Homeland

[Happy Face 29]

The finale was brilliantly put together up to the point he got off the phone with his daughter. I had hoped it would be totally nihilistic and the next inevitable series would be (Wire style) about totally different characters in the same field.

 

Hitchcock always said it's not about the bomb going off but just knowing that it's there. He always had a pay-offf in the end though, raise the tension, keep raising it to an unbearable degree, then relieve it. The denouement here just stinks of stretching out the tension another series rather than relieving it and starting again...unfortunately.

 

Whether the bomb detonated or Brody was found out, it would have been more satisfying. Would have been canny to see him imprisoned and tortured in the next series.

 

She's basically Jack Bauer without a knotted damp cloth...but no-one listens to her because she's an hysterical woman.

 

There is more holes than St Andrews. Walker and Brody haven't spoken in years yet worked together perfectly to pull it off every step of the way. At the point of conception nobody knew the VP was even going to run for president, let alone be in that city at that building at that time, with all that security and all of those high ranking officials, and moved to that bunker, having asked Brody to run with him. Why was Brody wearing the vest then, rather than the number of other times he's met the VP and high ranking officials? Why did walker choose that moment to do the hit rather than any other?

 

Again, it's basically 24, and suffers all the same comic book issues of impossible timeline, plot contrivance & complete character 180s which that show does. That isn't a bad thing in itself, you don't mind at all when there's a pay-off like there always was in that 1 day structure....or like it seemed to be winding up to on Sunday. It's bloody annoying when they pussy out of that and just want to string out the same threat next season.

I was spot on with why season 1 was shite too

[Park Life 71]

 

 

Have you seen any of Homeland?

[Park Life 71]

 

I was spot on with why season 1 was shite too

 

It can't be as bad as 24!

 

They missed a trick by not converting the daughter to Islam - who becomes more hardcore than the father etc...

[Happy Face 29]

I was much happier watching 24 because it never pretended to be anything more than a balls to the wall action thriller.

 

Homeland started out trying to be a political drama, West Wing with some action, so when it failed, it did so more quickly and miserably.

[Park Life 71]

I was much happier watching 24 because it never pretended to be anything more than a balls to the wall action thriller.

 

Homeland started out trying to be a political drama, West Wing with some action, so when it failed, it did so more quickly and miserably.

Yeah but watching a superior product fail is more enthralling than watching a join the dots formula try to shine.

[trophyshy 7073]

Breaking Bad is like the huge black mamba that spoils it for everyone thereafter.

[Happy Face 29]

Think he means the Homeland daughter, which wouldn't be any great loss.

[Park Life 71]

Think he means the Homeland daughter, which wouldn't be any great loss.

Yeah the Homeland one. The other thing is you have to view these things from an american audience perspective...Homeland was far more complex a meal than 24. The latter being standard cia inspired fare (not that I've seen any). If we look at say the partisan nonsense dished up in films like 0dark30 and the collaboration with the intelligence community that bore that fruit...Homeland is on another planet. I remember turning to Mrs P when he got the prayer mat out in the grarage and saying a million american voices just cried out in pain. If Star Trek is a vehicle for american foreign policy then Star Wars is a nod to mysticism and eastern relativism.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Park Life

[ewerk 30370]

It can't be as bad as 24!

 

 

You haven't fucking seen it!

[Park Life 71]

Don't need to.

 

Homeland is the first time a big marquee production has tried to capture the flickering and darkening jewels that Islam is to americans and give an insight (albeit awkward) into the malaise and beauty of the american/islam weltenshaung. We can go back to films like True Lies in the early days of the demonisation of a religion and its peoples and see how far the zeitgeist has come. Even the lead Jew in it is multi-dimensional and somewhat in both camps philosophically.

[ewerk 30370]

It's like comparing Veep to House of Cards. They're in two entirely different genres.

[Park Life 71]

It's like comparing Veep to House of Cards. They're in two entirely different genres.

This is true. But one genre isn't worth my time.

 

The future our masters plan will be run by technomysticism driven by a world reiligion. That religion will not and cannot be islam. Hence the wars.

 

I had a long and heated debate at Cannes with someone from Paramont that my sci fi script seemed to have eastern mystical types running the show behind the scenes and that they should just be technocrats with silky surveillance and control machinery and not 'belivers'. He couldn't understand that the dystopic future we are headed to will be the playground of 'believers' regardless of the tools deployed. That's the thing about Homeland, a lot of it is hard to digest for the american audience and in such a way that it is borderline radical.

In the end I pointed out that Obi wan ben Kenobi is hardly an american sounding name.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Park Life

[trophyshy 7073]

Off the meds again P?

[Park Life 71]

Off the meds again P?

I can pass this stuff off as high faluting discourse on other boards.

[Happy Face 29]

There are moments of shock in homeland, but they play up to the racist American stereotypes rather than challenging them.

 

He got out his prayer mat and America was outraged because muslims are bad. The challenging direction from then on would have been to have him be a good muslim, like 99% of the real life muslims, but no, it followed that because he was a muslim he was also evil, on a course towards suicide bombing the white house having been turned into an Islamic Manchurian candidate.

 

Did you read this from earlier in the thread...

 

http://www.toontastic.net/board/topic/32429-homeland/?p=1139593

[Happy Face 29]

It's like comparing Veep to House of Cards. They're in two entirely different genres.

 

It's not like. It's like comparing Paris Hylton and Jordan. Both thick as mince but one's dressed better.

[Park Life 71]

There are moments of shock in homeland, but they play up to the racist American stereotypes rather than challenging them.

 

He got out his prayer mat and America was outraged because muslims are bad. The challenging direction from then on would have been to have him be a good muslim, like 99% of the real life muslims, but no, it followed that because he was a muslim he was also evil, on a course towards suicide bombing the white house having been turned into an Islamic Manchurian candidate.

 

Did you read this from earlier in the thread...

 

http://www.toontastic.net/board/topic/32429-homeland/?p=1139593

That's a really good read and I've read pages and pages of broad field analysis of Homeland. The debate Homeland has generated is beyond the 'bad' muslim 'good'muslim debate imho. For tv drama 'good' muslims aren't interesting whereas a 'confused' and quasi ethical war hero is...And not in the same way Vietnam vets were in the sense that this is a 'hot' war and ongoing. Avenues of cross polination (mixed alligence) is what Homeland is good at...The death of the boy in the courtyard (drone strike) is as much a springboard for our anti-heroes conversion as the kindness given to him by his dark mentor and peace he finds from time to time in prayer and contemplation....Take a look at Syriana again as that is as good a counterpoint to Hollywood as any recent film.

[ewerk 30370]

W

 

 

It's not like. It's like comparing Paris Hylton and Jordan. Both thick as mince but one's dressed better.

 

You're trying to hard to read between the lines of 24.

[Happy Face 29]

W

 

 

You're trying to hard to read between the lines of 24.

 

Did you watch Alan Yentob's series "The United States of television"? Recommended.

 

Something like MASH is ostensibly a sitcom for the masses only there to shift ad-space at some of the highest prices at the time. But that doesn't preclude it from implanting hugely important ideas into the minds of the population about the justness of war or the value placed on the lives of "the enemy". As Vietnam lost popularity as a cause it totally reflected the reluctance of the nation to be intervening abroad.

 

Similarly after 9/11, 24 embraced the lust in the US for security at any cost. That lust has recently been questioned, so a series like Homeland is more subtle about delivering the same ideas.

 

 

...and there is no need to read between the lines on 24. The lines are spoken out loud and tell you everything....

 

 

Works of fiction, such as the television series 24, often rely on ticking time bomb scenarios for dramatic effect. According to the Parents Television Council, given that each season represents a 24-hour period, Jack Bauer encounters someone who needs torturing to reveal a ticking bomb on average 12 times per day.

 

Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Chief under Bush, declared that 24 "reflects real life", John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who produced the torture memos cited Bauer in support while Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia went further, "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?". One of the shows' creators stated:

 

Most terrorism experts will tell you that the ‘ticking time bomb’ situation never occurs in real life, or very rarely. But on our show it happens every week.

 

The show uses the same techniques that are used by the US against alleged Al-Qaeda suspects. U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and others, objected to the central theme of the show—that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security—as it had an adverse effect on the training of actual American soldiers by advocating unethical and illegal behavior. As Finnegan said:

 

The kids see it, and say, 'If torture is wrong, what about "24"?'

 

He continued,

 

The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticking_time_bomb_scenario

[Happy Face 29]

We have TV in the UK too, not boring tv either, but we've never produced a series so devoted to the idea that torturing is necessary to get results. Or that every muslim is evil and anti-western.

[ewerk 30370]

We have TV in the UK too, not boring tv either, but we've never produced a series so devoted to the idea that torturing is necessary to get results. Or that every muslim is evil and anti-western.

 

See that's where you look too deeply. The show is centred around a counter terrorism unit and during the show's run the greatest terror threat to USA was from Muslim fundamentalists so of course they're going to be more heavily featured than those from other backgrounds. The show did however also feature terrorists from many other walks of life and had many Muslim characters who were also shown to be against the use of terrorism.

 

The idea of the show is that it is fast-paced and everything is obviously against the clock, hence the use of torture, the show simply isn't set up to allow long periods of non-violent interrogation.

[Gemmill 44498]

Just to be absolutely clear here, 24 is fucking shite. Anti Muslim or not,

[Park Life 71]

Just to be absolutely clear here, 24 is fucking shite. Anti Muslim or not,

We have a winner!

[Happy Face 29]

The vast majority of UK produced tv is utter shite HF, and none of it gets anywhere near the audience that the american stuff gets either inside or worldwide audiance with the US excluded.

And it's down to the american stuff being big budget big names and well made, the uk stuff worth it's while is few and far between.

 

Shameless, arguably a massive show for CH4 , hits us and what happens? they bring in William H Macy, and Joan Cusack and it's far more watchable imo.

 

But aye we never play up on stereotypes here for tv.... homegrown ones get beaten to death here on tv, between the lazy scousers, junkie glaswegians and drunken irish terrorists, or the germans.

 

Strange to use an example of America remaking a British show as an example of American shows being of a higher standard. Surely that points to the originality and quality of UK shows. As does their remaking House of Cards or Life on Mars or The Office, Prime Suspect etc.

 

I never said British shows don't play up to any stereotypes though. My argument is that TV shows both inform and reflect the national psyche of the country in which they are made. There are an abundance of stereotypes on UK television, of course, they also reflect our history and politics. The fact you recognise that only reinforces my point that what you and Ewerk regard as inconsequential entertainment does still offer a deeper social commentary.

[Park Life 71]

American budgets for showcase/marquee tv series dwarf what goes on in the UK. Huge factor.