Cold Lazarus

I consider Dennis Potter's "The Singing Detective" the best thing ever to appear on TV. "Karaoke-Cold Lazarus" are contenders for second place. It is vital to see Karaoke first because Dennis Potter wrote them as a part of a whole.

Potter racing against the clock to finish Lazarus before he died. They are funny, weird, mysterious and profound -- a rare combination for any medium. It helps to know a bit of Potter's bio to fully appreciate the depth of this accomplishment.

My favorite moment came when slimy TV producer Siltz exults in the opportunity to own a writer's mind (literally) in order to exploit it. I can imagine the smile on Potter's face when he first conceived that scene, seeing it as a metaphor for his showbiz struggles with the Siltzes of the world.

Anyone who appreciates great writing will love this. Dennis Potter wrote a brilliant script about his own death. I doubt anyone will top his feat for a long time.

This miniseries is a fitting capstone to a brilliant and unique career. In Karaoke, Dennis Potter gave us a heartbreakingly personal look at the end of Daniel Feeld's life; A writer of surreal musical miniseries for TV feels like he is losing control over his written work, both literally (as his words break free and get spoken by real people surrounding him) and metaphorically, as the director of his latest screenplay tries to refashion it in his own image.

In Cold Lazarus, the situation is somewhat reversed. The setting and basic storyline are, by comparison to Karaoke, quite impersonal. The sci-fi "dystopia" is well done and entertainingly campy, with some real strokes of brilliance (the "Reality or Nothing" terrorists who fight the media's dominance), but it's hardly as personal or unique as a typical Potter drama's set-up.

But ironically, the struggle that Daniel Feeld (now only a head, frozen for four hundred years) faces in Cold Lazarus is far more personal, as he literally loses control of his own life and is forced to re-live his own painful memories, without the ability to edit them or filter them through his own creative processes.

The metaphor is set up for us by Feeld's dying words, which we hear in the first segment: "No biography". While Dennis Potter always drew from his own life to a large degree in his writing, he apparently did not relish the idea of other writers attempting to pick through his real life.

Fortunately for us, though, he was (as always) not nearly as reticent about interpreting or re-casting his own life for us. As a contrast to the sci-fi sequences, he presents us with our final glimpse of childhood in his beloved Forest of Dean, in a series of flashbacks that may even as personal as any of the similar scenes in The Singing Detective.

The first time I saw Cold Lazarus, it didn't really grab me, but since seeing it a second time, its story and ideas have stuck in my brain to a huge degree. As I say, it is truly a fitting "final opus" for one of the most distinctive and creative writers of the 20th century; hopefully one day soon, this work (and many more of Potter's creations) will be available on DVD.

This story is a very good story in itself and if you've seen the story (behind Lazarus) you will get even more out of the serie. I enjoyed this "realistic" sci-fi stuff more than most of the hollywood style bang-boom-big explosion kind of action sci-fi.

But I must warn you, if you hate each and every drama movie, go watch something else. All other people should watch this one.

Stendahl's idea that fiction holds more truth than any written "history" is, or will be, aptly applied to Dennis Potter's _magnum opus_, "Cold Lazarus." Even recent merger news makes the "Total Universal Entertainment Corporation" seem more a reality, as does the recent "State of the World" report. We've much to learn from our artists, the fewer there are, day by day. All those who love literature should be grateful that such a one as Dennis Potter left us these gems for television, among the few there have ever been, or will be.... Look upon "Cold Lazarus" with a somber and reflective mind, for the future is by no means, "out there...."

I'm a big fan of British TV and this series sounded as though it was going to be right up my alley.

While the parts with the scientists were fine enough, too much time was spent with "Martina" the American financier - her bits were absolutely unwatchable, contained zero entertainment or interest value and effectively torpedoed what would have otherwise escaped as a passable sci-fi yarn.

Perhaps this could be remade with more focus on what makes the story interesting.

3 out of 10