The City and The City - BBC1 - David Morrisey

[futuristic1]

Anyone else watch this? Based on the book by China Mieville.

Detective story set in one city which exists in a parallel dimension with another city.

Never read China Mieville. Is he YA? YOung Adult?

Certainly the adaptation felt Young Adult.

A bit like Steam Punk without the Victoriana.

More Film Noir meets Gene Hunt Ashes to Ashes slashed with Scandi and set in a nebulous east/West Berlin in a 1970s ish timewarp.

All the cars were Ladas, I think.

It's another new genre!!!!

Switched off after about 30mins - just couldn't sustain the interest.

I don't need another pretend 'new genre' in my TV life.

Lots of pomposity and a chirpy Asian policewoman/sidekick to undersore the profundity of David Morrissey's character.

Anyone like it?

I saw a bit halfway through and was really intrigued so I'm going to start again and watch the whole thing on catchup with subtitles BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL BLOODY MUMBLING. Except the chirpy policewoman, she spoke clearly.

I've recorded it because the book was interesting.

Mieville doesn't normally write YA, no, though one or two of his books were YA/crossovers I think.

It looks interesting. DH was out last night and wants to watch it too so will catch up with it on iPlayer.

It was filmed in Liverpool so am distracted trying to work out where in the city they are.

It was hard work and I fell asleep. Intend to give it another go though.

I loved the book. Really interesting original concept. Will find it on iplayer as had not realised it had been made into a series

CATC wasn’t marketed as YA, but Miéville has written some other YA fiction.

I’ve recorded it and I’m going to give it a go (poss with subtitles) but I basically can’t forgive it for not being the TV version of Rivers of London we so desperately need.

I watched the opening credits, then caught the last 15 minutes - not the best way to watch a programme so I'd better watch it on iPlayer! But I'm glad I read your post OP as I at least now know it's s parallel dimension - I just thought they were 2 cities that were strangely estranged 😏

I'm a little confused. Mostly about David Morrisey's beard, because it's so bad it has to be glued on.

I found the first episode really confusing. Then read the Wikipedia page, got the premise and I'm now really enjoying it. It's a clever idea.

Not what I usually go for but seeing as it was starring David Morrissey had to try it. And the novelty of it drew me in so watched all the episodes.
I hadn't heard of the original book.

We watched the first episode last night and I am not sure we are any the wiser at the end of the episode than we were when it started We will watch the next one on Friday and see what thats like and go from there. It was interesting, but so very confusing.

Hadn't seen it, just read the Wiki page as a result of this thread, will now make a point of giving it a go on catch-up

I love the book, and thought the first tv episode was a credible attempt to film something basically unfilmable. It must be very confusing if you haven’t read the book as they don’t make the central idea (two cities occupying the same physical space) very clear. Also not sure why they’ve given the main character the tired old ‘avenging his missing wife’ trope when he didn’t even have a wife in the book. Will definitely watch the rest though!

Not read the book. Have just watched all four episodes on iPad.I thought the two Cities concept easy to grasp actually. Clever with the blurring and they show the maps a lot.

However not convinced about Breach ( won't give too much detail for those that not seen it all). Not sure what went on with him in there.

I quite liked the ending ( although predictable) and especially the tie ins to America. But still non the wiser about the artefacts.
Mmm. Looking forward to enlightenment from those that read the book.

I think I gave up part way though ep. 3. Just too silly.
I'd not read the book, and I'll be avoiding that author in the future.

zizza unless I massively misunderstood, which is totally possible, they ARE 2 cities that are estranged, they're not parallel dimensions. You could cross the road from one to the other if you wanted.

I did like the way they'd made the Beszel language though, and thought the 2 cities were depicted really well visually. I can only guess at what it was all representing, however, as there is no way I'm sitting through any more of that shite to check my assumption.

Zebra I think you should watch the last one just to finish it really!

What I thought was particularly satisfying was that the rest of the world clearly thinks the two cities idea, utterly bonkers. So whilst Beszel investigates these "dark underground" crimes, with a bit of perspective they are nothing of the sort.
I also liked the concept far right group which would be an obvious manifestation. And that as in the real world, the greed of their leader is at odds with the cause he's fighting ( if he only knew).

Found the thread! Wow I loved this, esp the colours and how they subtly used them to make things more Beszel/Ul Quoma ish. I'd read the box but couldn't remember what happened haha so all good. The voice-over was a bit intrusive, I have a feeling they added it later to explain things a bit.

We watched it. I loved the idea of the two cities - made me really want to read the book. And I loved the design - the different coloured lights for the two cities and the different styles, blurring in and out of focus. That was cleverly done. But I wasn't very keen on the script - the dialogue was really cheesy: 'I should know. I'm a cop.'

The book's on my list now, though. I love a bit of sci-fi/dystopia.