The Jetty

Dragons In Ember

The Jetty
4 Episodes
Airdate: July 15th 2024
BBC

I can’t remember what it was that I was reading, a couple of months ago, about Jenna Coleman’s new BBC mini series The Jetty. But it had Coleman promoting it big time and I really liked her both in Doctor Who (although I thought her character arc in her last season was a bit ropey) and in The Sandman (reviewed here). And I wanted to see her in something else and... yeah... The Jetty is not bad.

It features Jenna Coleman as Ember Manning (a detective in the Lancashire police force), Ruby Stokes as her teenage daughter Hannah, Archie Renaux as her police partner Hitch, Amelia Bullmore as her mother Sylvia and Tom Glynn-Carney as her husband Mack... who has been dead for just under a year when the series starts. Ember is working a case where a place from her past is burned down but, it soon intersects with a ‘missing believed dead’ case of a young girl from years before, which a pod caster played by Weruche Opia is investigating.

And it’s quite good but also has some week spots, I reckon. Some of the episode cliffhangers are pretty great... such as when you think they have found the body of someone they are looking for in a lake but it then turns out to be one of the other regular characters you didn't realise was dead. But the writing seems kinda... I dunno... like it’s shifting. I think it may have been recut from the original order of the edit too, probably for reasons of pacing, because it occasionally suffers from that thing where one character is in on something they shouldn’t have known about yet and then, at other times, covering old ground about something they have already been seen to be knowing about.

Let’s cover the good stuff first. The performances are great. Jenna Coleman is, as always, totally brilliant in the role and, also, a big shout out to Ruby Stokes who does really well as her daughter, struggling with big emotions and getting herself into more trouble. And the chemistry between them is also really cool... a second series of this would be nice, although it may not be in the pipeline.

And it looks good too, with some nice sweeping landscapes and some nice rich colours in the night sequences. The music, which I think is composed by someone called Tim Morrish (although I’m not sure... the IMDB is being pretty bashful around that subject) is quite nice and minimalistic, reminding me a little of Hans Zimmer in places. Alas, there’s no commercial release of the score that I can see.

The one annoying thing is the old giallo trope about there being too many suspects. As Ember realises there are more and more connections to her own past, I was pretty sure there was going to be an end twist but, because there are so many characters and I had about four suspects in it, the solution became a bit hit and miss. I suspect this is the case of the writers throwing as many people into the mix as possible to try and hide the truth.

As it happens... and without giving anything away... there’s a double ending with not one but, two killers involved and, I have to say, the two people were both two of my possible suspects. So I was kinda disappointed that it went down those routes, to be honest. And, believe me, it’s really not as much of a twist ending as people are making out... most people will get there way before, I think. But that’s my only real issue with it... well, that and the question of... why is there suddenly a common thread in both this and films I’ve bought in the last year that features women ‘jacking off’ horses? Is this some kind of trending theme? And on the BBC no less.

But yeah, the show was absolutely riveting, for the most part and, I ploughed through the four episodes quicker than I thought I would. Jenna Coleman is also one of the show’s producers and I think she helped develop the role and the story (the original ending would have had someone not on my list of suspects doing the first murder)... so she’s obviously put a lot of work in on this and, certainly, she does carry the show considerably, playing a much more ‘world weary’ character than I’ve personally seen her pull off before (and when I say pull off... no, she’s not the one pulling off the horse in this). I have to say that I’ve got even more respect for her as an actress than I used to... so hopefully that’s the reaction many people will be having. I certainly think this was a good role for her and hope she continues to do some more genre work in future. The Jetty is a pretty good watch and certainly one I’d recommend.

The Sandman

The High Cost
Of Dreaming

The Sandman
Directed by various
UK/USA August 2022
Series One - Eleven Episodes

Well then... so they finally adapted one of my favourite comics, The Sandman, to a television format. Well, I say it’s one of my favourite comics and, that much is true but, I’ve only ever read the first couple of story arcs and assorted stand alones so... let’s just say I’m a big admirer of the comics (which I am now reading again, hopefully in their entirety) without being any kind of authority on them. And, it has to be said, as someone who has a special place in the heart for these particular four colour wonders, I was extremely worried just how much they were going to screw it up. Certainly, some of the casting choices were extremely concerning to me when announced. I hate this bizarre, tokenism cultural reappropriation that seems to be going on in everything right now and, certainly, many pasty, white characters have been cast as black here and, similarly, some males characters have been recast as female.

So, for example, my favourite character from the comics, the iconic looking Death, is played by black actress/writer/producer Kirby Howell-Baptiste and I figured that would be a calamity. However, one of the things this reminded me was, sometimes, it’s possible (and switching mediums, perhaps necessary) to change things but, as long as you keep something of the spirit of the character intact during that transition, then you’re onto a winner. And I have to say, not only does Kirby Howell-Baptiste look the part (skin colour aside... she still manages to look something similar to the character), she absolutely knocks it out the park with her ‘low-key powerhouse’ performance as Death. She had my heart in minutes, for sure.

Now stuff like these appalling kind of casting issues are all over this series and, surprisingly, these don’t actually deter from the spirit of the comic and these characters in the slightest. And even changing the great John Constantine to a female character, Johanna Constantine (of which there are now two in The Sandman TV universe because of this casting change), played by the extraordinary actress Jenna Coleman (as both versions of Johanna, for the record), is much less problematic than I imagined... I’ll have a little more to say on her a bit later on.

Now I’m sure the great Neil Gaiman has had something to do with the writing and development of this show so, the various changes (and there are many) can perhaps be looked at as a genius writer revisiting his earlier work and just tweaking it slightly, with the benefit of hindsight (and to make it work in another medium, for sure). And much as I hate ‘George Lucas style’ revisionism to a work, which is a little like what’s gone on here... I think they all did a wonderful job.

So, yeah, the TV version of The Sandman is not only absolutely brilliant, it’s also very true to the heart of the source which... is probably a very difficult thing to pull off but, yeah, they somehow managed it. This show deserves all the awards. Now, I’m not going to go into the story content here... if you’ve never read these brilliant comics then you’ll want to go into this show absolutely fresh (and then maybe read the comics after) but it’s a show which, like its source, is a series of brilliant ideas and concepts strung together in a heady, dramatic cocktail of supernatural and mythical shenanigans which is hard to resist... because they did it so well. Luckily for me, the first series adapts the first two story arcs plus a few stand alone issues... and it’s all the ones I’ve read. Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death appears in the version of my favourite ever issue (to date), The Sound Of Her Wings and, it’s absolutely brilliant... I’m hoping that the powers that be will star the same actress in the first Death comic book mini series now, Death - The High Cost Of Living (please?).

Tom Sturridge plays Dream/Morpheus, the titular Sandman and, while he doesn’t quite look like the more stylised version of him in the early comics (maybe not as pale or spiky enough) he does kinda look like a young Neil Gaiman and, honestly, he does absolutely brilliantly as Dream here. Very much a cipher of a character but also a character which, already in the show, you can see is being changed from his experiences with humans. After a few episodes I turned around to my dad, who I was watching these with and said, “... you know, this guy would make a good Elric!” and it’s true. If anyone thinks to do a TV or movie version of Michael Moorcock’s brilliant Elric Of Melnibone stories, Tom Sturridge is obviously the man to go and see.

Okay, some of the changes I was not a fan of but that didn’t hurt in the long run were... hmm... okay, let’s see...

A lot of the DC character references are gone. So the 1930s Golden Age comic book version of The Sandman, referenced in the comic as being inspired by Morpheus’ imprisonment in one panel on a page, did not make it into this. Similarly, the great David Thewlis plays John Dee but I don’t think he’s once referred to as Doctor Destiny, his alter ego as a villain in the Justice League comics. And he also doesn’t have a neighbouring prison cell next to Jonathan Crane, aka The Scarecrow from Batman, in Arkham Asylum as he does in the comic book version either. Also, while Thewlis is the perfect piece of casting for this character (I would never have thought of that... brilliant choice), his actions seem more tempered. ONE SENTENCE SPOILER WARNING... he doesn’t kill the woman who goes out of her way to give him a cross country lift in her car after they have a long, pleasant conversation, as he does in the comics either... which I personally thought was a mistake but, I guess they thought the character wouldn’t garner enough sympathy with a modern TV audience for what comes later if they’d have gone through with that (I’m guessing).

Which brings us to another important change... Jenna Coleman as John Constantine. Really? Okay, so, presumably to not cross threads with either the John Constantine TV show or Keanu Reeve’s big budget Constantine movie (and the sequel which may well be going ahead now, after all this time), they’ve turned John Constantine into a woman, Johanna, not to be confused with her/his own ancestor Johanna (who also turns up in an episode played by the same actress). And, much to my gobsmacked shock, Coleman absolutely rocks it in this role. Now, I loved the Constantine movie and I love the work of Keanu Reeves but, my main criticism of that film (which I also loved, just not as an adaptation) is that Reeves plays a down on his luck, blonde, dirty raincoat wearing Liverpudlian (I think he’s from Liverpool, right?) as a rich, black haired yuppie person who, frankly, is nothing like John Constantine. Which is why I was amazed that, not only does Jenna Coleman rule this role, she also plays it just like the John Constantine in the comics. I mean, she channels John amazingly well and I would love to see a spin off series about this version of the character as well, it has to be said.

Okay, I’ve probably written much more than I was expecting to without even going into the plot but, honestly, if you like brilliant ideas, of which there are many on display, then The Sandman is one heck of a TV show and it gets a big recommendation from me. Two of the stand alone comics (again, two of my favourites) turn up as a special double bill bonus Episode 11 at the end and, yeah, I was wondering how they’d do Dream Of A Thousand Cats credibly... the solution was, as an animation, of course.  And there you have it. Can’t wait for series two to come out and this whole show, every episode, was an amazing experience (and the way they do the ‘story fight’ between Morpheus and Lucifer is very inventive for a kinetic visual medium... it’s just right). Definitely don’t waste anymore time if you’re on the fence about this... a perfect show with a perfect cast, it turns out. Absolutely loved this and I just hope Netflix will consider releasing this on Blu Ray at some point soon (not to mention a proper soundtrack CD please).