My Favourite Television Moment of 2017.

TV The Good Place. You know the one. Even if you've managed to remain spoiler free, you know that something extraordinary happens and even if you know that you're not at all prepared when you discover exactly what that is. Truthfully, there were a couple of other candidates, Audrey's dance in the Twin Peaks revival (which is a film apparently so doesn't count here), John Oliver roasting Dustin Hoffman (which was a camera phone clip so probably doesn't either) and the very recent "Oh brilliant!" (which I'll be considering at length in the new year).

The Good Place is special.  Like All Along The Watch Tower or The Red Wedding, it upends the viewers expectations of the kind of show they're watching by apparently throwing out its entire premise.  The effect is rather like if the characters in FRIENDS got to the end of the first season and were seen to wake up in suspended animation chambers and we discovered they were actually on a deep space mission and the sitcom New York we'd been watching was a simulation.  Ross and Rachel were already married, Chandler and Joey were partners and Phoebe was the Captain.  Or something.

As has numerously been said, the reconfigured show continues unabated and with an even clearer character through line and benefits from its unpredictability aided by a superb cast who're able to inhabit the various degrees of memory and experience and demonstrate the subtle differences at each turn.  But I'm trying to keep this spoiler-free which explains the lack of close analysis.  Except to say that when the history of television in this period is written, The Good Place should be seen as one of the pinnacles of its form.  God know how they're framing it in academia.

My Favourite Podcast of 2017.

Podcasts It's The Rachel Maddow Show. Which is probably a bit controversial considering the depth of real podcasting when this is really just the commercialess broadcast of the audio from a previous night's cable news programme. But my other regular jams have been FiveThirtyEight Politics, S-Town and the Kermode and Mayo film review and I've written quite enough about those already.  There was a brief dalliance with Biden's Briefing which is handy if for offering audio versions of essays from the New York Review of Books but is otherwise whatever happens to be on Bloomberg's front page that day.

Although Seth Myers, Sam Bee and John Oliver have been a useful way of keeping up with US politics, The Rachel Maddow Show has been the ideal way of digging deeper, especially the meticulous reporting of the Russia investigation which she's covering in a detail which I've not seen elsewhere as she highlights the work of the print and online media making connections between them.  But it's in a style which matches carefully thought through arguments or release of information with the just the correct level of cynicism.  Admittedly the mode sometimes trends towards a liberal Infowars, but replacing conspiracy with facts or at the very least solid reporting.

I usually listen walking to and from work and Maddow's discursive style works well on audio, often repeating information a couple of times for emphasis which is useful if you zone out because you're crossing the road or using the self-service checkout in Tesco.  If anything I've been listening too much; there can be repetition between days and listening to 225 minutes of this a week is time consuming not to mention anxiety inducing given the content.  So in 2018 I've decided to cut down a bit, try and catch up on my Big Finish backlog.  But you can bet I'll be back there for the major events.  Except of course in the current climate, what feel like major events happen every day.

My Favourite Doctor Who Story of 2017.

Franchise This has been a pretty good year for Doctor Who. The television series was OK depending on your tolerance for Nardole and Big Finish has gone from strength to strength, leaning in heavily to the Time War amongst other threads. Some might argue that there's probably a little bit too much being released but it's probably that they've realised that the Who audience is multifaceted now with fans likely to concentrate on a single element rather than try to listen to everything.  My rule is anything Eighth Doctor, bits of nuWho tie-ins and anything reduced to £2.99 in a sale.

My choice of the year is All Hands on Deck, Eddie Robson's Eighth Doctor Short Trip which I originally reviewed here.  In the missing adventure genre of taking care of some continuity business, it explains how the Doctor's granddaughter Susan became involved in the Time War and of everything I've read or seen this year, there are moments of this which are still fixed in my mind, especially the eventual encounter between the family members, which between Robson's writing and Ford's performance is incredibly poignant as the inevitable unfolds.

But more than that, if you're a fan of the Eighth Doctor, you also have to appreciate the lengths the writer goes to in making sure it fits within the continuity set up at Big Finish whilst still making it accessible to listeners who probably still thought the last time the Doctor remembers seeing Susan was through the TARDIS scanner on Earth after one of the Dalek invasions of Earth (the original you might say).  For an incarnation of the Time Lord whose mythology is in flux more than most, its great to see everything interconnecting for once.

My Favourite Company of 2017.

Film When Amazon finally assassinated Lovefilm, I was entirely bereft and unsure what I'd do in terms of seeing new film releases in a timely fashion. Having attempted the streaming only option for six months, it was apparent that relying on NowTV, Netflix, Amazon and even Mubi simply didn't provide the same coverage as dvds by post.

Luckily some quick googling around one desperate afternoon led me to Cinema Paradiso who had apparently been a main rival since around the time I originally signed up to ScreenSelect and within a couple of weeks I decided that I'd been backing the wrong service all these years and that Lovefilm closing had led me to a company with a much better catalogue and service.

Whereas giving the newest releases the highest priority on Lovefilm rarely guaranteed that they'd be sent that week, for the most part I've been receiving some dvds through Cinema Paradiso on the day after release, even what you'd imagine to be those with a high demand.  Apart from understandably at Christmas, turn around has been even faster than Lovefilm and now I'm not sure how I'd cope without them.

My Favourite Film Scene of 2017.

Film People have talked about crying during Wonder Woman's no man's land scene and I can understand why.  Metaphorically it symbolises just how strong all women have to be in society when faced with the patriarchal barrage.  In my life I've seen too many weak men manage brilliant women who don't get the credit for the work they do but keep fighting nonetheless.  Steve's look of awe is how we should all react to them.

What makes the scene for me is the certainty with which Diana steps into the firing line.  There's no fear, no doubt.  She knows what she's capable of and implements her strategy, and the film doesn't seek some facile reason for false jeopardy like being distracted by her emotional attachment to Steve.  Like so many non-fiction women, she compartmentalises and gets the job done.

The director Patty Jenkins had to put her foot down during production in order for it to actually happen in the face of a crew who didn't understand why it was being filmed because she wasn't specifically fighting anyone.  Which is pretty ironic considering what the scene potentially represents.  If you want to know why some films turn out rubbish, it's because the people making them often don't understand what they're about.  Thank god Patty and Gal did.

Review 2017: A Statement.

About The short version is - there won't be a Review 2017 this year.

Here's the extended naval gazing.

Every Frame A Painting is a superb YouTube video essay series considering various aspects of filmmaking from a quasi-academic perspective. You might remember them from such works as Vancouver Never Plays Itself and Edgar Wright - How To Do Visual Comedy. Their last video The MARVEL Symphonic Universe was released over a year ago despite them having a very regular output until that point.

Yesterday they announced, to the surprise of only a few people, that they've stopped work on the series, putting out what amounts to the script for an imaginary installment in which they explain the pleasures of making the series and the trials, notably trying to make a series which is visually interesting whilst working within YouTube's restrictive copyright robots.

They explain that various freelance projects and other work has meant they simply don't have the time to conceive, edit, research or produce good work and so they've decided that actually they've produced an excellent body of work, that nothing lasts forever and nor should it and it's time to get on with their lives.  With over a million views for most videos, the channels passing hasn't gone unnoticed.

Which has inspired me to come clean about Review 2017, both to you and myself.  There will be no Review 2017.  For the first time since 2003, this blog will not have an end of year review, at least not the expansive, collaborative endeavour which I know some of you have looked forward to year on year.  None.  The Opinion Engine has finally run down.

It's for much the same reason as the EFAP people.  I haven't had the time to think of a theme, let alone begin the admin process of putting out invites for potential contributors or simply throwing something together myself.  I've been busy with work and more interested in relaxing in the spaces between, watching a few films, that sort of thing, than spending much more time in front of a computer.

I did try to do something with the 642 project, bringing in elements of this year into the pieces, but given that I'm also giving that stupid nonsense the push due to the increasing esoteric and non-PC suggestions (and general sense of it becoming a trial rather than a fun diversion), that wasn't going to work.  Plus half hearted.  A stop gap.  A hope that something will come good.  Nothing ever does under those circumstances.

A rerun of the 2016 positivity list was considered, but let's face it 2017 has been rough, the fire to last year's frying pan and even if 2018, fingers crossed, will be the corrective, many of us are just exhausted by the whole business.  Some nice things have happened (Hey Jodie!) but mainly its been a like trudging through British Home Stores half an hour before it closing forever still unable to find anything to buy.

Perhaps I'll knock together a listicle of cultural things I've liked in the week between Christmas and New Year, but since that will actually be about 2017 which has rarely been the point of these reviews, it'll be little more than a placeholder.  So enjoy the Christmas Links instead as my way of marking the closing of the year and we'll see what happens in 2018.