GOT from every angle
There has to be a better way to introduce a new series to new viewers. My challenge was to understand series seven of Game Of Thrones (Soho, Mondays) without seeing the previous six.
It was like reliving your worst nightmare. The highlights of the previous series flashed in front of my eyes and made as much sense as understanding an interview with Winston Peters when he refuses to answer the questions.
There should be a role for him in Game Of Thrones if he misses out on being kingmaker.
Fortunately the episode resembled a French referee asking the Video Assistant Referee (VAT) to view every angle before awarding a try. And so we saw Arya poison the remaining Lords of House Frey, the White Walkers march towards the Wall, Jon Snow secure the loyalty of the Houses of Umber and Karstark, Cersei welcoming Euron who proposes marriage in exchange for his Iron Fleet and Daenerys arriving at Dragonstone.
It was Game Of Thrones from every video viewpoint and will set fans up to watch the remaining programmes. But it was a tiresome way to do it. I know there has to be an orgy of previous episodes but it’s like viewing 10,000 trivial Facebook messages all at once.
When I read that HBO cable network pays the five leading characters $1.1 million an episode, then they can come and give me half an hour free instruction. Despite fine production values, Tuesday’s episode appeared stale and lacked sparkle, as if everyone was awaiting creator, George R.R. Martin’s, latest novel to be televised before anything could progress.
There are two characters who’re almost impossible to play. One is Winston Churchill and the other is Jordan Luck.
The Dance Exponents (TV One, Sundays) was a riotous, confusing biopic that told the rise and fall and rise again of an iconic New Zealand rock band. There were more flaws in the drama than in the Empire State Building but somehow it all held together and told its story.
Jordan Mooney played Jordan Luck and while he was as convincing as his bleached hair, it really didn’t matter. This was an ensemble piece and only momentum kept it going. Instead of focusing on three or four major events that shaped The Dance Exponents’ life, the drama threw together a number of fast paced vignettes and, when they drained one, they moved to the next.
There was a lot of draining. Jordan Luck’s consumption of beer cans was enough for him to own his own landfill. But being reintroduced to such numbers as Victoria and I’ll Say Goodbye and the ‘80s era was simply great. That Jordan Luck is still alive and standing is amazing and I’d enjoy seeing an interview with him on TV One’s Sunday.
As for Winston Churchill, I don’t think Jordan Mooney could play him either but Brian Cox came closest in the recent movie Churchill. It could be a role for a bald Winston Peters, he’s inherited part of the name.
Fortunately Winston played himself in Hitler v Churchill (Sky 73, Tuesdays). It was a history lesson in front of the fire and, like The Dance Exponents, told the rise and fall and rise again of one and the tragic rise and fall of the other but not before millions of lives were lost.
What they shared was a hatred for each other and a desire to see the other destroyed. It’s ironic that, on the day when Hitler invaded Western Europe, Churchill came in from the cold, became Prime Minister and could only promise ‘‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’’.
It’s also ironic that, while one abused his body with cigars and whisky, the other simply abused his mind. It was an engrossing episode that ended shortly after the Dunkirk evacuation. For Churchill at least it can only get better.
Border Patrol (TV One, Tuesdays) can only get better when they start catching major drug traffickers and people who threaten our way of life. This week they intercepted 30kg of ‘‘P’’ intended for the New Zealand market. Well done.
The rest was trivial. Airport security apprehended Taiwanese twins who were here to sexploit New Zealand men, they removed souvenir knives and dried fish from different passengers and confiscated a jetsetting New Caledonian doctor’s stash of prescription medicines including his erectile dysfunction pills.
Last week Niagara, this week Viagra.