Greys Anatomy - No Longer Testing Our Patience.

Can there be another show so enamoured of season finales as Grey's Anatomy? Last season we had the mad gunman running through Seattle Grace, wiping out a whole herd of peripheral characters. So what would they serve up to top that? Well, it went totally in the opposite direction, instead of physical danger, we had almost everyone in some sort of mental, or moral, turmoil. Quite clever really and every bit as exciting. If you like Grey's Anatomy that is.

And there is the rub. A lot of viewers might have drifted away. The Grey's Anatomy of season seven is not the same as that of seasons one to four, it is much better. I felt when it started, it was a very self centred and almost arrogant, affair. There was too much emphasis on the titular dippy Meredith Grey,needy Izzy and dull George. The only character with any real umph was Christina nd for about three seasons it went on that way. testing everyone's patience (no pun intended)

But then it started to change, more characters were introduced and the show adopted a much more ensemble feel. But for me the real shift in gear came when Izzy (Katherine Heigl) left. The character was so needy and overly sentimental that she seemed to suck the air out of every episode. With her gone and the Meredith character reduced to fit into the ensemble, Grey's Anatomy gained pace and became a proper (well sort of) medical drama. OK, it's never going to be better than ER at its peak, but I'd bet it kills Holby. Think I've just damned Grey's Anatomy with faint praise there.

It still can err on the side of sentimentality and it's still wedded to endless, dour songs over the emotional moments (Elbow seem to be flavour of the month) but we can forgive that. Mainly because Grey's (as we like to call it, or do we?) is finally a show that seems comfortable with itself.

Over

Games Of Thrones - The Sopranos successor.

Who would have thought that Game of Thrones would turn out to be HBO's successor to The Sopranos and Deadwood? Well certainly not me.

It has all the tension and immanent betrayal that The Sopranos did so well. With the sudden bursts of shocking violence that was Deadwood's stock in trade, plus the menace of both. Add to that a little sword and sorcery, well a lot of sword actually, and you have a cracking adult drama.

I'm quite glad I haven't read the books. I looked at them in Waterstones recently and I could barely lift them, never mind read them. So all the shocks, and sudden deaths, will hit me squarely on the chin, and there have been plenty of both so far. It’s also written, and acted, with the requisite levels of conviction. All the various story strands are handled brilliantly, never rushing, which makes me think HBO are in for the long haul. Let's hope so. Although, will it still be called Game of Thrones when we get to the second book?

This might be the first series on Sky Atlantic that I actually want to see the second season of. Let's be honest would you really miss them if Boardwalk Empire or Bored to Death never came back?

Over.

Becoming Human is no S Club Juniors.

I'm glad BBC Three cobbled together the web series ( or whatever these fangled things are called ) of Becoming Human. I'm not from the generation that can sit easily in front of a computer or a laptop screen, give me a big telly any day. Sorry, I digress. Becoming Human is the teen, school based, spin off of Being Human, then again, you already know that. But this was no S Club Juniors to Being Human's S Club. No, this was an enjoyable whodunit with a nice sub Buffyesque feel. It follows the same format as its parent show - Vampire, werewolf and ghost team up, but I felt the lighter touch worked well. For me the third series of Being Human was overblown and tiresome in equal measures, and dare I say it, Becoming Human was better acted. Craig Roberts (Adam the vampire), Leila Mimmack (Christa the werewolf) and Josh Brown (Matt the fat ghost) had an instant chemistry as they tried to solve Matt's murder. The script was also sharper than Being Human. With a nice twist where Adam kept throwing in 80's pop culture references, much to his schoolmate’s bemusement. Good to hear Rentaghost mentioned.

I've heard Becoming Human compared to Misfits, but this is unfair. Misfits is a much more adult affair, and to my mind, one of the best shows on telly. But, yet again I digress. Let's hope we get a whole series of Becoming Human. Also, let's hope they keep it light and not get too involved in the convoluted Being Human universe.

Over.

True Blood - God loves fangs.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I wasn’t looking forward to watching the new series of True Blood on FX. Well I can’t tell you how pleased I am to report that this season is the best yet!

It is so much darker and grimier then the past two series. There is more violence and blood, sinister under tones and less romance and sex. The lack of sex is welcome for me because it was all getting a bit too much. I know that Vampires are meant to be sexual beings but there is only so much of it you want to see. We managed to get through six episodes in a row and there wasn’t a fang banger in sight, which makes a change as we spent half of season 2 watching the ridiculous ‘Maynard’ put the whole of Bon Temps under some sort of sex spell.

For me the new characters are making this season so good. So far none of them have disappointed like the Maynard and Eggs did in season 2. The psychotic Franklin was funnier in one episode then the whole of Benidorm has been for two seasons and Russell is the best villain we’ve had so far in True Blood. The werewolves have also been a welcome addition, portrayed as drug-addled hill billies as opposed to jean wearing do gooders and a bigger use of the Queen of Louisiana has gone down a treat.

A lot of the season has been centered more on Eric then it has Bill, which is a nice change, and thankfully we have had a reprieve from the Bill and Sookie love story. When the show started it seemed like they would be the core of the show, but True Blood seems to have completely moved on from that now. Whether they are a couple almost seems irrelevant. I'm also enjoying the big mystery as to what Sookie’s power is. My money is on some sort of fairy or pixie, but considering season 3 has been nothing short of mean, I’m probably way off base.

My only problem is the way some of the characters have been completely wasted. Lafayette for example has had another non-existent season, and Jessica who was a breath of fresh air in season 2 has been quiet for the last 8 episodes.

There are only 4 episodes left and I can’t wait for them, it almost makes me regret not wanting to watch the show in the first place!

Who's up for some Danish drama?

How unappealing does this sound, a slow burning, twenty part, subtitled, Danish crime drama on BBC4. And to make matters worse it is being shown in double doses. Stieg Larsson and that whole Scandinavian thing has got a lot to answer for.

Well that's what I thought just before I watched the first episode of The Killing, ( BBC4 9.00 Saturday ), by the end of the second, I wished I had the box set. This really is looking like something special. Our hero is Sarah Lund, a Copenhagen police detective, thankfully free of all the maverick foibles that made Thorne so dreadful and laughable in equal measures. She is about to emigrate to Sweden, with her boyfriend and son, when the report of a missing girl falls into her lap. OK we've all been here before with the last case scenario. But The Killing is about much more than just Sarah. We meet the girl's family as their anxiety rises about the fate of their daughter, also the murky world of politics lurks around the edges. Well as murky as Copenhagen politics can be. When the girl's dead body is found in a rental car. The various strands come together.

A refreshing element, to The Killing, is that I wouldn't recognise a well known Danish TV star if he, or she, kicked me. So the characters have the element of surprise.What I'm getting at is, how many times have you watched a thriller only to see a quite well known actor, in what is supposed to be a minor role. You know full well they will be coming back to influence the story in a later episode. We have none of that here.

Just how The Killing will pan out, it's hard to say. Who knows it might fade twelve or so episodes in. But on the evidence of the first two, it's a little gem. Also, there is an American remake in the pipeline. But get in first and watch the Danish version. You won't be disappointed.

Over.

The Killing. BBC 4 - Saturdays 9pm.