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cloudsinveniceWARNING: some images NSFW due to nudity in paintings.
This has such a classic Renwicky opening sequence: the hideous, hideous art with wanky pseudo-intellectual justification for smut (smut for smut's sake is allowed, Hedley Shale!), and then the sudden headfuck when people walk into shot and you realise that not only is the painting hideous, it is also BLOODY ENORMOUS.
What can one say, really?
We must also have a moment of silence for eve magazine - back when this show originally aired, eve was a sophisticated, quirky, warily amused magazine for women bored with the usual glossies (I remember "enema holidays?" being one of the feature straplines on the first issue). I loved it like burning, so of course over the years it got de-clawed and turned into exactly the sort of glossy it had once been an alternative to. The scenes set in its office are a reminder of the jewel that was once ours.
Did I mention Colin Baker is in this?
ANYWAY. As I write, Hedley Shale is messily dead, or to use R's euphemism, "has been very careless with the blackberry jam". Suspects include his French lover (R points out the actress has a strong Dutch accent), a Ms. Bourtron, cleaning lady Katrina Topliss (finder of the body), and wife Serena Shale, the Madeline Albright-esque editor of eve. But prime suspect Serena's been in her office all morning, so she can't have done it... OR CAN SHE?
Why would anyone want to kill this man?
Next: we meet Jonathan Creek. He's like a low-key British version of that guy in comic con Q&As in The Simpsons who queries every tiny nuance of everything: and he's always right. Here, his mental arithmetic catches a supermarket checkout error, resulting in the lane being closed right when he's about to pay. He goes home to his windmill (because he lives in a windmillin old Amsterdam) to cut the head off a Barbie doll. These two scenes, juxtaposed, sum up an awful lot about Jonathan's life.
This is not Giles. This is not Giles. This is not Giles.
This is Adam Klaus, professional twat magician and Jonathan's employer. We learn from him that Jonathan has no life beyond designing stage illusions for Adam, which is a reassuring explanation for the whole Barbie-beheading sequence. Adam's stage concepts generally resemble rejected romance novel ideas, and while Anthony Stewart Head left for a very good reason (i.e. Buffy), it's sad to have lost him from Jonathan Creek.
Elsewhere, a dude gets arrested at the cinema (the police do this using flashcards so as not to disturb the punters; it's that kind of show), and investigative journalist Maddy Magellan irritates more coppers in the pursuit of information. She also spends a lot of time trying to phone people and getting nowhere. This, I can attest, makes for an Accurate Portrayal Of Journalism. Casting!surprise: Maddy's boyfriend/cameraman is Alistair Macgowan, of subsequently greater fame on The Big Impression.
(OH MY GOD, MADDY IS PHONE-HACKING. HOLY SHIT, TALK ABOUT BEING OVERTAKEN BY SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. Alistair Macgowan disapproves, though, so that's all right then.)
She and Jonathan meet formally (or the closet thing to "formally" they'll ever get) when he's delivering a gift from Adam Klaus to... the late Hedley Shale's girlfriend, who is also Adam Klaus's girlfriend. Maddy, finding out he devises illusions, pursues him, hoping for an insight into the impossible murder.
Jonathan: "So you don't want to go to bed with me?"
Maddy: "Pardon?"
Jonathan: "I'm not good on subtext with women. It's safest just to ask."
As the two attempt to solve the mystery by infiltrating Serena's office (disguised, naturally, as journalists doing a feature. Hide in plain sight, Maddy. Hide in plain sight.) we learn that watching people eat raw onions gives Jonathan indigestion (I'm with him there), that nobody really wants to know how magic tricks are done, that you can remove blemishes from models' faces with Photoshop, and what a Steadicam is. 1997: before makings-of and other DVD extras destroyed all our illusions forever.
Jonathan takes Maddy home to the windmill, where he's knocked up (overnight, apparently!) a pinpoint-accurate maquette of Serena's office, complete with puppets, which he nonchalantly uses to prove how the locked-room mystery isn't such a mystery after all, only to equally casually dismiss his solution as one that "doesn't stand up in real life" when Maddy gets all impressed. They have some moments of unsettling physical closeness while operating the puppets, and you can see there is, if not yet a sexual spark, the spark of a spark, and definite mutual intriguement. There will be many and varied awkwardly cute moments in their future!
Though sadly they won't involve him. The guy they cast instead was awesome too, it must be said.
I won't spoil the ending, though I found a hilarious screencap of the reveal online which sums up the bizarreness of this show so perfectly. But if you want to know about the shippier side of its appeal, teylaminh is the official Fount Of All Knowledge (And Screencaps) in her post here:
http://teylaminh.livejournal.com/824122.html
Screencap credits: ctrlaltdelete.org, betsyda.com, thatsashajames.tumblr.com, freewebs.com/colinbaker, and big-finish-sketches.tumblr.com.
This has such a classic Renwicky opening sequence: the hideous, hideous art with wanky pseudo-intellectual justification for smut (smut for smut's sake is allowed, Hedley Shale!), and then the sudden headfuck when people walk into shot and you realise that not only is the painting hideous, it is also BLOODY ENORMOUS.
What can one say, really?
We must also have a moment of silence for eve magazine - back when this show originally aired, eve was a sophisticated, quirky, warily amused magazine for women bored with the usual glossies (I remember "enema holidays?" being one of the feature straplines on the first issue). I loved it like burning, so of course over the years it got de-clawed and turned into exactly the sort of glossy it had once been an alternative to. The scenes set in its office are a reminder of the jewel that was once ours.
Did I mention Colin Baker is in this?
ANYWAY. As I write, Hedley Shale is messily dead, or to use R's euphemism, "has been very careless with the blackberry jam". Suspects include his French lover (R points out the actress has a strong Dutch accent), a Ms. Bourtron, cleaning lady Katrina Topliss (finder of the body), and wife Serena Shale, the Madeline Albright-esque editor of eve. But prime suspect Serena's been in her office all morning, so she can't have done it... OR CAN SHE?
Why would anyone want to kill this man?
Next: we meet Jonathan Creek. He's like a low-key British version of that guy in comic con Q&As in The Simpsons who queries every tiny nuance of everything: and he's always right. Here, his mental arithmetic catches a supermarket checkout error, resulting in the lane being closed right when he's about to pay. He goes home to his windmill (because he lives in a windmill
This is not Giles. This is not Giles. This is not Giles.
This is Adam Klaus, professional
Elsewhere, a dude gets arrested at the cinema (the police do this using flashcards so as not to disturb the punters; it's that kind of show), and investigative journalist Maddy Magellan irritates more coppers in the pursuit of information. She also spends a lot of time trying to phone people and getting nowhere. This, I can attest, makes for an Accurate Portrayal Of Journalism. Casting!surprise: Maddy's boyfriend/cameraman is Alistair Macgowan, of subsequently greater fame on The Big Impression.
(OH MY GOD, MADDY IS PHONE-HACKING. HOLY SHIT, TALK ABOUT BEING OVERTAKEN BY SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. Alistair Macgowan disapproves, though, so that's all right then.)
She and Jonathan meet formally (or the closet thing to "formally" they'll ever get) when he's delivering a gift from Adam Klaus to... the late Hedley Shale's girlfriend, who is also Adam Klaus's girlfriend. Maddy, finding out he devises illusions, pursues him, hoping for an insight into the impossible murder.
Jonathan: "So you don't want to go to bed with me?"
Maddy: "Pardon?"
Jonathan: "I'm not good on subtext with women. It's safest just to ask."
As the two attempt to solve the mystery by infiltrating Serena's office (disguised, naturally, as journalists doing a feature. Hide in plain sight, Maddy. Hide in plain sight.) we learn that watching people eat raw onions gives Jonathan indigestion (I'm with him there), that nobody really wants to know how magic tricks are done, that you can remove blemishes from models' faces with Photoshop, and what a Steadicam is. 1997: before makings-of and other DVD extras destroyed all our illusions forever.
Jonathan takes Maddy home to the windmill, where he's knocked up (overnight, apparently!) a pinpoint-accurate maquette of Serena's office, complete with puppets, which he nonchalantly uses to prove how the locked-room mystery isn't such a mystery after all, only to equally casually dismiss his solution as one that "doesn't stand up in real life" when Maddy gets all impressed. They have some moments of unsettling physical closeness while operating the puppets, and you can see there is, if not yet a sexual spark, the spark of a spark, and definite mutual intriguement. There will be many and varied awkwardly cute moments in their future!
Though sadly they won't involve him. The guy they cast instead was awesome too, it must be said.
I won't spoil the ending, though I found a hilarious screencap of the reveal online which sums up the bizarreness of this show so perfectly. But if you want to know about the shippier side of its appeal, teylaminh is the official Fount Of All Knowledge (And Screencaps) in her post here:
http://teylaminh.livejournal.com/824122.html
Screencap credits: ctrlaltdelete.org, betsyda.com, thatsashajames.tumblr.com, freewebs.com/colinbaker, and big-finish-sketches.tumblr.com.
