Giver Of Gifts

As Tim pointed out, we but peolpe Christmas presents because we expect them in return. Tim got me three xbox games for Christmas (after the droll hilarity of passing an HMV gift card between the two of us), none of which were all that cheap. So... that would mean that in order to truly acknowledge what he was after, I would have to spend more money on him (a sometime irritating co-worker and fellow gamer nerd) than I would on members of my close family.

That seems a bit... greedy, doesn't it? I mean, surely giving away that kind of stuff in the first place means that I'm now obliged to return something of roughly equal value (which he didn't get, since he got roughly the same for my brother and we teamed up to get him stuff that was roughly equal to one of our gift packages). But if I simply can't afford that (which I can), or if I simply don't want to get him that, should I have to?

He's been trying to get me to acknowledge the spirit of Christmas for a while now, and he hasn't really succeeded, but he did get me some bitching xbox games, so I guess that I'll fork out for some stuff for him. It'd be rude and unseasonal not to. But next year? Oh next year he's going on the same £30 budget that I get everyone's gifts from, no matter what he pulls out of his hat. I always figure that if you can't do it for £30, why do it?

THE FADES.

As I said a couple of months back, I'm not doing my TV blog anymore, instead I'm gonna talk about the occasional show in here. Well, The Fades is the first example of that that I'm gonna do. This show came out of nowhere on the BBC, written by the Jack Thorne (veteran of This Is England follow up series '86 and now '88, as well as doing some work on Skins and Cast Offs) and starring a bunch of people that were familiar British TV faces. Daniel Kaluuya had been on Skins playing a similiar character, Joe Dempsie was another Skins graduate, Tom Ellis has been on more TV shows in the last few years than many camera crews, Natalie Dormer was in Silk, The Tudors and even frickin' Captain America and I know that I recognise Clare Rushbrook from somewhere, but can't recall where.

Only real newcomers for me were Ian de Caestecker as the lead, Paul, and Johnny Harris. I then discovered that Johnny Harris is awesome and I want him to be in everything.

So, this show is basically GIEST: THE SIN-EATERS, the TV series. It's about a boy who grows angelic powers to fight ghosts and be torn between that and his family life.

Sounds simple, and it is. It's brilliantly effective, overly cheeky and exceptionally nerdy. It has all the right beats, all the correct pacing to make this a great show.

The absolute crowner of the series is the final episode, not for the actual climax (which was great), but because it really, really showed up Steven Moffat and Toby Whithouse, who showrun for Doctor Who and Being Human respectively. You know why? Because unlike those two shows, the final episode of the The Fades was the natural and explosive culmination of all the events that had come before it in the series. You'd think that'd be bog standard for a TV series, but no, Moffat and Whithouse had this tendency to go completely bananas and set the last episode in a different town with no pacing or to create a pointless sub-universe of all time crashing together or some other utterly random show-breaking episode that had nothing to do with the episodes that came before it.

Funny how that makes things better.

If I had a couple of complaints about The Fades, then it'd be that the show didn't get the best out of Ian de Caestecker (who proved a much better actor in Young James Herriot), and made him feel wooden to the audience. Mac's 'Previously On' sections were at first endearing and then fucking irritating, especially since it was him, in the second episode, that introduced to the term 'Angelics', not in the actual continuity of the series itself. Tom Ellis' character was, while well played and well thought out, ultimately pointless to the series, I felt. Also it seemed to only take five minutes for a person to go from person, to Fade, to Reborn, then become a cannibalistic version of themselves, but I guess that was so they could reuse actors quite happily, something I don't blame them for.

So yeah, I am eagerly hoping for a new series next year, because the way it ended certainly deserved it, as did the characters themselves. More Johnny Harris. More Johnny Harris now.

Next up: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN