What Vicky Is Watching 1/24

When Wednesday rolls around it’s time for another What Vicky is Watching moment! Here’s what I’m tuning in to on each of the big three of TV and movie watching. This week my small screen travels are anything BUT small! Get ready to cast off the mantle of the mundane and with these three shows spiral into worlds and times beyond the ordinary. There’s time traveling, hidden fantasy realms, and a monstrous murderer on the loose on the streets of late 1800s New York. So rub the sleep out of your eyes, and shake off the daily drudgery-- it’s time to get lost in these adventures!!!

On DVD: Outlander (Season 1)

A World War II combat nurse, Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe), and her scholarly history buff husband Frank (Tobias Menzies) travel to Scotland on a second honeymoon-- separated for 7 years due to the war, the two Brits head to the Highlands to rekindle the flames of their relationship. But even in 1943 Scotland is a land steeped in lore and legends and the supernatural. It’s on a trek up to a stonehenge where Claire -- an aspiring botanist as well as healer-- goes to gather up some flowers, when she inadvertently falls through one of the stones, and tumbles back in time. Claire wakes up in  1743 Scotland, two hundred years in the past!  

Outlander premiered on Starz in 2014 but I didn’t want to start it until I read the novel by Diana Gabaldon (the first of, what, eight?!) and much like Game of Thrones it adheres closely to the source material while also spiced up with some cinematic flair. It’s a stylish historical drama that’s utterly addictive. The scenery and locations from the lush, green, wooded glens and moors, to the crofters cottages and the imposing stone castle, a sprawling mass of cavernous rooms, dark corners and twisty passage ways transport us that time period. Detailed costumes, authentic dialogue, and riveting writing and character performers make Outlander a masterpiece!

The season’s premier antagonist a decorated English soldier and commander of a fort and small legion of Dragoons, Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall (Tobias Menzies, again)-- the spitting image of Claire’s husband Frank, and his direct descendant, is deranged and disgusting and Menzie’s performance as that vile ancestor is one of the high points of the season.

Outlander is sensual and romantic but it doesn’t just focus on the love between fierce and modern Claire and sweet Scottish stud Jamie (Sam Heughan). There is so much more to the story-- firstly, there’s the matter of politics and strain in the hierarchy of the Mackenzie clan at Castle Leoch helmed by Jamie’s Uncles Colum (Gary Lewis) and Dougal (Graham McTavish). Then there’s the nationwide and ongoing struggles between the Scots and the invading English. Not to forget many of the other smaller matters like secrets amongst families, friends and neighbors.  Outlander stirs up a spectrum of emotions and tones: there’s playful comedic moments, sharp and satiric humor, and dark deeds saturated in violence, passion and betrayal. Worth watching? YES. Worth reading too? YES. Who doesn't love some sword fighting, horse riding, kilt wearing warrior hotties?!

On Cable: The Alienist

It’s 1896 in New York City and a madman is on the loose mutilating the bodies of young male prostitutes and cross dressers. He displays his deliberate acts of butchery by displaying the bodies in very public places. In TNT’s historical crime thriller a child psychologist or “alienist” Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Bruhl) is intrigued by the grisly murders. He ropes in his friend John Moore (Luke Evans), a wealthy and talented newspaper artist into illustrating the crime scenes. Then, with Moore’s police connections Laszlo convinces the NYPD’s first female employee Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning) into sneaking them case files. As secretary to pre-Presidential police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt (Brian Geraghty) Sara is their perfect inside source, especially because the ambitious twenty-something woman working so closely amongst crass and rude officers and detectives is even more determined to prove herself.

It may be the Gilded Age but this New York, a hardscrabble, gray and cold city teeming with crowds and crawling with cramped tenement buildings is anything but dazzling. It’s a gritty authentic period show that is more like a film than just a mere tv show-- already it’s elevated above typical cable TV with its extensive set details, props, costumes and scenes. Along with its star studded cast -- the trio exclusively performs in films-- The Alienist is more of a cinema screen movie, tidily trimmed into hour long episodes than a standard tv show.

The Alienist premiered Monday night, January 22nd, and instantly dragged us into the dark and shadowy world of turn of the 20th century New York City, and didn’t once let go. Brief commercial breaks be damned! The Alienist is a gritty and raw look at the urban sprawl beyond the glossy sheen of high society-- taking us into this darker criminal worlds and into the minds and stomping grounds of dangerous and disturbed men and women. By all counts, the premier delivers everything the trailers and showrunners promised-- and I couldn’t be more hooked and thrilled to see what gruesome turns and reveals await us!

Streaming on Netflix: The Magicians (S1)

At the end of December 2015 Lev Grossman’s popular fantasy novel “The Magicians” was adapted for TV in this SyFy original series. Now in its third season the show by the same name is still airing live with previous seasons on Netflix. Considering my intense obsessive love for Harry Potter, fantasy and the paranormal/supernatural I’m kinda shocked at myself for not tuning in when The Magicians premiered. I’m all about escapist and fantastical books, films and tv. So, zipping through the categories on Netflix I finally stopped on the eerie image of The Magicians and fired up the first episode.

An introverted and imaginative young twenty-something named Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) has a huge passion of fantasy novels. And when he’s not studying to get into a prestigious Ivy League grad school program, he finds his thrills in the pages of his favourite books. Fascinated by the magical realm of Fillory -- and the tale of the Chatwin siblings, who discovered the world in the early 1900s by phasing through a portal in a sumptuous grandfather clock in their elegant estate.

For years Quentin took up magic as a hobby, teaching himself as many sleight of hand and illusionist tricks to bring that fantasy to his boring and cold life, a place with little need for someone with the imagination and curiosity of Q. And when it gets too much, and he feels himself unravelling, he seeks solace in mental health hospitals, getting numbed out by regimes of medications...until he’s finally sought out by the enigmatic instructors of a secret and prestigious magic academy. Passing the tests, Q is admitted and starts his education, along with other adult magicians-in-training.

There’s a Hogwarts vibe in that it’s an academy shut away from the prying eyes of non-magical people and that only select students are accepted and given a chance to explore their gifts and enhance their abilities. This means The Magicians plays out like an R-Rated Harry Potter -- parties, drugs, sex and more sex! --crossed with the Chronicles of Narnia --siblings going through a portal in antique furniture to a new world?!-- with a wink of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children --everyone has their own special ability worth honing--. It’s a mashup that ought be to be fan-freaking-tastic and mind bogglingly awesome and addictive.

But in reality? The Magicians is not quite the enchanting escape I was expecting and the magic is disappointingly “meh”. We’re tossed bread crumbs of information and get to see some of the woo-woo mystical powers of the grad students but nothing is engrossing. The special effects are hom-hum. The lessons don’t pull us in. And aside from the leads Quentin and Alice Quinn (Olivia Taylor Dudley) the Hermione Granger-ish brightest magician in the class, many of the other core characters like smug frat boy Elliott, his sneaky and shallow girlfriend Margo, and Quentin’s grumpy and humorless roommate William (who for some reason prefers to go by the nickname ‘Penny’) are exhausting and irritating to watch. They feel like pale imitations of what could be more fleshed out characters, instead they’re just tropes and hot air.

The most frustrating thing about The Magicians is Quentin’s BFF,  Julia Wicker (Stella Maeve) , a cynical and entitled grad student who is insufferable.

There’s nothing that compels me to care for her character or her story arc, where she desperately is pursuing “dark” magic after being rejected by Brakebills. I reckon that her storyline is going to be predictable, she’s going to become an antagonist. Totally wrapped up in herself and power hungry and rash with ambition she’s more likely than not going to unleash some evil upon the world that puts everyone in jeopardy. *sigh* Jules gets A LOT of screen time, which doesn’t bode well for the characters, or us as the viewer.    

Sera Gamble, one of the writers for Supernatural for seven seasons is a writer for The Magicians too, and when I saw her credits in the introduction I couldn’t help by flip. But my happy dance started way too soon. While The Magicians is promising, it’s got a kind of blandness to it that makes it trying to watch for extended periods.

Quentin’s sensitivity and fragility, facets that aren’t often emphasized in male leads, really make him stand out to me, as does his soft core 90’s grunge boy looks and a nuanced performance make his character one of the only worthwhile reasons to watch The Magicians.

But it’s an effort, really, to queue up the next episode, and I found myself really really really not wanting to watch anymore. After forcing myself to watch episode 3 and still not being taken by this clumsy cardboardy fantasy I’ve decided to drop it. I don't have to hold a seance to know The Magicians gave up the ghost.