But I Digress | The Life and Death of Dial H

Regular readers will recall that I came back to comic books a couple of years ago, after entirely abandoning what had become a bad habit at best: a pull list of single issues that broke the bank each and every week, and hardly interested me beyond satisfying my not-so-secret completionist streak.

It was something I needed to do, in truth, but I realised, relatively recently, that I'd thrown the baby out with the bathwater; that I'd gotten shot of a bunch of good comics along with all the bad books that had driven me away from the form in the first place. So I resolved to give the whole rigmarole another go.

And I'm glad I did. I'm glad because I've read some stonking good comic books since I made the decision discussed above. Denise Mina and Andy Diggle have hooked me on Hellblazer; I'm midway through Y: The Last Man, and it's getting better and better; Global Frequency was a bunch of fun; American Vampire and The Unwritten are pretty brilliant; and I enjoy a bunch of the Batman books.

But as it happens, everyone isn't a winner, so of course I've read some utter rubbish in the interim. I won't name names.

In any case, Dial H. As a devout scholar of the school of Mieville, Dial H excited me immensely. I followed the news of its conception and development with baited breath. Though I tend to consume my comics as and when they're collected, I bought the first issue as soon as I could.

On reflection, that wasn't the best introduction to what is a rather byzantine book. Afterwards, I resolved to wait for the first trade, to give Dial H a proper second shot. Into You finally came out in April, and I had a bit of fun with it, I admit. But on the whole? I'd have to say no. Or else, not yet.

I'll read the next collection when it's published, I guess — I do like to see a thing through, and knowing Mieville the book will get better as it goes — but if I'm honest, yesterday's news, that Dial H had been cancelled, was rather a relief. I'm truly sorry that the audience wasn't interested in something so different and ambitious, but let's face it: Mieville didn't make it easy. I've read almost everything he's written, and even I had a hard time figuring out whether or not Dial H was decent.

On the one hand, it's a shame that Dial H didn't work out. On the other — the glass half full hand — this frees up the esteemed author to refocus on the prose fiction I fell for in the first place, because I don't think it's a coincidence that this is the first year since 2008 that he hasn't published a new novel.

So roll on news of whatever Mieville's been working on since the release of Railsea. I still hold out hope that he'll go back to Bas-Lag, but I'll take whatever I can get... up to and including the second Dial H trade. In my heart of hearts, however, I can't help but feel relieved rather than bereaved by this news.

Is that mean-spirited of me?

Have you ever been perversely pleased to see something end, and if so, when?

Letters to Editors | Killing Fringe

Dear Network Television Executives, 

You guys... you get a bad rap.

From where you're sat, it's all about the business; I get that. You've got to spend money to make money, and if you don't see a return on your investment on the near or far horizon, then better to declare an early loss than go all in, hoping against hope that something will happen to turn the tables. 

And credit where it's due: you execs have actually been pretty decent this year. I'd go so far as to say surprisingly lovely. For instance, I'm not exactly chuffed that you put Stargate: Universe down like the dog it may or may not have began as, but at least you had the decency to offer those of us who'd stuck it out in the hopes that the series would find its feet some closure in what became its last episode... just as you did with Caprica, amongst others I'm forgetting - perhaps for good reason, now that I think of it - in 2010.

Add to that the shows from 2011 that never found an audience at all, yet still you had the good grace to air almost all of them from first to last. I'm thinking of Terriers, Lights Out and The Chicago Code specifically. Tremendous series, to a one, made the more so because they were allowed to actually end; series whose narratives were able to run their course, and though I'm certain their respective show-runners had ideas as to what twists and turns were around the next bend in the great river, I was content to see of them as much as the eye could see.

So I can't find fault with the decision to cull these three. If no-one was watching them - and no-one really was, as I understand it - then I'll say I'm grateful for small favours, on balance, and come to my point. Which is: given this recent trend of doing the Right Thing, can you do a little thing for me, Network Television Executives?

Can you kill Fringe?

I hate to be the one to say it - I've been a Fringe fan since day one, and I'm no less devoted to the show now than I was way back when - but understand that I ask this thing of you for the greater good, not my own personal pleasure. The sad fact of the matter is that Fringe seems to me is in dire need of a well-meaning mercy-killing.

Not today - please, no! - nor even tomorrow... but I beg of you, can we set an endpoint already?

Cast your minds back to the heyday of another of J. J. Abrams' speculative series. Remember how Lost was the talk of the town for a while, and then, all of a sudden - namely during that execrable interlude when The Others captured Jack and Kate - it wasn't? Do you remember when, instead of throwing in the towel, you guys threw Lost a long-sighted lifeline by stepping in to say, essentially, that the show had had its moment, but its moment was over? 

Fringe is a lot like that, except it was never really the talk of the town to begin with. I mean, it did alright. Enough folks tuned in to keep the Fringe Science Division in milk and paperclips in the early days, but even at the height of its popularity, years past now, Fringe wasn't exactly water-cooler television. And if it wasn't then...

Long story short, no-one's holding out any hope for some ratings renaissance. What you execs want from Fringe seems much more reasonable than that, on the face of it. From the horse's mouth (that is to say Fox's entertainment president Kevin Reilly): "I don't expect explosive growth, but if Fringe can do exactly what it did last year, we're going to be very, very happy with it."

Well, it can't. It won't. Already, though it pains me to say it, it hasn't, because the first episode of season four premiered to 3.5 million viewers. Down of course from the relatively incredible 9.28 million viewers who watched the pilot episode, way back when, but also a share significantly reduced from the 4.9 million viewers who tuned into Fringe's first Friday night episode, when it moved to the Slot of Death last year. And bear in mind that premiere numbers are almost always higher than the ratings for subsequent episodes.

These aren't just ominous numbers; Fringe is in real trouble, folks. Real trouble.

So what to do... what to do?

Well, like I said: kill Fringe.

What you did for Lost, when you declared from on high that season six would be its last... if you ask me, that single decision saved a show in real need of saving. By killing it, albeit on a date to be determined several years hence, you gave Lost new life. That's what I want for Fringe.

Not least because - and by now everyone who aims to watch the fourth season of Fringe will have seen the lackluster first episode, and if not, shame on you - this season seems to me analogous to the indulgent digression in season three of Lost which you will recall spelled that series' eventual end. Which is to say... disappointing.

Of course it's early doors yet. But this ploy to open the door to new viewers is never going to work, not at this late stage - let's not kid ourselves - and I am deathly afraid that it will instead shed so many formerly faithful viewers that Fringe's ratings slide will only continue. Continue till you execs do the only thing you can, given your job description: slaughter the show mid-movement.

And that's the last thing I want. Stories without endings are hardly stories at all, if you ask me. In fact the finale of season three seemed to me at least such an ideal endpoint for the series that I wonder now if Fringe's last-minute renewal will prove not the blessing it initially appeared, but a curse, because it will take the show-runners some time, surely, to arrive again at such a satisfying note for the narrative to close out on. And I very much doubt it has that long.

Now I may not love what I've seen of season four of Fringe, but I have faith in Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to take me somewhere weird and wonderful, as they have each and every year I've watched this tremendous show... easily the jewel in the crown of genre television, excepting perhaps HBO's Game of Thrones.

Yet I am so very afraid that this rollercoaster is going nowhere.

So please, network television executives: agree to see Fringe through to the bitter end. Let everyone know that this will be its last year, or better yet, agree that season five will be the final season of Fringe, as per the original five-year plan. Give the show-runners a destination to head towards, and time enough to get there.

Kill Fringe, then, if you must. As you must. But kill it softly. That's all I ask.

Fingers crossed,
Niall Alexander.

Marching Orders | Watch Fringe Tonight or Forever Hold Your Peace

I was halfway through writing a bit about Fringe when the news broke that it'd been renewed.


Here's the bit, as was:


"So I'm just a Scotsman with a thing for speculative fiction. In the grander scheme of things, however handy you guys might find the reviews I write, or any of the rest of it... I don't really matter a whole lot. My little opinion pony isn't going to change the world.

"Certainly American network television execs could give a happy hootenanny what I have to say. I could beg and I could plead, for all the difference it'd make. Perhaps I'd stand a better chance of convincing a few TSS readers to do, in turn, what they can. So.

"To those of you in a position to make even the tiniest bit of difference tonight, which is to say you lucky Americans: please. Watch Fringe tonight. If you're already watching, take +10 internet cred, and so much the better; instead, if you're able, make sure everyone you can shame into an hour of television they might otherwise take or leave is watching Fringe tonight.

"Because after bowing so strongly its first week back from hiatus, demoted though it had been to the Friday night network television death slot, Fringe has been on a downwards spiral since, sliding further and ever further down the ratings rabbit hole. Till last week, when fewer people than have ever watched Fringe before bothered to tune in..."


But just when I thought Fringe was out, or as near as dammit, they pulled it back in!


Good for them. Fox: I salute you.


However, I'm not so sure this is quite what Fringe needs, either. What Fringe needs is a renewal along the lines of that which Lost received when its mid-series ratings struggle threatened to shut the production down. Two seasons of 16 episodes, say. Just so we can be sure we'll hear this tale told right through to the bitter end.


But you know, Fox just bought another year of my favourite currently airing TV show; I should be over the effing moon. I am, a bit. I'd just as soon not feel all this all over again next year... same time, same place. You know?


Still and all. Three cheers! :D

TV Review | Terriers

Thirteen weeks running, Terriers eroded my expectations, teased smile after smile from my grim visage, and finally, irrevocably, broke my heart. Charming, disarming, cute and cunning - like a puppy dog pleading for a second helping of supper - that even on a cable network known for its niche successes it died an obscenely public death in the ratings is nothing less than a goddamn tragedy.


Don't get me wrong, Caprica: you were alright. And The Walking Dead, well, you could do better... but we had a bit of fun, did we not? Whatever the calibre of these recent series, not to mention certain other debuts, speak not their names in the presence of Terriers. The best new show since Justified by a generous margin, alas, at the time of this writing Terriers is dead in the water. Rest assured, however, it'll be ready for you - just as soon as you're ready for it.


Trouble is, too few folks were, when it aired on FX. And I suppose it's easy enough to see why: challenging television has been receding in prominence and popularity since reality arrived to ruin everyone's day. Really, why work for your entertainment - whatever dividends your efforts in that regard might repay - when you can sit back, pop a pill and a TV dinner, and gape at nearly-naked twentysomethings making a tit of themselves?


Huh. I suppose I am bitter, after all...


Well, I've reason to be. Of course, there was another notable issue holding Terriers back from the success I'm here to tell you it deserved, and you folks who were AWOL during this gentle little gem's hour of need, you're less implicated in that: it suffered, there can be no question, because of some dreadfully unhelpful marketing - including but hardly limited to that there poster at the top of this review. Not that it's an inappropriate image it all... in fact it rather captures the tone and indeed several of the subjects of the show we're talking about today, but without having seen Terriers, ask yourself: what exactly does a dog, a beach and two scruffy little dudes tell you?


A bucket and spadeful of nothing, I would wager. With added woof.


Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James - whose Cajun charm remains the best thing that ever happened to True Blood - give life and such light to Hank and Britt, a pair of unlicensed PIs making ends meet in and around Ocean Beach, the Southern Californian suburb they've called home all their dead-end lives. Hank's a recovering alcoholic, a dishonourably discharged policemen, and very beardy indeed, whereas pretty-boy Britt used to steal shit. Like, all the time. Together, they carve out a scruffy path on the road to reward indeed: helping folks to help themselves. In the first such case we see, the twosome help an old drinking buddy of Hank's locate his lost daughter. And so begins the end.


It's tantamount to incredible, looking back on Terriers, seeing from the very first how everything is connected. For when it begins, it really doesn't seem a show with the grandest of aspirations; some soulful Southern take on Psych, I would have said then, with the trademark FX edge thrown in for consistency's sake. Little did I know. At the heart of Terriers' narrative is a conspiracy that leaves bodies in its wake like a hellish hurricane, and though the details don't come clear till well into the single season's run, the foundations are being sunk all the while. Inch by inch and innocent by innocent.


In the mean, we spend a lot of quality time with Hank and Britt, getting to know them and their circumstances. Hank still loves his ex wife, Gretchen, who's about to remarry, while Britt and his girlfriend Katie are fast approaching a pivotal moment in their relationship. Filler or fan-service in most other shows; in Terriers, no one narrative thread is so throwaway. Every character, every relationship, every conflict gets its moment in the sun: each is treated with such warmth and tenderness and heartfelt, homebrewed humour as to become winning in its own right very easily indeed.


Contrary to the received wisdom, I didn't spend any time at all drumming my thumbs, waiting for the myriad intricacies of Terriers' narrative to be revealed. Before the story even thought to happen, it had me, and that's a credit to creator Ted Griffin, the screenwriter who gave us the rather more bombastic Ocean's Eleven, as well as to writers and executive producers Shawn Ryan and Tim Minear, who brings traits of their particular legacies to Terriers: from The Shield, the slow-burn of characters coming undone, and from Minear's time in the Whedonverse, a sense of continuity, and of humility.


Truly, Terriers is a terrific show, packing such a emotional punch as to leave one winded. A terrific show which completely failed to catch on with the Ritalin-ridden audience which will come to be an embarrassing signature of our era, and I can't pretend to be surprised by that. Would that it could have been otherwise - daring to dream of a future for intelligent television is more of a fool's errand with every dreary season of American Idol - yet there's something to be thankful for: small, but perfectly - perfectly - formed, Terriers seems constructed more like a miniseries than an ongoing affair, say in the vein of State of Play. It begins, and yes, it even ends. Which is all I could have asked.