Can't decide whether I want this to be true or not. I mean, obviously I don't want Farage in my country: we've got our own blustery bigots, you can keep yours, Britain. But there's no danger of him actually getting German citizenship - married to a German or not, he'd have to prove several years of residency -, and the utter shamelessness of applying for it in order to keep the benefits of being an EU member after doing his best to ruin it for the rest of Britain makes for a good narrative. Also, I have fun imagining him trapped in endless bureaucracy, with every civil servant on whose desk his application for citizenship lands taking a special pleasure in flinging yet more red tape at Farage.

Worst researched article about scriptwriting (and novels) ever?

"It is Cromwell's goodness that corrodes him, his loyalty to Cardinal Newman that fixes him on the same tragic trajectory as both Macbeth and Michael Corleone."

First of all, John Yorke, this is not the Cardinal you're looking for. The Cardinal Thomas Cromwell used to work for is named Wolsey, Newman living a few centuries later and being the most prominent Anglo Catholic before becoming a Roman Catholic, which in the light of Thomas Cromwell's main claim to historical fame makes this sentence even more hilarious than it already is. Also, h ow you can read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bringing Up The Bodies and emerge with the conclusion that Cromwell's increasing loss of humanity is caused because of his loyalty to Wolsey is somewhere beyond me. (Unless, of course, you really think that Cromwell brings down Anne Boleyn & friends because they've been mean to the Cardinal, as opposed to treating the opportunity to pick men to frame as Anne's lovers as an occasion to pick those men who gloated over Wolsey as an added bonus, but hey, maybe Yorke read two different novels. Well read different books and watch different films & tv shows. (Something I was reminded again of this past week with my feelings re: the Being Human finale being the exact opposite of the reason I've seen a lot elsewhere, while what I loved about the most recent Once Upon A Time ep was not necessarily what some other reviewing watchers loved.) But the article really is badly researched, quite aside from the Newman/Wolsey gaffe. I mean:

We don't like Satan in Paradise Lost – we love him. And we love him because he's the perfect gleeful embodiment of evil. Niceness tends to kill characters.

Oh, good lord. Have you read Paradise Lost? Gleeful? This would be the fellow who spends most of the poem angsting about his enstrangement from God and railing against the injustice of Dad his creator, and going after the younger kids, speak: Adam and Eve because why should they be happy if he can't? (And I'll never go back, Dad, never mind you kicked me out, I'm so not coming back, dad, so there!) Seriously, though, if you want a gleeful devil, you can go for Goethe's Mephisto in Faust (though he, too, has the occasional two lines melancholic moment, but mostly he's witheringly sarcastic and enjoying himself), not for Satan from Paradise Lost. As for "niceness tends to kill characters", well, that depends. I love a shady anti hero(ine) or a good villain as much as the next media consumant (see my recent attack of love for the most evil villain to grace the Once Upon A Time screen on a semi regular basis), but I've long grown out of that teenage good = boring attitude. It depends on the situation you put your character in and on the types of relationships you give to him or her. Call the Midwife, which just wrapped up its second season, is full of nice, and I use the word unironically and not to mean the opposite which it often does in fandom, characters. An entire ensemble of them. And guess what? It's not boring.

In conclusion: grow up, John Yorke, do your research, and/or get a better editor. P.S. The quote in the title of this post is from The Vision of Judgment by Byron. That one has a good Satan in it, too, though not a gleeful one.

Another new season I look forward to, with some trepidation because the first one was so good and I can't know yet whether this will be the type of show who does one perfect season and then flounders or the type of show which builds on its initial success and becomes even better, is s2 of Homeland, and there is a trailer now. I'm morbidly amused that they use the same music as Downton Abbey, i.e. an a capella rendition of I'll be watching you, only Homeland is fully aware the song is supposed to be creepy, not romantic, and uses that to full effect. Also CARRRRIIIEEEE. I don't know who, it might have been abigail_n, when reviewing the show smartly said that while the audience starts empathizing with Brodie and disliking Carrie (whose flaws, and not "heroic" or cutesy flaws but genuinely appalling ones, are if anything highlighted in the pilot), and by the time the show ends, the reverse was true at least for her (and also for me) simply by a) the way we've been getting to know both characters and b) plot developments. Anyway, Damian Lewis is a fabulous actor, no question about, but Claire Danes' Carrie is my main character draw for the second season.

Speaking of Downton Abbey, I had a recent moment where a reviewer you want to agree with is so jerky about it that you instinctively side with the maligned party. Well, I did. This came in the (adoringly positive) review of Parade's End, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which the reviewer starts by slamming not only Downton Abbey but also anyone who enjoys Downton Abbey: Any diehard Downton fans tuning in to BBC2 on Friday night, hoping for a fun, easy, schmaltzy, pretty, faintly rewarding hour or so, or so-so, of bodiced bitchery, and a bit of intrigue telegraphed only by railway hooters and wobbly cartoon finger-signs pointing to "the bad 'un", will have been royally disappointed. That's the first piece of excellent news about Parade's End.

Now, I wrote a very critical review of Downton Abbey's second second season recently. And if anyone said it's entertaining schlock with class snobbery a mile wide, I'd agree immediately. But reading this particular review (which could have been written without any DA reference at all, since it's about a miniseries based on four legendary novels which have nothing to with with Downton Abbey whatsoever) made me suddenly look forward to yet another season of "bodiced bitchery" while not in a hurry to look for Parade's End because if there's one thing I absolutely can't stand, it's this type of condescension. You know, Euan Ferguson, it's entirely possible to enjoy both "fun, easy schmaltz" and layered tv both. You're not thrown out of the club of the literati because of that.

Then again, maybe Ferguson felt the need for a Downton Abbey slam because Parade's End's star, Benedict Cumberbatch, recently managed the rare feat to diss the show and to behave as Matthew Crawley and the Earl his future father-in-law personified, moaning about the burden of his privilege and threatening to go America where the posh aren't bashed. This resulted in various utterings by other people, the most funny of which was this article (tweeted by Dan Stevens, who plays Matthew, without comment). "Fetch the caviar, it's Rinkydink Curdlesnoot, the great ponce" is what will come to (my) mind when seeing the quondam Sherlock from now on, because it's the best quote ever. This being said, Bimpleswitch Wafflechops (tm article) is a good actor, Tom Stoppard is a great writer, and so was Ford Maddox Ford on whose novels the miniseries is based, so I'll look forward to seeing it regardless. But I'd look forward to it even more if Euan Ferguson hadn't praised it first.