This week’s box beat sees John Byrne reviewing the second season double-bill opener of Person of Interest, a new comedy from Chuck Lorre, a documentary about songs banned in Britain, and Bill O’Herlihy’s World Cup swan song.
Reviewed: Person of Interest (Monday, RTÉ Two; Mom (Tuesday, RTÉ Two); Listen to the Banned (Friday, BBC Four); The FIFA World Cup Final 2014 (Sunday, RTÉ Two)
With the World Cup finally over, TV - along with everything else - is starting to get back to normal once more, and one of the first shows to resurface is Person of Interest (Monday, RTÉ Two).
This procedural didn't look too promising and started off kind of flat, but as the opening season wore on the writers started to really focus on the show’s strong point - the chemistry between the two leads.
Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson bring two very different styles to former CIA officer John Reese (Caviezel), recruited by a mysterious billionaire software genius Harold Finch (Emerson) to prevent violent crimes in New York City.
Caviezel is a towering physical presence, like a smart version of Moose Malloy from Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely, while Emerson is all tics and mannerisms, and a limp straight out of the Dustin Hoffman school of acting. They work so well together that it's helped blow the door of this show off its original flimsy hinges.
Guided by a highly complex computer surveillance system created by Finch, the pair form an unlikely partnership that gives the show an unlikely blend of Midnight Cowboy and Minority Report. It’s basic ‘crime of the week’ format is also beefed-up by various sub-plots, and a hugely enjoyable first season ended with Finch being held captive by Root, a mysterious female killer who had become a `person of interest'.
As the second season opens, Reese is trying to track down Root to save Finch, but over the course of a hugely enjoyable double episode there were enough thrills, spills and bellyaches to suggest that this show is about to make Monday nights a very happy time indeed.
Reese plays hardball with The Machine and a bunch of neo-Nazis, gets himself a dog that obeys orders in Dutch, saves a swindling accountant from an unpleasant demise, before finally tracking down Finch, as Root's back story gradually became clear.
In the end, Reese rescues Finch in a train station, but Root escapes. She is a hi-tech hooligan, knows all about The Machine, and the two lads have got themselves an obsessed and ruthless killer to track down. Do yourself a big favour and catch up with Person of Interest, for no other reason than to see that Michael Emerson's performance as Ben Linus in Lost was certainly no fluke.
Mom (Tuesday, RTÉ Two) may be one of the many newcomers hitting our TV screens at this time, but it comes with plenty of experienced hands on deck to secure safe passage through the often choppy waters of a debut season.
The brainchild of Chuck Lorre - whose hit-laden CV boasts Roseanne, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, and The Big Bang Theory - and co-starring the great Allison Janney (The West Wing), it features Anna (Scary Movie) Faris as Christy, a single mother and recovering alcoholic who works as a waitress in a relatively posh Napa Valley restaurant.
Janney is her mother, who's got an even more chequered past, and it plays out in typical Lorre fashion with rapid-fire gags and one-liners bouncing between the characters. Think Two and a Half Men with dysfunctional dames and you'll know exactly what's on offer here: a half-hour of slick, well-paced comedy that won't get too many awards for originality, but could make a lot of people very happy. Instant comfort viewing.
Friday nights on BBC Four have long been a goldmine for those of us who are interested in the broad range of popular music produced over the last seven decades. From Easy Listening to the most jarring variation of metal, this channel has produced a vast amount of great TV about bands, genres, individual bands and artists, and they never seem to run out of track.
The latest addition to the musical milieu is Listen to the Banned (Friday, BBC Four), a run-through the top ten records banned by the BBC. Despite the obviousness of its contents, there were some surprises.
Kicking-off with the obligatory few bars of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin's Je t'aime . . . moi non plus was a devious mental mousetrap as suddenly viewers were brought back to 1930s’ Britain and the distinctive sight and sound of George Formby, a kind-of fairground version of Gainsbourg.
A superstar at the time, Formby was a Lancashire lad with an enormous grin, who sang with a high-pitched nasal twang and played a ukulele like a man possessed. Much-loved, his cheeky songs rattled the sensitive southerners in the BBC who decided to ban his 1937 hit, With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock, because of its suggestive lyrics.
Like many documentaries on the BBC, this was as much about the Beeb as the subject matter, as the often bizarre inner workings of the organisation were explored. For example, they rescinded a ban on Louis Armstrong's 1956 version of Mack the Knife simply because it became a hit.
The truly superb Leader of the Pack by the Shangri-Las was described by the Beeb as 'a horror' while they missed out on large chunks of Beatles' drug references before banning A Day in the Life for the line, 'I'd love to turn you on'. Product placement was another evil, resulting in red cards for the likes of Lola by The Kinks and Mott the Hoople's All the Young Dudes.
Naturally, the Sex Pistols were in there with Anarchy in the UK and God Save the Queen, while the 1980s were represented by Frankie Goes to Hollywood's gay anthem Relax and those naughty acid house records promoting drug use, silly dancing and standing in fields.
Last up was Ding! Dong! The Witch is Dead, which became an anthem in the wake of Margaret Thatcher's death in 2013. In its wisdom, the BBC didn't totally ban it, but only played a few seconds, pleasing nobody. Another fine doc on the Beeb to set the weekend off and running.
Finally, that World Cup thing in Brazil (Sunday, RTÉ Two). It was a great tournament, with tons of wonderful moments and memories, and a deserved winner in Germany. Sure, like many others I would've preferred an Argentine victory, but it wasn't to be.
As for Billo's send-off, it was both generous and deserved. We may get a better World Cup, but we will never see his like again. It was all very emotional.
John Byrne
