paul_bibby

The show is an interesting take on wildlife conservation. It primarily focuses on two twin tigers being raised in the presenter's home for the first months of their lives. The home life includes the son and his first wife, Ceri.

My main criticism is the need to put the animals front and centre but they tend to take second place behind Giles. I'm not sure what it is about Giles but there's something about him I don't really like. I think he fawns over his son too much and treats the kid like an idiot. Maybe he does it because there will be lots of idiots watching the show and he wants to explain things for everyone to understand. I don't buy that and just think he tslk in a patronising manner to everyone.

My biggest complaint is the treatment of the wife, Ceri. She is forever being pushed to the rear as Giles mollycoddles his son. There is hardly a scene that shows Giles physically disconnected from his son. His wife on the otherhand rarely gets a hug. No wonder she didn't stick around.

I found that whole coldness vibe a real turn off. I guess kids don't really notice, which is probably the reason the BBC keep repeating the shows.

There's no doubt Giles loves animals and he does a huge amount of good promoting animal welfare. He just tries too hard with his child. If he stuck to the animals rather than dragging his family members into the show it would be far better.

Like many others I had my interest piqued by the excellent lead and supporting cast. They all deliver solid convincing performances. Cromwell as the aging highly influential Hollywood director is excellent. Farrell plays the gumshoe with ease.

There are many characters popping up throughout the tale. Its a clear homage to the film noir detective movies that kicked off in the late 30's with the likes of Bogart, thru to the 50's when the genre began to fade. The show also has an unusual twist that is revealed over the course of the season. I enjoyed that aspect of the show but it wouldn't have made any difference to the main tale of the detective investigation if it was omitted. What it did do was provide context to some of the motives of Sugar.

In the traditional gumshoe style Sugar wanders across the LA & Hollywood landscape meeting suspects and witnesses in typical crime procedural fashion. The characters he meets are well rounded and rarely feel one dimensional. There is an appropriate level of violence, that keeps the show in line with the 50s style. Think of the callous nature of some of the villains that Sam Spade would meet. Their brutality was always clear and menacing but rarely gratuitous and displayed for filmic effect. The same is the case in Sugar. Like Bogart's detectives, Farrell's character sustains regular injuries in his hunt for the missing woman but ploughs on where weaker shallower men would quit.

The one movie that I would suggest is a massive influence on the shows producers is the 1973 noir thriller, The Long Goodbye with Elliot Gould. Gould's Marlowe moves through a similar set of locations with similar characters as Sugar. Thay film is regarded as an homage. The Sterling Haydn auteur director character is replicated by Cromwell. The main difference is the latter is not a faded drunken boorish director of the past but a venerated and influential individual with great power in the movie industry and LA as a whole.

The series is beautifully shot with the feeling that LA is bathed in a golden glow and that to be a part of the city you need a vintage corvette convertable to dive around in. It helps if you are also a hansome A-lister but I think anyone in a similar situation would feel like a million dollars. The irony is that the PI can be spotted a mile off by those he is keeping tabs on.

The soundtrack is littered with wonderful tracks from a vast selection of genre's. The ones that I picked out are Only The Lonely by Shirley Horn, Cherry by UFO, Sugar Sugar by Bob Marley,Da Funk by Daft Punk, Piano Man by Billy Joel, Anemone by The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and. The Passenger by Iggy Pop. There are many more great tracks that may not always be on a hit list but represent the musicians at their best and lend a cool imagery and style to the scenes they appear in.

The editing is excellent and keeps each episode on point and moving along at just the right pace. At no point did I feel I had lost track of the story or that subsequent scenes were out of kilter with the stroy arch. There are flashback scenes that occur throughout in realtion to Sugar but its clear they are his own memories as are the regular use of scenes from old movies that keep popping into his head. Sure these screenplay techniques have been used before and though there is nothing new here they do provide an interesting context to Sugar's behaviour and motivations.

I scored the show a 9 inspite of my misgivings about the plot twist. I won't reveal what it is but I do belive it would make a second season a wholey different story and not necessarily an improvement. That said, I'm happy with the rating I gave it. I'd definitely be inclined to watch the show again, which I don't usually do.