Time for a third-episode verdict on The Cleaner, A&E's attempt to kickstart a new habit among viewers of watching original shows on its network. Starring Benjamin Bratt, it's about one man (and his team of former addicts)'s mission to get drug users clean.

Although dealing with an interesting subject matter, The Cleaner is surprisingly uninteresting, as is populated with not desperately exciting characters. Bratt spends all his time bickering with his family who, of course, don't understand his new compulsion and why they come second to it. Couldn't have a happy family, could we? That might be too original.

Very little time has been spent fleshing out the supporting characters or indeed what Bratt actually does as a Cleaner, other than follow people around to prove that, yes, indeed they are addicts. It seems he basically palms them off on rehab clinics then follows them around afterwards to make sure they stay clean. 

There have been a few decent guest stars – Annabeth Gish and Tate Donovan in the latest episode, for example – and the situations involved are different and unusual. It's just the format itself that's preventing the show from becoming something more than 'druggy of the week'.

In the US: Sundays, AMC, 10pm/9c
In the UK: Acquired by BBC4 to air in 2009

Mad Men was something of a surprise for everyone when its first season arrived. Not only was it made by AMC, a network not really known for much – certainly not original dramas – it was very good indeed.

A period piece about Madison Avenue advertising men of the early 60s, it was stylish, clever and eye-opening, and spent considerable time demonstrating how much attitudes to just about everything have changed.

Unsurprisingly, it won a whole raft of awards. Now, here comes the second season, with much to prove. Yet set two years on, it's appropriately relaxed and cool – it has nothing to prove.

Continue reading "Review: Mad Men 2x1"

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We have a little dilemma for The Carusometer here. Generation Kill, the Iraq war mini-series from the creators of The Wire, started well, scoring probably a 1 or a 2 on the Caruso scale. Since then, each episode has been better. The Carusometer doesn't believe in half marks, so it's finding it tricky to know how to score the series. I'm sure it'll work something out by the time I've finished writing.

Three episodes in, it's becoming clear that this really is The Wire of the Iraq war - not necessarily in terms of "showing it how it is", but in terms of message. Those who have been parsing the text, so to speak, will know that The Wire's message is that a lot of people in organisations are rubbish; there are a few good ones but there attempts to change the status quo or affect their superiors' decisions will be quashed by politics; and that the higher-ups will give orders that are as much - or more - about their attempts to climb up the hierarchy or maintain their position than what's actually right on the ground. In essence, nuance and practicality will be crushed by politicking and ideology.

And this is what we have with Generation Kill. The US Marines depicted are very well trained and good at what they do. But their natural organisational inclination to kill anything that moves isn't necessarily a good thing when you're trying to win hearts and minds. The love of medals and the need to win generals' approval means bad decisions are made and often praised. The man on the ground isn't given the resources he needs to conduct the war properly. And those few that use their brains to inform their decisions with the wider picture are often penalised.

As I mentioned in my review of the first episode, this isn't a wholly new message. However, its slow building up through demonstration is and makes it more effective.

We have other Wire-like characteristics as well, such as the way one character can seem to be 'good' in one episode, only to be revealed as a hindrance in another is more nuanced than other war shows have depicted. And we also have the banal bloke-to-bloke dialogue that fills much of the episode, as war is shown to be mostly waiting and discussing South Park.

While it doesn't wow in the same way as The Wire, since its message isn't as new or devastating as that show's, it's certainly worth watching as a piece of intelligent drama.

Read other posts about: The Wire

So we're three episodes into Flashpoint, the Canadian-US co-production that doesn't like to mention the word Canadian. It's a sort of SWAT procedural for hostage situations, but without the omnipresent firepower and machismo you might expect of a US show.

Anyway, we're three episodes in and not much has changed and a formula is emerging. We open with the hostage situation. We backtrack a bit to see how it all started. Then we see how the situation is resolved.

And that's pretty much it. Everything's a bit angsty, as the terrible toll of having to shoot people every other week gets to the tough but sensitive cops. We have a bit of banter, a bit of character background every week. And we definitely don't ever mention that we're Canadian and work in Toronto. Oh no. That would never do.

Although it's reasonably well made with decent scripts, there's nothing too special going on. At the moment, it's interesting if you're into SWAT tactics and procedures with the minimum amount of hyperbole and exaggeration necessary in a TV show. But even that's likely to wane after a while if nothing changes, dramatically. Fingers crossed for future interest.

Christmas is a time traditionally associated with ghost stories. I don't know why that is - maybe it's a pagan hangover, since “let's celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ by scaring each other silly” doesn't strike me as a particularly coherent Christian concept.

Probably the most famous teller of Christmas ghost stories is MR James, the Cambridge don who used to gather friends and students round at Christmas and scare them silly with tales such as Whistle and I'll Come To You, A Warning to the Curious, The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral and Lost Hearts. These were eventually collected into various omnibuses and back in the 60s and 70s, the BBC started adapting the stories, airing a new tale at Christmas.

Initially, just one-offs, the strand eventually was formalised as A Ghost Story for Christmas, with Rosemary Hill as producer and Lawrence Gordon Clark as director. Sticking with James for the first few years, Hill strayed in 1975, getting Andrew Davies to adapt Charles Dickens' The Signalman for the strand. She then chose to forego literary sources altogether and began commissioning original stories instead.

The first of these was Clive Exton's Stigma (which I might deal with at a later time, if you're lucky), but for reasons known only to the Beeb, the strand concluded with John Bowen's The Ice House in 1978. Although BBC2 and BBC4 have repeated many of the episodes and the BFI have released some on DVD, The Ice House has never been repeated. It's a Lost Gem.

Continue reading "Lost Gems: The Ice House"

In the US: Tuesdays, 10/9c, A&E

A&E has something of a thing for Benjamin Bratt at the moment. As well as starring in the colossally expensive The Andromeda Strain remake, he's now starring in the not-as-expensive-as-its-own-marketing-campaign The Cleaner.

Yep, in an effort to get away from being known as the “channel that likes to show Sopranos re-runs”, A&E is spending up to $8 million just on promoting The Cleaner, one of its first original drama series in a very long time.

Building on the dark and gritty image the network already has, The Cleaner explores the world of addiction, whether it's addiction to drugs, gambling, sex or alcohol. Bratt, in a role “inspired” by reality, plays William Banks, a man who attempts to get over his past heroin addiction by weaning others off their addictions.

Unfortunately, “inspired” seems to mean “converted into something a bit like every other television series you've ever seen - and about as realistic”.

Continue reading "Review: The Cleaner 1x1"