Fargo (TV series) review: A remarkable reincarnation

Tuning into Channel 4 on Sunday evening, you might have been inclined to believe that a re-run of the 1996 classic Fargo was being shown rather than a new, high budget drama of the same name. "This is a true story", boomed the opening title card, just as it did nigh on 20 years ago in the Coen Brother's masterpiece, and indeed, Steve Buscemi, who played shifty kidnapper Carl in the film, could easily have been driving that car which crawled down a snow-drenched highway in the programme's opening shot. And while it's clear throughout this seventy minute pilot episode that homage has been paid to the movie at almost every opportunity, Fargo is by no means a copy. In fact, it's a witty, dark and intelligent piece of television which fits in perfectly with the superb first wave of post-Breaking Bad US dramas.

Altering only the year of events from the film's lonely Minnesota setting, Fargo's narrative is, in style, much the same as the original. Martin Freeman plays insurance salesman Lester Nygaard, a character almost comically alike to William H Macy's Larry all the way down to a perfectly nailed accent. Despite the similarities, Freeman's casting is a stroke of genius; the timid and tentative persona we saw so many times in the early days of Sherlock making for a sublime character development as Nygaard is pushed to the edge of sanity by a life of being bullied and undermined. His performance is complimented by that of Billy Bob Thornton, who plays the second lead role of sadistic killer Lorne Malvo. Although comparable to Peter Stormare's cold psychotic Gaear in the Coen's movie, Malvo becomes a far more interesting character even by the end of this episode, evolving into a far darker personality than a mere hired gun cliché. He perhaps represents a merging together of the two kidnappers portrayed in the film; Buscemi's articulate nature combined with Stormare's cold blooded brutality combining to form a more complete figure than ether. As for the side of the law, there's no replacing Frances McDormand's Oscar winning portraying of small town and heavily pregnant cop Marge, but Allison Tolman makes an admirable job of stepping into her shoes as the near-identical Molly. Despite the obvious and inevitable links between the characterisation of film and programme, it's likely that with another nine episodes and with such strong writing most of the cast will become individuals in their own right, as Freeman and Thornton already have.

As the original was, the episode is brilliantly scripted, paying exquisite attention to creating believable dialogue between the characters while also keeping the pace flowing and entertaining, and of course it's not without the usual twists and turns along the way. Indeed, even if you're familiar with the style employed here, these moments of sudden madness remain shocking, an effect only partially augmented by their frankly alarming level of gratuitous gore. The direction is perhaps a little more focussed on the programme's brutal violence than the more subtle Coens were, you'll notice the camera lingering a little too long over its casualties, which creates the unfortunate impression of mere pulp fiction. Fans of the film will be happy to note the lack of repetition of the movie, but in addition to the underlying recurring style in setting, characters and music, there are a number of "easter eggs" for Coen connoisseurs. While these hints are typically subtle and neatly implemented, there's one clumsy scene which so blatantly mirrors the famous moment where Buscemi and  Stormare are pulled over by a police officer on an endless snowy road as to be unfortunately predictable in its take on "what would have happened if the officer had just walked away". Still, it does at least serve to highlight the differences between Thornton's Malvo and the movie's incompetent criminal duo.

Fargo is a stellar effort, updating the Coen's brilliant picture to the present day with a new storyline and great performances while paying it's respects to the stark genius of the original. It may be a little clumsy and overeager to profess its adulation of the film, but when a programme is this clever and entertaining that's more than easy to overlook.

8/10

Breaking Bad, Season 1 review: Bryan Cranston shines at the start of a saga

In the September of last year, the programme many have hailed as the greatest American television drama of all time came to its dramatic conclusion, five years and sixty two episodes after its inception. Now that the dust surrounding Breaking Bad’s final episodes has finally cleared, what better time to revisit the show’s first season, originally aired back in 2008?

American popular culture has forever cherished a love affair with drug dealing; The Wire for instance; one of the most critically acclaimed US TV shows in history; focused on the efforts of the Baltimore Police to crack down on the rampant local narcotics trade. Breaking Bad is something else though, in that it takes its cynical and uncompromising stance from the perspective of the criminals themselves. Walter White (Bryan Cranston) is a quiet and mild mannered chemistry teacher living, to a certain extent happily, with his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and his son Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte). Of course, events take an unpleasant turn on Walter’s 50^th Birthday with the discovery that he has contracted terminal cancer, and it’s not long before he’s cooking methamphetamine with former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to generate extra money for his family’s future. The show’s sharp and intelligent scripts draw a wealth of black comedy in the early episodes of the series by juxtaposing Walt’s timid persona with the murky and violent world of illegal drugs, but more impressive than this is the sriptwriters’ grasp of the importance of character. By the conclusion of the first season, there are no cut-out protagonists, with every character given time to develop into a believable person, and still better are the performances given by the actors themselves. Cranston is perfect as Walt, presenting a dark portrait of an utterly pathetic man adapting to a life of crime and creating a character that can be pitiful and terrifying almost simultaneously. Aaron Paul also shines as amateur dealer Jesse, both angered by his former teacher’s slip into the drugs trade and impressed by his professionalism and attention to creating a “reliable product”.

Where this first season can be accused of making mistakes is in its plotting. Always intended as a slow burner, the programme certainly takes more time than it needs to on subplotlines in order to stress the importance of its moral decisions and to develop its characters. However, it’s all too easy to get bogged down in a plot detail while using this technique, which is exactly what happens on several early episodes. While these do wonders for giving extremely minor characters lives of their own, they lack enough action and conflict to make them particularly entertaining or watchable. Fortunately, the scripts pick up the pace towards the finale of this seven episode series to set up a shocking set piece conclusion.

So a first series which is in many ways transitional fails to instate the dramatic, overarching plotlines employing in later seasons for consistently exciting episodes, but Breaking Bad is at its best when it’s somewhat understated anyway. By mixing constant development of character relationships with some intense set pieces the series manages to create television drama at its best by the final episodes, and paves the way for the darker and more spectacular seasons to come.

7/10

Misfits Season 1 review: A brilliant slice of black comedy

There are silly ideas, and then there are silly ideas. But Misfits is one of the silliest of them all; as a group of young offenders are exposed to a bizarre lightning storm, gifting them with a range of supernatural powers. It might sound like one of Stan Lee’s wet dreams, but against all the odds it works. Misfits is dark, violent and hilarious, and it’s one of the best teen dramas of the last decade.

One of the great joys of the programme is in drawing fantastic performances from its young cast. While the characters initially seem somewhat forced and clichéd (Kelly the chav, Simon the loner, Nathan the cocky git), Misfits spends plenty of screen time developing them and fleshing out their back stories, an impressive feat for a short series of just six episodes. Nathan particularly (played by the wonderful Robert Sheehan) becomes are extremely interesting and likeable character.

Another of the best things about Misfits is that it’s brilliantly funny. The scripts are unusually crisp and sharp for a Channel 4 series, giving the cast plenty of opportunity to bounce off each other with delirious black humour. It’s exceptionally dark stuff too, with bizarre deaths and violent crimes being uncompromisingly brought to the screen. Violence is frequent and graphic, with no episode being quite complete without at least one inevitable killing. The show’s gritty suburban setting combine with this violence to forge an atmosphere that can be at times terrifying, but it rarely becomes too intense, the action being broken up by the programme’s trademark brand of humour.

For me, where Misfits really makes an improvement over similar programmes is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s got a silly storyline and it knows it, with the script regularly taking the mickey out of how ridiculous it is.

 Misfits is, impressively, a great series full of great moments. It’s got excellent acting, stellar scripts and lashings of dark humour. It’s a show so wonderful and addictive that, when Nathan prophesises “by this time next week, it’ll be back to the same old boring shit”, you don’t for one moment believe him.

8/10