'You're cool with women being enslaved and forced to sell their bodies out for all kinds of horrible sex acts and body modifications, right?' 'Well, I sat through Master of Martial Hearts.' by Kara
Thursday, October 24, 2013 at 10:03 AM

So I'm going to go see RiffTrax do Night of the Living Dead tonight. They always manage to do their Hallowe'en show on or around one of the Latin Teacher's birthday (and thus just after the Weird Uncle's birthday). Tried to talk the g'father into going but he don't do zombies.

Okay, I'm gonna talk about a thing, so everyone shut up and listen to me talk about the thing.

I have this very strict specific way of approaching my watchlist. Well, my solo watchlist, not shared ones. I have accounts on Anime Sols, Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Netflix (and Daisuki but I'm gonna be working for them so whatever). I follow a few video bloggers on YouTube. I also have a Netflix DVD subscription, a few shelves of unwatched DVDs, and a hard drive full of shows (not to mention currently running shows). I NEED a System. I HAVE a System. Nothing breaks my damn system. It's why I haven't watched Supernatural yet.

So when the Latin Teachers approached me to watch The Thick of It with the sort of vehemence reserved only for when people are willing to bet their life on me liking a recommendation, I put it in my queue. Somewhere at the bottom. Not out of spite or stubbornness, but because there's a lot of stuff on my list. They'd quote it prefacing it with 'We're not bugging you to watch it but there's this one line' and such. I fully intended to get around to it, but it takes a lot to make me break my System.

The lead actor getting cast as the Doctor is one of those things.

So finally, finally, I by-God sat down to watch it and holy HELL it's good. I'm not very much into politically-themed shows unless they shoot at every political party equally or no party in particular. TTOI falls into the latter camp and deals more with politicians than politics. It's sort of like Yes, Minister's drunk angry new roommate. It's done in the sort of candid-camera quasi-scripted style of The Office, which is occasionally a turn-off for me (I don't know why, don't ask). But this is honestly fantastically done, and even for something that is based 100% on political procedure and governmental inner-working-ness, it's not dry at all.

Well, not to me. I also thought Withnail & I was intriguing so.

The lead character in question, Malcolm Tucker, is probably viewer priority #1. He's the PM's enforcer and a spin doctor who's basically there to keep shit under control. And he usually does this by means of colourful metaphors, creative swearing, and general shouting and bullying. (So, you know, if you're hearing jokes about the incoming Doctor swearing and screaming, that's why.) He's overall kind of great and I feel pretty horrible about liking a bully in a TV show that much (never mind that he might make it onto my list of fictional husbands, which is currently at ... 8? Co-Writer keeps better track than I do). But it's a fantastic show for real and you need to give it one episode just to see what you think.

Fortunately it is all available on Hulu, and the movie, In the Loop (which I have not watched yet), is on Netflix streaming. Yeah.

This does make a nice break from the harem shows I'm being forced to watch for one of my side editing jobs.

If you have been, fuckity-bye.