested. But it reminds me a lot of 24, with less action and more drama.
I got through season 1 because I like Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas, though the same issues bothering you bothered me. It was jarring how blatantly Bizzarro world that was. The setup in general of the Slough House is a little reminiscent of something LeCarré might have written as a novel, without some of the vulgarities. And I liked LeCarré.
To respond, season 2 I remember as better, season 3 has more action but really goes off the rails plotwise (not necessarilyin a culture war way). I had to stop at season 4 because it seemed to me one of the leads (Jack Lowden's character) seemed to have been written by someone who only read the first pages of season 1's script, decided they didn't like River at all or men generally, and dropped any other possible character development. But maybe it got better. I think there are 5 or 6 seasons now.
I often wonder whether these shows are bound by diversity riders but also characterization clauses (e.g. the female black character must be smarter than the white male) or similar. Or maybe the writers are pandering. Or, of course, true believers.
In season 1 episode one I was thinking "Wait she said Asian male, that guy looks Indian." Then I realized.
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