Cathryn (formerly catslash) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
remindmeofthe) wrote2009-12-06 02:27 pm
remindmeofthe) wrote2009-12-06 02:27 pm
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The Thick of It.
I can say, and have been for a few weeks now, that this is easily the best show I am watching right now, and some of the finest television I have ever watched, period. You know when you watch or read something so good you feel privileged to have had the chance to lay eyes on it? That's how I feel about The Thick of It, and that's why I want people to watch it so much. I'm not recruiting. I'm sharing.
You know you're watching good television when you see something coming and it still shocks you when it happens. Malcolm has been increasingly tense, shredded, and out of touch all series - when I talked about episode three, I mentioned being surprised at his ignorance about the political significance of the internet and blogging. And in an earlier post, I commented on his anger:
[...] what seems to be a subtle difference in Malcolm Tucker's explosions. He's still funny as hell, but there's been a moment or two where Peter Capaldi's performance is more rawly furious than I recall it being before; it's much easier to see that Malcolm is going to give himself a stroke long before he has a chance to retire.
("Retire." Insert bleak laughter here.)
Now, of course, with the events of this episode (well as previous ones I haven't posted about) it's clear that we've been given a really wonderful character arc for a character who could so easily been just a caricature. Between the writing and the acting, Malcolm Tucker has proven himself to be a wonderfully rounded and subtly portrayed character, and believe me when I say I never would have paired the word "subtle" with Malcolm Fucking Tucker when I started watching this show. It's hard to see Malcolm go down in flames, because despite all that stuff I just said I really do want him to be the infallible genius he was in the first six eps and the specials - it's not unlike watching the Doctor lose his shit in "Waters of Mars" - but this is far, far better television and I know it.
(Actually, for me, Malcolm and the Doctor have a lot in common, now that I think about it, and no doubt Malcolm would hate that comparison. They're both characters I've come to trust absolutely to get shit done. They may go about it in rather different ways, but the second Malcolm or the Doctor is on the case, you can just chill and follow orders because everything is going to be taken care of. But then they started flaking around the edges, and falling apart at the seams, and they bought too much into that very belief and brought themselves down. And unlike the Doctor, Malcolm doesn't regenerate.)
The other characters, too, were really on form this episode. Olly usually makes me wince more than laugh - his malicious little barbs just scream PAY ATTENTION TO ME in a way that makes him a believeable character and an unlikeable little douche - but he was funny today. And I always love watching Glenn (with one N, according to Olly, but I wouldn't put it past him to put out a deliberate misspelling because of aforementioned douchiness) lose his temper on something, even if it's just kicking a box of paperwork over. I love Glenn period, and he's as close as the show has to a buttmonkey (except the show is too well-written to actually fall directly into a dreadful cliché like that) with all the shit that happens to him, and he deserves to get to kick something every now and then.
And Nicola oh my goodness. I LOVE NICOLA. She has been such a great character to watch for reasons I can't define as clearly as I can with Malcolm or Glenn, probably because it's still depressingly unusual to see a really good, flawed, well-written female character who is allowed to be flawed and is so without falling into any of the gender stereotype pits that so many female characters end up in. She was the one able to admit out loud that they're all working for a dying government, and she'll put up with a lot and still will tell people to fuck off if necessary ("Don't fucking call me sweetheart!"), and the way she literally ran from the hideous scene of Malcolm's sacking and holed up in her office while everyone was celebrating somehow made me love her even more.
. . . so I guess I can define why I love her after all.
I will end with two things: First, a sincere wish that someone punches Fleming in the face, because GODDAMN. At least Malcolm is honest and up front about being a bastard. The actor was so effective, with that hunched-up and ingratiating body language and delicious line delivery, that he succeeded in making me hate the character inside of thirty seconds, rather than the few minutes it would have taken otherwise. So, bravo to him, I guess. The acting on this show is always top notch.
Second, what was possibly my favorite moment of the whole episode, and one of those examples of Malcolm being a well-rounded character: in the midst of his own destruction, he still waded in to defend Sam from a bunch of assholes making her cry. He's always had a good rapport with his secretary, and that few seconds was a lovely payoff to that and the moment of the episode that finally brought tears to my eyes.
I can say, and have been for a few weeks now, that this is easily the best show I am watching right now, and some of the finest television I have ever watched, period. You know when you watch or read something so good you feel privileged to have had the chance to lay eyes on it? That's how I feel about The Thick of It, and that's why I want people to watch it so much. I'm not recruiting. I'm sharing.
You know you're watching good television when you see something coming and it still shocks you when it happens. Malcolm has been increasingly tense, shredded, and out of touch all series - when I talked about episode three, I mentioned being surprised at his ignorance about the political significance of the internet and blogging. And in an earlier post, I commented on his anger:
[...] what seems to be a subtle difference in Malcolm Tucker's explosions. He's still funny as hell, but there's been a moment or two where Peter Capaldi's performance is more rawly furious than I recall it being before; it's much easier to see that Malcolm is going to give himself a stroke long before he has a chance to retire.
("Retire." Insert bleak laughter here.)
Now, of course, with the events of this episode (well as previous ones I haven't posted about) it's clear that we've been given a really wonderful character arc for a character who could so easily been just a caricature. Between the writing and the acting, Malcolm Tucker has proven himself to be a wonderfully rounded and subtly portrayed character, and believe me when I say I never would have paired the word "subtle" with Malcolm Fucking Tucker when I started watching this show. It's hard to see Malcolm go down in flames, because despite all that stuff I just said I really do want him to be the infallible genius he was in the first six eps and the specials - it's not unlike watching the Doctor lose his shit in "Waters of Mars" - but this is far, far better television and I know it.
(Actually, for me, Malcolm and the Doctor have a lot in common, now that I think about it, and no doubt Malcolm would hate that comparison. They're both characters I've come to trust absolutely to get shit done. They may go about it in rather different ways, but the second Malcolm or the Doctor is on the case, you can just chill and follow orders because everything is going to be taken care of. But then they started flaking around the edges, and falling apart at the seams, and they bought too much into that very belief and brought themselves down. And unlike the Doctor, Malcolm doesn't regenerate.)
The other characters, too, were really on form this episode. Olly usually makes me wince more than laugh - his malicious little barbs just scream PAY ATTENTION TO ME in a way that makes him a believeable character and an unlikeable little douche - but he was funny today. And I always love watching Glenn (with one N, according to Olly, but I wouldn't put it past him to put out a deliberate misspelling because of aforementioned douchiness) lose his temper on something, even if it's just kicking a box of paperwork over. I love Glenn period, and he's as close as the show has to a buttmonkey (except the show is too well-written to actually fall directly into a dreadful cliché like that) with all the shit that happens to him, and he deserves to get to kick something every now and then.
And Nicola oh my goodness. I LOVE NICOLA. She has been such a great character to watch for reasons I can't define as clearly as I can with Malcolm or Glenn, probably because it's still depressingly unusual to see a really good, flawed, well-written female character who is allowed to be flawed and is so without falling into any of the gender stereotype pits that so many female characters end up in. She was the one able to admit out loud that they're all working for a dying government, and she'll put up with a lot and still will tell people to fuck off if necessary ("Don't fucking call me sweetheart!"), and the way she literally ran from the hideous scene of Malcolm's sacking and holed up in her office while everyone was celebrating somehow made me love her even more.
. . . so I guess I can define why I love her after all.
I will end with two things: First, a sincere wish that someone punches Fleming in the face, because GODDAMN. At least Malcolm is honest and up front about being a bastard. The actor was so effective, with that hunched-up and ingratiating body language and delicious line delivery, that he succeeded in making me hate the character inside of thirty seconds, rather than the few minutes it would have taken otherwise. So, bravo to him, I guess. The acting on this show is always top notch.
Second, what was possibly my favorite moment of the whole episode, and one of those examples of Malcolm being a well-rounded character: in the midst of his own destruction, he still waded in to defend Sam from a bunch of assholes making her cry. He's always had a good rapport with his secretary, and that few seconds was a lovely payoff to that and the moment of the episode that finally brought tears to my eyes.