Wired

The Wire is the best TV I've seen for bloody ages. Apparently messy, novelistic, totally unflashy, and mind-bendingly good. At least the first three seasons are. I'm breaking my long radio silence on this blog to perform the service of recommending it. And you must watch it from the very beginning.

Sporting life

Now I admit I'm not Mister Sport (though you'll be pleased to hear my golf swing is slowly on the mend after some fundamental re-engineering). But I do like the stats (particularly the stats behind the stats). And so this blog is right up my street. Check it out.

Praise (Phoe)be

I’d like to honour Lisa Kudrow. For three things, none of which is playing Phoebe on Friends.

1) Her brilliant turn in The Opposite Of Sex.
2) Her equally brilliant (though less funny) turn in Happy Endings.
3) Her spectacular performance in The Comeback which makes the whole (and only) season well worth seeing.

How to get ahead in advertising

First rule: don’t create a campaign like this one, which makes a brilliantly clever and entertaining show look like a third-rate revival of a mediocre 1920s tuner.

Second rule: don’t assume sub-par marketing that has worked for Broadway will work for the West End.

Third rule: make sure you’ve really understood that first rule.

Do the right thing 2.0

When did ‘ethical’ change its meaning from ‘morally right’ to ‘environmentally friendly’?

Newsnight for a year had a regular feature Ethical Man, about a journalist trying to live the ‘ethical’ life. This didn’t involve any thought about the morality of any particular action beyond its potential to benefit or harm the environment.

OK, now I admit I believe there’s no objective way of telling what’s morally right or wrong. (Since you ask, utilitarianism is probably the best system out there, but it’s impossible to appeal to its objective truth – or the objective truth of any such structure for making moral decisions.) But I definitely don’t think any behaviour can be described as ethical if you’re not at least thinking about what is or isn’t the most positive course of action in the broadest sense. Just doing what Greenpeace tells you is about as far from a decent definition of ‘ethical’ as I can imagine.

Talking of environmentalism, can someone explain to me why we don't have a carbon tax? Using carbon has external negative effects that aren’t priced into how much carbon costs. So price those negative effects in using a tax. People can then easily decide for themselves how much carbon to use, knowing that they are paying the true cost of their actions. And we’ll all use less of it while avoiding costly and ineffective product regulations, insane cap-and-trade schemes which give existing energy-intensive industries massive freebies, ridiculous ideas about individual carbon allowances, etc.

A fuller (and better, though US-focused) explanation is here.

Fade in

Broadening out the topic a bit, as promised, here are some great first episodes:

Life on Mars – possibly the best first 20 minutes of any TV show ever. A masterclass in setting up a complicated story with economy, humour and incredible dramatic power. And John Simm’s brilliant in it. (Such a shame that he couldn’t act ‘happy’ when he was overlooked for a BAFTA at the recent TV awards. You’d think ten seconds of fake smiling wouldn’t be beyond him.)

The rest of that first episode is still really good, if not quite as perfect. Which is why, for a first episode that is pant-sweatingly exciting and positively compels you to watch the rest of the series, 24 is still the number one.

And, as for comedies, I still maintain that the best ever episode of the (until recently) phenomenally entertaining Curb Your Enthusiasm is the very first, called ‘The Pants Tent’.* It is the model for every subsequent episode (or at least for every good subsequent episode) and yet is hilarious even if it’s the only one you ever saw.

Funny then, that the first episode of Arrested Development is one of the weakest. Too much heavy-handed exposition, too much even heavier-handed kookiness, and a significant smattering of schmaltz. AD became one of the best ever sitcoms, but its beginnings were not particularly auspicious. Which I guess – despite the focus of my last two posts – is a lesson for us all.

* For pedants: I know there was an hour-long special before the series proper, but that’s so not the first episode. I can justify that position at length if required.

Curtain up

OK, here’s a question. What’s the best first scene in any film ever?

I’m not going to be reckless enough to hazard a definitive answer. But I will stake a claim on behalf of Enduring Love – at least to put it in the Top Ten.

As in Ian McEwan’s original novel, the depiction of a freakish balloon accident, with death appearing out of a clear blue sky, is both horrible and breathtaking.

The rest of the film doesn’t remotely measure up to this impeccably directed opening sequence, but that’s only to be expected when said sequence is quite so stunning.

And how about the best start on the stage? Well Aeschylus’s Agamemnon has the most immediately powerful mood-setting first scene of any play before Hamlet. Verdi/Boito’s version of Othello and Wagner’s Rheingold should also get a look-in.

Which reminds me. Another one for the film list: Spaceballs. I’m only half joking.

Next week: best first episodes.