My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.

Vincent. Not as much of the DCI Driscoll as the trailers led me to believe, alas, in fact there wasn't much of poor Driscoll at all aside from the odd sour look and icy exchange with Vincent, and a lot of grappling atop a railway bridge, which only made our poor chap look foolish, and, worse, he was out of shot for the better part of it. Sigh. Still, some of Phil and his pretty eyes is better than nowt. Driscoll seemed very subdued for the episode. I'm still trying to work out if this was done before or after Life on Mars. Not that it really matters, there was no sign of Gene lurking in there this week.

The Sweeney. Another cracking episode, and damn me, I meant to cap the chip throwing bit, being very much like another chip throwing incident in another 70s cop show. Another downbeat ending, too, as the villain Jack actually wanted to nab, wasn't involved in this second job. Btw, any Brits out there, what did George mean when he said "a bit of ginger"? Sadly, the translator microbes let us down on that bit of slang. Basically, one of a gang of villains responsible for the previous crippling of a Flying Squad copper pops up, with an oh so slimy lawyer (not even a David Kelly lawyer packs this much sleaze) to rob an entire semi-trailer of prime Aberdeen steaks (can't fault them for taste). At this moment I should say hello to whoever was the fresh out of art school camera person. We appreciated the long tracking shots inside the truck and the oh so arty framing everywhere else, but I bet you soon had that beaten out of you (set up, shoot, stop).

Anyway, there's the usual violent interrogation, the slutty missus (it's funny how they all lok the bleedin' same), interference from on high, the lawyers getting in the way of getting the villains off the street (now there's an idea for another LOM episode: Gene versus some poncy lawyer, ridiculous green glasses optional), and a whole lot of near comedy capers, except played darkly this time - phew. I don't mind comedy, but, like I was trying, and failing, to say before, I like the silly, but mixed in with the drama, please, otherwise it's just a sitcom. So I liked this as it mixed the arch with the angst. A very LOM-like episode. Especially the frozen crooks in the truck, and the guy trying to make a break for it, and the lawyer, and the missus. Very Life On Mars indeed.
( more: slashiest title song lyrics ever )

"The meat is seductively soft and slightly gelatinous with sticky pleasure." - SMH

Crikey. If I want gooey descriptive terms, it seems I'd best be looking in the food section of the paper rather than any lit/fic I might have at my disposal. Not that I'm even allowed to look at photos of food these days, but crikey. Food pr0n it is, then.

( more: jason king, department s, the invisibles, uncanny x-men, the avengers, peter wyngarde, jason wyngarde, hellfire club, grant morrison, veronica mars, the comic strip presents, jason bently, life on mars, dark phoenix, the sweeney, richard sharpe, yojimbo, high noon, sam tyler, gene hunt, john simm, philip glenister, jack regan, george carter, toshiro mifune, westerns, akira kurosawa, sergio leone, the bullshitters, ewan mcgregor, jude law, orlando bloom )