Forever

I have been watching new television! It wasn't at all crackly or old. These things always take time to get used to. Anyway, I posted a trailer a while ago for a new, upcoming series called Forever, starring Ioan Gruffudd as a naked, immortal murder detective. Quite the most gloriously silly premise that television has ever come up with. Why they're calling it Forever, I have no idea. Surely Naked, Immortal Murder Detectives! would be a much better title? But anyhow, ABC put episode one up on the internet, a month prior to its TV debut, so I watched it over the weekend. I'm happy to report that it's just as daft as the premise would suggest, although in all the right ways. Clearly it knows that it's completely ridiculous. I hope it does well, as I would like to see a full season, even if a second one is probably highly unlikely. No spoilers, but Gruffudd plays a bloke who discovered two hundred years ago that he can't die, and has spent his time since then learning languages, studying death, and attempting not to fall in love with inconveniently mortal women. Along the way he's picked up Judd Hirsch, a war orphan who he's raised as a son (and who is now much older than him); and has also acquired an in-depth familiarity with all the many ways there are of killing people. He seems to find his own death quite entertaining. Well, perhaps one would.

Obligatory "woe is me, for immortality is such a curse" nonsense. Yes, it probably is, but that phrase does get awfully boring when you've heard it a billion times; and any fan of Highlander/Torchwood/any other show that features immortality has heard it at least that often. It would be nice to have a happy immortal for a change. Somebody other than Methos, that is, since even he gets broody about it on occasion. There's Kronos, I suppose, but Duncan sodding MacLeod beheaded him, so he probably doesn't count, and sorry, distracted. But once you've got past the brooding, this is ridiculously entertaining. And, yes, silly. A man dies - with frightening regularity - and instantly pops up again in the nearest large body of water, completely naked. In between deaths he solves murders, because why not? Some niggles here and there. Concentration camps didn't tattoo babies, they just killed them, so trying to pass Judd Hirsch off as a tattooed baby rescued from a concentration camp at the end of World War Two is just a little bizarre. Nice nod to the original Highlander movie there though. Connor MacLeod also lived with a war orphan he'd raised, who eventually grew older than him. So I quite like that. Also the obligatory lady cop is pretty generic, but then I suppose it has only been one episode. And perhaps one should feel sorry for her, since she can never hope to be prettier than he is? Very promising arc plot. Not sure about the occasional narration, but it's done with a spring in its step and adds to the general air of fun, so maybe it will work, and what the hell am I grumbling about? Naked, immortal murder detectives! Who can consider that premise and fail to smile?! I like this show, at least on the basis of one episode. It's nonsense, but honestly, who the hell cares.


Ioan Gruffudd as Henry Morgan. The only thing more entertaining than your own (alarmingly frequent) horrific death is being arrested afterwards for indecent exposure.

So there's your recommendation for new TV to look out for. It won't change your life, but it ought to make you smile. Good enough, some might say?