Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; spy vs spy and cinema vs TV

I finally got round to watching the 2011 film adaptation of 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', which was well received and I can see why. It's beautifully filmed, in hues of browns and greys with even the occasional splash of green or of sunlight seeming drained and subdued. I appreciated the way it didn't make the mistake so many films do, of being too keen to show off it's period detail and beat you round the head with intrusive music and unnecessary filler shots. It's superbly acted by a strong, almost entirely British cast – Toby Whitehouse snarls and glowers to great effect, Tom Hardy makes an impression perhaps simply because of his character's difference from the rest (an all together rougher and more physical presence), Benedict Cumberbatch brings some moments of effective and welcome emotion.

Gary Oldman dominates the entire thing, and it's interesting to see the way he has changed and developed as an actor in recent years. You might struggle to believe he is the same actor who dominated the screen so physically and showily in the likes of Dracula and Leon, but following on from his selfless supporting role in the Batman series, here he is all about restraint, physical stillness, deliberation. The greatest credit I can give is that he successfully steps out from the formidable shadow of Alec Guinness, star of the definitive TV series from the 70's (repeated a few years ago on BBC4 by the way, and such a welcome antidote to the incessant bluster and noise of too many modern series).

 His character Smiley is not just the lead role, he's the very heart and soul of the story: the pace, the subdued colours, the quietness all mirroring Smiley's slow, deliberate movements – themselves external representations of his careful and considered thoughts and watchfulness as he unravels the mystery at the heart of his hunt for the mole at the top of British Intelligence. This is the most successful part of the film, a key thematic element infused into the very direction, cinematography and the performance of the key actor. Cumberbatch, as Smiley's right-hand man, is meant to be a counterpoint to this, impulsiveness and brashness providing necessary action to drive the mole-hunt forward.

The least successful element then? Well, here's the other point of this blog: that TV series will remain the definitive version of this story. Not because of any greater quality of acting or filming or any such technical consideration, but simply because of this: the film is 127 minutes long, the TV series is 315. There is so much depth of theme and detail in a book like Tinker....that can't be conveyed in a film simply because of time constraints. There's too much compromise needed in adapting the story to the medium of film. The TV series still has to make compromises of course, but that extra time – if well used – can make all the difference, and in this case it makes the difference between a good film and an excellent series.

Too much is lost in the film. There's no time to set up and follow through the necessary twists and red herrings satisfactorily, which means the central mystery isn't really much of a mystery and the story is turned into a potentially quite dry intelligence procedural. It's only due to the superb quality of the script, acting and production that the film is still so good despite this. There's no time to properly deal with the various deeper story elements or themes – the theme conveyed by the partnership of Oldman and Cumberbatch isn't strongly conveyed or maintained, it's left to be briefly implied in the early scenes between the two. There's no time for any real exploration of Smiley's character, why he is like he is and the significance of that to the story. There is literally no attempt at all to explain or show any reasoning behind the mole's betrayal. No time, no time, no time.

Thinking about film vs TV, the pro's in film's column have always seemed to me to be about spectacle and budget, and having the biggest acting names available. But these days there are plenty of big budget TV shows that can look just as good and provide just as much spectacle, and plenty of shows providing very willing vehicles for actors who would previously have stuck with film.

The first TV show I personally can recall matching film was Band of Brothers, which is a very handy example as it took it's cue in a big way from Saving Private Ryan. It looks just as good as that film, using a very similar look and style, and over 11 hours and 10 episodes it tells a much better story. The film provided an excellent template, with that stunning opening and the overall look and feel, but then had to tell a story in a film's running time and ended up with something pretty generic and compromised. The TV series had that much more time with it's story and it's characters, and was so much more satisfying as a result, without in turn having to make any of it's own compromises in presentation, spectacle or performance.

This is an age of big TV series. Quality actors, quality writers, some pretty daring stories being told, some pretty big budgets being spent. DVD boxsets and streaming services mean audiences can watch them at their convenience too. Where does this leave film, then? There's still one advantage film has: the ability to tell a satisfying story in a couple of hours. Even watched at your convenience, a tv series is still a big time commitment. And it can drag, and getting the pacing right - over, what? 30, 40, 50 episodes? - can be a real bugger, not to mention it might jump the shark in season 3, get shit in season 2 or not know how or when to end it and …...yes.

 One film, a couple of hours, one sitting, beginning, middle, end, simple. There'll always be a place for that, but cinema isn't the only game in town any more. So it's a matter of picking battles, for this I will say: when it comes to telling a story like 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', the long game, the slower of pace, will – fittingly and I think Smiley would approve – always win.

Mesrine - Parts 1&2: a review

Mesrine is a 2-part film telling, over 4 stylish French hours, the story of real-life French gangster Jacques Mesrine. Mesrine's criminal career through the 1960's and 70's made him somewhat of a celebrity criminal of that kind that seems to have been consigned to history.

Here, he's played memorably by Vincent Cassel, present for pretty much the entire film and holding the screen superbly. Frankly he holds the whole thing together, because it's a bit of a rickety structure this one. The problem is that the film doesn't really make any concerted effort to get under Mesrine's skin, to uncover any depth to his character. There could've been more made of a possibly difficult relationship with his father, and surely he would have been affected in some way by what he saw and did serving for the French army in Algeria – shown in opening scenes that some of the most harrowing and difficult in the whole film. But there's nothing by way of more substantial explanation of Mesrine or his actions.

The truth may well be that there is no greater explanation. There doesn't seem to have been any political ideology influencing Mesrine – he does wind up involved with a couple of political groups but more out of convenience than anything. There is a formative notion of a campaign against the prison system in France, but crucially this seems to be driven more by Mesrine's feeling that it wronged him personally, rather than because it was wrong generally, and there is the key. Mesrine comes across as being driven entirely by ego and vanity, loving his celebrity status. The only times he does anything for reasons other than money, it's because he has been personally wronged, either by the prisons or, in an unsavoury incident that seems to represent a tipping point in his relationship with the public and police, by a journalist who attacks him in an article.

You get the feeling that director Jean-Francois Richet and writer Abdel Raouf Dafri probably realised from the start that there wasn't really much to tell on that score, and so made a conscious decision not to go down that route at all. The problem is that what we are left with, then, is the story of Mesrine's actions. These basically fall into the categories of robbing banks, kidnapping millionaires, shoot-outs with cops, getting arrested, breaking out of prison and seducing women. Repeat ad infinitum. None of these elements are a problem, it's just that 4 hours of them ends up feeling a bit repetitive. The film, being basically a series of vignettes about his various antics, is annoyingly episodic and secondary characters – various accomplices and women – appear and disappear without introduction or explanation

The other big problem I had with this is that I'm left unsure about what we're supposed to make of Mesrine. Cassel satisfyingly avoids the cliché of the charming psycho who is all friendly smiles one minute and ice cold rages the next, and carries a winning insouciance into most scenes, talking his way into this and out of that and happily playing shamelessly to the gallery. But shorn of the danger that he could have got from a more stock psycho character, what are we left with? If we're not meant to fear him in that way, are we meant to see him as a lovable anti-hero? I assume that might be what was being aimed for, but it's missed - through no fault of Cassel's, mind, but because the character is left so annoyingly out of reach.

Cassel, indeed, is excellent and needs to be. He carries the character from callow youth in the French army to balding, wig-wearing, plump middle-age, with his magnificent nose (worthy of a separate billing) and electric stare ever-present. Matching him in the stare department comes support from Mathieu Amalric in the second part, though he doesn't get to do much except that thing with his eyes, and Gerard Depardieu is deliciously unexpected as a Godfather-type figure in the first part. The rest of the cast, yeah they're all grand but honestly there's such a revolving door of characters that it's hard for any of them to make an impression.

I'm being pretty hard on the film here, but the thing is it is still very good, and I want to be hard on it because it could have been great. Aside from Cassel's central performance, it looks wonderfully stylish – a French film set in the 60's and 70's, how could it not? - and the action scenes are well-filmed and exciting even if they do end up getting repetitive due to the number of them that happen in similar circumstances. There's only so much you can do with cops and robbers shooting at each other and chasing each other in cars, and though there's nothing here to match, say, Heat, it's very competently done and suitably visceral. There's some subtly clever camera tricky now and again, with a split screen here and a camera spinning 360 degrees on an axis there, and it never feels obtrusive or flashy.

I have a feeling I want to like this more than I actually do, and more than it merits. It's bitty, episodic, too vaguely structured and characterised, lacking in real substance.....it probably glamourises the life and actions of a man who shouldn't be glamourised.....I don't know. It's been likened to films like Scarface, but that ended up working as a commentary on the American Dream and on the 80's, this just doesn't function on any other level than the surface of the story.

Watch it for Cassel. Watch it for an entertaining crime drama with little of the stylised excesses of it's American forebears, and try to ignore it's real life origins. Watch it in two parts.   

On Iran, or: Things to Ask Your Leaders When You're Dead

The word this week is that some of Obama's administration think military action against Iran is pretty much inevitable.  If America gets involved, it's a safe bet the UK would too - we being very much the Nick Clegg in this coalition.  So we are facing the real possibility of being involved in a war in the Middle East.  Again!  What was that definition of insanity...?

Subtler arguments seem to get lost with these issues, so let's stick with the obvious:  if we get into a war, people will die. 

Iranians will die.  Soldiers, some.  C'est la guerre.  Civilians.  Women and children.  Perhaps we'll see brief clips on the news, lifeless forms in alien dress, emotionally removed from the reality of their humanity.  We're pretty desensitised to such sights these days.  Will we care?

Americans will die.  We'll get plenty of exposure to the stars and stripes, weeping family members, military mugshots and spreadsheet figures.  Their brand of chest-beating patriotism seems a bit daft to us and numbers are numbers.  Will we care?

Brits will die.  We'll see Union Jack-covered coffins carried off a plane and somberly paraded through a small market town to the strains of Elgar's Nimrod, news pieces about the deceased and how they loved this or that which will get briefer and briefer as the numbers get higher and higher.  Now will we care?

That won't be a good moment to ask why.  Respect for the bereaved will rightly hold off the difficult question.  So we should ask now:  what will they all die for?

There are various lines on this.  The main thrust is that Iran gaining nuclear weapons would destabilise the region to a dangerous extent.  William Hague has said it would cause an arms race and Cold War scenario.  The most obvious argument against us saying another country cannot have nukes is that, well, we have nukes.  America has nukes.  Aren't we being hypocrites?  This is a naive argument but pretty tough to touch from a purely logical standpoint.  The counter would be, though, that the real pertinent point is the presence of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, hence Hague's Cold War comment.  The argument is that this would cause a destabilisation of the balance of power in the region, with potentially chaotic and dangerous consequences. 

The elephant glowing faintly in the corner is the fact that nuclear weapons are there already.  Israel's nuclear program is the worst-kept secret going, thanks to a whistle-blower exposing it to the world.  That scenario already exists, Mr Hague.  You're too late.

What it would actually cause is a shift in the balance of power, and if anything a more balanced region would result.  At the moment, Israel, perennially backed by a member of the UN security council, is pretty much untouchable.  Countless attempts to address Israel's frequently illegal actions have run up against the brick wall of America's veto.  Which makes America's outraged reaction to Russia vetoing the UN Syria resolution seem kind of......hypocritical?  All those dead Syrians make the irony hard to savour. 

Then there are Saudi Arabia and the Sunni states.  The power struggle between Sunnis and Shias is going pretty badly for the Shias at the moment, with Iraq a mess and Syria on the brink of, if not already well into, civil war.  The Arab Spring has been ridden out rather more smoothly by Saudi Arabia and co.  Purely coincidentally, these countries have tended to be rather more friendly and co-operative with The West than the Shia countries.  There's been a startling lack of attempted UN resolutions against these countries in their own repression of democracy and equality. 

With Western allies all round, and the increasing influence of Turkey to boot, one might think it's getting a bit one-sided in there.  If Iran were to gain a nuclear deterrent, as we like to call it when we have it, the balance might be redressed a bit.  No wonder this is A Bad Thing.

The other great line against Iran is that hey, they're crazy yo!  Can't let them have nukes!  Hmm.  Wars started by Iran since the revolution?  Zero.  Wars Iran involved in since the revolution?  One.  When Iraq invaded Iran.  Egged on by guess who? 

They want to wipe Israel off the map!  Hmm.  Yes, because politicians ALWAYS say what they mean and mean what they say, and never ever ever ever ever say things to play well with an audience.  Wars started by Iran?  Wars started by Israel?  Hell, one might even think that Iran is quite an insular nation that would like to be left alone.  Rather than having puppet rulers foisted on it by foreign powers, for example. 

It's a repressive, undemocratic regime that treats women abhorrently and cracks down brutally on dissent and difference!  Granted.  When do we bomb Saudi Arabia then?

In other words.....to cut a long story short, the current balance of power in the region suits the West just fine.  Western allies and West-friendly states are free to do like, whatever, man, and we get to pretend we have an ethical foreign policy when the rest step out of line.  No-one cares about Libya?  Right!  POW!  God, aren't we great?  We all look like George Clooney and our teeth sparkle.

Iran getting nukes might upset this cosy state of affairs so of course the West wants to stop that happening.  But that is not cool these days, such blatant self-interest.  We need a reason, and it damn well better be a good one.  No mystery WMD's or 45-minute warnings this time.  We need a proper good, old-fashioned casus belli.  A moral narrative.  So we're told Iran is this or that; them getting nukes would do this or that, a rebalance of power is called a destabilisation.  Politics is called lunacy - by politicians!

In answer to that question, what will they all die for?  Well....turns out it's the same thing that they've been dying for for centuries, on battlefields all across Europe, India, the Americas, Africa, The Middle East.  It''s hard to find a corner of the planet that some poor Tommy HASN'T died in for a cause constructed by leaders we trust to decide what's in our self-interest.

In Which Jeremy Clarkson, Very Much Unwittingly, Shines A Light Into Our Very Souls...

Recently, on the BBC show The One Show, Jeremy Clarkson made a bad and tactless joke.  Oh.  The end....right?  After all, Clarkson making bad, tactless jokes has become one of the universal constants that are the cornerstones of our understanding of the Universe.  Except, this time, it collided with another upstart cornerstone: self-righteous indignant outrage.  The BBC was inundated with over 21,000 complaints.  Actually, I don't know if that counts as an inundation these days, but for dramatic purposes let's assume it does.  Hilariously, Unison threatened to report Clarkson to the police.  I wish they would, so the police could laugh at them in their stupid faces.  Hmmm....perhaps I should take a step back and give that comment some context.......

There's an idea.  Clarkson's comment about shooting strikers was not said in isolation.  The joke wasn't even about the strikes; it was at the expense of the BBC's need for political balance, a deliberately exaggerated opinion to counter a previous one.  Therefore, those 21,000 complainants comprise two sets of people:

1.  People who saw the original broadcast, or have since seen it or the transcripts, but didn't recognise the full context.  These people are just plain thick.  You can't hold Clarkson responsible for thick people's thickness.  If we all had to go around taking into account people's potential thickness before speaking, then god help us we'd never say anything.  We'd become a nation of mutes, carefully avoiding any sort of interaction with anyone else ever.  Hmmm....that does sound quite tempting now I think about it.......anyway;

2. People who haven't heard or seen transcripts of the full comments, but have just heard the "strikers should be shot" part.  Now even here, I'd hope that most reasonable people would recognise that Clarkson, if he had said this in isolation, wasn't being entirely serious, and although it is a bad joke it's still just a joke.  If the BBC is going to sack everyone who makes a bad joke then it's going to run on a skeleton crew of David Mitchell, Charlie Brooker and the Irish bloke off Mock The Week. Hmmmm....that does sound quite tempting now I think about it......

People in category 2 exist purely because large parts of the media knowingly misreported the story.  This whole sorry episode is quite well-timed, against the backdrop of the Leveson enquiry, showing that media conduct isn't just about such extreme examples as phone hacking and extreme harassment.  I suppose it says a lot that if I was to say "gasp! The media deliberately misrepresented the facts to stir up controversy and sell more papers/ get more attention!  They're all a bunch of publicity-hungry shitvultures!", the reaction would be "well.....duuuuh".   We are cynically accepting of this state of affairs. 

Meanwhile, one suspects that Clarkson himself and the BBC, once they're done humbly bowing their heads, tugging their forelocks and offering well-practised meek apologies, are feeling quite smug about the whole thing.  Because as it turns out, Clarkson has a new something out to sell.  In fact I only know this because i read some other commentary from some other media outlet that cynically pointed out that Clarkson has a new......ah, nuts...I've fallen into the same trap, haven't I?  Sorry.  Turns out that they're all a bunch of self-publicising profit-weasels!  Duuuuh.....

There is another sub-section of people in that 21,000: people who heard what they wanted to hear.  We all do this, we don't hopefully all choose to hear the worst parts.  It's almost like some people actually want to be offended.......I do remember reading some research recently that showed that you get a definite, measurable surge of adrenaline from being presented with opinions that are counter to your own.  You get a kick, a buzz from being opposed or affronted. 

But there's got to be more to it than that surely?  Margaret Thatcher once said that there is no such thing as society.  Loathe as I am to ever go anywhere near agreeing with what that Ancient Daemon of the Void said - and pointing out very strongly that I, unlike her, am not saying it whilst chortling with glee, the putrid intestinal fluids of the poor dribbling down my chin - she may have had a point.  Most of us now live, if not in cities, then at least in what used to be identifiably independent towns and villages that have now been swallowed up into some vast identikit sprawling blah.  Do we still have a sense of community, of communal cohesion, structure, hierarchy that we can feel part of, have an identifiable place and role in, recognise and be recognised by?  And if, lacking that, we have become like the plankton or barely conscious fish of some vast shoal, entities in a vast grey formless sea of faceless individualism, schlomping from one existential crisis to the next, how do we in that sense measure any sense of self, claim any status to our individualism?  Why indeed am I writing this blog?

Everyone Is An Opinion, or, Democracy Has A Funny Smell Coming From The Corner

Democracy was invented by the Greeks.  George Papandreou, to be precise.  After he made the shocking suggestion that the people should have a say in their fate, to a collective dropping of jaws that caused a small earthquake in central Europe, the response was varied and frenzied, from the media and politicians alike.  Buried beneath the various surprised "Wooo democracy!"s, dark "how irresponsible"s and cynical "just trying to save himself"'s was a certain uncomfortable implication.

It was more plainly evident in another case of spontaneous referendumitis that threatened to break out earlier in the UK when backbenchers again had the temerity to suggest asking the opinion of the citizen body, this time on EU membership.  The Cabinet's response, along the lines of "its too big an issue and the wrong time", was a more revealing look at the implication inherent in the world's most prevalent system of democracy - representative democracy.  An implication which is not so much ignored as actively avoided whilst noses are held.  The stinking leprous elephant in the corner.

I'm going to make a shocking admission: I know practically bugger all about economics.  I'd have to do some very hefty research before being able to give a detailed list of the pros and cons of EU membership.  I wouldn't trust me to have a say on such crucial matters that need such technical knowledge.  Sure, I've got an opinion, but you know what they say about opinions and arseholes ...everyone IS one.  So what I do instead is elect someone who hopefully does know these kinds of things.  I judge how knowledgeable, reliable and trustworthy a candidate seems alongside how closely their views mirror my own and then I say "go to it then, represent me".  A referendum means asking the opinions of an entire country.  Some of whom may well know plenty about the topic, some of whom will, like me, know bugger all.  Everyone's opinion will be counted as equal regardless.

Imagine if a full referendum were announced on EU membership.  The propaganda war would begin immediately.  We know what positions the media would take.  We all know which papers are this wing or that, and we can probably write the headlines ourselves without even needing to ever buy the damn things.  But people tend to stick to what they know and agree with.  Look at America, for example, where politicised and polarised news organisations and broadcasters are the norm and you could go your whole life only ever getting your information from Fox.  Sorry, a bit late for Halloween I know.  How many of us take the time to absorb opposing viewpoints?  I avoid the right wing press like a plague ridden elephant.

The flip-side of this coin is that while it's easy to think that listeners to or readers of a particular media source are sheep being told what to think, it's not the media which tells people what to think; it's the opposite.  The media will stick to a line because they know it's what their readers or viewers want to hear.  The Daily Mail will always be the Daily Mail, and it's readers will always know what they're going to get and buy it happily.  The effect is that our existing views get reinforced and existing presumption, prejudice and instinctive reaction get external validation.  Every new bit of information gets filtered through a prism of these components, in the form of our chosen media outlets.

That smelly elephant quietly falling to pieces in the corner is the implication that in a representative democracy we are acknowledging our own inadequacy, that we are unqualified to make all the tough decisions involved in running a country.  If the sort of uninhibited, free democracy that a referendum embodies is a national gauging of deep-held opinion, then representative democracy is a buffer that should allow a degree of separation between instinct and decision.

Ian Hislop Rides Again

You only need to search on YouTube for 'Ian Hislop Question Time' to see demonstrations of what an eloquent, passionate and witty debater he is.  But for a while now, he seems to have been cruising on HIGNFY.  Too happy to go for a one-liner, a quick laugh.  I say this with the rider that it may well just be down to the editing of the show, but whatever the case the impression given on Friday's episode was of a slumbering beast being awoken.

The stick that did the prodding was Tory MP Louise Mensch. The two, sitting side by side (which only served to heighten the impact of what was to come), had already clashed over innuendo in the media coverage of Liam Fox, and again when she somewhat undermined her own position with her comments about Mike Hancock. But the main engagement came on the subject of the Occupy protests.  Mensch made a flippantly cynical comment about the protesters tweeting on iphones and queuing for Starbucks whilst complaining about capitalism.  On the face of it this might seem like a fair comment but of course it vastly oversimplified and then disingenuously misrepresented what the protests are about.  Mensch took some flack from Paul Merton and, er, Danny Baker but maybe thought she was going to get off lightly.  Then, off to starboard, HMS Hislop hove into view bringing all guns to bear on the hapless foe. But just as he seemed primed to strike, he hesitated.  What was this?  Surely not doubt or, heaven forbid, mercy?  Fear not, for he was merely preparing himself to unleash a mighty blow.  A pause, a stutter, a shake of the head: "......no.......it's just so obvious, I can't be bothered"....... 

A more withering put-down I have seldom heard.  How to destroy someone's credibility in 8 words.  Of course, he could be bothered actually, and explained to the nice Tory why she was wrong with the weary patience of a frustrated school teacher.  I struggle to remember Louise Mensch saying much of any substance after this.  Again it could be down to the editing, though I'd appreciate the karmic justice if it did turn out that she's been misrepresented.  She kept beaming and laughing in all the right places though, the brave insubstantial face of modern politics.

This is the kind of passionately scathing performance we need from Hislop but so rarely seem to get.  I hope there aren't reams of gold dust left in the editing suite and that the move to BBC1 hasn't neutered the show as a satirical force, or that the producers are more focused these days on producing a half hour of punchy prime time comedy above all else.  The satirical edge is needed, and Hislop needs to be delivering that with all the skill of his QT appearances and all the nous and wit of Private Eye. Because, HIGNFY - dear old HIGNFY - cheap jokes about Eric Pickles and Nick Clegg will not cut it if satire is to remain part of the job description.  We all might as well go and watch Mock The Week otherwise.  There,  I said it.

The Dark Matter Matter

Let me be frank at the commencement:  I am a complete amateur.  An interested layman.  Basically, I really don't know very much about any of this.  All my "knowledge" comes from documentaries on TV, articles in the mainstream media, and books aimed at amateurs like myself.  Thing is, it's a great time to be one.  TV is terrified of making anyone have to think for too long whilst scientists have spotted the lucrative market for giving us all the interesting stuff with the hard stuff taken out.  Accessibility is the watch-word and life is good.  It's sort of like how PC's these days shove all that nasty technical code and whatnot into the background and give us a nice, friendly, clicky interface.  I can learn about the cutting edge of theoretical physics without having to know what 2+2 equals.

Actually, that might turn out to be a good thing because there's an obvious danger to having all this accessible knowledge floating around.  Here follows a cautionary tale (for perhaps some physicists have been adding 2 and 2 and getting an imaginary number...):

The bulk of my science diet comes from TV, mainly the BBC.  For many a year now, and without knowing how the BBC operates on these matters I'd have to guess it's some sort of editorial guideline, any documentary on any subject that has - directly or indirectly - invoked dark matter, has done so in such a way as to imply that the theories of dark matter and dark energy are pretty much fact.  Unproven but not disputed.  Just a matter of time until proven, right?   However, I recently started reading a book called  "13 Things That Don't Make Sense" - one of those accessible science books - by Michael Brooks.  It is, by the way excellent.  A very good example of how to do it without dumbing down or over-simplifying, mixing well-chosen metaphors and interesting asides with small doses of hard science (my head started hurting at one point, when he was explaining the maths behind alpha, but it was a brief moment).  Anyway, whilst taking us through the mystery of where or what 96% of the Universe is, a personal bomb-shell is dropped:  MOND / MOG.  That's right:  WORLDCAT.  Worldcat ate it.  The furball will destroy us all.  And you thought lolcats were the nadir of humanity......

Seriously though, Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or Modified Gravity.  Is it just that gravity works differently over large distances?  In hindsight, the notion that perhaps science that is hundreds of years old might need tweaking, what with all we've learnt in the meantime, doesn't seem that shocking. And it seems to me to be a. eminently sensible and b. just plain good science to first of all systematically check your assumptions before going off and inventing theoretical exotic particles or forms of mass/ energy to fill in the gaps. But the main thing is that there are alternative theories.  Only you'd have no idea, as I had no idea, if you were relying on mainstream TV for your fix.

This is not an attack on the BBC science output.  I understand these documentaries generally have an hour-long slot in which to do their things and the necessary pedantry would kill them.  However,  they're presenting - intentionally or otherwise - one unproven theory as universally accepted principle.   I'm to blame for relying on a narrow selection of sources, of course.  Though Brooks acknowledges that fashion and publicity can be just as powerful in science as in showbiz.  Is there a danger that if one idea becomes the "fashionable" one in the eyes of the wider public, that can create a feedback that would influence scientists' perceptions and presumptions, and affect how research and funding for research are targeted?