Stories’ end
It’s that time of year again when television series traditionally come to an end. What is amazing is that this habit actually still survives despite the fact that our entertainment consumption has become totally disrupted by new technology, evolved viewing habits, globalization, narrowcasting, streaming, time-shifting and anarchy in general. Spring, which in the natural world (in the northern hemisphere anyway) is a time of new birth and sowing, still clings stubbornly for a lot of us to the idea that this is when TV series end and major Hollywood blockbusters premiere. Though the old communal viewing era when people all sat in front of their televisions at the same time to watch the same three networks is well over, event broadcasts, popular series and fear of spoilers still compel a lot of us to watch certain things at more or less the same time. During this particular month, some notable series take their final bows and are worth saluting.
• The Durrells: We came to this UK ITV series rather late, but thanks to the magic of streaming, we caught up with the first three seasons rather quickly and in time to watch the final six episodes as broadcast live to air by satellite. This was escapist entertainment at its finest. It fits into that fine tradition of Brits wandering away from their cold, clammy isle and into the Mediterranean region to experience culture shock and consciousness raising. It is inspired by (more than “based on”) the true story of Louisa Durrell and her children, who became expatriates on the island of Corfu in the 1930s. No more than the books it is based on (The Corfu Trilogy by naturalist/zookeeper Gerald Durrell, younger brother of Lawrence, author of The Alexandria Quartet), it does not pretend to be an historical account but rather a series of entertaining adventures loosely based on actual events. The TV version is basically Shirley Valentine—except that Shirley’s husband is dead and she brings all her kids with her on her romantic foreign adventure. Louisa is played by Keeley Hawes, whose face seems tailor-made for period roles such as this. The delightful exoticism and fish-out-of-water humor is reminiscent of Local Hero and Northern Exposure. For four seasons we were teased by the will-they-or-won’t-they attraction between Louisa and unhappily-married-and-hunky Spiros (Alexis Georgoulis). I will miss all of this wonderful ensemble cast, perhaps mostly Anna Savva as the wonderfully evocative and mythically put-upon housekeeper Lugaretzia.
• Veep: Did this overtly provocative political satire actually outlive its time? Premiering during the 2012 US primary season, it injected a necessary dose of British-style cynicism and subversiveness into an increasingly restive American political landscape. Created by Scotsman Armando Iannucci, it was a variation on his scatological TV broadside The Thick of It. The comic genius that is Julia Louis-Dreyfus played Selena Meyer, a practiced politician cum mediocre human being, whose quixotic presidential campaign has landed her the vice-presidency. The sprawling cast was pitch perfect, the relentless misanthropy breathtaking. The personal interactions were often hard to watch, the political maneuvering soul-crushing. Yet one had the feeling this is what really went on among officeholders, advisers and journalists when off-camera. Why then was so much of the country so shocked when it got a president that evoked the same tone in front of cameras? It was as though the people applauding and lauding this show had not even been paying attention and were still determined to cling to the old PR artifice that Veep exposed. By the time we got to the final season, it looked as though the show had been completely overtaken by history, but to its credit it still found a way to push its own unique envelope.
• The Big Bang Theory: My cousin Trudy, who actually studied at Caltech, was baffled by this show’s portrayal of theoretical physicists. None of the many she knew were anything like the comic-book-and-science-fiction-and-fantasy-obsessed nerds that populated this sitcom. I could explain to her that, for whatever reason, the characters may have ostensibly been university scientists but, at heart, they were really software developers. Trust me. The success and long run of this show is the real revenge of the nerds. Like many sitcoms, this started out with a one-joke premise: watch how these male geeks have no clue about women. Jim Parsons’s Sheldon, who was clearly somewhere on the autism spectrum, gave every indication of being asexual. In the beginning, Kunal Nayyar’s Raj was afflicted by mutism around females. Over time, though, we watched them mature (after a fashion) and form committed relationships. The most poignant character of all of them, Johnny Galecki’s Leonard had the toughest lot. Sure, he married the hot blonde (the invariably entertaining Kaley Cuoco), but will he ever—at this point I have yet to see the final couple of episodes—be able to overcome the trauma of the soul-destroying mother from hell, as embodied by the wonderful Christine Baranski?
• Game of Thrones: What is there to say about this? I mean, that has not already been said. I mean, multiple times already. Eight years ago I sat down to watch the initial episode “Winter Is Coming” with my then-ten-year-old daughter. We had enjoyed The Lord of the Rings together and I thought his might be a similar bonding experience. Thank God she found the opening minutes a bit scary and we turned it off—before all the violence, cruelty, savagery, sadism, masochism, wanton carnal sex and abject horror of politics as usual. Instead, it was myself and the Missus who watched after the kid was safely in bed. As non-judgmental as I usually am, even I found some of the goings-on distasteful and wondered if I was fit for it. Yet the story was too compelling. What a brutal world George R.R. Martin created. Every decent soul seemed to get snuffed out spectacularly. Horrible villains had their way with impunity, their ruthless reigns ending only when someone even worse came along. Then, in the final season, things seemed to be turning around. Faced with an overwhelming supernatural threat from beyond the great wall, enemies came together and found a higher purpose to fight for. Former villains turned noble. Surviving good guys became leaders. Were we actually going to get a happy—and uplifting—ending? We have one final episode to go, but the penultimate installment definitely put the lie to the idea of a fairy tale resolution. No more than Veep, this show is telling us, don’t bother to follow that leader you think can make a better world. You will only be disappointed.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Infinity Saga: It is not just television shows that have wrapped up this month. One of the most ambitious—and expensive and profitable—film cycles ever attempted reached a successful and satisfying conclusion with Avengers: Endgame. After 22 movies belonging to three different phases, the MCU’s saga, which began with Jon Favreau’s Iron Man in 2008, tied up a whole lot of plot threads and character arcs in one big, shiny, kinetic, bittersweet 181-minute package. (Apparently, the real final movie in the saga is actually Spider-Man: Far from Home, which is due out in July, but that is being described as more of a coda.) The individual movies generally stood on their own—each with its own tone, sensibility and varying sense of reality—well enough that it did not feel like one long, tedious story, yet in hindsight it was clearly all plotted out pretty thoughtfully. And it wasn’t/isn’t just movies. The saga tied in with the TV series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel’s Agent Carter as well as a bunch more shows coming on Netflix and even more to come on Hulu the new Disney+. We’ve definitely come a long way since we Marvel fans groused about there not being any cool movies based on our favorite comic books like there were for Superman and Batman. You see, George R.R. Martin? Sometimes there is a happy ending.
-S.L., 15 May 2019
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