When Vila Met Gan is a reasonably entertaining buddy comedy, but suffers badly from a lack of focus.
WRITTEN BY
Ben Aaronovitch, author of the Rivers Of London book series, 1980s Doctor Who scriptwriter and also the guy who wrote Rebel. Quite a talented guy, all things considered.
PLOT
Attacked for defrauding a mobster, petty thief Vila Restal makes a deal with thug Olag Gan to assist him in wooing Gan's Alpha grade crush Lola.
ANALYSIS
The problem I have with When Vila Met Gan is that Aaronovitch seemed completely unable to stick with a central premise despite introducing a plethora of good ideas. Vila helping Gan obtain new identity papers to impress his girlfriend's alpha grade parents? Ok, I can see a story developing here-oh wait, they need money to do that. Gan and Vila robbing houses, oh wait, we have to squeeze Blake's revolution in, which makes the girlfriend move away, so now Gan and Vila are just robbing Gan's boss for kicks, only to find something useless. Cue the sad trombone. Well, we can still-oh wait, the story is over now.
And I didn't even mention the random future segments that establish the Liberator's teleporter, which has zero connections to the rest of the narrative.
Rather than give Vila and Gan a satisfying first adventure, we're just seeing odd, poorly connected skits that seem like they're going somewhere, but then don't. Doubly so, because there's no other actors(not counting Alistair Lock) and thus no way to transition between their time gaps. It's a mess.
CHARACTERS
Michael Keating's Vila fits into the rebooted setting like a glove. Honestly, as much as I enjoyed Dean Harris's crooked old man take on the character, Keating is far more likable and shares good chemistry with Owen Aaronovitch. I greatly enjoyed seeing the two in their element, indulging in the criminal life to further their interests. I think Vila often gets unnecessarily typecast purely as a comic foil or coward, but he's at his most fun and interesting when he shows some initiative. We see it in City At The Edge Of The World and we see it here.
Gan is still somewhat flat as a character - his romantic overtures to Lola take place offscreen, so here he just plays a straight man to Vila.
NOTES
*The opening theme of the reboot is really growing on me.
*The gag about Vila making up the teleporter was painfully drawn out, and it becoming true was silly.
*You can tell this was made in 2010. They're still using mobiles.
*Owen Aaronovitch is Ben's brother, apparently.
*I learned a new word from this story - arcology(which is what they use to refer to London).
*There's a drink called "Spanker's", which I just find hilarious.
*Delta grade isn't the lowest - there's also Epsilon, for whom being on Earth is illegal. Gan is Epsilon grade, although it's not really explained how he managed to stay.
*Everything in the house being connected by a wireless system is quite ahead of its time!
*It's quite funny to hear Keating swear.
*One of the political names on Mr Rickhart's list is "Peter Franks" - James Bond's pseudonym in the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever.
*Gan refers to "masked vigilantes in ancient literature", which could of course mean Zorro or something like that, but I like to think Batman and Superman have become ancient literature.
*Lola ended up moving to Walthamstow, which my nerd brain interpreted as "Wolfenstein".
*The fact that the teleport is still accompanied by a faux-Dudley Simpson jingle is brilliant.
INFORMATION!
*Vila offers Gan some "imported soma". Adrenaline and soma was a concoction that the original Vila often indulged in, mainly in episodes written by Allan Prior.
*Gan and Vila are from Croydon.
*It's not clear when the future segments are supposed to take place, but given the interwoven narrative of the main trilogy, it's probably some time after Liberator. A long time, possibly, given that Gan and Vila are friends again.
BEST QUOTE
"Most people's data's safer than their homes."
CONCLUSION
It's a fun bit of nothing.
*The gag about Vila making up the teleporter was painfully drawn out, and it becoming true was silly.
*You can tell this was made in 2010. They're still using mobiles.
*Owen Aaronovitch is Ben's brother, apparently.
*I learned a new word from this story - arcology(which is what they use to refer to London).
*There's a drink called "Spanker's", which I just find hilarious.
*Delta grade isn't the lowest - there's also Epsilon, for whom being on Earth is illegal. Gan is Epsilon grade, although it's not really explained how he managed to stay.
*Everything in the house being connected by a wireless system is quite ahead of its time!
*It's quite funny to hear Keating swear.
*One of the political names on Mr Rickhart's list is "Peter Franks" - James Bond's pseudonym in the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever.
*Gan refers to "masked vigilantes in ancient literature", which could of course mean Zorro or something like that, but I like to think Batman and Superman have become ancient literature.
*Lola ended up moving to Walthamstow, which my nerd brain interpreted as "Wolfenstein".
*The fact that the teleport is still accompanied by a faux-Dudley Simpson jingle is brilliant.
INFORMATION!
*Vila offers Gan some "imported soma". Adrenaline and soma was a concoction that the original Vila often indulged in, mainly in episodes written by Allan Prior.
*Gan and Vila are from Croydon.
*It's not clear when the future segments are supposed to take place, but given the interwoven narrative of the main trilogy, it's probably some time after Liberator. A long time, possibly, given that Gan and Vila are friends again.
BEST QUOTE
"Most people's data's safer than their homes."
CONCLUSION
It's a fun bit of nothing.
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