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Staged
I love this show SO MUCH.
It's funny (VERY funny, especially if you are familiar with the world it depicts, the actors and directors and writers etc etc), it's clever, it's touching, it's silly, DT & MS are beyond delightful being the daft BFFs we love so much (bitching and making up and generally being amazing, conveying entire conversations in a single look or raised eyebrow or facial expression), EVERYONE is great (ye gods the guest stars! If you haven't watched yet, don't spoil yourself, trust me) and everything is wonderful. (ETA: Spoilers in comments!)
(The music is wonderful too - snippets of the soundtrack here.)
But above all that, there is something about it that is both incredibly specific and also very difficult to explain. There are the obvious zoom jokes and all the little details that show how life has changed. But also the 'action' is interspersed with more general shots... Empty streets, NHS rainbows, rolls of toilet paper, wide shots of the countryside, bathed in sunshine... And it's like an encapsulation of lockdown. March/April, when time seemed to both slow down and speed up. The tone, or mood, of the whole country.
We watched the last three episodes last night, and those moments struck me like a sucker punch. I can't even really formulate why, just that it was a very very specific moment in time and this show manages to capture it within all the other things it does. Staged somehow is Britain in lockdown. It was living history, a pandemic sweeping through the nation (and we locked down too late, the death toll climbing daily...), but it felt mundane. (Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives.)
Lockdown when Boris was sick, before Cummings made a travesty of the rules, before the BLM protests and all the rest of the madness this year has brought (so far). Those quiet, endless weeks. Maybe the show didn't strike anyone else like that, and I didn't even know that it had become such a specific moment in time already. But for me, that's what it hit.
ALSO IT IS VERY VERY FUNNY, and David Tennant and Michael Sheen are my darlings forever. I have a feeling I will be watching it repeatedly. A lot. It's so pure, and joyful; something properly GOOD to come out of this whole sorry mess of a year, like a warm blanket to wrap up in - oh, like people get a blanket when they're in shock. 2020 is a shock, and this show is our blanket.
ETA: Re-watching, and I feel I must re-iterate two things: The odd, languid pace, and the fact that it is VERY VERY FUNNY; I literally can't stop giggling.
It's funny (VERY funny, especially if you are familiar with the world it depicts, the actors and directors and writers etc etc), it's clever, it's touching, it's silly, DT & MS are beyond delightful being the daft BFFs we love so much (bitching and making up and generally being amazing, conveying entire conversations in a single look or raised eyebrow or facial expression), EVERYONE is great (ye gods the guest stars! If you haven't watched yet, don't spoil yourself, trust me) and everything is wonderful. (ETA: Spoilers in comments!)
(The music is wonderful too - snippets of the soundtrack here.)
But above all that, there is something about it that is both incredibly specific and also very difficult to explain. There are the obvious zoom jokes and all the little details that show how life has changed. But also the 'action' is interspersed with more general shots... Empty streets, NHS rainbows, rolls of toilet paper, wide shots of the countryside, bathed in sunshine... And it's like an encapsulation of lockdown. March/April, when time seemed to both slow down and speed up. The tone, or mood, of the whole country.
We watched the last three episodes last night, and those moments struck me like a sucker punch. I can't even really formulate why, just that it was a very very specific moment in time and this show manages to capture it within all the other things it does. Staged somehow is Britain in lockdown. It was living history, a pandemic sweeping through the nation (and we locked down too late, the death toll climbing daily...), but it felt mundane. (Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives.)
Lockdown when Boris was sick, before Cummings made a travesty of the rules, before the BLM protests and all the rest of the madness this year has brought (so far). Those quiet, endless weeks. Maybe the show didn't strike anyone else like that, and I didn't even know that it had become such a specific moment in time already. But for me, that's what it hit.
ALSO IT IS VERY VERY FUNNY, and David Tennant and Michael Sheen are my darlings forever. I have a feeling I will be watching it repeatedly. A lot. It's so pure, and joyful; something properly GOOD to come out of this whole sorry mess of a year, like a warm blanket to wrap up in - oh, like people get a blanket when they're in shock. 2020 is a shock, and this show is our blanket.
ETA: Re-watching, and I feel I must re-iterate two things: The odd, languid pace, and the fact that it is VERY VERY FUNNY; I literally can't stop giggling.
no subject
EVERYTHING. I can't believe how much they cram in there, it's a cornucopia of delights, and yet the pace never feels rushed.
We're trying to be very careful with how we use up the happy things.
You are very wise. I am writing fic, which works in much the same way as it's very silly and daft and takes me out of the world very effectively.
Also slowly rewatching Black Books OMG they all look so young.
Good choice. Quality, quality show. Basically raised our children on it.