Last week, one of the battle scenes in Band of Brothers was so powerful that the sound of a shell exploding during one particularly intense attack actually cracked my wine glass, sending a chip shooting across me and against the sofa by my head. Band of Brothers, the continuity announcer might want to warn, is brought to you in ShrapnelVision.
It's not as if the battle scenes need to be any more realistic; they are arguably the most realistic to have been brought to either the small or large screen. It is often only once the credits roll that it occurs to you there must be an enormous amount of trickery involved, blue screens, computer graphics, dummies, whatever. The sequences are seamless, visceral, often deliberately beautiful. But while they cannot help but dominate the series, they add rather than detract from the central humanity of this true story of US paratroopers fighting their way to Berlin.
Last night's episode contained an astonishing re-creation of the artillery attacks on Eazy Company, dug in to the ground of a frozen Belgian forest. Trees splintered, the ground heaved under the explosions, shrapnel shredded men. It does not spare on the carnage, most notably when last night the snow and dust was given a final layer in the shocking moment a shell vaporised two soldiers as they sheltered in a foxhole. Blood red is the only primary colour. The episodes set in the harsh winter of 1944 have been impressively shot, with strong colour blanched away and replaced by the relentless white of the snow and the dirty grey of everything else.
In a vast ensemble cast, the acting has been exemplary. Last night, Donnie Wahlberg stepped forward as a platoon first-sergeant rallying his troops as they faced living in the frozen forest, under regular attack and an ineffectual commanding officer. It was a measured, stoic performance that should finally bury the sniggering that accompanies the fact that he is the same Donnie Wahlberg who used to be in New Kids on the Block.
Irish actor Peter O'Meara was also impressive as Lieut Dyke, the commanding officer desperately trying to lead from the rear. When Lieut Dyke was killed, no tears were shed. "Thank God for small mercies," said one of his soldiers, emphasising how much of the appeal of Band of Brothers comes in how it favours truth over schmaltz. Not to say it ignores the inner conflict brought about in those seeing their friends killed and finding themselves developing into ruthless killers, only that it has hit the balance between the realities of the survival instinct and the attraction of macho, gung-ho action.
Tucked away at desperate hours of the week, first on Friday night and then late on a Wednesday, this series has been treated badly by the BBC. Produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, it has developed into television of the highest order, far surpassing the initial sense that it would be a spin-off from Saving Private Ryan. There are three programmes left in the series, four if you can catch this Wednesday night's repeat episode. You do not need to have watched the previous six to be gripped by it. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
On Wednesday night, Billy-The-Most-Evil-Man-In-The-World married Carol in Fair City. If you tuned in you might not have recognised him, seeing as he didn't walk up the aisle in his usual leather jacket and V-neck jumper. The V-neck is so low it's normally lost under the forest of wiry hair trying to escape over the top. That hair has had its uses, though, most notably in blinding Carol to the fact that Billy, far from being a doting boyfriend and successful businessman, is in fact an adulterous fiend, so nasty he probably doesn't have a reflection in the mirror.
A nightclub owner, Billy-The-Most-Evil-Man-In-The-World has a neat sideline in pimping the entire population of Carrigstown to visiting foreign businessmen. Last week, Terry, who sings at his club, threw her son TJ into a suitcase and disappeared over to England. It wouldn't have come to this if Terry hadn't agreed to do a "corporate job" for Billy in the not-suspicious-at-all venue of a hotel room, only to have her singing voice silenced by a vodka and coke laced with drugs. What followed was her lying on a bed and a businessman being told, "She's all yours" by Billy-The-Most-Evil-Man-In-The-World, as he left the room with a grin which gleamed brighter than the gold jewellery poking through his hairy chest.
Not the brightest tool in the box, Terry didn't realise she had been all anybody's until her friend, Tracey, filled her in. Tracey should know, being mistress to Billy-The-Most-Evil-Man-In-The-World. She is also Carol's best friend and bridesmaid, which brings us back to the wedding.
Billy-The-Most-Evil-Man-In-The-World's fidelity lasted no longer than it took for the echo of the clinking of the glasses at speech time to fade. By the close of Wednesday night he was upstairs practising with Tracey for the night ahead with Carol. Tracey wanted him to stay; he reckoned the 20 minutes was enough. "Carol will be wondering where we've got to," Billy-The-Most-Evil-Man-In-The-World hissed (he always hisses). "She's not stupid." His point may have been somewhat lost; by Thursday night it was easier just to have Carol walk in on Billy and Tracey in flagrante than have her figure it out herself. "Billy-The-Most-Evil-Man-In-The-World and Carol-The-Stupidest-Woman-In-The-World, I now pronounce you man and wife." May they live happily ever after.
It's unlikely there'll be anybody pimping anybody in On Home Ground. The opening episode of the GAA drama confirmed that this will be undemanding Sunday night drama in the vein of Ballykissangel and Playing The Field. In last Sunday's opening episode, teenager Cora got a tattoo, sending shockwaves through the sleepy village. "It was when you went to Dublin on Friday?" asked her mother, with a confidence that nothing good ever comes out of Dublin.
That wasn't the main plot, though, which was helpfully explained within two minutes of the start by Sean McGinley, as coach Fergal Collins. "I'm 44 years of age . . . middle-aged . . . dreaming of 1962 . . . so close this year." It was very much an establishing episode, in which characters were introduced and the tribulations of the football team spelled in out in Very Large Letters. It's well-polished, colourful and solidly performed. The next couple of episodes will tell if it has the charm and humour to go along with that.
Tuesday night's Faking It featured Ed, a chip-van worker, given four weeks to become an haute cuisine chef good enough to fool a panel of judges in a culinary competition. Ed had an approach we could all empathise with. "It's hard to cram in all this new knowledge. Even trying to cram in the knowledge that helps you fake knowledge is really difficult."
Things did not start too well, his first taste of competition coming in the Brownie Pack Cooking Competition. He came second to a pan-fried salmon cooked by an eight-year-old. His way with food was eclipsed somewhat by his way with words. The chef coaching him said he needed to be more arrogant in the kitchen. "I'd rather hammer me bollocks to the mast of a sinking ship than give orders," he chirped. I think he said something immediately after that but I was too busy spluttering into my tea to catch it.
In week two, he was sent to work in the kitchen of Gordon Ramsay. For those who haven't seen him before, Ramsay is a man so scary he simply frightens the food into being delicious. "First impressions," he said, eyeing Ed, "he looks like a sack of shit. He doesn't look like a chef, he looks like a cabbie here to pick up Table Four." Ed walked out after four hours. "I'm really glad I don't have to live in his head," he said of Ramsay. "It's like some movie, where they have a curse, having to be Gordon Ramsay for the rest of your life. Yeuch." TouchΘ.
As it turned out, Ramsay frightened Ed into being a good-enough chef to win the competition, despite looking down-and-out only the night before. The ice cream failed to set, the fish was bland, he wasn't arrogant enough. Ed being so likeable, and with disaster heaping upon disaster, his victory was desperately exciting. He raised his arms to the air in triumph, as if he was Rocky having just floored Apollo Creed with a tasty and succulent Pan-Fried Red Mullet and Herb Tortellini.
tvreview@irish-times.ie
