[S1E1] Episode I TOP

Episode 1.1InformationSeason 1, Episode 1Air dateSeptember 12, 2013Written bySteven KnightDirected byOtto BathurstEpisode guidePreviousNext--Episode 1.2"Episode 1.1" is the first episode of the first series of Peaky Blinders and the premiere of the series overall. It aired on BBC Two on September 12, 2013.

[S1E1] Episode I

The wheezing old man's rasping lungs prove just part of the episode's unsettling soundscape (about which more in a bit). The first time I saw this episode, I would have bet anything Nick was sharing his room with the next zombie to rise, especially since Nick was chained to a hospital bed and, thus, would prove the perfect zombie bait.

The various visits to the abandoned church are more experiments on the show's part to see just how much it can get away with building tension when literally nothing is happening. Gloria and her zombie compatriots have left the church far behind, but that doesn't mean the episode can't try to milk these scenes for all they're worth.

The Fear the Walking Dead pilot takes place over a succession of days, over which time, the various public places the characters visit slowly empty of people. Take, for instance, the school where both Madison and Travis work, which is essentially devoid of people by the time the school board decides to call a half day late in the episode. Or look at that public park the characters drive by several times. The first day, it's thriving. By the last day, it's basically empty.

Here's a much better way of setting up the central lie of the story. Whether it's the constantly ringing phones at the hospital or the sirens wailing away in the distance in many scenes or that wheezing old man, the sounds of emergency and chaos erupting somewhere on the show's edges nicely add to whatever dread the episode is able to build.

You'll notice how many of these techniques I'm talking about have essentially nothing to do with the episode's main story, which is about the family trying to deal with Nick's latest mishaps. If that seems like a commentary on how that story fails to ignite, well, it very well might be.

This might be the episode's single most evocative image. It could be just a homeless person, or someone stoned out of his mind, or any other number of normal explanations. Or it could be something else.

Let's talk about the episode's most irritating element: Nick's friend Calvin, who seems like a nice and normal young man at first, then turns out to be Nick's dealer, then turns out to have murderous intentions for Nick, then turns out to continue the parent series' unfortunate habit of turning black men into frequent zombie chow. On The Walking Dead, that led to frequent memes and discussion of just why the series had such trouble with black male characters. On this show, it simply feels like nobody was paying attention.

But even setting that aside, turning Calvin into a drug dealer is disappointing on a number of levels, not least of which is the simple fact that by this point in the episode, essentially everything that's happened has had a reversal tied to it. That's fun for a bit, but it has a tendency to erode the audience's trust. This one, which occurs relatively late, feels like just another plot twist tossed on the pile.

But then you consider that the episode starts with three black, fairly important male characters, and by its end, Calvin has been zombified, while Matt (Alicia's boyfriend) has seemingly disappeared (never a good sign on a show like this). That leaves only the principal seemingly out of harm's way. Given the criticisms launched against the parent series, isn't this all a little weird?

So much of this episode is spent with the characters just missing the handful of zombies populating the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Here's another case, where Travis and Madison, stuck in a traffic jam later revealed to be caused by a zombie (of course), simply decide to go around it, presumably to live another day.

It's an old trick, but it's still a good one. The episode's one reliable narrator is Nick, the one character who's had contact with the zombies, but also the one character everybody is quickest to write off, because of his drug-addled state of mind. Does he make a particularly good Cassandra? Not really, but he does know that he needs to run zombie Calvin down with a pickup truck when the moment comes.

So it's tempting to think when Travis and Madison encounter zombie Calvin late in the episode, they'll know just what to do. Yet they make all of the wrong choices. They approach him. They talk to him. They try to ascertain how he's doing, before he starts trying to bite them. It's only Nick's quick thinking with the pickup that saves them.

The song that kicked in over the radio at the end and played out the episode was Never Let Me Down Again by Depeche Mode. A classic from 1987, and, if that code Ellie cracked is anything to go by, a sign of big trouble ahead for Bill and Frank.

Many people, a lot of drama, and so much more to be revealed in upcoming episodes. You're not alone if you found the first episode a bit frantic but felt nothing much happened. Check back next week, and we'll work through this Hotel Portofino journey together.

In this episode of Hotel Portofino, Nish embarks on a new relationship, Danioni continues his campaign of blackmail against the Ainsworths, and Lucian and Constance's bond grows deeper.

Tonight marks the U.S. premiere of Continuum, which has already been through its first season on the Canadian channel Showcase and was renewed for thirteen more episodes in August of 2012. The story is set in 2077, where a group of eight terrorists known as Liber8, responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people, is about to be executed, but escapes by traveling back in time to 2012. While trying to stop them, City Protective Services officer Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) is sent back as well. Cameron must not only try to stop Liber8 and return to 2077, but keep certain events from happening that could drastically affect the future.

In the episode, a member of the British royal family is kidnapped and will only be released if the British prime minister Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear) has sexual intercourse with a pig on live television. Scenes follow government attempts to track the kidnapper, news coverage of the unfolding events and public reaction. "The National Anthem" had several inspirations, the idea originally conceived by Brooker years previous, with broadcaster Terry Wogan in place of a prime minister. It had a deliberately serious tone.

Reviewers identified themes including the spread of information across social media, the relationship between politicians and the public, and the role of news media. The episode garnered seven-day ratings of 2.07 million viewers, alongside many viewer complaints to broadcasting regulatory body Ofcom. Mostly positive professional reviews found the episode to be a good opener for the series, plausible in its storyline and well-acted, though some critics dissented. On average, reviewers have ranked the episode middling in comparison to other Black Mirror instalments.

The episode was later compared to Piggate, an anecdote published in the 2015 biography Call Me Dave, which alleged that British prime minister of the time, David Cameron, had placed a "private part of his anatomy" into a dead pig's head as an initiation rite at university.[1]

The executive producers Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones began work on Black Mirror in 2010, having previously worked together on other television programmes. The series was commissioned for three hour-long episodes by Channel 4, taking its budget from the comedy department. Brooker's production company Zeppotron produced the show for Endemol.[3] "The National Anthem" was the first episode of Black Mirror to air, premiering on 4 December 2011 at 9 p.m.[4] The following two episodes, "Fifteen Million Merits" and "The Entire History of You", premiered a week and a fortnight later, respectively. "The National Anthem" was the third script to be pitched to Channel 4, the first of which was "Fifteen Million Merits" and the second of which was not produced.[5]

The initial idea for the episode involved a celebrity carrying out the sex act.[6] Series creator Charlie Brooker had previously conceived of a short story where the broadcaster Terry Wogan would have to have "full sexual intercourse with a sow" on television in order to secure the release of a kidnapped princess, later mentioning the idea in a 2002 column for The Guardian.[7] Brooker later became interested in parodying the American action series 24.[6] Whilst working on the story, he realised it would not be humorous. Like his previous work Dead Set, a 2008 horror series about zombies, he decided to "take something preposterous but make the tone very straight".[2] The title of the episode refers both to "God Save the Queen", the UK's national anthem, and Radiohead song "The National Anthem".[2]

Brooker also took inspiration from a controversy where Gordon Brown called a member of the public "a bigot" after speaking with her, and also a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic where he believed recalling that "a police chief is required to have sex with a hog".[1] Another inspiration was the reality show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, particularly an episode where a celebrity was tasked with consuming a mixture of disgusting animal parts. Annabel Jones described the episode's topic as "humiliation and the public's appetite for humiliation".[2]

Rory Kinnear stars in the episode as Prime Minister Michael Callow. Lindsay Duncan plays the Home Secretary Alex Cairns and Alex Macqueen plays Special Agent Callett, whilst Anna Wilson-Jones had the role of Callow's wife Jane. During the casting process, executive producer Annabel Jones was keen to hire non-comedy actors so that a humorous tone could be avoided. Director Otto Bathurst commented that the production's first choice for every role was hired. Callow's political party is not stated, though Brooker says his blue tie implies that he is a member of the Conservative Party, a right-wing party in Britain. Jones commented that it would have been easy to make the audience hate Callow, but the focus was on the public's appetite for humiliation.[2] 041b061a72