Daily Archives: March 12, 2012

‘The Fades’ has left me wanting more

1 Reply

Nine years after its departure, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” has left a big, hellmouth-sized void in TV fantasy. But a couple of shows are filling that void.

As much as “Lost Girl,” the Canadian series airing on SyFy, fulfills our minimum daily requirement for “Buffy”-style wit and fantastic action, the BBC series “The Fades” — which has finished airing on BBC America, but can still be found On Demand and on DVD — features other “Buffy” touchstones.

The show is about a teenager, Paul (Iain de Castecker), who comes to find out he is the chosen one, destined to lead the forces of good (Angelics) in their battle with the Fades, a murderous group of walking dead who feast on the living.

But the Fades aren’t just mindless zombies. As led by John (Ian Hanamore in one incarnation, Joe Dempsie in another), the Fades have apocalyptic plans for the world in general and Paul’s town in particular.

It’s up to Paul to protect not only his nerdy, pop culture-obsessed friend Mac (Daniel Kaluuya, whose Brit speak can be hard to figure out but whose constant nerdy references and opening story recaps are a highlight of the series), but his mom (Claire Rushbrook), his obnoxious sister Anna (Lily Loveless) and Jay (Sophie Wu), Anna’s friend and object of Paul’s affection.

Like Buffy, Paul must balance his duties as an unwilling and initially unwitting Angelic with guidance from Neil (Johnny Harris), an Angelic who becomes Paul’s mentor.

But Neil is no Rupert Giles, whose loving but sometimes exasperated guidance of Buffy was one of the cornerstones of that show. Neil is a bastard obsessed with egging Paul into facing off with John and the rest of the Fades.

The show is given texture by other characters, including Sarah (Natalie Dormer), an Angelic who is killed and returns as a Fade.

And hanging over everything, literally, is the end of the world. “The  Fades” shares with “Buffy” the central character’s ability to see the future. Paul’s visions of the end of the world — ash-filled skies and even more dead bodies than are popping up during the normal course of the day — cast a pall even over the daily horrors.

You might find that “The Fades” starts off with a slightly ragged tone. Hang in there. This is a series that starts uneven but very quickly finds its pace.

“The Fades” is punctuated by humor but is as grim as “Lost Girl” is light-hearted. Before the six-episode first season is complete, some very dire things happen to the characters.

The show premiered in Britain last fall and I’m not sure if a second season is underway or planned. I hope it is. Although the threat of John and the Fades is, to a great extent, resolved by the end of the first six episodes, the fate of the world is not. Things look pretty grim as the final scene fades to black.

For “The Fades,” it’s the perfect ending.

‘John Carter’ leaves Hollywood wondering what happened

Leave a reply

The box-office performance of Disney’s “John Carter” this weekend has left some Hollywood observers wondering what happened. The movie adaptation of the century-old Edgar Rice Burroughs tale pulled in only about $30 million in ticket sales, not enough to beat “The Lorax” in its second weekend.

My money didn’t contribute to the “John Carter” take, but more on that in a minute.

The New York Times featured a good analysis of why John Carter didn’t do well and is highly unlikely to recoup its $250-million-plus costs, but the article boils down to too much indulgence by director Andrew Stanton (who made Pixar’s classics “Finding Nemo” and “Wall-E”), a badly handled marketing plan and too little interest on the part of moviegoers for the story from the creator of Tarzan.

Maybe the movie will do well overseas. Maybe it will be considered an overlooked classic.

I’ll be able to judge the latter better when I see it. I didn’t see “John Carter” this weekend, even though the Burroughs tales were among my favorites when I was a kid, because the movie had very limited non-3-D showings locally.

I’m convinced that 3-D has become as much of a liability as a draw for some moviegoers, including me. The movies I want to see more than anything else in the next few weeks, “The Hunger Games” and “The Avengers,” will no doubt play in 3-D but I’ll probably have to seek out a theater in which to watch them in good old 2-D.

I’ve heard too many bad reports about how dark and murky 3-D movies can be as they’re projected in our standard movie theaters. “Thor,” a very fun movie, was apparently almost unwatchable in some theaters.

Other moviegoers no doubt think the $3-or-more surcharge for 3-D is also unwelcome, and it is, until 3-D projection is perfected.

In the meantime, movies that cost too much, don’t have a very good marketing campaign, don’t have enough broad appeal and can’t entice people to put up with 3-D projection will suffer. It happened with “Green Lantern” and I think it happened with “John Carter.”