I'm talking about the TV show The Fall, though my readers will be forgiven if they mistook this for another in the series of maudlin entries lamenting the tragic note on which I ended my career at GT. The Fall stars Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame, and that was the reason why I started watching it initially. It gave me quite a shock when Gillian Anderson opened her mouth for the first time, and out came a British accent. For some reason, Americans suck at affecting British accents. (Meryl Streep comes to mind, even as you bang your head against the wall.) I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that the British aren't great at affecting American accents either - a fact that might come as a shock to many Britons who are wont to bethink themselves superior to their American cousins. Or maybe not. Hugh Laurie is great as Dr. House, but even he slips up occasionally (e.g., when he inserts linking r's into words when such a phenomenon would not be observed in the kind of accent he aims to affect). You will rarely hear that from an American, however, since to them a British person affecting an American accent is akin to witnessing a person you've long lusted after trying on your undergarments. (Is that a turn-on to some? I have no clue.)
I digress. I subsequently read that Gillian Anderson had spent a portion of her youth in Britain, where she had developed a British accent, and then spent her early years in acting struggling to get rid of it. As a result, she tends - naturally, according to her - to speak in an American accent in the company of Americans and in a British accent in the company of Britons. That made me think maybe her British accent wasn't so lousy after all. Only a Brit would be able to say for sure.
According to the synopsis on Netflix, Gillian Anderson's character is an ice-cold detective who's hunting down a coldblooded serial killer (Jamie Dornan). Jamie Dornan played, I am told, the title character in Fifty Shades of Gray. The role doubtless prepared him to probe the depths of sexual degeneracy in The Fall. The characters in The Fall are all well rounded and believable. The story arcs are long without becoming a drag. Most significantly, the show does not lapse into sentimentality or melodrama in the way a lot of American crime shows tend to do when they've been on the air for a certain amount of time. The turning of the stomach that one would have experienced watching, say, Castle, does not occur here. Instead, the show is the television equivalent of a page turner that nevertheless manages to exhibit marvelously the stasis of real life. Time appears to pass at precisely the rate you'd expect. I've done well, I think, not to become a professional film/television critic.
According to the synopsis on Netflix, Gillian Anderson's character is an ice-cold detective who's hunting down a coldblooded serial killer (Jamie Dornan). Jamie Dornan played, I am told, the title character in Fifty Shades of Gray. The role doubtless prepared him to probe the depths of sexual degeneracy in The Fall. The characters in The Fall are all well rounded and believable. The story arcs are long without becoming a drag. Most significantly, the show does not lapse into sentimentality or melodrama in the way a lot of American crime shows tend to do when they've been on the air for a certain amount of time. The turning of the stomach that one would have experienced watching, say, Castle, does not occur here. Instead, the show is the television equivalent of a page turner that nevertheless manages to exhibit marvelously the stasis of real life. Time appears to pass at precisely the rate you'd expect. I've done well, I think, not to become a professional film/television critic.
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