Wasted Opportunity

This would have been so awesome.



Man...what with Dr. Horrible, Buffy: Season Eight and now this, I am getting unbelievably psyched for Dollhouse.

You are NOT my nemesis!

° Private Practice's (Tuesdays, Living) long-awaited debut was disappointing to say the least. Like I'm going to assume most people were, I was excited about the show because I loved Addison on Grey's and I liked the idea of seeing her in her own show. Sadly, on the evidence of the first episode alone, that's not the case at all. It doesn't feel like her show at all. Instead we saw Addison crowbarred into a an already-formed band of misfits who seem altogether less funny, less sexy and less loveable than Addison's prior running mates, so it all ends up feeling kind of pointless. I mean, if we're just going to be watching her fight for screen-time with a whole bunch of new people, why did she get a spin-off in the first place? That the phrase "cash cow" is flashing in my head already makes me sad. I only hope it starts to justify its existence as something more before its shortened first season finishes in nine weeks time. I'm sad enough that Marti Noxon won't be working there next year. The last thing the massive Buffy nerd inside me wants to face is the fact that it might be a justifiable decision.


Even more adorable than Jonathan Lipnicki's turn on Dawson's Creek
° My love of One Tree Hill (Mondays, E4) is probably somewhat irrational, I admit, but I must say that I'm enjoying its fifth season very much so far. How the seemingly ambitious four year time-jump would effect the show was a subject of much debate and, so far at least, I think the answer is that it hasn't done too much. Aside from giving the writers the opportunity for new stories, it seems very clear now that the move was not so much a way to fix a problem, but a way to avoid one. The show has successfully managed to bypass the need to awkwardly reconfigure its cast, characters and location, but it's still facing the same challenge to keep things fresh that any drama in its fifth season will face. For now it's all good, still riding the wave of fresh material garnered from the time-jump and leaning on a ridiculously cute little kid (above), but it'll be interesting to what happens in about ten episodes time when things have settled down somewhat. Good start though, and certainly one that vindicates the risk.

° Make Me a Supermodel US (Mondays, Living) is enjoyable enough so far, but unfortunately seems to lack the edge of its British predecessor. The thing that made the British version so enjoyable was that it offered a more realistic, adult twist on the America's Next Top Model formula; taking the kid gloves off and constantly smacking its contestants in the face with the unbearable truths of an industry based around a distorted perception. The US version feels a little meek in comparison.

Still...at least it's a step up from Britain's Next Top Model, right?

The Thoroughbred of Sin(g-Along Blogs)

I don't know how anyone could not adore this. The latest work from Joss Whedon is enough to make his fans melt into a puddle of nerdy goo. Typically great Whedon dialogue, fantastic songs ala 'Once More, With Feeling', Nathan Fillion actually singing, one of the few Potentials we didn't want to die, and Neil Patrick Harris unleashing a shockingly brilliant singing voice. What's not to get embarrassingly giddy about?

Goofy, charming, romantic, hilarious...Whedonesque. Is there really any good reason you haven't clicked on the link yet?

Set Your Sky+: Private Practice

Private Practice

Premiere
Tonight at 10:00pm on Living

Repeated
Wednesday 16th July at 8:00pm on Living
(As well as Living+1 coverage each time)

Almost a year after its American debut, Living finally brings Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice to UK screens. The cold ex-wife we thought we'd hate but actually turned out to be the most likeable character at Seattle Grace gets her own show, and it's exciting to see how it'll turn out. The relative success Stateside bodes well, but based on the pilot alone I have some concerns. A little too ensemble, a little too sunny and wacky? We'll see. But while we wait (and wait and wait) for Living to show Season 4 of Grey's, where else are we going to get our fill of neurotic, promiscuous doctors and nurses? Definitely worth a look.

Gone Fishin'

Many apologies for the lack of activity recently. Unfortunately my blogging has taken a bit of a back seat to the two-game-a-day rush of Euro 2008 as well as the 24-hour televisual assault of Big Brother. Suffice to say, I will catch up on a few things in the near future, including a general review of last season's new shows, sporadic BB commentary and some other stuff. I promise.

Losing Faith

When I take a step back and look at it objectively, I know that Lost's fourth season finale was a good 90 minutes of television. There was action, romance, mystery, intrigue; answers we've long been waiting for and enough new questions to keep us scuttling around message boards until next February. What more could a fan ask for, right? Yet as I watched it, I couldn't help but feel a little bit cold, and as I see it, there are two main reasons why.

The first is no surprise. I have expressed my distaste for the flash-forwards in the past and the finale is a place in which they were always going to have a negative impact. As I've said before, the knowledge of the future we've been given naturally diminishes some of the drama set in the present - it's unavoidable - but that's only a small gripe. More notable was the fact that working so overtly toward a long-term goal really detracted from the sense of finale this year. We got some answers, yes, but there was little in the way of real satisfaction. And though Lost has frustrated audiences with its finales before (hello, Season One), at least on those occasions we felt an answer was immediately forthcoming on the show's return. At the end of Season Four all we've been left with is a dismantled format and vague allusions. It's as if the show has stopped trying to hook us in to what happens next, and is instead choosing to lean entirely on the audience's interest in what happens in the end. Sadly, the result is that I feel a bit detached from it all. For the first time ever, the destination feels more important the the journey.

Secondly, I think in this finale we saw Lost officially (and lamentably) turn into a science fiction show. One of the show's great positives for so long was the ambiguity about which genre it belonged to, and that ambiguity seems to be slowly dwindling. Admittedly some people have always thought of Lost as sci-fi, but for at least two and a half seasons it was a claim that could not be definitively substantiated. There were elements, certainly, but there was deliberate and exciting ambiguity about the source of the Island's power, and Lost therefore became a show that allowed viewers to see what they wanted to in it. As the characters were divided, so were the audience with regards to their hopes and expectations for the series; the divide between Locke and Jack encapsulating the two major theoretical explanations of science and mysticism. We had a choice: Man of Science or Man of Faith, and we were invited to invest in what we wanted to be responsible for the miracles of the Island. But now, the opportunity for such speculation seems to be disappearing.

Even with certain unresolved mysteries, the balance seems to have tipped definitively in the favour of science. In the finale's big closing set-piece the Island was successfully moved (we assume via time travel) and therefore saved by science. And John Locke, so long presented to us as the figurehead of belief in the Island's apparent mysticism, has been shown in flashback to have some natural calling to science, suggesting a possible repositioning of his character. The goalposts feel like they are being slowly moved.

Of course, it's impossible to speak with any certainty unless you're privy to the secrets of the writer's room, but I can't help but feel that whatever ending the show's creators have decided on has required some subtle reshaping of their original intent. And though that's okay in a sense - it must happen in almost every writer's room - there's something about Lost in which it's more difficult to accept. Perhaps it's the insistence that the writers have always known where they were heading or perhaps it's my personal reaction at things not shaking out like I'd hoped. Either way, the suspected manipulation makes the changes to show feel more prominent and less desirable.

To deliberately misuse a quote here, Nietzsche said that "faith means not wanting to know what is true", and in that sense I've always had great faith in Lost - I was happy just to be along for the ride - and I think its creators felt that way too. But now as the show heads towards its finish line, it seems, as August Comte might say, we are past the age of religion and we heading toward both reason and science. And though it is not a slight on the quality of the show - I'm sure Lost will continue to be one of television's finest shows until its very end - for anyone who chose to believe in the show in the same way that I did, it's a sad truth to face as we wait for Season Five.

Set Your Sky+: One Tree Hill

One Tree Hill (Season 5)

Premiere
Tonight at 9:00pm on E4

Repeated
Slightly screwed by BB's dominating presence,
E4+1 is your only option for now.

Despite forever languishing in the shadows of more glamourous teen shows like The O.C. and Gossip Girl, the more involving and generally better One Tree Hill returns to UK screens tonight for the start of its much-anticpated fifth season.

Jumping four years in to the future from the gang's graduation from Tree Hill High, the show is making a bold move. Hoping to avoid both the awkward college years and eliminating the external complaint that none of the cast can pass for 18, it's going to be an interesting experiment; one that, if successful, could alter the template for long-running teen drama. It should be interesting.

Aussie Soap Round-Up (w/e 6th June 2008)

° Do you ever get the feeling that God just doesn't like Home and Away's Ric Dalby? I'm sure he must. This week everyone's favourite young rageaholic found out his next fight was against a member of Johnny Cooper's gang, collapsed with pneumonia during the fight and then found out that his illegitimate child would be born with physical and mental disabilities if Viv does choose to go ahead with the pregnancy. Ouch. And if that's not enough, devious Noel is going to use his wife's condition to manipulate Ric into fighting again. I'm surprised he hasn't come down with the same soap-world anxiety his girlfriend suffers.

° Tony and Rachel suddenly got engaged despite their continued insistence on taking things slow up to this point. It's strange. It's like the show built them up to having sex and then, once they had, marriage was the obvious next step. Hah! So there you go, kids. If you feel strongly enough to have sex with someone, there is no reason you shouldn't get married as well.

° One of the more subtle highlights of the week was Geoff's hesitance to take Melody out on a date. Fretting that he had only asked out the "plain" Melody as a reaction to the bad behaviour of the "hot" Nicole, Geoff's dilemma was a nice piece of teen neuroses. And it all had a happy ending anyway - Geoff and Melody both enjoying the date very much - so all is good in the hood, as one might say.

Elsewhere in Summer Bay: Jazz caught Bartlett at Ric's illegal fight and later celebrated by making out with Miles on their lovely first-date picnic. Aden confronted the ghost of his grandfather by turning up for the Anzac Day service. Jack and Martha fled town to avoid the accusing eyes of those small-minded town folk who think it's inappropriate to start banging your ex-wife on the day of you current wife's funeral. Those damn rubes.

° Harold's departure feels imminent. Despite Lou's initial attempts to trick him into staying, Harold has agreed to rent his house to Carmella and Marco while he travels around Australia. Neighbours without Harold is going to be strange. Hell, television with Harold is going to be strange. The man's an institution.

° Oliver and Marco got into an embarrassingly bad fight at Chloe's christening, forcing Oliver to make the ridiculous decision to sue for sole custody of his daughter. This storyline is one of those that sucks because you just can't empathise with Oliver at all. And in fact, when I think about it, even though I don't dislike him as a character, it's hard to think of any real positive contribution from Oliver during his stint in Neighbours, so behaviour like this isn't easily forgivable. So, note to writers: don't have regular characters act like irrational morons unless they've cached enough good moments to make up for it or they're about to go down in flames.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough: Kirsten turned down $50,000 hush money for the opportunity to be a successful business woman. Crazy. Libby felt embarrassed after confessing her feelings to the concussed Daniel and not having them immediately reciprocated. Steve and Miranda took a cleaning job at the school because they are broke.

Aussie Soap Round-Up (w/e 30th May 2008)

° The wheels were put in motion for Harold's departure from Neighbours and quite frankly it doesn't bear thinking about. Instead, we can focus on what the hell Toadie was reading when Harold came to see him about selling his house. Maybe Steph's hesitance to marry Toadie stemmed from a subconscious awareness that she may not be what he wants, and not the other way around...

Toadie in gay porn shocker?

° Having fled town after breaking Toadie's heart, Steph got thrown under the bus by the council and publicly blamed for the roof collapse disaster. Hah. She said herself that "ignorance is not an excuse" and she is right. It serves her right for being the worst councillor ever. The whole fact that she's a councillor is ridiculous anyway, so seeing her involved in a storyline like this feels likes eating a second helping of a meal you didn't like in the first place. Oh well. At least her trip to Shelley Bay has provided some small respite in the meantime.

° Rebecca leaked the roof collapse details to the press, Elle hung Steph out to dry in the Erinsborough News and Paul cheated on Rebecca with Kirsten: all in all, a bad week in the House of Robinson. And it's a weird situation there generally. The intent of the story is obvious enough (the devil finding work for Paul's idle hands), but the motivation behind Rebecca and Elle's shutting him out of everything is less clear.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough: Didge has been working at the veterinary clinic so long she has caught foot-in-mouth disease, calling Rachel a slag for merely tutoring Declan in math. Oh dear. Lou's having unsettling health problems. Marco and Carmella want to buy Harold's house even though they're both completely unworthy of living on such hallowed ground. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

° In Home and Away, Jack and Martha pulled the classy move of reuniting on the day of Sam's funeral. Nice. What I especially liked though was the way Alf and Tony reacted; Alf surprised but understanding, Tony shocked and appalled. I have a feeling it's a divide that exists in the show's audience too, and I'm interested in what that says about the viewer. Jack and Martha definitely have a Romeo and Juliet thing going on, so what makes more sense for the interested fan: rooting for them to get together and face inevitable tragedy or preferring they stay apart and avoid it? In such a long-term, potentially repetitive narrative, what do we want for our heroes?

° Roman's bratty daughter Nicole finally showed up in the Bay and instantly ruffled the feathers of almost everyone she met. Personally, I haven't decided how I feel about her yet. On one hand she annoys the bejesus out of me with her impossibly high self-confidence and scary forwardness, but on the other hand I do like the idea of her and Aden forming a heel tag-team to rule over Summer Bay High. Now that Aden has moved in to Roman's place I expect there'll be a fair bit of sparring between the two.


Frenemies?

° Jazz seemed to be everywhere this week, and that's a great thing. If she's around for too long she'll be homogenised into a typical Summer Bay resident, but for now it's great to have a character who has unique personal values and isn't ashamed of them. It looks like Miles is her next mission.

Elsewhere in Summer Bay: Ric convinced Mattie to come to his next fight. The Den opened and looks really rubbish. Melody finally forgave Geoff for not being madly in love with her. Morag stayed at Roman's when Martha moved out even though it makes absolutely no sense.

New BB9 House Pictures!

Channel 4 have released the first shots of this year's Big Brother house and I must say it all looks pretty snazzy...

Spacious living area, claustrophobic bedroom, scary kitchen, not-ostentatious-at-all bathroom, pretty colours. Nice. You can see more pictures at DS:BB or at Channel 4's official BB site.

Big Brother 9 starts on June 5th on Channel 4.

Set Your Sky+: Smallville

Smallville (Season 7)

Premiere
Tonight at 9:00pm and 10:00pm on E4

Repeated
As far as I can see, E4+1 is your only option for now
(E4 will probably find a slot for the weekly repeat soon)

I'm not even sure why I'm writing about this, to be honest. If you've never watched Smallville you shouldn't start now, and if you have watched it, it would probably be kinder of me not to remind you. Sadly, folks, Smallville is back for another season of leeching off your comic-book nerditude in spite of its humongous lameness.

The plus side? You'll get to see characters and little oblique references that make you geek out slightly. The down side? Ridiculous stories, annoying characters, poor writing and the worst romance saga ever. You can watch the CW's trailer for the start of this season above and you'll get the picture immediately. "Bizarro! Yay! Bad dialogue! *groan* Lana Lang! *groan* Lana Lang being blown up! Yay!" It's a tumultuous ride.

At least it can't get worse, right?

Right?

Can't Stop The Signal, Mal...

Number one sign your TV blogging operation remains a very amateurish pursuit? You can't watch TV because a bloody big tree blocks off your satellite signal every time the wind blows. Fifteen hours worth of TV I'd planned into record this weekend? "Part Rec: No Signal". Aggghhh.

Here's a quick few catch-up thoughts for the mean-time...

° I noted my concerns after the first episode, but ten episodes in and Nip/Tuck's fifth season (Tuesdays, FX) has just been embarrassingly awful so far. Everything the move to L.A. seemed to promise has been reneged on; there's just as much Julia and Matt nonsense as there ever was, Rosie O'Donnell's all over the shop and Shawn and Christian are playing host to an even more far-fetched and ridiculous list of clients. Worst of all, though, it seems to have lost the desire to be anything more than a salacious soap opera. Gone are the often crude but still valuable reflections on the characters' relationships, gone are the more challenging themes. It's just gotten ridiculously shallow and uninteresting. I am shocked by the fact that I had heard so much positive reaction in advance.

° Peep Show's fifth season (Fridays, Channel 4) has been predictably fantastic so far, with the emboldened Mark a particular delight. Taking on burglars, getting all Secretary with Dobby in the stationary cupboard - what's next? The good news is that Channel 4 - and perhaps more importantly, Mitchell, Webb, Armstrong and Bain - know they're on to a good thing and have all agreed to go ahead with a sixth season. Yay. That means Peep Show will have doubled the output of shows like The Office and Spaced. 24 episodes! Watch out Seinfeld, eh?

° I was generally positive about Dirty Sexy Money (Fridays, Channel 4) when it first started but now its prematurely-ended first season has finished, I'm not so sure. I love Peter Krause, Donald Sutherland is mesmerising and I also really enjoy the performance of Natalie Zea, but the show feels pretty much like a more male-oriented Desperate Housewives. There's murder and intrigue and sex and comedy, but it exists in a world it never really explores, and I'm already slightly bored of it. It's another pretty ABC prime-time soap opera.


° JD as The World's Most Giant Doctor might not the only one standing on other people's shoulders on Scrubs (Thursdays, E4) this year. The other day I recognised JD's monologue on growing up as an almost verbatim reading from Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch. Still, Scrubs' seventh season has been better than I'd expected considering its poor sixth season, so maybe it has justified its last hurrah.

° I'm finally catching up on Gavin and Stacey thanks to the BBC's re-airing of the entire series (Mondays, BBC Three). I won't lie to you, readers...I enjoy it very much. It's not the sharpest comedy around, but it is wholly likeable. Roll on, Lesbian Vampire movie?

Aussie Soap Round-Up (w/e 23th May 2008)

I...umm...err....how 'bout dem Knicks, eh?

° I'm not sure Steph would describe it as idyllic, but from a personal standpoint Toadie and Steph's aborted wedding went as well as one could have ever hoped for. Almost literally ° I'm not sure Steph would describe it as idyllic, but from a personal standpoint Toadie and Steph's umming and ahhing when she was supposed to recite her vows, Toadie finally found the sense to call the whole thing off and leave Steph standing there racked with guilt about her embarrassing uncertainty and cowardice. It's actually been a really great story for Neighbours from the start and this was a worthy climax.

° Marco finally admitted to Carmella that he couldn't have children and there seems to be a mild undercurrent questioning whether he got together with Carmella purely because she was pregnant. That seems kind of crazy to me. I mean, I don't think that's the case anyway, but is that something a guy who couldn't have children would ever do? Hit on a pregnant chick to immediately fill that void? Very strange.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough: Ollie and Mia started sneaking around, Paul started flirting with Kirsten and Susan went away to an MS retreat having collapsed yet again. Rosie also collapsed (pregnancy, not MS) and Frazer ran over Bob.

° In Home and Away, Morag seems to have proven that Sam committed suicide with the intention of framing Jack and Martha for murder, thus ending the whole whodunnit drama in the space of a week. To say I am gobsmacked is an understatement. Since when does Home and Away deal with things quickly and efficiently??


I am Jack's smirking revenge

° Ric Dalby - or Lion-O as I have taken to calling him until he gets his hair cut - got a taste of bare-knuckle fighting and really enjoyed it. Home and Away did a good job in skipping the fight; actually seeing it would have made the idea that Ric could have beaten that guy even more unbelievable. Still, you can see there's plenty more to come in this story. Most likely: whiny Matilda.

Elsewhere in Summer Bay: The Pier Diner opened unrealistically quickly. Geoff verbally destroyed and humiliated the clingy Melody in front of loads of people at school and it was hilarious. Leah came up with the name "Idantity Crisis" for the new drop-in centre but thankfully got talked around by Miles, who instead suggested "The Den".

Seacrest, Seacrest...damn your Seacrest!

The Cook with no taste celebrates his victory.

To say I've been unreliable and infrequent with my comments on American Idol (Thursday/Friday, ITV2) would be an understatement, but now that it's all over I'll give a few of my thoughts on this year's show...

° I was actually shocked to see David Cook win (in a good way), and the main thing I take from that is how great it is to watch one of these shows without the media furore that comes with it. Without actively seeking it out, we in the UK are spared all the speculation and gossip so we get to watch it like a TV show rather than the circus it often becomes. No stories of happy-slapping contestants, no understanding of geographical voting patterns, no idiotic feuding between headline-hungry judges, no eliminated contestants all over the place - there's just the show. It makes a very nice change from The X-Factor.

° ITV2's handling of the show was tremendous throughout the series. What in previous years had proven a laborious few hours of fast-forwarding through voting reminders, garbage filler and (Lord help us) Cat Deeley became a much more manageable and enjoyable proposition. Bravo to whomever is responsible for the streamlined edit.

° I totally hated the new set. Putting the band up in the rafters does not make any sense.

° "Celebrate me home" is a ridiculous lyric. I couldn't sit through a single closing montage entirely because of it.

° Allowing contestants to play instruments was a great move both in terms of the TV show and the competition. Hopefully it’ll be encouraged even more next year.

° For weeks I have been saying that I could no longer take Archuleta seriously because he reminds me too much of Kermit the Frog's little nephew Robin. Imagine my delight when I saw that for the first song of the finale they had him start his song dressed all in green and sitting on a staircase. Brilliant.

° It's funny to me that some people are complaining about the use of teleprompters in the finale. Firstly, with all the different performances both Cook and Archuleta were involved in over the final two nights surely it's too tough an ask for them remember everything without any help. Secondly, why does anyone even care?

So yeah…

I guess the reason I didn’t write about it as much as I’d expected is purely because there wasn’t much to say. As a TV show American Idol is the same as it ever was and you either enjoy it or you don’t. Personally, I'm already looking forward to next year's Idol far more than I'm looking forward to this year's X-Factor.

Aussie Soap Round-Up (w/e 16th May 2008)

Kate Ritchie as Sally Fletcher 1988-2008

Mixed feelings from the Bay this week, as Home and Away bade farewell to perhaps its most loved character of all-time and its most recent unbearable nuisance all in the space of two days; Sally Fletcher sadly leaving for pastures new and Sam Holden understandably murdered. It was a big week.

Sally's final episode was a sad, but slightly subdued affair. As I said last week, her exit seems primarily designed to honour her contribution to the show and has consequently lacked any real drama. But saying goodbye to a person who you have seen almost every weekday for 20 years is never going to be that easy, and it's hard to imagine that anyone else will ever maintain that level of involvement in a soap I watch ever again. It's sad to lose one of those little constants in life.

Sam, meanwhile, washed up on the beach, dead, giving us our first big Home and Away whodunnit since the brilliant Angie Russell got bumped off a few years ago. Apparently held down by one person, injected with an overdose of heroin by someone else and then dumped into the ocean, my dream scenario is that it was a big conspiracy by all the townsfolk. The people of Summer Bay cruelly and sadistically taking the trash out of their perfect little town, Hot Fuzz style. But that would never happen, of course, so instead we'll have weeks and weeks of slowly surfacing evidence that implicates every individual suspect in turn until someone relatively unimportant is revealed to be the killer. It's alright, though. I'm sure it'll still be rad. And at least Sam's dead, right?

Elsewhere in Summer Bay: Melody inexplicably assumed she was in a serious relationship with Geoff because he said they were friends. Noel tried to further convince Ric to fight by stealing all his furniture. Aden's shifty dad tried to stop Aden remembering the tiny little matter of his molestation.

Does Neighbours hate women? Well, no, of course it doesn't. But when I look back at the other week and I see Miranda painted as the bad guy for being pissed off about being saddled with $80,000 further debt and then this week I see Rosie painted as completely unreasonable for being scared of having a child I do start to wonder...

Sadly it seems like it's almost over now - Rosie feeling the pull of motherhood after all - but I really enjoyed the concept of the story. Call me a coward, but the idea of having a child is scary, right? The constant, non-stop, matter-of-life-and-death responsibility, the financial pressure, the way it changes the rest of your life. It's a scary thing. And if you're the woman who's going to give birth to it...hell, quite frankly it amazes me that every woman isn't as mortally afraid of motherhood as Rosie was back when the week started. So I must say I found it slightly ridiculous when the usually ultra-cool Frazer came in with his big "if you're not into it, I'll leave you and raise the baby on my own" ultimatum. Seriously. They've just gotten married, an abortion was never really an option (it's Neighbours) and Rosie had only just found out she was pregnant. Jesus. Give the woman a little time before you freak out and start throwing around big ultimatums like that. You have nine months until the baby arrives and you think week one is the appropriate time to throw out "I'll leave you if you don't start acting rationally!". Strange.

It takes me back to the potential anti-feminist nature of Neighbours. Rosie was painted as cold and irrational just because she wasn't sure about having a child. Yeah, I wonder how many essays are already out there about soaps having a massive left-wing agenda. Lots, I imagine.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough: Toadie joined Libby's "Irreplaceable Dead Spouse Club" for a while but made up with Steph anyway. Paul took yet another hobbled step back towards his old self, remembering that being a prick is what Paul Robinson does. Susan got all MS'y again and Rachel got in trouble at school.

Dollhouse Trailer!

I think it's fair to say the trailer looks as if it was casually slung together for the upfronts, but who cares? The first glimpse of a new Whedon show is just about one of the most exciting things that modern TV has to offer...



The biggest shock for me, if I'm being honest, is how bloody great Olivia Williams looks. Sexy, charismatic; she owns that trailer. I'm also pleasantly surprised to see the philosophical aspect of the show being flaunted so early on.

Yes, yes. Very excited.

"Kick her down a staircase and hope for the best"

Although I would describe myself as a staunchly pro-choice person and I have a habit of speaking about abortion with an almost shocking flippancy, I tend to think it's important for people to challenge their beliefs occasionally and it was with that sense of duty that I sat down to watch Abortion: The Choice (Tuesday, BBC2).

A part of the BBC Bare Facts season, it featured five very candid accounts from women who have had abortions. Admirably steering clear of any moral examination but refusing to shirk the upsetting realities of abortion, the film instead focused entirely on the emotional effects of the process, vividly illustrating the difficulty of the choice some women face and - to be honest - making for an hour of just horribly, gut-wrenchingly sad television.

Speaking about how and why they came to their decision, what it was like to undergo the procedure and how it has been to live with their choice ever since, it was certainly an enlightening experience. Unlike most TV documentaries on abortion I've seen, Abortion: The Choice really gave face to the whirlwind of conflicting emotion women face in this situation and forced you to look at your own opinion of abortion, whatever it is, in a new light. The film promised at the beginning that whatever your opinion currently is, it would make you reconsider it. Mission accomplished, I'd say.

Emotional masochists can watch it on BBC iPlayer for the next few days.

"Let me chew on your weird hair..."

° I hate to say it, but Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (Fridays, BBC1) has been really disappointing recently. I've always defended Jonathan Ross against accusations that he's overly reliant on vulgarity, but for the last two weeks the show has actually been slightly uncomfortable, crossing the line from roguishly brash to obnoxious and lecherous. First it was making a point of staring at Kirsty Gallagher’s cleavage all night and the next week it was telling Gwyneth Paltrow - verbatim here, but without the awful frankness - "I would fuck you". Woo! Respect for women. It's actually becoming a small problem with the show. So many of his recent interviews have started with "you're a very attractive man/woman", and each time the pattern follows: for a man it turns to celebrating his sexual prowess and for a woman it only turns to highlighting her sexual value to men. It's like TV from the 70's but without the standards.

And I know I probably sound like I'm taking things too seriously and that it's only meant for a laugh, but the biggest problem I actually have with it is that it's just not that funny. It's one of those "And this offends you as a Jewish person?" / "No, it offends me as a comedian" type things. Ross is a funny and intelligent presenter; slipping into this base routine reeks of laziness, and that’s the disappointment. All we’re really learning about recent guests is how tolerant and good-humoured they can be, and that’s not enough.

° I really enjoyed BBC2’s Am I Normal? with Tiny Tearaways queen Dr Tanya Byron. The four-part documentary sought to explore what constitutes “normal” behaviour in the areas of addiction, body image, spirituality and sex in a series that intelligently avoided asserting any standards of normality. The most fun part, though, was the way that Byron felt the need to add “but don’t have sex with children!” to her “do what you like” closing monologue. Hah. Britain thanks you for the reminder.

° Remember Dana White talking about the need for The Ultimate Fighter (Saturdays, Bravo) to be freshened up and saying that there would be plenty of changes this year? So far I'm not seeing it. Sure, people had to fight their way on to the show this time, but since then everything has been exactly the same and personally I'm not even convinced having these guys fight their way on to the show has helped to improve the calibre of fighter in any way. So yeah, it's same old, same old and you either like it or you don't.

The funny thing to me is that when looking at ideas to change the show they didn't look at the format of the reality side of the show. The fighting isn't top drawer, certainly, but the very nature of the sport means that with each fight you see something different. Watching the guys coexist in the house, however, has gotten tremendously stale. Each season it's the exact same story of naturally aggressive and restless guys playing ill-advised pranks, trashing the house and generally pissing each other off. If they could just find a way to break that particular tedium the show would be as good as new.

Eye, Eye

New Big Brother Eye. Exciting!

It's only a few weeks away now...

(Thursday 5th June, if you didn't know)

The speed, the strength, the heart to be a winner...

Okay, I know. I shouldn't like Gladiators (Sunday 6pm, Sky One) as much as I do. There's the Lycra, the rubber, the stupid names, the hammy performances, the occasionally mismatched games, the shrieking crowd - it's a ridiculous spectacle. But whether I'm just keyed into my inner-child or something, I was really excited to see it back last night and to see how Sky One would fare in bringing it back. Overall I don't think I was too disappointed.

It wasn't without faults. Cramming the show into a single hour meant that everything felt very rushed. New presenters Kirsty Gallagher and Ian Wright would hand over to John Anderson only for new commentator Alan Parry to speak over him, depriving us of the traditional cry of "Gladiators: Ready!". Essentially everything moved so fast that there was absolutely no time to savour any of the pomp and glamour that has always been such an integral part of the show.

Also, I'm not sure whether I imagined this or not, but I found some of the commentary a bit more risqué than I'd expect in a family show like this. Maybe Gladiators always had this edge and I was too young to realise, but hearing Alan Parry purr things like, "these ladies are going to get wet" and "these are ladies with big balls...so to speak" sounded a bit full-on to me. Maybe it was just first night carelessness, maybe I am the one with my mind in the gutter or maybe Alan Parry is a big old pervert. I think I’ll blame Parry for now.

Elsewhere everything seemed fine. The outfits, which I'd thought looked dull in all the advance promotional materials, looked fine in the greater context of the show, and all the new Gladiators seem to understand the need to imbue themselves with unique personalities; Oblivion and Spartan making themselves stand out the most. Best of all, though, the competition is just plain fun. All the games but the Eliminator - which now seems almost too demanding - have retained their all their original charm and the competition seems just a fierce as always. There's good sport, good clean violence and a nice dichotomy of dour British reality and outrageous campness. It's just good, dumb fun.

It's yet to be seen how committed Sky One are to the idea, and whether they're willing to make adjustments rather than pulling the plug should the show not hold its relatively decent first night audience (1.5 million), but I'm hopeful; the hiatus seems to have done the trick. It's not completely fresh, but it doesn't feel tired either. Until it does, I'm glad to have it back.

Aussie Soap Round-Up (w/e 9th May 2008)

° The reasons for Aden's anger problems were revealed this week when he accused his dad of turning a blind eye while he suffered systematic sexual abuse at the hands of his war-hero grandfather. The confrontation was a really fantastic, intense, claustrophobic scene. If soaps ever hope to achieve the illusion that we're peering in on people's real lives, it came pretty close here.

° Sally's exit is approaching far more rapidly than I was ready for and Friday's episode saw her give a teary farewell address. The fun thing about it was that it seemed very deliberately worded so it could be interpreted as being from Kate Ritchie herself. "I came here with no idea I'd ever stay here so long", "I'm moved to have known all the people here", "I hope a part of me always stays a part of this place", "it's time to move on to the next stage of my life" - it was definitely equal parts Kate and Sally. And that made it really nice. Allowing her to give such a speech - a shoot almost - really honoured her contribution and importance to the show.

° Rightly overshadowed by Sally's impending exit, Cassie actually did leave the Bay this week. Last week I said of Neighbours' Janae that she was a character to be missed: that's not the case here. Janae was a character that seemed to grow and learn from her experiences, while Cassie was an unbearably whiny character who repeated the same mistakes over and over (and hence forced us to repeatedly suffer through the same storyline template).

° As we left Home and Away this week, Sam had suffered a miscarriage and Jack had finally come to his senses and handed Johnny's letter in to the police. Thank jeebus. I am gagging for some forward movement in this story.

Elsewhere in Summer Bay: Colleen's joy at becoming a Stewart is hilarious, yes, but I still can't stand the whole idea. I can only imagine it's to give her some kind of anchor when Sally goes. Floss used her psychic powers to turn into Lassie Skippy(?) and discover the injured Aden in the collapsed diner.

° Steve went $80,000 over budget to win the house at auction and yet I get the feeling we're supposed to see Miranda as the bad guy in their little fights. I don't get that. Whose partner wouldn't be pissed off if they spent eighty thousand dollars they didn't have? But no: "oh, Miranda...you've got to relax" seems to be the overriding attitude. Harsh, no? Miranda's not the most loveable character, but so far I think she's a good one. Whether you like it or not at the time, she reacts to things in a believable way.

° The Toadie/Steph marriage saga is really boring. First of all, Steph is so dull I don’t want Toadie to marry her, but second of all it’s a story that just reeks of accommodating long-term characters. It’s vaguely interesting at best, and mainly it’s just making me hate Steph more.

° I was really enjoying Rosie’s troubles with the idea of getting pregnant until Friday’s episode, in which she held baby Chloe and looked all at ease with the world again. The way Rosie seemed genuinely afraid of motherhood combined with her serious career goals made me wonder whether Neighbours might have an interesting story lined up. I really, really hope the tide doesn’t turn so quickly as, “aww, I do have some maternal instincts after all!” They could go in so many other more exciting ways.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough: Libby and Rachel both went back to school to face taunts about student-teacher affairs. Frazer went all Batman to save the new Surfer/Reporter girl’s laptop. Elle had a full-on panic attack but continued to be a snarky bitch.

From Heroes to Zero

In the long wait the BBC forced us to endure for the second season of Heroes (Thursdays, BBC2), there was a lot of time to hear the voices of dissent gathering around it from across the pond. Ratings dropped dramatically and people hated it so much that their collective whining even earned them an apology from the show's creator; Tim Kring ultimately confessing to fans that he'd made some creative decisions he now regrets. Back when I read that I though it sounded crazy.

After all, though Season 1 of Heroes got off to a great start, since the cheerleader was first saved in 'Homecoming' (s01e09) the show never recaptured that same momentum or drive. What looked like being a very good show eventually settled into being a mediocre one. The strong start was enough to earn a full season's attention, certainly, but there was already cause for concern about the show's longevity. So, when I heard people railing against Season 2 I arrogantly assumed people had caught up to the fact that Heroes just isn't that good. I figured it was probably hovering around the same middling level of quality it was in the second half of Season 1 and people only judged it differently because all their "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" excitement had finally worn off.

Boy, was I wrong to doubt their judgement. Three episodes in and quite frankly it has been a dreadful start.

It's actually hard to think of anything positive to say. The new crop of stories seem to range from the mildly uninteresting (Mohinder as a double agent, Maya and Alejandro coming to America, Hiro in the past) to the flat-out terrible (Peter in Ireland, Claire's romance). It feels like it's muddling along with no real purpose.

Claire's fledgling romance with West, in particular, is almost embarrassing television. "Are you a robot or an alien?” he asked within five minutes of meeting her. What a complete twat. And why is Claire suddenly so amazed by the depth of her power? Here's a girl who has come back from any number of ridiculous injuries (off the top of my head she's fallen from great heights, been set on fire, hit by a car and stabbed in the brain) and she even woke up during her own autopsy. Has the image of waking up and seeing all of her internal organs left her so quickly that the regeneration of her little toe is so mind-blowing? More importantly, does Kring expect the audience - who have long come to terms with the meaning of Claire's powers - to be particularly interested in her slowly dawning realisation of things we've long understood? The key to interesting character exploration, surely, is to have the character and the audience realising things on roughly the same schedule, the pace of which should be dictated by the show's events. In the case of Claire, the absence of any other real story makes her pondering ponderous, and it's a faultline that seems to be running through the entire show.

For a show that so obviously laboured through the second half of its first season, it's amazing to me that Kring and Co. could allow the show to be so slow out of the blocks this time. And now that Kring has conceded the show needs a new direction for its third year, it’s hard to be hopeful for what is yet to come in the second season.

Set Your Sky+: Lost

Lost (Season 4, Part 2)

Premiere

Tonight at 9:00pm on Sky One (plus Multi-Start)

Repeated

Monday 5th May at 10:00pm on Sky Two
Tuesday 6th May at 10:00pm on Sky Two
Wednesday 7th May at 11:00pm on Sky Two

I doubt anyone could forget, but I'd be remiss not to throw out a reminder anyway. Season 4, Part 2: no more stupid scheduling interruptions. Aww yeah...

Aussie Soap Round-Up (w/e 2nd May 2008)

° After so many weeks of tension Sam was finally exposed to be the manipulative murderess she is and yet thanks to the interminable wetness of Jack, by the end of the week we still hadn't approached anything resembling a resolution. Agghhh!!! Give me my proxy vengeance, damn it! It's good work by Home and Away, of course, but it does make me wonder about how long exactly a soap can drag out a single story before their audience gets bored. How many times will Sam be able to wriggle out of the net before I feel like I'm watching the many endings of LOTR: Return of the King? I wonder if the writers set themselves distinct limits or just play it by ear.

° On the flipside to all those high drama criminal shenanigans, Home and Away was oddly obsessed with religion this week, seemingly using the Bay's celebration of Easter to spread a message of tolerance to all. It was strange and kind of hilarious. Hearing Annie console Belle about her break-up with Drew by saying that she understands her pain because she gets similarly depressed at Easter - WHEN SHE THINKS ABOUT HOW JESUS DIED - was the funniest thing I've heard in ages. Almost surreal in its brilliance.

Elsewhere in Summer Bay: Jazz's failed seduction of Tony made her realise once and for all that she doesn't have a chance with him, which is good but slightly sad. Jazz is brilliant. Cassie told Summer Bay High all about her HIV. Morag hustled Aden for answers. Colleen found out she is a Stewart, which seems like complete insanity.

Janae (Eliza Taylor-Cotter) bids adieu to Neighbours

° Janae finally left the Manchild and his child - hooray! - but unfortunately for us that also meant leaving Ramsay Street and Neighbours altogether and moving up North with the family. Boooo. It's a shame. Janae's one of the few characters in the entire show that you could identify as having experienced legitimate, believable character development over the years. If you look at someone like Steph in comparison - she who hasn't changed in any real way in nearly 10 years - you can see what Janae achieved in her 3-year stint. From slutty obnoxious teen to admirable young lady to broken shell of a woman; Janae felt oddly human in a world full of talking cardboard cut-outs. She could be annoying sometimes, sure, but she's a character to be missed.

° In the land of Arch Metaphors, Bridget finally managed to "run free" as she let Pouch go to be groomed for release into the wild. As I was watching the episode the whole thing felt unbearably contrived, but by the end of it I was actually quite emotional when Bridget discarded her crutch. Yes, I am a sap.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough: Rachel seems like she is over the worst of her petulant streak, but I have a feeling I will be eating those words soon enough. Steph won't tell Toadie her divorce has come through. Carmella and Marco got back together after a really odd week. All those scenes of Marco at the vineyard were insane because (a) I don't care enough about Marco to see him when he's not in Erinsborough (b) the boss lady at that vineyard had a creepy vibe about her.

Set Your Sky+: Peep Show

Peep Show (Season 5)

Premiere
Tonight at 10:30pm on Channel 4

Repeated
Saturday 3rd May at 9:00pm on E4
Thursday 8th May at 11:35pm on Channel 4

I don't think there's too much to say that shouldn't already be obvious. Probably the best British sitcom of the moment is returning after perhaps the best wedding in sitcom history. Who could forget Jez pissing through the mezzanine or the fabulous image of both Sophie and Mark sobbing their way through their vows before Mark was finally granted his freedom?

Having capped off its excellent fourth season in such style makes it hard to doubt that the fifth will hold anything less. In fact, to not watch Peep Show as it enters its fifth year would, quite frankly, be an affront to British comedy and a total hypocrisy if you have ever sighed a sad sigh about great British sitcoms not lasting long enough. It's must-see. That's all there is to it.

Also, I must add that with a lead-in of Dirty Sexy Money (9pm) and the new series of Derren Brown: Trick or Treat (10pm), Channel 4 have finally assembled a Friday night schedule to rival those of yore. Exciting, no? And it's not even sullied by the presence of The Friday Night Project.

We have a good six weeks ahead of us.

Aussie Soap Round-Up (w/e 25th April 2008)

The main problem with teens in soap is that character continuity is often completely forsaken in favour of a story idea. Nice, smart kids will turn into horrible, unbearable idiots, completely out of nowhere, just for long enough to justify their participation in a storyline you wouldn't ordinarily buy them in. It can be easily rationalised by throwing out a generalisation about teenagers being volatile characters, but it's never something I accept very easily. I remember it happened semi-recently with Lucas in Home and Away, and it's definitely going on with Rachel at the moment in Neighbours.

Wah, wah, wah, wah...

I said last week that I've always liked Rachel, and I think there may have even been an ounce of understatement there. When she and Zeke first appeared in Ramsay Street, they were two of my absolute favourite characters. Their social inexperience gave them a detached, intellectual approach to life that made them a really interesting pair. At the moment, however, Rachel is nothing more than a paper-thin caricature of a whiny, lovestruck teenage girl. She keeps having these stupid conversations in which she becomes inexplicably convinced that the other person is suddenly okay with the idea of her being with Angus from now on. No, Rachel! Stop being an idiot. And then she cries and now she's run away... Honestly, did I miss a week somewhere in which the girl had a full-frontal lobotomy? I miss old Rachel, and as a consequence, this whole Rachel-Angus saga is tough to watch.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough: Elle has taken on the mantle of Robinson Scumbag, happy to exploit the Rachel situation for her own journalistic gains. Neighbours showed it has a different take on rapists to Home and Away when Rebecca, Oliver and Declan practically celebrated Richard's death in an actually quite-touching moment. Janae acted like a complete idiot and told Ben and Mickey about the whole Darren kiss situation. What the hell is going on with her? Total shell of herself nowadays.

Things were a little more frantic in Home and Away this week...

° Sally and Cassie announced their plans to leave Summer Bay to go travelling, and all I can think is, "IS THIS IT?!!?!?!". This isn't Sally's exit story surely? I mean, I don't want her to die or anything, but this is so sudden and so vague; it doesn't seem worthy at all.

Well it's true that they love one another...apparently

° Tony and Rachel finally slept together and I was totally behind it until they completely ruined it by exchanging "I love you"s. Am I alone there? I'm honestly not sure I am, and I have to say I get a kick out of the idea that society - and therefore soap's representation of it - has moved to a point at which the romance of a sex scene within a committed relationship can be completely ruined by someone saying "I love you".

° The Bayside Diner just randomly started falling apart, so I can only assume a lush new set is on order. I hope it looks good, because I thought the current diner was fine, to be honest. The idea of a Drop-In Centre/Diner does seem slightly insane though. Does Leah not remember all the trouble that happened around the last one?

Elsewhere in Summer Bay: Still trying to evade suspicion in very suspicious ways, Sam paid someone to beat the hell out of her. Cassie had a brilliant freak-out when her head was cut open by the falling Diner debris. Geoff asked Britney - pretty, popular, bitchy airhead type - to go to Church with him as a first date. Hahahaha. Miles neutralised the Aden factor on his first day of teaching at Summer Bay High. Roman revealed to Martha that he has a teenage daughter, and it looked to me like she’s the blind Timmins girl from Neighbours. Expect an appearance.

Oh, and as a quick bonus, unrelated type thing....

The Hemsworths: Luke, Chris (Kim Hyde) and Liam (Wheelchair Josh)

For weeks my brother and I have been saying that Josh, Bridget's wheelchair-bound friend on Neighbours, is the spitting image of Kim Hyde from Home and Away. The physical resemblance was there a bit, we thought, but what stunned us were all the shared mannerisms. The voice was similar but the speech patterns were practically identical. It was uncanny, we thought. Apparently, though...not so much. While looking for pictures with which to enshrine them as the third in my Soap Doppelgangers series, I found that they're actually brothers in real life. Oops. For someone who writes about these shows every week you'd think I'd watch the credits occasionally. Silly me.

I blame my brother.

Hot molten-hot lava bombs, anyone?

Let's review a little bit of news, why don't we?

° After what seemed like an unusually long wait, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Virgin1) finally got the call for another season; a 13 episode order with a chance for 9 more if all goes well. I think that's a very fair decision. While personally I'm still not convinced the show has a great deal of depth to it - "like butter scraped over too much bread", as Bilbo Baggins might say - there's certainly still some mileage to be had out of it, and there's no reason to assume the show can't improve now some of the initial kinks have been ironed out. Let's just hope David from Beverly Hills 90210 gets ironed out soon too, because seriously...Brian Austen Green? No, no, no, no.

° When Dollhouse was first revealed as Joss Whedon's new project, I was surprisingly subdued about it all. A huge part of me was geeking out purely for the love of Joss, but everything else about the project sounded slightly unappealing. I'm not sure how I feel about Eliza Dushku when she's not Faith, I'm not a great fan of the former-Angel scribes Fain and Craft, and the premise in general seemed a little bit too stuff for my liking. Well, all has changed. The reasons...

Olivia Williams and Amy Acker join Joss Whedon's Dollhouse

The two final pieces to round off quite the motley crew, and I think they're both fantastic casting. Olivia Williams is tremendous and will bring a real mature presence to the show, and as for Amy Acker...well, what can I say? It's great that she'll be working on a show on which the showrunner is as besotted with her as we all are. As I write this, filming should have actually started...eek!

° Good old Beeb. Bowing to the pressure of quite frankly insane fan interest, the BBC have crowned Being Human the winner of their BBC Three pilot season and ordered a 6 episode season. That's good news. In fact, I think it's actually the first time I've ever been excited to see a British drama series come to fruition. I expect it'll be a new experience for many of us.

° Let's talk Lost. It was supposed to return to Sky One for the second half of Season 4 this Sunday (27th April) and now it's not. Instead the show will return on Sunday May 4th, meaning that we will be running a full ten days behind US pace. It's a move that will divide hardcore fans, but personally I'm with Sky 100%. In another piece of intelligent scheduling, Sky are merely trying to spare us the horror of yet another mid-season interruption, one that actually would have been due the week before the finale(!). Those things are a freakin' nightmare for everyone, and I for one applaud Sky for having the foresight to realise that.

Even with an asterisk...

(Click to enlarge image)

*vomits uncontrollably*

Because Britain doesn't haven't talent...

It occurs to me that despite having said I would write about it, I have completely neglected American Idol (Thursday/Friday, ITV2) since it hit the final twelve stage. Oops. I'll start again once we get to the final five, I think. Waiting to find out who they are hasn't been quite as exciting as it is on Battlestar Galactica, you see.

Quick general update? Cook's the best, Brooke's my favourite, Carly's no good, Syesha's annoying, Castro's just a college kid with a nice smile and David Archuleta reminds too much of Robin the Frog...



Yeah, I know I'm not crazy. You see it too.

Now just to wait for my admittedly inferior favourite to get eliminated...*sigh*

"We ain't gotta dream no more, man"

About twelve weeks ago, when the second season of The Wire finished airing as part of FX's marathon run of the HBO drama (Season 1-5, one episode a week, Mondays on FX), I hailed it as the best full season of television I have ever watched. As a montage wrapped up all the season's loose ends and set the ball rolling for Season 3, it really felt like something special. It created this vivid image in my mind of everyone who worked on it sitting back and watching that sequence with all the satisfaction of an engineer watching a newly designed machine kick faultlessly into motion for the first time. It was truly brilliant television.

Having just watched the finale of Season 3, I find myself unsurprised to report that it was even better. In fact, The Wire up to this point has been so good that I genuinely wonder if television drama can get any better. For all my prattling on about the evolution of television - as if it's constantly moving towards being something better, something more - it's very difficult to imagine ways in which The Wire could be improved upon. Could it really be that this show represents the peak of the medium's capability?

It's a question of taste, I suppose. One of The Wire's greatest achievements, in my opinion, would be the way it has evolved beyond standalone episodic narratives. But to suggest that television's episodic nature is a failing is not a charge that can be laid down so definitively. Many people see the episodic nature of television as a bonus; some would even write off The Wire completely due to its deviant nature. However, if we're looking at television as an art form, such opinions can be squarely brushed aside. Arguments about whether TV should be essentially episodic are not arguments about the merits of television; they are personal admissions of the way certain people prefer to watch television. A predilection for short stories over novels, for example, does not affect one's judgement on what constitutes good writing. To this end, form is flexible; it is the execution that is important. And The Wire's ability to disseminate such a consistent, dense and complex story so flawlessly over about twelve hours is truly remarkable.

Perhaps what makes it so remarkable is just how different it is to anything else on television. When defining "Quality TV", in fact, Robert Thompson's first criteria was as follows:

"Quality TV is best defined by what it is not. It is not "regular" TV ... In a medium long considered artless, the only artful TV is that which isn't like all the rest of it. Quality TV breaks rules. It may do this by taking a traditional genre and transforming it, as Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and Moonlighting did to the cop show, the doctor show, and the detective show, respectively. Or it may defy standard generic parameters and define new narrative territory heretofore unexplored by television" (Thompson, 1996; 13)

The Wire is all of those things. And, of course, when thinking about the way in which The Wire has eclipsed a show like Hill Street Blues - lauded by Thompson as the first quality television show - it's difficult not to wonder if I am being too generous with my praise, or perhaps even short-sighted. But one must also think about whether a time ultimately comes in the lifespan of any medium that a pinnacle is reached, an ideal template created. Now, having been bogged down in its role as a tool for commerce for so long, television is finally flourishing as an art form, and maybe that time has come.

What seems particularly special about The Wire is how little it feeds to its audience. The rewards are there in abundance, but nothing is so prosaic as to demand or manipulate a reaction from the viewer, something even some of the best TV shows find themselves guilty of on occasion. Instead, and for the first time in my experience, The Wire feels like a show that just is; a show with no other agenda but to be as good as it possibly can. Compare it to other shows and it is difficult not to notice the absence of so many regular little devices unique to TV and often born of its institutional limitations; either covering up faults or going out of its way to meet industrial standards (commercial concerns). Little things like the absence of a "Previously on..." recap or dramatic act breaks designed to make sure you don't change the channel during the commercial; lame duck cliff-hangers or plot twists to make sure you tune in next week. The Wire feels like it's above those things in a way no other TV ever has been. And with audiences becoming exponentially savvier to such TV practices, such pureness of intent feels likely to become more important across the board. The last thing audiences want is to feel patronised by their light entertainment, and The Wire steadfastly refuses to do that. All it seems to want is to tell its story.

It is perhaps in this context that The Wire best represents the peak of television's evolution. Whether you like it or not - maybe you hate cop shows or prefer fantasy to realism or something - it's a show that has unshackled itself from the chains of convention and excelled as a result. What more could you ask? Where else is there for television to go but wherever the hell it wants to?

You have to watch it.

If you're still not convinced or are looking for something more like an actual review and less like frenzied rambling, watch Charlie Brooker talk about it much more sensibly and just see if he can't convince you...



I'll second everything he said, but then I'll go back to frenzied rambling. Best show ever. Watch it. Watch it. Watch it. Beg, buy, borrow, steal, watch, watch, watch.

Aussie Soap Round-Up (w/e 18th April 2008)

° In Home and Away, Sam actually murdered Johnny. Bloody hell! A large part of me still thinks this whole business about Sam having some dark secret is a massive stretch, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely suckered in by it anyway. It's great stuff - not least because Sam's days on the show are surely numbered now she has killed a man in cold blood. Summer Bay is pretty forgiving of rapists, sure, but murder? That's just not cool.

° Belle and Drew had one of the best arguments I've ever seen on Home and Away or Neighbours. It was great. In a brilliantly heated exchange they threw a laundry list of prior misdeeds at each other that only served to highlight how ridiculous their relationship was in the first place. Completely gripping, yet completely ludicrous. I loved it. For posterity:

"Ugh! You're a journalist! You disgust me!"
"At least I can hold down a job. You're a quitter."
"But at least I have ethics!"
"You slept with my mother!!"
"But you made out with your stalker."
"You ran him down with your car and left him for dead."
"Err...well...you're a slag!" *runs out of town*

Hahaha. Classic. I'll be disappointed if Drew returns now, because that's one hell of a note to go out on.

Elsewhere in Summer Bay: Bartlett became the new principal of Summer Bay High and gave Miles a job as his first order of business. Morag presumed Martha would sleep with Roman on their first date but surprisingly turned out to be wrong. Geoff developed an interest in girls. Rachel and Tony reaped the benefits of some naturalistic writing: who doesn't want them to succeed as a couple by this point?

° In Neighbours, Declan blew the whistle on Rachel's relationship with Angus after Didge was wrongly identified as the girl in question. It was awesome. I mean, I've always liked Rachel, but in this storyline she has been completely unbearable; illogical, irrational, selfish, whiny and utterly naive. Yet strangely, despite his initial protestations, the more Rachel acts like she is fourteen years old, the more Angus seems to be interested. Any empathy we may have had with the guy when this situation first started - back when he still believed Rachel was legal - has surely completely dissipated. What a dickhead.

° Libby finally kicked Darren to the curb after Janae revealed the truth about their kiss to the entire street. Happy days. After six weeks or so since her return, it finally feels like Libby is back for good, finally relieved of the hideous tumour that was Darren.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough: Carmella and Marco are stuck in an interminably boring "will they, won't they?". Fitzy's moving into Number 30 to cement his regular status. Rosie's scared to death by the idea of motherhood. Ned is using his brain for once and realising that the Soap Relationship is a tumultuous thing.

"It's like watching a dog play the piano"

° It took me a while to finally stow away my Gossip Girl-related anger and give Josh Schwartz's second creation of the season a fair chance, but having finally watched the first two episodes of Chuck (Mondays, Virgin1) I must admit I'm fairly encouraged. The plot is ridiculous and there are moments of stupidity, but unlike Schwartz's other shows it seems to be completely lacking in pretension. While Gossip Girl dresses itself in designer clothes and claws to maintain its social status, Chuck sits in the corner goofing off, interested only in having the best time possible. It's far from perfect, but it's earnest, and in my books that instantly gives Chuck a one-up on Schwartz's other shows.

That's not to say everything is great, though. The way the camera tends to leer at Yvonne Strahovski in her underwear so often can feel slightly seedy, and perhaps even serves to exemplify Chuck's most obvious problem: for all it's good qualities, the show still manages to feel somewhat dated, as if it belongs in a line-up somewhere between MacGyver and The A-Team rather than on modern TV. In fact, what kind of evolution the show sees will be very interesting because it's not hard to imagine that NBC's enthusiasm for Chuck is entirely due to its old school nature. Right now it has that paint-by-numbers feel to it and that's something networks go ga-ga for. Exactly how tightly the reins are in place might be the defining factor in whether Chuck can maintain its good start, because I'm not convinced things won't get tired before long if change isn't encouraged. Hopefully NBC aren't afraid to let the show spread its wings a little.

° As baffled as I was that Saleisha could win Cycle 9 of America's Next Top Model, I know I will be more baffled when I see the girls who have somehow made it on to Britain's Next Top Model this Monday (9pm, Living). People who talk about Big Brother reflecting the sad state of our nation have obviously never watched BNTM.

° After all the fuss ITV caused this week I expect everyone's a bit weary of reading about Pushing Daisies (Saturdays, ITV) and I don't blame them, so I'll just say quickly that I really enjoyed the pilot. All the quirk you could dream of and an absolute abundance of loveliness, it was really great to see another side to Bryan Fuller's work. It shared all the same wonderful originality you'd expect but veered off in directions you wouldn't; out with the sarcasm and cynicism, in with open-hearted romanticism. It was a delight.

That ITV could be so inept having lauded this show for so long is absolutely staggering.