On the couch

DVD REVIEW

Dollhouse: Season 1-2*****
Starring: Eliza Dushku, Eliza Dushku, Harry Lennix, Fran Kranz
Southland: Season 1****
Starring: Ben McKenzie, Tom Everett Scott
Stephen Fry in America****
Starring: Stephen Fry, America
Chuck: Season 1-3****
Starring: Zachary Levi, Yvonne Strahovski

Much as it might pain us all to see, the evenings are closing in and the lure of the outside world as anything other than an inhospitable wilderness to pass through en route to the DVD store and snack emporium, dwindles with every passing hour.
Another troubling aspect to this time of year is the paucity of decent, or even half decent, flicks to watch, which is why it’s a perfect time to dive headlong into the wild and wonderful world of DVD box sets.
Beyond the obvious “more bang for your buck” benefit of having multiple hours of content to distract you from the wolves gathering at the door and the onset of an icy autumn, TV shows have over the past few years come to represent the best of screen writing. The stories can be so much bigger, bolder and better when you have anything from 10 to 30 hours of canvas to paint them on.
Filling a spot in the sometimes bleak, reality TV-soiled wasteland of telly with somewhere between Law&Order series and The Wire is Southland.
Focusing on the day-to-day policing of Los Angeles, it’s more personality orientated than the long-running NYC-based drama but slightly less gritty to the point of stinging your teeth than David Simon’s Baltimore masterpiece.
Its large ensemble cast includes faces you may recgnise from other TV shows, including Benjamin McKenzie, who played mumbly midget Ryan from The OC and Tom Everett Scott, aka “that guy who was in that thing that time”.
The action focuses on several groups of cops – a rookie starting on street duty, a pair of homicide detectives and a squad involved with gang-related crime.
Storylines evolve over several episodes with the focus seldom staying on the same group for too long. Despite this fragmented style of storytelling, the end product is absorbing, coherant, well-acted and exciting.
The second season finished recently on digital television with the promise of more to come in the new year, so now’s the perfect time to catch up on it.
Joss Whedon, the darling of the nerd classes, followed-up his hits Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and the underappreciated gem, Firefly, with his slow burning sci-fi opus, Dollhouse.
The idea is basically creepy – people give themselves up to the Dollhouse company for a few years. Their minds are erased and replaced with various custom-built personalities for the company’s mega-rich clients. 
Throw into this mix Echo (Eliza Dushku), a doll who starts to become self aware and is being pursued by an FBI agent, who thinks she’s a missing girl called Caroline.
What begins as a “personality-of-the-week” blandfest quickly develops into an increasingly creepy and fascinating series that spans the world and several timeframes and manages to summon up the apocalyptic sense of dread that Terminator and Terminator 2 did but with a fraction of the budget.
As with all Whedon products, it well-written while managing to be funny and scary in equal measure.
As light and frothy as geeky spy adventure comes, Chuck is probably the best (and only) one around at the moment.
Nerdy tech expert Chuck (Zachary Levi) has the collective secrets of the American government’s intelligence services dumped into his noggin and is forced into learning to spy on the fly from his newly appointed handlers, glamorous CIA agent, Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) and gruff and grunting Major John Casey (Adam Baldwin).
The spy stuff providing most of the action, the goofy humour is provided by Chuck’s workmates in the electronics store he’s wasting his life away in. It’s all good, dumb fun with just enough film and computer games references to make you feel clever for spotting stuff.
The third season finished on digital television this week with the fourth starting in two weeks.
In lieu of actually going on a holiday or, if you’re one of the lucky few for whom staycationing is a novelty rather than a necessity, Stephen Fry in America may be just what you need.
The greatest uncle none of us ever had embarked on something of a epic journey for the BBC, driving one of London’s famous black cabs across the US.
Fry takes in the sights, sounds and eccentrics of each of the 50 states in a fascinating and often amusing journey.
Apply sun cream, sit back and enjoy.