Pluribus, Apple TV
After giving us Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, it’s fair to say Vince Gilligan can choose his own projects right now. And with Pluribus he’s chosen to return to the kinds of things he once worked on as a writer for The X Files. But not to worry, this is not the so-so wishy-washy flimflam of that ho-hum old hooey: coming in cloaked in secrecy, with the year’s best trailer campaign, based on its first two episodes Pluribus might even live up to the impeccable standards of Gilligan’s last two series.
I won’t give too much away because your early bewilderment is all part of the fun. And of course it mirrors the bewilderment of our main character Carol (Rhea Seehorn), a bestselling author disillusioned with her work and fans. She’s so jaded that even when a virus of sorts from space turns almost everyone into a happy, hive-minded, helpful colony of “individuals”, she remains jaded. She’s one of only 13 people worldwide who appear immune, but even among that small number she seems to be the only one resisting the diminution of humanity and individuality. She wants to save the world, but, as one other immune character asks her, does it really need saving since it’s finally at peace, and the billions of infected really are “here to help”?
It’s a fabulous – in every sense – Bodysnatchery kind of premise, jabbing at today’s world and presenting a constant debate between both points of view. Yes, we understand Carol’s anger and fondness for a unique and private individuality; on the other hand, isn’t that exactly what has made us all unhappy on a violent and dying planet? Wouldn’t it be healthier and happier to be part of a big insect-like collective where there are no ulterior motives and phones are answered and everyone wants to be as helpful and non-violent as possible? (Full confession: I was on the side of the viral collective until they mentioned letting all dogs off their leashes…)
Of course that’s all very well, but we need a bit of actual drama to keep us watching. And it works on that level too, almost unexpectedly well. It is a bit slow at times, but that’s a Gilligan specialty that he usually repays, and it dots a few moving scenes among the fear and comedy. Seehorn (last seen in BCS) is glorious, strong and frazzled, grieving and misanthropic all at once, hitting her stride in a first episode scene in which she talks to the cheerful acting President on the TV. Will it match up to the two previous shows? Hard to say – but so far it’s engrossing.
Celebrity Race Across the World, BBC1, Thursday, 8pm
Time again for a Race Across The World, this time the celebrity version, with the usual varying mix of actual celebrity: Roman Kemp, Dylan Llewellyn and Anita Rani are all quite familiar, Molly Rainford and Tyler West perhaps not so much. They’re all off (with a travel partner) on a nearly-6,000 km race through Central America, heading via ad hoc travel and occasional work-for-cash jobs, towards a finish line in the northernmost part of South America.
Oddly, this time around, for all the obvious editing, the usual tension is lacking. Perhaps it’s just that they’re not all taking it with equal urgency: Kemp seems like an anxious man, talking about how important it is to tackle things you’re uncomfortable with, while Llewellyn and his mother just seem to be there for the experience, ambling through the sights and restaurants oblivious to the deadlines; meanwhile, Rani is a machine, so full of energy and efficiency that the race almost feels over already.
But even so, it remains entertaining enough. You do imagine this is all easier for the slick broadcasters taking part than the regular contestants, but they’re generally better at talking about it, and in fairness they’re all mucking in and nobody’s being a prima donna. It won’t get people talking like Celebrity Traitors, the show it replaced, but it’s a perfectly easy way of wrapping up the pre-Christmas year.
Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint Of A Dictator, Channel 4, Saturday, 10pm
I wasn’t convinced there would be a point to analysing Hitler’s DNA beyond blunt curiosity, but it seems the scientist who actually did so, Turi King, felt the same way. Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint Of A Dictator, shown inevitably on Channel 4, followed King and her team as they analysed a drop of the Fuhrer’s blood, cut from the couch on which he died in 1945. King herself was aware that they might not learn much with any explanatory power, and that anything they did find could be controversial – “are you trying to say his condition made him a tyrant?” – but, out of curiosity, and out of a kind of “well, you never know until you look” attitude, they took that sample and, you know, did science to it.
Some of the results: he did not, despite old rumour, have Jewish ancestry, he likely had ADHD, and he was almost certainly autistic. The people involved go out of their way to explain these conditions did not make him a dictator, but they help explain some of his personal behaviour, his inattentiveness at school, his monologues. Again, it’s not clear how much practical benefit this has, but it does satisfy the itch of curiosity – and it even vindicates some scientists who had been criticised for suggesting such conditions before now. Even with those nuggets of information, though, it’s still typically padded out by Channel 4: making two hour-length shows out of it is borderline ridiculous.
Frankenstein, Netflix
Guillermo del Toro has been plugging his adaptation of Frankenstein for so long, with so many trailers, that it’s odd to think it’s only just come out: his big, bold, beautiful addition to Netflix’s film library retells Mary Shelley’s famous story…again. It’s apparently the 423rd such film. Yes, you’ve seen this story before: what new thing could del Toro bring to it?
Well, reputation and CGI, essentially, with an emphasis on the monster’s story (here he’s played by Jacob Elordi, looking like an Engineer from the Prometheus films after a bad shaving event). But I’ve come to believe del Toro’s reputation as a visionary filmmaker is overinflated: since the excellent Pan’s Labyrinth his work has grown increasingly gaudy and unreal (his The Shape Of Water is surely the most “is that it?” Oscar-winning film of the century). And by unreal I don’t mean that they’re about fantastical beings in imaginary worlds, but that they are so patently fake-looking and stiffly scripted that they rarely engage the emotions at all.
So it is here too, with the action generally taking place in one of del Toro’s impractically huge castles, and with the actors (Oscar Isaacs plays the not-so-good doctor F himself) struggling, under their bloated costumes and dialogue, to find any actual humanity. It’s a shame because while it looks fake it’s gorgeously fake, and the story is still a good one; but you do long for some raw drama, or just the sight of some bare, untreated stone.
I’m beginning to think del Toro really should be a painter rather than a director.
