Edge of Darkness

Edge of Darkness was first broadcast on BBC 2 thirty five years ago. Immediately afterwards, it was given a repeat on BBC 1 – yes, it was that good and it later won 6 BAFTA's. Watching it in 2020 via the superbly produced Blu-Ray release only confirms that what they got so right back then when broadcast in 1985 stands up all too well in 2020.

CD single and Blu-Ray

I know, I know, culturally, it’s a million miles away from where we are today – the fashion screams mundane ‘80’s, computers are quaintly text based with dot-matrix printers, every time a telephone rings, you’re deafened by the bell and, on the surface, the politics are ancient, but for all of that, this tale of international nuclear conspiracy holds up very, very well.

And whilst the nuclear conspiracy tale might be one to draw you in, it is the journey of Yorkshire police officer Ron Craven (a never better Bob Peck), whose daughter (a young Joanne Whalley) is murdered in front of him and the investigation as to why she was killed that drives the story. Indeed, Craven’s descent into what appears to be a grief filled madness takes up a good third of the story – visited as he is by her ghost and the flashbacks to her childhood.

The special features are a decent addition, but nothing different from the DVD release

It is not all about Craven though, though he is the glue that holds the story together, as we are introduced to a supporting cast that lifts each episode of EoD to new heights. From Joe Don Baker’s slightly unhinged CIA agent Darius Jedburgh and Jack Watson’s old-school union leader James Godbolt; to the perfect pairing of Charles Kay and Ian McNeice as government fixers Pendleton and Harcourt, there isn’t a duff piece of casting here. Being a BBC production, there are some lovely real-life cameo’s of then current TV presenters and politicians which adds flavour to the production.

Mixing nuclear politics, 1980’s socialism and Gaia theory, EoD never quite goes full mental with it’s story, remaining grounded throughout (though famously, Peck refused to entertain the idea that his character turn into a tree in the final shot). With 20 weeks of production and a budget of £2 million, writer Troy Kennedy Martin and director Martin Campbell are given more than enough room to tell their tale well. Over six episodes, the story is slowly unfurled and tension built and, despite what might seem a pedestrian plot, nothing is wasted. Every plot point is dealt with in some way, even if it is just a seemingly throw away line. There is no sense of bloat or padding – everything has it’s place. This is an intelligent drama and requires, nay demands the viewer's attention. That’s what gives EoD it’s deeper appeal. It's engrossing and by the time you get to the penultimate episode (Northmoor), you know a worthy finale is near. And it’s Northmoor that also demonstrates one of the key highlights of the show: the soundtrack.

Composed by Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton, the music is pitch perfect for the tone and feel of the program. Whether it be the soulful, slow beats that accompany Craven’s grief or the heart-pounding clean guitar work of Clapton during the action sequences in Northmoor, every track fits. It is a successful pairing that continued to Hollywood with the Lethal Weapon series. I used to have the soundtrack on BBC cassette until it disappeared during a house move. The replacement CD single was a great find and no, it’s not for sale. At the time of writing, there is one for sale on eBay for £50 which is just plain nuts – and no, I didn’t pay that for my copy!

CD single with adapter - it's so sute!

With spot on politics for its time, on the surface EoD might seem anachronistic now, but that is to ignore the undercurrent running through it. Despite the support of Jedburgh and help from Pendleton and Harcourt, Craven is on a one man quest and by the final episode, you understand that despite whatever actions undertaken by individuals, the greater political cause will continue in its own, monolithic way. This is shown in a lovely, understated manner when Harcourt, Pendleton and Bennett (a superbly slimy Hugh Fraser playing the boss of IIF, the owners of the nuclear site at Northmoor) sit down for a meal in the final episode. Also, any comparison of the political style and content of the two main UK parties in 1985 and their modern day counterparts are... well, that's up to you. 

I originally owned this on DVD which wasn’t really a good transfer – after all, it was broadcast quality, which for those of you who lived through the ‘80’s wasn’t that great. The Blu-Ray transfer, however, is superb. Seriously, some of the shots in this show look almost blockbuster in quality – such was the benefit of using film and having the effort put in for the Blu-Ray release. If you can only pick it up on DVD by all means watch it – the quality of the writing, direction and acting are still there, just you’ll get a better visual and audio experience on the more modern format.

For me, Edge of Darkness is the quintessential 1980’s political thriller. It gets so much right, even if the politics, culture and tech have changed in the intervening years. Whether you watch this as a piece of entertainment or as an historical curio, it is certainly worth your time. It is truly a masterpiece! 

Dreamcast: Year One - A Review

Dreamcast: Year One by Andrew J Dickinson is a love letter. A one hundred and ten page love letter to be sure but a heartfelt one too, and if you’ve read my rambling piece about Sega’s final home console here, you can already guess as to why I bought this book. An unofficial telling of the console’s first year, I can honestly say that anyone who is a fan of the console (or videogaming history in general) should pick up a copy as soon as they can. Yes, it’s that good.

An A5 softback, this is a good quality publication with a glossy finish. Screenshots are well presented and the artwork is well matched to the topic. Overall, there is an air of quality about it and at £10 for the physical copy, feels good value too.

Beginning with the background to the genesis (see what I did there...) of Sega’s home consoles of the Nineties, Dickinson guides us neatly through the minefield of company politics and competitors in the home console market of the period to the eventual launch of the 128-bit wonder in Japan, North America, Europe and Australasia. For me, this was much like re-watching Death on the Nile – you know the story beats (if not quite remembering the specific plot points) and whilst you know how it ends, the story still has that car crash fascination that makes it hard to turn away from. Dickinson’s telling of the tale (the Dreamcast, not Death on the Nile) makes it all the more engrossing.

Next up are the interviews, and what a selection they are. Starting with former Sega of America COO Bernie Stoller, you get an on-the-spot measure of the challenge Sega faced when trying to get the machine into players homes. The conflict between Sega of America and Sega of Japan is laid bare and I learned a few new things reading through Stoller’s answers. The following three interviews cover the UK magazine scene of the period, with Caspar Field (DC-UK), Ed Lomas (Official Dreamcast Magazine UK) and Dave Kelsall (Official Saturn Magazine UK). These are revealing interviews of how gaming magazines operated in their heyday – and how Heath Robinson some of the production kit was! As noted in the book, at a time when titles like the Official Playstation Magazine had a circulation knocking on 500,000 copies per month (!), times were certainly different and part of me started feeling very nostalgic to those days of anticipation for the next issue of whatever mag I was into at the time. What you do get from this trio is the passion each brought to their job, and I can certainly say for DC-UK, that passion was obvious when reading each issue. The final interview is with Tom Charnock who runs the largest online community for the console, The Dreamcast Junkyard. This is a fan point of view piece and I cannot disagree with the gentleman’s thoughts at all.

The next section is a set of retrospectives (of titles both good and bad) that cover a good range of games (my favourite being Toy Commander which, at the time, simply blew me away with it’s graphical style and tongue-in-cheek gameplay). We also get a number of mini-pieces from Kickstarter backers about their most memorable games, which is a nice little touch.

Finally, we have the games list: every title launched in the console’s first year with box art and region specific release dates where applicable. Flicking through these pages made me realise just how many of these games I actually got to play at the time! Where the time and money came from, I have not a clue, but there were some good memories to enjoy from that section alone.

Naturally, since this is Year One, there is the promise of a Year Two publication and I for one will be supporting the Kickstarter for that book when it is announced. As per the update on the first book’s Kickstarter page (28/02/20) the second book should get a funding launch in May/June this year with a delivery date about the same time next year. In the meantime, you can (and should) buy this one. With the current Corvid-19 situation, only the digital pdf version is available at present (tweet from the author 17/03/20) but at a reduced price of £5, which is excellent value. Hopefully, physical copies will be available for those who want one when circumstances permit.

So there you have it, Dreamcast: Year One. A superlative look at one of the most underrated and under-appreciated home consoles ever released and a tome for any videogame fan’s library, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. You can keep up with the author via Twitter here, where you'll also find details about ordering a digital copy of this fine tome.

February goings on

February's shenanigans began with an early morning wake up on Sunday 2^nd for a 90 minute trip to the Vapnartak wargames show held at the Knavesmire stand at York Racecourse. A decent show by any measure, it occupies four floors of the stand, with most of the traders occupying the ground, first and second levels, with demo, participation and competition games mixed in here and there, plus more on the third level.

Taken before any of the public were let in.

No action at all in this shot.

As you can see from these pictures, it’s quite well laid out and there is a decent amount of space between stands, something that other shows in the past have lacked, especially Partizan when it was held at Kelham Hall. With a good amount of traders, there was pretty much something for everyone, and I know I lingered far too long at Dave Lanchester’s book stall for my own good, but that’s for another time. Of the demo games I saw, two caught my eye.

Look at the size of that thing!

Rather tasty looking too...

The “Down on the Adriatic Sea” game was a nice set up (Fiume 1920), topped by the frankly ludicrous pre-dreadnought at one end of the table and some really pretty looking forts. Then there was the Entebbe game, which, for me, looked absolutely brilliant. Whilst there was no sign of Elizabeth Taylor, I did feel that if I were at put a game like that on, I would add three competing camera crews. Impish, I know, but there was an indecent rush to dramatise the operation in the months after and there is the opportunity to be a little bit silly here and add a bit of humour for the players.

Attendance at the show was good but, like all Sunday shows, just after 2pm, Thanos must have clicked his fingers and pretty much all of the punters vanished, leaving the traders to have a wander about amongst themselves. Some things never change.

The venue remains one of the better ones, airy and well lit. Show food will never win awards but it must be said that York’s is at the better end of the scale. That could not be said for the bar. Now a bar at a show is always a welcome thing, but three 500ml bottles of a decent Theakston’s Pale Ale tipped the wallet at £17.40! Ouch!

This was sipped very, very slowly...

February saw the release of Locke and Key on Netflix. An adaptation of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s supernatural comic book series, this follows the Locke family as they discover that the ancestral family house is home to magical keys that can unlock doors (and people) in ways that are both good and bad. All is not well, though, as there is an entity after the keys for its own purposes. This one interested me from the trailer as it promised a dark, horror filled supernatural tale that, at 10 episodes, had enough room to breath but not sprawl about for seemingly endless episodes. My good lady, not a horror fan at all, viewed the trailer with some trepidation and warned that she’d give it a go but reserved the right to drop out at any point. She needn’t have worried.

You see, whilst Locke and Key is a supernatural drama, the horror elements promised in the trailer (and the source material which, I’ll admit, I am not overly familiar with) just aren’t as prominent as advertised. Yes, there are some mildly scary moments but it pulls its punches when it comes to delivering genuine scares. The story is good and I can’t fault the production values. The cast are, generally speaking, very good, with just a couple of instances of scenery chewing that kind of fit but also take a bit away from the beats of the story. Where the show really falls down though is its reliance on familiar tropes – the high school kids, whilst rightly focusing on the nerdier bunch of friends, ticks pretty much every box when it comes to jocks and “popular” girls. There are nods to modern day social media that have been added cos, well, it’s 2020, but some dramatic character beats are glossed over – the mother’s alcoholism being a prime example. Then again, the show has an issue with alcohol as one character polishes off a half of a bottle of whiskey and seems just tickety boo when dealing with an attack on the family just an hour later. I know the younger of us can handle booze better but that is pushing the bounds of reality. Oh, and Keyhouse, the family home is a lovely building but suffers from that familiar plot device – even with the doors open, you can’t hear shouting downstairs when you’re upstairs. Come on, it’s not that big a house! With enough story threads left open for a second season (still unannounced at the time of posting), Locke and Key is a decent show and worth a watch. It never feels like it is overstaying its welcome and the premise has promise. Give it a go if this type of show appeals.

My good lady and I have also managed to catch up a little bit with a DVD boxset: Blakes 7. We watched the first series last year and came to the general conclusion that whilst they accomplished miracles on the budget, it had not aged well at all. Still, there are four series in total so we said we’d get through them eventually. Series two is pretty much a direct follow up to the first, with just a couple of cast changes: Brian Croucher takes over as Commander Travis and we lose one of the main group near the half way point of the series – no spoilers but to be honest, it’s no great surprise given that the character was left on the shelf most of the time, so in the words of a Newcastle Upon Tyne resident, he had to gan… (Sorry, not sorry!).

Once again, the budget (or lack thereof) is plain to see, but considering what they managed to put on the screen, it’s not bad – think of how bad the first couple of seasons of ST:TNG look now. True, the model work varies from decent to just plain naff, and any backdrop work (Voices from the Past, I’m looking at you) is quite laughable. More serious issues arise from the acting which, outside of a couple of key characters, is rather iffy and certainly not helped by the writers wanting to prefix everything (and I mean everything) with the word “space”. Cos, you know, it’s set in space. With forty years hindsight, it seems to treat the audience with a degree of condescension that the RP accent highlights as well. Bless him, even Mr Croucher struggles to get his mouth around his lines whilst refusing to lapse into his real accent. There is also the feeling that they were trying to fill the timeslot with what they had rather than produce a show with episode lengths that matched the budget - you'll see far too many lingering camera shots and scene setting model work that just seems to be there to fill in the time. It is easy to mock a show that occupied a tea time TV slot but I genuinely like Blakes 7. The premise, the story lines and the feel of the show are just right, but it’s the execution of those that falls down – but as I have said above, they accomplished miracles on the budget and for obvious reasons, they couldn’t show too much violence or explore the more serious themes to their fullest extent. The show does, however, remain timeless for the ultimate double act of Kerr Avon (the late, great Paul Darrow) and Vila Restal (Michael Keating). The banter between these two is brilliant and you can’t help but think that Alan Rickman watched these shows when preparing for the role of Snape in the Harry Potter films.

An unexpected snow day also gave us the chance to re-watch (for me, at least) Edge of Darkness, re-released last year as a shiny Blu-Ray collection. No new content as such but the presentation is faultless and at times you forget you’re watching a thirty five year old TV show. For those who haven’t seen it, EoD is a classic political thriller, as DI Ron Craven (the never better Bob Peck) searches for the truth behind his daughters murder, leading him into the secret world of nuclear politics. I'll come back to this in a later post.

Reading wise, I managed to finish a couple of history books that joined the charity donation pile (I am trying to trim the library down a little bit at the moment. When I started encroaching onto the fourth bookcase, I realised I had a problem – and no, it’s not a shortage of bookcases, sadly…). I also purchased and finished the paperback edition of The Expanse series eighth book, Timat’s Wrath. Regular readers will know I am a fan of both the book series and the accompanying TV show (for which those of you who have Amazon Prime, you can catch up with all four seasons now, whilst for everyone else, seasons 1 to 3 are available on DVD and Blu-ray). Timat’s Wrath is the penultimate novel and you can tell straight away that loose ends are being tidied up ready for the finale. Some might feel aggrieved that familiar and favourite characters are bumped off with almost casual ease but the sprawl of story hanging after seven books means there has to be some culling and to be fair to the authors, they do it rather well. It only took three days to finish this one (the joys of public transport) and it left me wanting more. The Expanse series is one of those rare multiple volume stories that actually tells a tale, unlike say The Game Of Thrones books that are simply too long, meandering and padded to be enjoyable, at least for me. Of note with both series though and, it seems, most modern sci-fant fiction, is the fixation on food – what people are eating, the taste, texture etc, as if there is a writing school out there that teaches would-be authors that to get readers to empathise with the characters, keep telling them what they’ve had for dinner. It’s really not necessary.

And so that's it, until next time.