Tuesday 1 July 2008

Chocolate Underground - Episode 3

After watching the second episode of Chocolate Underground, I posited that its five-minute episode time was hugely hampering rather than helping it, and after viewing the third helping of this series I can't help but feel that this opinion has been reaffirmed.

Much like episode two, this third instalment seemed rather contrived, building itself solely around a single political point, that being the encouragement of the populace, young and old, to spy on their friends and neighbours to assure that their behaviour is 'proper', reporting those who break the rules or don't follow the party line and being rewarded for such citizenship themselves. Of course, this has all been done much better in George Orwell's 1984 already, which is perhaps why its impact here is next to non-existent on me.


Aside from that, all we get here are some very brief snapshots of the misery caused by the laws against 'unhealthy' foods - Again, this falls flat on its face without any time to develop the main characters, and without the viewer having chance to gain any rapport with said characters it's hard to care. All in all it's rather a shame, as the points being made here are hugely relevant and important right here and right now, and they simply aren't being done justice by Chocolate Underground.

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