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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.
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Also, this may be the point where I have to admit to myself that I maaaaay be very slightly in love with Michael Sheen. At the very least, I could sit and listen to that beautiful voice of his all night and all day. :)
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Elisi, I loved your write-up. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and you are very articulate here about why, when all I could manage was flailing.
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♥ ♥ ♥ There was a lot of flailing also. But maybe watching it in two chunks helped. I flailed a lot after watching the first 3 episodes, but didn't want to write about it until I had seen the whole thing, so the initial flailing had time to settle. :)
And I just realised that I didn't write anything about the lovely ladies, which is very bad of me, considering that I low-key have a crush on Georgia Tennant.
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And happy writing. ;)
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And yeah, I know she's brilliant and that I ought to read more. *sighs and looks at to-read pile*
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But Earthsea is the tip of the iceberg. She is, indeed, brilliant.
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I have read... Well, I read the Good Omens novel and the script book and Mary Oliver and Paradise Lost - all because of Good Omens.
And a few other things (a lot of Dante/writings around The Divine Comedy), but yeah. It all has a common theme.
But Earthsea is the tip of the iceberg. She is, indeed, brilliant.
I blame my local library (when I was a teen) for not having more of her stuff! (I devoured Anne McCaffrey and Diana Wynne Jones etc.)
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Yep. The four books I've read this year have all been GO-related. :p
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I will get there. Eventually. (Haven't read any Pratchett either...)
Yep. The four books I've read this year have all been GO-related. :p
OTOH I love how a new show/fandom makes me explore stuff I wouldn't otherwise have done. I read Dante because of Doctor Who, and it's one of the best things I've ever done.
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Woo! Hurrah for Mysterious Means!
Which is particularly nice because, I have to say, this weird British comedy genre in which actors play self-mocking versions of themselves is one that I'm not always entirely comfortable with. But this had just the right touch to pull it off, I think.
It's always a risk (I am looking at Extras, which I have not watched much of... although the lack of Ricky Gervais immediately made Staged a more appetising prospect), but I think that the fact that it was a) built on a very solid real friendship and b) made that friendship the foundation of everything else were brilliant decisions. There were shades of Silly Actors, but at the heart of everything was a relationship, both the good and the bad. <3
Also, this may be the point where I have to admit to myself that I maaaaay be very slightly in love with Michael Sheen. At the very least, I could sit and listen to that beautiful voice of his all night and all day. :)
Mmmmmm. My other half is quite close to having the hair, except he doesn't have the curls. MS is just such a good actor. Although DT has the prettiest eyes. And I also low-key have a crush on Georgia Tennant, who is just amazing.
I love all the things.
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Yes, indeed. Also, it didn't go in for cringe comedy stuff, which I think is actually my problem with most such things. It had some actual heart instead. :)
MS is just such a good actor.
Really astonishingly good. I have to admit, he wasn't on my radar much before Good Omens and now I'm kind of thinking, "My god, why haven't I seen everything this man has been in?! He is a treasure!"
And I also low-key have a crush on Georgia Tennant, who is just amazing.
She is great. I was really happy to see her again.
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This. (I can't with cringe comedy. I find it unwatchable.) But these two... ♥
Really astonishingly good. I have to admit, he wasn't on my radar much before Good Omens and now I'm kind of thinking, "My god, why haven't I seen everything this man has been in?! He is a treasure!"
Sort of the same here? I think it's because he's never been typecast, he's just done everything. And the things he's been in haven't been what I would go for? But I am definitely going to check out some of his older work now!
She is great. I was really happy to see her again.
Also a great portrait of a marriage. I felt very seen. :)