fajrdrako | Riverworld, part 1... (Reply)

When I saw Peter Wingfield at Torchsong last July, he was fresh from filming Riverworld, expecting it to be aired in November. It wasn't aired till now - the first part of the story was shown tonight. It seems part 2 will be tomorrow night. Are those all the parts there are? I had the impression from what Wingfield said that it was more than two parts _ I expected three or four one-hour episodes - but maybe they changed things.

Interestingly, he plays Sir Richard Burton, a historical personnage who has long interested me because he was a writer and linguist, a traveller in the old exciting Victorian sense of the word, bisexual, and relationship with his wife makes a good story. Peter Wingfield read up on Burton when he got the role, and was likewise impressed. He said that Burton was the only character in the story whose point of view really made sense to him.

He talked a lot about the story, the characters, the setting (not just the fictional Riverworld, but the beautiful Okanagan Valley where it was was filmed).

Peter is quite wonderful. That goes without saying. maaseru, who is much less of a Wingfield fan than I am, said she thought his looks are improving with age. I thought that last July. In this show... all I can say is, he looked magnificent, but he always does, to my eyes.
Pity he's playing a villain again. I think I'd rather see Burton played as a hero and Mark Twain as a Villain, if we have to play dichotomies.
If the story makes any sense, I guess we'll find out in part 2. Part 1 reminded me a little of The Matrix.
Good cast. I liked Tahmoh Penikett in Battlestar Galactica, and much as I disliked Dollhouse, I won't hold it against him. Jeananne Goossen as Tomoe is gorgeous as the Buddhist nun who turns out to be a samurai swordswoman, and since I happen to have a thing for gorgeous swordswoman, I kept wondering why on earth our Hero preferred the other girl, who seemed utterly boring and ordinary. No accounting for tastes.
I loved it that we have a same sex couple in the story, who are on the side of the good guys, and sympathetic. We even get a scene of two men kissing, for no other reason that it was appropriate at that point and exactly what these characters would do. How wonderful. How rare. One hearty kudo to the show for that. And lets hope we get to the end of the story with them still alive, though in a show where no one can die, or where everyone is already dead, I don't see how they can make them more dead than everyone else, so that's okay.
It was also a thrill to see Alan Cumming is in it - I don't remember Peter Wingfield mentioning him, but they seem to have no scenes together. In fact, Alan Cumming has almost no scenes at all, and precious few lines. What a shame. Fun to see him blue again, like in X-Men. And in a hood. Hmm.
The Okanagan Valley is so beautiful, I wonder why more movies aren't made there. Now, I don't know the Okanaga Valley at all, but I thought it was mostly farmland - this was more as I pictured the Fraser Valley, forested and mountainous. Perhaps I have my BC river valleys mixed up?
I feel that the fact that our characters can't die takes away some of the suspense and tension. Torchwood has the same problem, but they use it to good effect. Here... I'm not sure.
Pizarro as played by Bruce Ramsay is a vaguely sexy villain, albeit over the top in his aggression. Wingfield as Burton is much more interesting and subtle - thanks entirely to Wingfield's acting, I think, because the script so far hasn't made much of him at all. He gets a few awful lines (like "Kill them all") and his point of view, which Wingfield admired, hasn't been given yet. All we see is the motiveless malignancy.¹ His purpose in life seems to be to kill the girl the hero loves. We don't yet know why. Or how he thinks this can be accomplished, in a world where no one can die and in which everyone is dead.
Mark Declin, on the other hand, who seems to be paying one of the good guys (Sam Clemens/Mark Twain) seems extremely unattractive to me. His girlfriend, Venetian courtesan Allegra, reminded me of Inara in concept and style - but much rougher and earthier; she had none of Inara's grace.
In terms of storytelling, I think I am less annoyed that the story makes no sense, and more annoyed that it seems to have no purpose. People who can't die are fighting each other... for what?
I do like the idea of the hero being a war journalist who is against violence, yet who has a death on his conscience.
Using famous characters from history all together in one adventure story reminds me of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, especially since both included Mark Twain. Might be fun to see Mina Harkness walk into this one, and too bad Alan Moore didn't include Richard Burton.

So now I stand by to see what happens tomorrow.

¹ I love the phrase "motiveless malignancy", taken from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's comments on Shakespeare's Iago. I'd like to see Peter Wingfield play Iago. Or Othello, come to think of it, though I don't expect many directors would want that casting. But if Patrick Stewart could do it... Hey, I can dream, right?