Aquarius, TV Series

Flat-Top

I’ve just watched the first episode of Aquarius, the David Duchovny led TV programme set in 1967 LA and revolving around the Charlie Manson ‘story’.

I mention here because it has a superb soundtrack – with songs by Manson himself – though they are mainly quick snippets. However, so far the ’67 selection is pieced together with some flair.

Duchovny sports an emblematic flat-top haircut to consolidate his stereotypical role as a law officer, and the presentation of the hippie/freak scene is somewhat clichéd, though I wouldn’t want to be making excuses for the world of Charlie Manson. What I think is rather condescending is Duchovny’s ‘superior’ take on the moment, and I feel this has more to do with what we can accept as a retrospective appreciation of the honest if hopeful nativity of that time, but I don’t accept such an awareness could have been as knowing then as it has been conveyed in the opening episode.

I look to the programme to somehow convey the charisma of Manson, rather than just his monstrous being. If the programme is to have genuine merit it has to present the complex rather than a crime soap opera, as compelling as the acting and setting can make even that.

I do look forward to the further selection of that soundtrack.

Nashville - TV Series [3rd Episode]

Predictability

It’s third time unlucky for Nashville, a TV programme about which I can write – well, I can do what I like on this blog – because it is ostensibly about music. I watched the third episode last night and it has quickly atrophied into the most predictable soap opera preoccupations of presenting dysfunctional families, complex romantic relationships, and the simplistic battle of good vs evil. These are, by the way, relative templates too: such conventions can be better done. And it would seem naive to even make these observations, but I had moderate hopes. I certainly preferred the absurdities of the opening episodes where the stereotypes had a pleasingly risible predictability rather than those which simply regurgitate. And my notion of ‘absurdity’ is also relative: last night we saw Rayna Jaymes’ two young daughters perform brilliantly in a talent show, and it isn’t unusual that children of a Country singing star would themselves be musical, nor that such precocious talent can exist at their ages, but there had been nothing in their prior character portrayal that hinted remotely at such a proclivity let alone expertise [this is a later addition: I do now recall the pair singing along to a Juliette Barnes song in the back of their mom's car, much to her plot-annoyance. So that blows one hole through my criticism.....!].

If I continue watching it will be for the music, though that too is a relative term, especially for those who do not like Country. It is interesting to me that most of the cast sing their own songs, and I am trying to find definitive information on the writers/composers. It is because I quite like much of the music, especially the acoustic duos. This is also, obviously, because I like Country, have a high tolerance for the formulaic of this genre, and think this in itself is interesting in how a soap opera can replicate such and thus either underpin its innate qualities, or undermine it in the apparent ease of its replication. Well, that’s not my battle to resolve because I’ve made it clear where I stand.

Nashville - TV Series

Nashville Nirvana

Just watched my first episode of Nashville, a certain winner for me with its marriage of Country music and soap opera. And imagine my delight in seeing that the star of the show is Connie Britton, as singer Rayna James, who also stars in my other favourite American televisual wedlock, Friday Night Lights which is American football and soap opera.

This pilot episode of Nashville has all that's bad which will therefore be good: tonight's highlight was the application of the pathetic fallacy as a lightning storm to follow immediately on the storyline's melodramatic zenith. There was also the Country lyrics sung by the up-and-coming, nasty-countrystar-protagonist Juliette Barnes, played by Hayden Panettiere, with a verse of boys and buses got a lot in common; both speed up when you try and stop 'em. 

After this one episode the central plot would appear to be how the following female trio fare over the course of the quintessential - so hyperbolic - ups and downs of living in this world: Rayna James as the rightfully established, but threatened, Queen of Country; Juliette Barnes as the conniving pretender; Scarlett [!] O'Conner as the innocent and aspiring real-deal.

Genuine highlight was seeing JD Souther, the great singer/songwriter, playing a wise-man role, a noble persona for one of the truly talented.