THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Narcos Mexico, season 3

I’ve watched all of these, with varying degrees of enjoyment it has to be said, and this season was one of the better ones. Obviously not up to the standard of the original, which focused on Pablo Escobar, but this one did the job.

Each season is basically the same thing: a minor cog in a drug cartel kills his way to the top of the aforementioned cartel, before either being murdered by a rival, betrayed, shot dead by the DEA, or captured, and imprisoned. This one focused on Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as The Lord Of The Skies, due to the fact that he was a pilot, and his ongoing war with the Mexican army, the DEA, and more importantly, rival cartels. In this case the Arellano family.

It’s a test not to Google what actually happened to these folk, as it’s all true, albeit there's the usual disclaimer at the beginning of each episode stating that certain facts have been changed for dramatic purposes.

José María Yazpik was pretty good as Fuentes, all brooding silences, dressed in black, RayBans never off his face. Some of the other cast… not so much. Especially the young girl playing the reporter, Luisa Rubino, who is unfortunately, not a very good actor. There was also a subplot about a cop searching for a serial killer in his spare time, Which added exactly nothing to the plot.

There definitely will be a season 4, as we all know how well the ‘war on drugs’ went in the 90’s.

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

Thought I'd recommend a new show coming to Sky Atlantic in a couple of weeks called Yellowjackets.

It started in the US last week, I saw an advance screening of it. Essentially it's Lost meets Lord of the Flies but with a US girl's football team's plane crashing in Canada where they are trapped in the wilderness for 18 months - the episodes jump between the timeline of the crash in 1996 and 2021, years after some of them were rescued. Had rave reviews in the US (currently 100% on Rotten Tomatoes) and I liked the first episode a lot. Got a decent cast too - Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis etc.

Tiger King 2

If Lionel Hutz, attorney at law, or Saul Goodman had turned up in this, they wouldn’t have been as outrageous as the actual folk that did.

The original Tiger King was a massive hit at the start of Lockdown last year, and this five part series is a follow on. The main protagonist, the self styled Joe Exotic, a mullet sporting gay redneck of all things, is currently serving 22 years in a federal prison for conspricy to murder. So his involvement is somewhat curtailed. This fact doesn't stop him however, as he continually video calls the producer with a series of rambling monologues. Old Joe isn’t the most mental contributor by some considerable distance.

This is a story of the strange phenomena in the US of privately owned zoos. And the astonishingly crazy world that it is, obviously. Ladies and gentlemen, your cast

Carole Baskin.
The subject of Joe’s irie in the original series, and the person who he’s been convicted of threatening to have killed. She refused to be involved this time, but instead released videos on YouTube commenting on the ongoing events. Videos that she was quite happy to have shown on this. Go figure.

Jeff Lowe, and his much younger wife Lauren.
Jeff is Joe’s ex-business partner, whom Joe accused of swindling him out of his zoo. Jeff thinks that being interviewed in bed with his lingerie sporting wife, and their equally lingerie sporting nanny, makes him look brilliant.

Tim Stark.
Another private zoo owner, who was somewhat upset at being arrested for threatening to kill a federal judge on the evening news, and telling his staff, on a routine basis, that he’d “cut their fucking throats”.

Allen Glover.
Handyman turned hitman, and a shambolic wreck of a man. Currently in prison on multiple charges. Joe offered him $3000 to kill Baskin. He is unable to tie his own shoelaces let alone decapitate anyone.

Jack Smith
Self styled ‘internet sleuth’ (he has a YouTube channel), in cahoots with Baskin’s step-children. More of whom later. Baskin’s first husband, Don, went missing under suspicious circumstances some time ago. Leaving her extremely wealthy. Smith is trying to prove that she killed him, and fed his remains to her tigers. He calls himself Ripper, down to the simple fact that he’s called Jack. Exactly the type of person you’d want to investigate an alleged murder. Someone who names himself after the most notorious serial killer in history.

John M. Phillips
This is Lionel Hutz made flesh. A lawyer who once represented Lowe, but now represents Exotic. Where there’s blame, there’s a claim.

Baskin’s step-children
The most jaw dropping scene in this whole shitshow is when Baskin’s step-children employ a psychic detective to ascertain where their old dad was done in. It has to be seen to be believed.

There’s a shit load more of complete headcases throughout this, not least the state prosecutor who introduces himself on camera by impersonating Elvis. It’s difficult to know what anyone involved with this thought they’d achieve. Exotic is three tears into a 22 year prison sentence. Baskin is a figure of fun in the US, and is currently trying, unsuccessfully, to sue Netflix. Both the Lowes, Stark and Glover are incarcerated. Baskin’s step-children come across as just plain mental.

It’s one of those things that you just can’t stop watching, as no matter how bizarre someone comes across, there’s a bigger headcase just around the corner. There’s only five episodes this time, and at 40 odd minutes each, it’s easily watchable in an evening. Which I did.

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

I'm a big 'Who' geek. Being honest the only episode with JW I've liked (and considered 'proper thought provoking') was the Rosa Parks one ages ago. The current situation is in danger, IMHO, of disappearing up it's own behind. The main villans faces....I haven't seen anything so cheesy since Colin Baker's 'Attack of the cybermen' with those 'Cryon creatures' who adopted a similar 'squashed piece of plastic on the face'.

After each of the last three episodes I've watched a Peter Capaldi or a Matt Smith and the plots are compact, sharp and delivered with some witty dialogue. This 'grand sweep' with a smorgasbord of monsters thrown in is I feel too much. I can't see it attracting many new viewers. Esp as some of the young seem to have a very short concentration span. I'm in agreement with Mr S above.
Long live Russell T D.

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

Landscapers

Four part series from Sky/HBO about the true life murderers Susan and Christopher Edwards – an unassuming librarian and an accountant from Dagenham, who were convicted of murdering Susan’s parients, and burying them in the back garden.

Starring an outstanding Olivia Colman and David Thewlis as the oddest of odd couples. It starts pretty conventionally with the Edwards’ on the run in France, living in near penury as they cant speak the language well enough to work, and the fact that she’s obsessed with Hollywood memorabilia, and spends what little cash they have on posters of Gary Cooper.

It moves on pretty quickly, as they voluntarily return to face the music so to speak. She’s constantly described as being fragile, and he’s always referring to the fact that he has to protect her. The only good bit of dialogue in the whole thing comes from one of the detectives, played by the foul mouthed Kate O’Flynn, on what being fragile really means. “It means you’re a pain in the arse basically.”

I don’t know what to make of this. Coleman was unbelievably good, but the quite frankly bizarre production values really ruined it for me. It veered from conventional police drama. 60’s film noir, black and white western, and at some points the sets were dismantled and new sets were built around the action. It couldn’t make it’s mind up whether it wanted to be a good cop show, or a Twin Peaks tribute act.

As a massive fan of Sleaford Mods, it came as somewhat of a surprise to see frontman Jason Willimson pop up in a minor role. But him and obviously Coleman apart, it wasn’t great.

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

Beer Masters: The Search For Europe's Next Great Beer

This is streaming on Amazon. It's basically Bake Off but for home brewers.

The Paul Hollywood character is Jaeger Wise, brewmaster for Wild Card Brewery in That There London (they do a nice IPA by the way - and I don't even like IPA). She's the media's go-to Beer Head because she is a woman of colour in a world of skinny white boys with sleeves and fat old men with Van Dyke beards. Luckily, as well as being the right profile for modern media, she's actually pretty good as a presenter and she knows what she's talking about when it comes to beer and brewing. James Blunt (yes! That James Blunt!) is the Sue and Mel character and is OK, despite knowing nothing about beer, because he's both self deprecating and a compulsive piss-taker.

The guest judge varies week by week and here the program gets close to product placement, as it's a full on advert for some of the big independents (like Camden), or former indies now owned by majors (Leffe). Update: I think (haven't checked) that all the breweries are owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

There is also a non-beer judge, to help with a technical challenge. This includes British actor Jamal Edwards (no, me neither) who apparently is qualified to judge the design of beer bottle labels, some Belgian actor who helps judge logo'd beer glasses and an Italian TV chef who helps judge beer/food pairings.

What's obvious for the choices of non-beer judges, and the choice of contestants, is that this is a serious attempt at a pan-Europe show. So, instead of Bake Off being franchised and reproduced in Italy, Ireland etc., this is done once for the continent and features judges known mainly in one country, but with the country being different every week. Same with the contestants (Brits, French, Dutch, Belgian, Italian). The main criteria seems to be that a) your home country has a beer culture and b) you can speak fluent English. For series 2, expect Germans, Czecks, Poles etc. Also, they do a nice line in pretty tourist cinematography, making the home areas of each contestant look pretty and inviting (Brittany, Rome, Poole harbour etc.)

Overall, it's a familiar format, it's lightweight but it's fun. If it's a success, I can imaging Amazon will launch both a USA and an Antipodean version.

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

Succession, Season 3

If it wasn’t for the utterly sublime WandaVision, this would’ve been the telly of the year by a country mile. It’s outstanding.

I’m guessing all sentient beings know that this is a thinly, extremely thinly, veiled version of the Murdoch empire, with Brian Cox in the Rupert role as patriarch Logan Roy, ably supported by an outstanding cast. Most notably Kieran Culkin as youngest son Roman. He’s just amazing in this. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki was pretty amoral, but Roman just took it and ran. Absolutely zero morals whatsoever. Best summed up by sister Shiv, played by Sarah Snook, “Dad won’t pick you. He thinks there’s something wrong with you”.

The writing on this is second to none. Devastating one liners, that in any other series would be heralded as the best thing ever, are casually tossed away without a second thought. But it’s a line of dialogue that you wouldn’t give a second thought to four or five episodes back, come back with devastating consequences. Most notably the season finale. No spoilers, but it’s always the quiet ones.

The other cool thing they do is drop little clues throughout, that only become clear as the series progresses.

It’s very, very, very good telly this. Absolutely outstanding.

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

Peter Crouch. Save our beautiful game.

On Discovery+ Docu series with new episodes aired Tuesdays, episode 1 available now.

Basically he returns to Dulwich Hamlet, a club he played for as a seventeen year old, to help after they ( and many other clubs) struggle back after covid lockdown.

It’s a behind the scenes look at how the club is financially on the edge, recruiting players for the new season, PC joins the board for the season to try and help the club move forward.

The first episode includes how they need to get 1500 into the ground, on the first day of the season, just to break even.

Looks an interesting series, well worth a watch for the 45 minute dutation

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Johnstone Paint Trophy Winners, you’ll never sing that

The Tourist

A Memento lite drama from the BBC set in the Australian Outback.

Basic premise...

A guy wakes up in hospital after being in a car accident with no memory, and over six episodes tries to put his life back together.

It wasn't great to be honest. It stars someone called Jamie Dornan, whom I've never heard of but is apparently very famous. He actually wasn't too bad to be fair, and the scenery was truly outstanding, as you'd expect. The ending I found a massive letdown. Tried to be smart, just fell short of the mark in my opinion. But there you go.

There was some fine support it has to be said. Particularly Danielle Macdonald as a cop tasked with looking after him. And a nod to Ólafur Darri Ólafsson and Damon Herriman, whom are both fine actors. But them apart, it was alright. Nothing too taxing.

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

Stay Close

A Netflix 8 part drama based on a book from 2012. A basic premise without spoiling it is that James Nesbitt plays a detective that is given a case eerily similar to one he failed to solve 17 years earlier, and the investigation into this missing person spirals into a wider conspiracy.

It is honestly fantastic. The cast is brilliant, Nesbitt plays a detective working with his Ex Wife (Jo Joyner) and their relationship is both refreshingly platonic and funny. Then there’s the wider cast, Cush Jumbo, Richard Armitage, Eddie Izzard and Sarah Parish a few of the major players in this.

As for the story… wow. It had me and my partner on the edge of our seats, the cliffhangers at the end of each episode just got bigger and more gripping, and we’ve binged this over the course of the weekend because we just couldn’t turn it off. I’m writing this fresh off of watching the finale and it honestly kept us engrossed right up until the final credits rolled in.

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Those that we love never truly leave us. There are things that death cannot touch. Paint... and memory... and love.