I watched Titans season 4 eps 1-4, Wham! documentary

 

Titans Season 4 episodes 1 -4

There are a lot of villains in the first couple of episodes of this season of Titans. There’s Lex Luthor, big of beard and somewhat more urbane, even laid back than expected. There’s the occult woman he sacks in the opening sequence who turns out to be exactly the sort of person you shouldn’t sack. There’s bird faced man, a frankly disturbing character whose visage is hidden behind one of those medieval masque masks. And there’s’ super powered staff wielding woman who manages to sort of out the Titans in a motorway dust up at the end of part two. There’s also mild mannered Sebastian who seems to be a Jekyll and Hyde type hardly able to suppress the beast within. It’s not clear at this stage if he’s a villain or not but I wouldn’t invite him to dinner. Are all these people connected? What is going on exactly? Welcome to the chaotic world of Titans.

This fourth and apparently final season has been delayed for UK viewers as it aired across the pond last year so if you go looking (don’t!) there are spoilers aplenty scattered around that might answer these queries. However part of the fun of this show is seeing all these things join up even if sometimes the narrative logic is all over the place. This season seems to be going for more of a horror vibe with some really eerie sequence involving bird faced man (I don’t think that’ s his actual name in the show) lurking and pouncing out of the blue. Victims of the occultists spew blood and eventually cough up a large snake,. Blood drips down walls and windows. Its all very dark and possibly not suitable for younger viewers though there’s no warning before you watch.

Not that the episodes are without a lighter, more human touch. The team have a rare social outing bowling early on. There’s a funny sequence in which we see Luther continuing with his dinner routine in the foreground as in silhouette down a long corridor behind him Cory takes on a number of his guards. It’s an arty lighter touch that offsets the gloomy atmosphere elsewhere.

The plot initially revolves around terminally ill Luthor wanting to bond with Superboy - oh and pass on his empire- before he goes. While this looks like it might be the crux of the season, it all ends quicker than expected when Luthor starts coughing blood and you can guess the rest. Superboy, who has agreed to a meet despite the others’ reservations over Luthor’s motive, finds himself in the frame for the murder. This premise is not especially believable as there would surely be security cameras recording what really happened to Luthor. It’s a shame that Luthor appears to leave the stage so soon though Titus Welliver’s performance makes a refreshing change from the crazy / ranting  antagonists that normally populate the series.

Losing one’s powers is an occupational hazard for a superhero but they don’t usually react as perkily as Rachel does after the team’s encounter with the witch at the end of part two. She soon finds that not having so many dark thoughts belonging to people running through her head is rather refreshing. It’s a lighter moment in an otherwise serious third episode whose principle function is to introduce Jinx. When this first came out in the States the idea of a snappy double crossing female English thief probably seemed fun but she’s the third variation on the theme I’ve seen this month. Anyone familiar with the current Mission Impossible or Indiana Jones films will know what I mean. Jinx is not quite in that league, in fact the part is rather meagrely written though Lisa Ambalavanar’s sparky performance makes more of it.

The seemingly disparate stories from the first two episodes are starting to link up in part three though some of this episode seems to be filler, notably Cory’s incarceration in stone and a somewhat familiar dust up in a nightclub. More intriguing is Gar’s vision which take him and a curious Rachel into a red hued woodland where they find a tree decorated with skeletal tributes. I’m not sure the whole witchcraft plot is gelling yet but this aspect of it is rather interesting. I’m amused by the way Tim has been given that metal stick but instead of teaching him what to do or offering some useful advice the trainer just leaves him to flail around. I hope its free training because I’d want my money back. Mind you there seems to be a soupcon of potential romance in it though its so brief you might miss it.

The fourth episode underscores the occult elements of this series while also throwing back to when Rachel escaped from the facility back in the early days. Its clear the haunted Sebastian is a key player and Joseph Morgan acts as if he’s in a serious drama so maybe this will pay off. Quite a bit of the run time is given over to the show’s favourite device of lengthy flashbacks which can be interesting or quite dull and unfortunately this one is the latter. Showing us how May was initiated into the Organisation it offers little to provide an insight into the character. I think the issue at the moment is that there are too many people vying for attention and the writers are not having enough time to do anything more than sketch their plots. Rather than try and squeeze everybody into each episode we’d be better focussing on a handful at a time. The way its going the season often plays more like a compilation rather than a coherent story. Its fine in a way and the potential for a zombie/ superpowers crossover is certainly interesting but when the group engage in another well lit fight sequence it feels like more of the same rather than something different.

Wham! documentary

The rise and rise of one of the Eighties’ foremost pop bands is charted in the new eponymously titled documentary by Chris Smith which debuted last week on Netflix. Its not a tell all account simply because there doesn’t seem a lot to tell other than early setbacks, initial mis steps and the burgeoning pop genius of George Michael all encapsulated in a four year whirlwind. Its cannily assembled with clips enough to satisfy even the most ardent Whammette while providing the rest of us with an all encompassing snapshot of that most extravagant decade. Musically Wham have few peers from that era, their initial very English rap/pop seamlessly sliding into the looser `Club Tropicana` before being reborn as a contemporary take on Motown. Every song is just brilliant and the fact that  George wrote `Careless Whisper` before the group remarkable. The barrage of  clips is very good at taking us into the heady world of pop superstardom. Its sharply edited but not so much that we feel the hand of the director at every turn (as in last year’s Bowie documentary)

Rather than opt for the slightly off putting option of showing surviving participants as they now are, the film relies solely on George and Andrew (I feel after watching this we can use their first names) talking so we can try and forget what happened to the former years afterwards. Because Wham was all about enjoyment, celebration and making the best of things it is presented as it was rather than with a forensic retrofit.

One thing it does do though is reset our perception of Andrew, who admits he got fed up with being considered the luckiest man in the world when he was much more and his essential contributions are catalogued here. More than anything we find out – from George’s interviews too – that without his involvement Wham would never have happened. Andrew is gracious too about his diminishing influence later but what he offered seems to be the support that George needed. What Andrew’s recent interviews also pick up on some of the pressures they both felt but it’s refreshing in this age to discover a pop group untainted. Unlike that Bros documentary a few years ago the only baggage Wham really have is their music and who wouldn’t want that?

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