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2020 Yuletide Fandom Promo Post
Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!
Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign ups!
Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!
Suggested form to use:
<b>FANDOM NAME</b>:
<b>WHAT MAKES IT GREAT</b>:
<b>WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional)</b>:
For reference, last year's promo post!
This post on LJ
The Power Game (TV)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: It is genuinely great, but important caveats first: the original video tape was burninated, so it only exists on poor film copies (though it's perfectly watchable as such) and it's hugely problematic in lots of ways, including racism in the more international storylines in S2-3 as well as general 1960s attitudes + a whole line-up of charming terrible amoral people behaving badly. However, it's worth saying that its main aim is to savagely take-down capitalism and the S2-3 storylines in question are criticising terrible post-colonial behaviour in Africa, while individual bad behaviour is usually called out in-narrative. S1 is particularly uneven re. sexism, but after that Barbara Murray took the script editor in hand & it's generally much better after that, especially in S2, where both Susan and Pamela are great in very different ways.
So, onto the good stuff: it has amazing writing, with snarky dialogue, great characters with brilliant arcs and season finale showdowns (it may actually be the first regular British TV show to have done that). The ensemble cast is 100% 1960s A-List, backed up with equally excellent semi-regulars and guest stars. There are three series of 13 x 50 minutes, but S1-2 would be sufficient (although that is not to say that you shouldn't get your hands on S3 if you can, because it has some particularly awesome stuff with Caswell and Wilder, plus Barbara Murray and Michael Jayston being illegally pretty together. The material was probably burninated to save us from dying of the original video-tape combined pretty.)
It centres around Sir John Wilder, a successful, utterly ruthless and amoral businessman (Patrick Wymark) and Bligh's Construction, run by Caswell Bligh (Clifford Evans) and his son Kenneth (Peter Barkworth). Kenneth wants to displace his father, who wants to get into politics instead, but has serious issues re. letting go of anything, and so Kenneth invites Wilder into the firm. He might as well be a particularly unwise mouse inviting a tiger to deal with a grouchy overgrown cat. The inevitable devious backstabbing ensues, while Wilder also tries to get a foothold on the National Export Board, which is where Caswell is trying to launch his political career. This then brings in civil servant Susan Weldon (Rosemary Leach).
Wilder also has a super-loyal deputy, Don Henderson (Jack Watling), and is married to Pamela (Barbara Murray), who finds herself at a crossroads (and later, in S2 and 3 starts turning herself into the one person who can stump John). She takes up decorating, being wistfully sarcastic and winning the cast charm offensive and is generally the best thing in it (and everyone else is excellent, so that's no small achievement). In S3, they all skip the boardroom and get into the Foreign Office instead, minus Susan, but with Lincoln Dowling, John's new private secretary (Michael Jayston).
Plus various other ministers, managers, under-secretaries etc., endless snark and much backstabbing, so much so that Susan wants to know how they have any time to get anything done at Bligh's when they're so busy trying to manipulate each other.
It's very entertaining, sometimes packs a real gut-punch, and I've never seen anything that has quite the same concept as this look at Wilder and not only how successful and destructive he can be, but how infectious and corrupting his effect on everyone around him, who inevitably try to play him at his own game or copy him and mostly get hung out to dry in the process, and I remain utterly fascinated by these characters.
In terms of fic, there's room for devious plotting, missing moments, and plenty of shipping opportunities. Mixed up OT3 of Master, Lady and Loyal Knight? Epic business rivals who can't leave each other alone? Having affairs with people to get business secrets or revenge? Characters who randomly run away to Canada to get away from everybody else's terribleness? OT3s of ambition and corruption? So many possibilities, zero fanfic.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Network have the full series out on DVD in R2 here (which is pricey, but they sometimes sell the individual series for virtually nothing in their regular sales) & obv can be found secondhand, sometimes for v little. It's technically a sequel to The Plane Makers but you don't need to worry about that, as I never have!
On YT here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZjO_fnL7gHghUMtrhqnTqYB0MzM3qE4D (Although it stops at 3.06 frustratingly (which I think might even be the two-parter that I would seriously advise skipping, because it is duff and appalling), but I'd imagine that the full thing is around somewhere in the full wilds of the piratical internet). But, as I said, for Yuletide purposes S1-2 is sufficiently contained for all your immediate needs. Oh, some of the eps are out of order and it's serialised enough that you need to keep an eye on that.
I can find someone with a handful of S2 eps here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsEsMvFccUs&t=3s
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159197/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plane_Makers#Regular_cast_%E2%80%93_The_Power_Game