PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Curfew Series 1 2024

Curfew Series 1 2024 Adapted from the 2022 novel After Dark by Jayne Cowie, screenplay by Lydia Yeoman, Jess Green and Sumerah Srivastav, directed by Joasia Goldyn.

In the future the Britain government have placed a curfew on men, they have to stay home from 7 PM to 7 AM. This has cut violence on women but it's left the country fractured. The only men allowed out after curfew work for the police and emergency services. All men wear an ankle bracelet which is monitored by the police. Step out of your gaff after 7 PM and the police will be right over to pick you up. The police use GPS to track men and road cameras to track everyone day and night.

A woman is murdered and her body dumped in front of the Women’s Safety Centre, District One, London. It creates a stir in the press and the community. It has to be a woman who did the deed, there were no men in the area when it happened. The news gets to blaming and the people are riled up. We follow some cops around as they investigate, connections and clues lead them to a family but there's no evidence. It's there but the police didn't make the connections well enough. We also learn some of the women in the police force had an agenda, stuff was covered up to support the curfew before the oncoming election.

Sadly for those ladies things fall apart and plenty of bad news gets out, the story starts with a mundane, cliched murder, then it drags us through a clumsy police investigation and ends with a vague future. It's not something I'm planning to watch again.

The Cleaner Series 3

The Cleaner Series 3 Written by Greg Davies and directed by Tom Marshall. The 6 episodes aired on the BBC the other day.

Greg Davies returns as Wicky, he's a crime scene cleaner. There's only one other regular cast member, Zita Sattar plays Ruth, Greg's girlfriend. Every day Wicky's off to a different location where there's been an accident or murder, there's usually some blood in need of a good cleaning. Wicky meets some weird characters and a bit of danger.

The guest cast includes Steve Pemberton, Rosie Cavaliero, Ben Willbond, Gemma Whelan, Vicki Pepperdine, Paula Wilcox, Sheila Reid, Sharon Rooney and more that I didn't know.

The stories are funny, I laughed out loud quite a bit. The first two series are on Britbox, I suspect the third will turn up soon.

Ludwig Series 1 2024

Ludwig Series 1 2024 Created and written by Mark Brotherhood, directed by Robert McKillop and Jill Robertson. A BBC comedy drama series with David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin.

John Taylor is a reclusive man who creates puzzles for a living. He uses the name Ludwig for his puzzle work, he desires the anonymity, the name was born from his  passion for Beethoven. John rarely leaves his house, he's been living in his parent's house, he was born there, he grew up there. His father ran away over 30 years ago, they never saw him again, his mother passed away more recently.

John has a twin brother called James, that him in the middle of the picture. James is marrying Lucy. She was their next door neighbor since they were all kids. John had feelings for Lucy but James beat him to the church. John settled for being a famous puzzle creator who still uses a land line. 

One day Lucy calls, she lives in Cambridge and John hasn't seen her for a while. He rarely comes to visit, they don't call much, he stayed home instead of going to his mother's funeral. Lucy calls asking for a big favor, she wants him to get in the taxi she's sent and come to Cambridge. John goes to Cambridge, Lucy shows him a letter from James, the letter tells her to give his boss his resignation letter and leave Cambridge. John finds a cypher in the letter telling Lucy James loves  her and always will.

Lucy schools John on the police station and off he goes. That's some of the police James worked with up above. John isn't good at driving but he gets the police station. John's not good at parking but he gets the car parked between some lines. Inside the building things get worse, John's not so good with people and places. All the noise frightens him. Lucy's info is out of date, John has a new partner and there are other co-workers he's got no idea about. Luckily John's new partner whisks him away to a stabbing.

Once I had watched the first episode I polished off the rest, one after another, all 6 episodes. In a recent interview with David he said the show was a cozy type of mystery, it's hardly gruesome, there's no autopsy to look away from. The show has a nice sense of humor. I laughed out loud three times in the first episode. The script, cast, production and music are all working nicely together. I'd read some comments complaining about the music intruding over the dialog. I just re-watched the first episode again and I can't see it. The music and the sound design work hand in hand to enhance the story. The cinematography, the direction, the editing are a joy to watch. Cambridge is a beautiful place.

I enjoyed this more than the mystery shows I've been watching in 2024. It might be my favorite show this year, still a ways to go, but probably. I thought it was easily as good as last year's favorite mystery show, Deadloch. Ludwig is not streaming in the US but I hope it will soon. You can see the first episode on Dailymotion.

The Grand Tour - One For The Road

The Grand Tour - One For The Road.

The finale program in the series aired on Amazon today. The trio head for Zimbabwe instead of taking electric cars up the M1 as ordered by Producer Andy Wilman. They buy three 50 year old sports cars and drive across Zimbabwe for the first time. They had visited Botswana back in 2007, it was the 3rd Top Gear Special, the first was a visit to the US, the second was a trip to the Magnetic North Pole. While in Botswana they decide to make a stop at Kubu Island. They had wanted to visit Zimbabwe but the BBC were banned from filming there.

It's beautiful in Zimbabwe, New Zealand beautiful, it makes you glad they went. It was a nice trip, lots of dust, rattling cars, bad roads, break downs, nice scenery, a good bit of swearing and plenty of laughs for me. When they get to the border of Zimbabwe they took a short trip to Kubu Island to visit the big tree. On way they find two of the cars they left behind on the 2007 trip through Botswana. They were in bad shape. There's a bit of a sentimental ending and the boys split up as they drive to the end of the episode. Just a couple of weeks ago the trio dissolved their company. Each has their own TV projects but Clarkson's got the big hit with Clarkson's Farm.

I'm sad to see the end of the series but I can still watch them over again. The show was also a good reminder that the boys from Top Gear have produced some of the best travelogs in the world.

State Of Emergency 1975 Miniseries

State Of Emergency 1975 Miniseries Created by  John Gould, written by John Gould and Hugh Whitemore, directed by David Askey.

Another series about the totalitarian take over of the UK by some fascists. There's a resistance and a looming civil war. There's plenty of drama, but it's rather bleak and dreary. It ends without any resolution, some guy get shot by a minor scumbag in charge. Not something I would want to watch again. If you feel like being miserable, you can find them here.

Agatha Christie's Hjerson Series 1

Agatha Christie's Hjerson Series 1 Created by Patrik Gyllström. Hjerson is a character that appears in the Ariadne Oliver novels that Poirot is reading within the Agatha Christie novels. The Swedish series of 8 episodes aired in 2021. Each story is made up of two episodes which are streaming on MZH.

Hjerson is a retired criminal investigator. As we meet him he's taking the ferry to his hometown in Åland. I'm some what curious about Åland, I collect stamps from island nations. Hjerson meets a woman on the ferry called Klara. They get involved with a murder on the ferry. On the island there's another murder. Hjerson and Klara solve the murders. In the second story Hjerson finds a body on the beach. The man is dead and dressed as a chicken. The body disappears while Hjerson goes to call the police. In the third episodes someone is using fictional murders as the basis of their murders. The fourth story an actor is murdered on a film set, blank bullets have been replaced with real bullets in a scene.

The crimes are decent enough, the real action is the relationship between the quirky Klara and the quirky Hjerson. It's a nice looking show with plenty of nice scenery on Åland. The characters are some annoying but they work well enough together. I enjoyed the series and was sad there aren't anymore. I haven't heard anything on another series. I enjoyed them enough to want to watch them again someday.

Partisan Series 1 - 2

Partisan Series 1 - 2  Two 5 episode series that aired in 2020 and 2022.

A Swedish undercover cop takes a truck driving job for an organic farmer in a gated community. Feras Feras plays Johnny, the undercover cop. He was great in the first 4 films of the Department Q series of a few years back. The organic farmer is suspected of money laundering. Johnny finds out there's something else going on. There's a pure race aspect to the story, the gated community members are quite racist. There's also a genetics part to the story. Something often hand in hand with racists. There's a good number of other bits and bobs to fill up the time, including several murders. Poor Johnny doesn't make it through the first series but his fellow cops are searching for him. Eventually some of the worst of the criminals are gathered up for jail. I hadn't heard if there's going to be a third series.

It was OK but it's just average. I wouldn't be watching it again.

Mayday Series 1 2013

Mayday Series 1 2013 Written by Ben Court and Caroline Ip, directed by Brian Welsh.

I watched all of Mayday and it was a lot like Broadchurch. Way more drama than policing, way too many pregnant pauses, way too much staring off into the distance. It could have been a 90 min movie instead of five 45 min episodes. It’s way too slow for me, so I speed it up a bit after the first episode. There’s only a hint of magic but there is retribution from the grave. Too many red herrings and too many oddball characters. I got a good laugh in the 3^rd episode but have forgotten what the joke was already. I don’t begrudge watching it, I never know if I’m going to find that gem of a show I’m always hoping for. I’m not going to keep it.

Van Der Valk Series 4

Van Der Valk Series 4 Written by Chris Murray and Mania Ward, directed by Michiel van Jaarsveld, Eché Janga and Paula van der Oest. Three 90 min episodes just popped up for viewing.

Marc Warren plays Commissaris Piet van der Valk and Maimie McCoy plays Inspecteur Lucienne Hassell of Amsterdam's National Police Force. The stories are urgently told and there's a fair bit of action.

I enjoyed the other three series and this was much the same. I could do with less of the animosity between Piet and his ex-girlfriend. Why do writers think we all need that personal drama all the time. I'd still watch the series again someday.

Tribal Season 1 2020

Tribal Season 1 2020 Written by Ron E Scott, Adam Frost, Adriana Capozzi, Tamara Moulin and Christina Ray, directed by Ron E Scott and Asaf Benny.

I watched the first season of Tribal today, all 8 episodes. It's a cop show from Canada about the Tribal police serving the 4 reservations around Calgary. The Tribal police and the regular police have been merged and not everyone is liking it.

Samantha "Sam" Woodburn gets placed in the Chief spot, replacing the suspended Chief. He's corrupt, everyone knows but there's little evidence on him. He's still not charged with anything but we know how corrupt he is via some flashbacks. Things get worse and worse for him as the series progresses and he's just the scum on top of the big bowl of rotten apples in the area.

There's an oil company that's run by a fake Native that cheated the government out of over $80,000,000 in grants intended for Native owned companies. There's a native run cigarette smuggling ring that's worth millions and millions of dollars. They'll kill you to keep the product flowing. There's missing natives and plenty of crooked and murderous cops. The animosity between the tribes and the cops is so thick you can hardly walk through it.

It's a dark bleak look at the horrible way people are. I enjoyed the show and see there 1s a second season I've not seen yet.