Nicker on 23/8/2018 at 07:42
Just finished the first season of Taboo
It is a semi-historical account of the struggles to control the Nootka Sound, a critical port on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the gateway to China and the very lucrative trade in sea otter pelts. And tea.
I also recently finished another Canadian "historical" series called, Frontier, featuring Kahl Drogo (Jason Momoa) as a bloodthirsty fur trader bent on revenge against agents of SATAN in the guise of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Frontier wore thin after a few shows. The villains are irredeemable, committing acts of treachery and cruelty which not only challenge historical fact but credible story telling. Protagonists teeter between supernatural cunning and infantile blundering, getting stupidly captured once or twice an episode, only to escape brilliantly. In one case, our heroes hide out in the one building the bumbling red coats neglect to search. After two desperate nights they make their break, under cover of FULL fucking daylight.
Luckily they can sustain repeated life altering injuries, like a musket ball to the hip, a knife to the entrails, an organ rupturing beating or a sustained face pummeling. A few dabs with a filthy rag and they are good to go. Who knew our ancestors were so tough?
The costumes are not quite as bad as the BBC's retelling of Robin Hood, (with merry men in digital camo) but pleather and microfiber make jarring appearances. Exactly where street urchins get the money for haute couture leather jackets is never explained.
The plotting is convenient, the dialogue is stilted and the accents are often cringe worthy.
It's sad because the actual stories of the war between the HBC and the North West Company were real drama, with historical consequences for North America. No need for fake history.
Taboo is an entirely fictional history as well but the execution is far better. The sun never shines on 1800's London apparently. And the muck never ends. Every one has a patina of oil and grime. Even aristocrats have dirt encrusted nails. Keep some wet wipes handy. The dental prosthetics are brilliant (or the casting director worked overtime). So many shades of ivory. The costumes are spot on and James Delaney's hat is as bad ass as Tom Hardy's depiction.
But while the protagonists are multi dimensional the villains are flat and demonic, horse faced aristocrats and bloated lackeys. The gore and brutality are relentless, verging on unnecessary. Again it is fortunate that Delaney is immune to sepsis and bone fractures.
I still recommend it though. I just hope season two comes with subtitles so I can catch more than a third of the dialogue the first time around.
Thirith on 23/8/2018 at 07:47
Ridley Scott's involved in Taboo, isn't he? With him, I'd be surprised if the series didn't at least look very good.
henke on 23/8/2018 at 08:08
You know who else is involved in Taboo? A GUY FROM FINLAND! (THATS RIGHT) Directed like 4 episodes! Whatevs! No, not whatevs, I meant to say awesome! FINLAND! FINLAND! FINLAND!
I haven't seen the show tho.
Thirith on 23/8/2018 at 08:20
I'll watch it - if the series features stilts. Otherwise it's Fake Finnish.
Nicker on 23/8/2018 at 08:50
Scott is a producer. Oh, Taboo looks fantastic. The attention to detail is amazing. It's a slow grind but it gets there. The acting is superb. The writing is somewhat uneven.
You definitely need to see it.
I am being a bit hard on it and that may be a more personal than I would admit. My buddy, who is a Ridley Scott fan boy, thinks it's neigh perfect but then he thinks Frontier is wonderful, when it really is pretty bad. I give him no quarter.
There are no stilts (thought you wrote slits at first - none of those either). There is a grubby brothel, of course, and a "molly house", inhabited by transvestites and homosexuals in flaking pancake makeup. Will that do?
Thirith on 23/8/2018 at 09:09
To be honest, I've somewhat avoided Taboo to date because the previews made it look like a production designer's dream - which isn't bad in and of itself, but it often (and not least in Ridley Scott productions) tends to go hand in hand with a clearly reduced focus on writing. It also looked like it wanted to appeal to the fans of Peaky Blinders, a series I enjoyed quite a bit for a season or so but then got tired of. Seeing how I've already got more series to watch than I have time, I didn't put it particularly high on my list. Perhaps I should give it a chance, though.
(Oh, and the moment I use the word "slits" in the sense that you possibly thought I was using it, I hope someone'll come and bludgeon me to death with a pair of stilts. That person can, but doesn't have to be, a Finn.)
henke on 23/8/2018 at 15:47
Subscribed to a month of HBO Nordic but just ended up rewatching Flight of the Conchords, which I have on DVD anyway.
[video=youtube;WjJhbe_cNaw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjJhbe_cNaw[/video]
Still great.
N'Al on 23/8/2018 at 16:39
Saw them live recently. Very great.
Thirith on 23/8/2018 at 17:27
On Infinity War:
[spoiler]There's no way the snap will stick - but that didn't make it less effective for me in the moment. The snap will be reversed, I'm sure, but I expect there will be a price for that. Depending on what that price will be, it may still retroactively cheapen the IW ending, but I trust the MCU based on their track record to date.[/spoiler]
Pyrian on 23/8/2018 at 17:33
Quote Posted by icemann
That is a ballsy move with the ending.
Bah. They'll just roll it back with the time stone.Quote Posted by icemann
Now the credits scene in Ant-Man and the Wasp makes sense.
Ha! That must've been quite a head scratcher.