Ridnap

Watched the first episode of Kidnap and Ransom last night. I’m not really qualified to write up a proper review, since I spent half of the programme shining a book light under my bed trying to catch a spider… but here are a few (slightly bitchy) observations anyway:

– Just because some companies take out something called “kidnap and ransom” insurance, doesn’t excuse that title… it merely explains it.

– Is it a good idea to introduce your supposedly very skilled and experienced main character to the audience via an epic failure in the opening scene of your show? I realise they needed a big fail for him to flashback to and be haunted by… but since we have no other frame of reference, and no other way of verifying his qualifications for the job, how are we supposed to have any expectations that he’ll succeed when the next big case comes around? Or that his job is even a real thing that people can make a career out of? Couldn’t it have been a formative disaster from his distant past with eerie parallels to the current case instead?

– I love how the kidnapper covered his face, but forgot to cover his distinctive wrist tattoo… and then picked up the victim in a really awkward way, so that the tattoo was plainly visible to the camera. Either that’s a major clue, or the actor had some deal going with his tattoo-artist.

– Am I the only person who watched The Darjeeling Limited and dug what Amara Karan was doing? Were all of those reviews praising her performance just figments of my fanboy imagination? Because all she got to do in last night’s episode was deliver dry, expositional factoids and look concerned. She’s better than this, dammit!

– This really wasn’t worth missing The Big Bang Theory for. :(

– If I were a properly enlightened person, I wouldn’t care if there was a spider under my bed… and wouldn’t waste half an hour of my life trying to slap it with a heavy book. At least I was able to calm myself down before I tried to go to sleep… so that’s progress.