Sailors Fighting in the Dance Hall

Months or years late to the party as usual, we just watched the finale of timeslipped oddball The Sweeney meets The Singing Detective BBC hit Life on Mars. A fine climax to the last few weeks' catch up of both seasons on DVD. On its first airing Mars was lauded with critical acclaim -- half-occluded now in the wake of the opprobrium heaped on the current 80s-set followup Ashes to Ashes -- and that turns out to have been thoroughly deserved: what a fucking splendid piece of television, dense and allusive whilst still eminently watchable, and all wrapped up to an absolute T. The final shot was one of the most perfect things I've ever supped from the Glass Teat, beautifully neat, resonant and unexpected.

Virtually everything on TV is worthless shite in comparison -- and thank fuck for that. If all the output of our hundreds of pap channels were this good we would all have no choice but to die of inanition obsessively watching. So let's hear it for both Sam Tyler and unwatchable rubbish; and that never the twain shall meet.

Cheers!
Posted by matt at March 5, 2008 10:17 PM