More to the point, though, TV drama was and is still bloody formulaic, and the streaming model, which at first involved a cable subscription, was one way to escape that formula, not least because it – again, at first – did not have to rely on advertising for its income.
So ‘hour-long’ episodes on TV no longer had to be served up in concise 12-minutes helpings sandwiched between the ads with each having to conclude in a minor cliff-hanger to try to ensure the punter did not switch off to escape the ads.
The subscription model also freed ‘the creatives’ – I still don’t like that word, hence the quote marks – from the petty restriction of ‘no bad language or else the advertisers will pull the plug’.
More important, it allowed them, especially the writers, to flex their muscles and introduce story arcs over eight, ten or twelve episodes and more of them, instead of sticking to the then formula of ‘one plot / one storyline per
Certainly some TV series did ring the changes and introduce ‘themes’ but in my experience they were never more than two-dimensional crap intended to give the show ‘breadth’.
I suggest The Sopranos, conceived and realised by Italian-American David Chase, real name David DeCesare, can be regarded as the daddy of them all, first appearing on HBO (Home Box Office).
Its success soon encouraged other media outfits to get in on the act, so we then got – I’ll list some of my favourites, in no particular order – The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Fargo, Succession, Ozark and Game Of Thrones.
GoT was excellent, though almost ruined by fucking awful and mediocre eighth season, and my son warned had against watching that eighth season as, he said, it spoiled the series.
GoT was excellent, though almost ruined by fucking awful and mediocre eighth season, and my son warned had against watching that eighth season as, he said, it spoiled the series.
But I did and wish I had not. He recommended Breaking Bad and Stranger Things, but to date I have seen neither. Others, of course, will also have their favourites.
In time, and as this cynic can’t resist writing, inevitably the Law of Universal Mediocrity kicked in with any number of media outfits also wanting a piece of the action. Sadly, too many of them aped the style but had none of the substance and great writing.
My favourite example of ‘a fucking awful streaming shows’ is Blue Bloods which includes any number of stock – for which read fucking clichéd – characters from the wise paterfamilias, New York police commissioner Tom Selleck and moustache, the hothead right-wing detective son, Donnie Wahlberg, his ‘liberal-minded’ assistant DA daughter, Bridget Moynahan, always at odds with and his cop younger son, Will Estes, an officer later promoted sergeant.
I managed just half of the first of the show’s 14-season’s 293 episodes, and again I can’t resist recording that anything that stars Donnie Wahlberg is in my book doomed. Also on that list is Suits and Billions. I only managed about 15 minutes of the first episode of each.
I gave up on Billions just after it featured one of those cack-handed audience-informing scenes: a new-to-the-viewer character bumps into another new-to-the-viewer character and introduces herself with a potted rundown of her life, background, circumstances and ambitions along the lines of
Certainly, television can’t really compete with Tinseltown’s take on explosive, spectacular blockbusters, though as many now own 90in television screens but for the ‘real experience’ – it that’s your bag – you need a cinema widescreen and super-duper sound. Naturally, all that’s lost on an intimate, thoughtful drama with no gunfights, car crashed and disasters of any stripe.
One of the mainstays of movies, a hangover from the industry’s early days, was ‘the murder mystery thriller / police procedural’, but with television having to up its game on the one flank and streaming providing a very credible alternative to movies on the other, Tinseltown could no longer rely its mainstay products and practices and had to focus more.
Thereby hangs the flaw of Jack Reacher. Although it is a film, one starring Tom Cruise no less, it could in too many ways pass for just another TV movie on any given afternoon. Yes, it has an intriguing plot, which is pretty much a must as this is not a character examination, but then so do rather too many and better TV movies.
I came across it after watching The Way Of The Gun and looking up what other films scriptwriter turned director Christopher McQuarrie had made. Sadly, his take on Jack Reacher has absolutely none of the attractions and imagination of that film or of The Usual Suspects with whose script he made he name and which one him and Oscar and a BAFTA.
There is absolutely nothing notably about Jack Reacher at all: Tom Cruise does his stock Tom Cruise schtick, which is ‘being Tom Cruise’ and Britain’s Rosamund Pike turns in an average performance in a two-dimensional role, and that is no criticism of Pike.
Her turn in David Fincher’s Gone Girl clearly demonstrates that she is an actor with chops and more than enough in her locker. Sadly, none of her gifts is called on in Jack Reacher.
That McQuarrie does not demonstrate any of the narrative gift that marked The Usual Suspects and The Way Of The Gun might well be down to having to co-write the script with Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels: I suspect Child was very jealous and protective of ‘his baby’, and no doubt having him looking over his shoulder did a great deal to hamper McQuarrie.
Indicative of how, frankly, mediocre Jack Reacher is are the odd ‘twist’ in the plot and a fairly ludicrous and conventional showdown gunfight in a quarry. Robert Duvall turns up in a throwaway role as a gun range owner who is a sharpshooter up for a wheeze and with his heart in the right place but that does nothing for the film. It might well have been any actor. Gabby Hayes has long died.
So there you have it: more or less just another TV movie for afternoon viewing that I don’t really recommend. It is not ‘a thrilling film’ as boasted on the poster.
In time, and as this cynic can’t resist writing, inevitably the Law of Universal Mediocrity kicked in with any number of media outfits also wanting a piece of the action. Sadly, too many of them aped the style but had none of the substance and great writing.
My favourite example of ‘a fucking awful streaming shows’ is Blue Bloods which includes any number of stock – for which read fucking clichéd – characters from the wise paterfamilias, New York police commissioner Tom Selleck and moustache, the hothead right-wing detective son, Donnie Wahlberg, his ‘liberal-minded’ assistant DA daughter, Bridget Moynahan, always at odds with and his cop younger son, Will Estes, an officer later promoted sergeant.
I managed just half of the first of the show’s 14-season’s 293 episodes, and again I can’t resist recording that anything that stars Donnie Wahlberg is in my book doomed. Also on that list is Suits and Billions. I only managed about 15 minutes of the first episode of each.
I gave up on Billions just after it featured one of those cack-handed audience-informing scenes: a new-to-the-viewer character bumps into another new-to-the-viewer character and introduces herself with a potted rundown of her life, background, circumstances and ambitions along the lines of
‘I’m a young, intelligent, fiery Irish-American redhead from a close-knit family who has always had a passion for the law, who takes no shit and will never take no for an answer and is determined to see justice and right prevail.
I exaggerate, yes, but just a little. As H L Mencken is said to have observed
‘No one in this world, so far as I know has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.’But what has this to do with Jack Reacher? Well, quite a bit in fact. Not only did streaming challenge – and show up – television drama, but is also challenged movie-making to buck up its ideas.
Certainly, television can’t really compete with Tinseltown’s take on explosive, spectacular blockbusters, though as many now own 90in television screens but for the ‘real experience’ – it that’s your bag – you need a cinema widescreen and super-duper sound. Naturally, all that’s lost on an intimate, thoughtful drama with no gunfights, car crashed and disasters of any stripe.
One of the mainstays of movies, a hangover from the industry’s early days, was ‘the murder mystery thriller / police procedural’, but with television having to up its game on the one flank and streaming providing a very credible alternative to movies on the other, Tinseltown could no longer rely its mainstay products and practices and had to focus more.
Thereby hangs the flaw of Jack Reacher. Although it is a film, one starring Tom Cruise no less, it could in too many ways pass for just another TV movie on any given afternoon. Yes, it has an intriguing plot, which is pretty much a must as this is not a character examination, but then so do rather too many and better TV movies.
I came across it after watching The Way Of The Gun and looking up what other films scriptwriter turned director Christopher McQuarrie had made. Sadly, his take on Jack Reacher has absolutely none of the attractions and imagination of that film or of The Usual Suspects with whose script he made he name and which one him and Oscar and a BAFTA.
There is absolutely nothing notably about Jack Reacher at all: Tom Cruise does his stock Tom Cruise schtick, which is ‘being Tom Cruise’ and Britain’s Rosamund Pike turns in an average performance in a two-dimensional role, and that is no criticism of Pike.
Her turn in David Fincher’s Gone Girl clearly demonstrates that she is an actor with chops and more than enough in her locker. Sadly, none of her gifts is called on in Jack Reacher.
That McQuarrie does not demonstrate any of the narrative gift that marked The Usual Suspects and The Way Of The Gun might well be down to having to co-write the script with Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels: I suspect Child was very jealous and protective of ‘his baby’, and no doubt having him looking over his shoulder did a great deal to hamper McQuarrie.
Indicative of how, frankly, mediocre Jack Reacher is are the odd ‘twist’ in the plot and a fairly ludicrous and conventional showdown gunfight in a quarry. Robert Duvall turns up in a throwaway role as a gun range owner who is a sharpshooter up for a wheeze and with his heart in the right place but that does nothing for the film. It might well have been any actor. Gabby Hayes has long died.
So there you have it: more or less just another TV movie for afternoon viewing that I don’t really recommend. It is not ‘a thrilling film’ as boasted on the poster.
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