She saved the world. A lot.

Apparently it is still all about sexy vampires...
Sometimes, end of term smacks me around a bit.
Sometimes, it lays me flat. It lays me on my couch, with droopy eyes, and pale skin, and aches and pains in all the wrong places.

Tonsilitis is a real pain in my neck, and my special variety of Holiday Tonsilitis is a special variety of pain.

Solution? A well viewed DVD, or several; end on end. Really get that flatscreen cranking.

Over the course of this term, culminating in a panadol-infused binge, I have rewatched the entire 7 series of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.

Yep, this show is old. Fifteen years old. And I am STILL in love with it.

For seven years, for 152 episodes, for 6,384 minutes, Joss Whedon created a show about a young woman and her friends finding a place for themselves in the world, through high school, college and beyond. And along the way they fight demons and avert multiple apocalypses. Sure it has dated a bit (did I mention it is FIFTEEN years old??) but it is still rivetting, relevant television.

I was initally skeptical. I mean, who wouldn't be? Could they have chosen a more vacuous sounding name than "Buffy"? Could they have created a more naff sounding title? But that is entirely the point. The expectation is that Buffy is going to be some incapable blonde bint more concerned with nail integrity than saving the world. And the irony is created when that expectation is utterly confounded. She does care about nail integrity AND saving the world. (Side note: I managed to actually teach my year 9 boys what Irony is. And at least 5 of them got it. I'm calling it an Educational Victory!) I remember scoffing about it to my flatmate at the time, and he persuaded me to give it a shot. I fell way more in love with it than he did.

The central metaphor is not difficult to grasp; the demons and monsters she fights represent the challenges and battles faced by  us all in our lives - making friends, keeping a boyfriend, dealing with parents... just magnified into big rubber suits, prosthetic make up and mucusy slime. A friend of mine from uni wrote her thesis on it (and I would STILL love to read it...)

In season 2 (not seen it yet? a. you're an idiot, b. there will be spoilers in this paragraph) Buffy and her vampire-with-a-soul brooding boyfriend Angel (what kind of a tough guy name is that??!?) consumate their relationship for the first time, in a very tender, fleshy montage with lots of close ups of hands and closed eyes. The act of lurve, the moment of perfect happiness breaks the curse on Angel, and frees him of his soul, returning him to the nasty, manipulative, violent vampire he was before. A little bit like that older guy who convinces that teenage girl to give up her V-Plates and then immediately after the act turns into King Jerk of Jerk town. Except with more blood lust and desire to torture. See? The analogy is not really that much of a stretch.

As the series progressed, each season dealt with increasingly more complex issues. Politics. Science. Theology. Grief. Community. Communication. Power. Leadership. Humanity. Not all just broken nails and boy troubles.

Back in the dark ages of the late 90s, there wasn't much in the way of kick-arse chicks on television. Sure, we had Xena. But she was so overly stylised and camp, that she couldn't really be applied to real life. Buffy was (and evidently still is) a pretty kick arse hero of the show. She isn't a heroine. She is not the tacked on, token female character. She isn't the love interest. But she also isn't masculine either. She fights bad guys using mad kung-fu moves in rediculous high heels. She chases down other bad guys in floaty fabric blouses. Her hair is pretty hot, almost all the time (not as hot as Connie Britton from FNL, she still wins the hottest hair award.) The show only ever really makes a big deal about Buffy being a girl when it is ridiculing people who make a big deal out of her being a girl. Those enemies or bystanders who refer to Buffy as "just a girl" or "a little girl"usually come to a sticky end. Or at least quickly change their mind. But that is it. They don't harp on about it. To harp on about how empowered would completly undermine the empowerment in the first place.

The legacy of her kickarse status as a female hero is not difficult to see. Sydney Bristow Alias followed not long after her. Sarah in Chuck isn't the hero, but she is a damn site more kickarse than the central character. Recently we've seen Emily/Amanda in Revenge. None of these would have been the same without the pioneering work of Joss and Sarah Michelle Double-Barrel Gellar and pals.

In his own creations, Joss continues to create girls with guts: Zoe in Firefly and Echo in Dollhouse, and while she is kind of on the perifery, Scarlett Johannsson's Black Widow does some pretty awesome arse kicking in The Avengers. He's even done a modern reworking of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, the Bard's most arsekicking feminist play of all.

I've spoken before about my love for Joss and all he does, but my inspiration for the Buffy rewatch was a meme I saw on facebook. And I love it.

(I decided to end the rant of love there. I don't think there is room for me to discuss the nuances of the other characters, the hero's journey and redemption, the understated representation of a gay couple, the delightful intertextual geekiness, the postmodern thinking that runs through every scene, and every line of dialogue... My love for this show runs way too deep)

Just one final thought:

Pushing Fantasy

I'm not usually a fan of fantasy novels. It has to be a special kind of fantasy to get me hooked. Harry Potter for example had me thoroughly hooked right from Privet Drive. But (and I confess this with a healthy dose of the Sheepish) Lord of The Rings I found confusing, all those Saurons and Sarumons and beared humanoids of differing heights. It wasn't until I saw the brilliant film version and could get Viggo and Sir Ian and the Seans differentiated in my head that I could then tackle the weighty tomes of Tolkein. But once I had the casting straight, I found it a breeze.

It is a similar story for A Song of Ice and Fire. Or as fellow HBO fanatics call it Game of Thrones.

I have had Sean Bean brooding on this spiky seat on my bookshelves for over a year. A very clever fellow from the Boy Factory pointed me in its direction AGES ago, more specifically to the HBO series, and I like to do the book first.

And I tried.

But I just couldn't separate the Roberts and the Robbs. The Eddards, the Edwins and the Edwards. My imagination just didn't have the casting sorted out. So I dove right into the HBO series.

And when has HBO ever let us down?? Entourage, Sex & the City, True Blood, Band of Brothers. Can they do ANYTHING wrong? I think not.

As ever, HBO structure each episode in a V shape. Most narratives are an A frame: introduction, building action, climax, resolution. A Shakespearean tragedy does it in the most text book way. But an HBO episode of almost everything does it in the kind of opposite way. It usually starts off with a BANG, and then the action kind of dwindles a bit. Then the characters go through the motions, and stuff begins to get exciting again, and just as it is about to really kick off????

Credits. Wait 'til next week. Or even worse, next YEAR if it is the end of the season!

I got stuck in to the HBO Game of Thrones on Good Friday. And what a good Friday it was. I was meant to be cleaning my house and packing for a holiday. But instead I just watched 10 eps of TV gold, back to back.

And then promptly went out and bought the second book, A Clash of Kings the next day. Just because I NEEDED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!!! And once again, with the casting all sorted in my head, the book was a breeze.

So what is it? A multi-perspective story of a fantasy/medieval nation in the grips of the vices of humans - lust, greed, ambition, corruption. The title refers to  the machinations of a number of characters as they tussle for the top job in Westeros.

King Robert asks his mate Eddard to leave the cold North to be his right hand man.

Eddard keeps telling everyone, in a most foreboding fashion, that "Winter is coming"

 Robert's toxic wife Cercei doesn't seem to have much loyalty to anyone, especially her husband.

Her similarly toxic son Joffery is heir to the throne. Have you ever seen a more slappable face? Ever?

Her short-statured brother is sensible, but much maligned for his height, or lack thereof. Peter Dinklage is pretty darn awesome in this role, but sometimes his English accent is a little Over Done, which grates on me a little. I've been told to let it go...

Meanwhile in exhile is the stunning silver-haired Daenerys Targaryen is being sold into marriage as her brother tries to manouver himself back to his rightful spot on the Westeros throne - Robert usurped his family before we even got there. She is my favourite. Maybe because we don't get to see enough of her, with the directors always leaving us wanting more. But mostly because her name is Dany...

There are battles, sex sword fights, sex, a litter of direwolves (like super-wolves), more sex, a possible winter-induced zombie invasion from Beyond The Wall (read: Scotland) and complex polital system of banners and manner and symbols and slogans that needs vast tracts of explanation in the back of every novel. In fact there is SO much sex combined with complex backstory, that the term "sexposition" has been coined - exposition + sex! The way to make boring explanation just a touch more palatable. And with the complicated backstories like these, there needs to be a spoonful of sugar.

"They" are calling Game of Thrones a "cross-over hit" or a "gate-way drug" to fantasy. I think of it more like Clayton's fantasy. The fantasy you like when you don't like fantasy. I have been a little bit evangelical with this, trying to push it onto fantasy tee-totallers. Once they give over to the idea, they are pretty much as hooked as me!!

Post-Script: I'm now up to Book 5 of  A Song of Ice and Fire and there is still another one to go!! And at 1000+ pages, the reading of these is a significant achievement!!

Grid Iron Addiction

So by now we all know of my weakness for trashy teenage dramas. (Of the television kind - I'm not in the least bit interested in the soap operas of the small people of The Boy Factory.) But my track record of being smitten with trashy TV is pretty well recorded. Gossip Girl. The OC. Glee. One Tree Hill. These are the machinations of the microcosms of society, through the lens of those burgeoning humans about to burst through the threshold into the world.

Or maybe that is over thinking it.

My latest true TV love is Friday Night Lights. I'd heard Good Things. From the kind of people who share a similar taste in glittering trashy tv as me.

And Good Things it is.

Even if you don't care for Grid Iron (and I really don't. I mean, what kind of a game takes so many hours to play, for so little game time? What kind of game has a separate offensive and defensive sects of the team?! What kind of a contact sport requires THAT much padding and headgear??!?) this show is LOTS of Good Things.

The titular lights of the Friday evening refer to the floodlights of the Panthers football stadium in the small football obsessed Texas town of Dillon. A small town school that is uber obsessed by football? Has the Boy Factory been transplanted to the US? I swear some of my life has been transformed to Texan teleplay somehow.

The story lines really resonate. Staff politics of a school. The Jocks and their privileged role in the school. Budgeting and the prioritising of sport over all else (one sport in particular.) Small town gossip mills. Those awkward mother-daughter sex conversations. This show is so well written, it stings a little bit.

The whole style of the show is pretty gritty. The breathtaking performances from the cast are largely improvised, one take with 3 cameras. It makes all the character interactions uber realistic. Talking over the top of each other, interrupting each other, the kind of pregnant pauses that pepper real life conversations. The camera operators chase the actors, rather than the actors finding their mark and delivering to camera. This all gives a real doco style to the show. Framings are usually skewed, focus is loose and the grainy stock gives a hint of the voyuer. There is a comfort in the score. Snuffy Walden's theme song drums somewhere between The West Wing & Studio 60.

And given that I have knocked over 3 seasons in 5 days (being knocked flat by stabbing sinus pain can sometimes result in Good Things), I am somewhat bewildered that I hadn't sunk myself into the brilliance before. Just watching the performances, and the characters is like wrapping yourself in a doona on my pride and joy comfy couch.

The central character, Coach Eric Taylor, is that kind of gallant, proud and hospitable Texas man that my US travelled friends tell me is a real thing. Kyle Chandler who plays him shows a parade of hidden emotions. He's come a long way since Early Edition... His wife Tami (Connie Britton) has THE BEST HAIR ON TELEVISION. I am suffering from some serious hair envy. I'm also pretty jealous of the way she has with students. As counsellor, she always knows the right things to say, the right comforting or motivating words- the kind that I am always looking for in my daily life. Jason Street & Lyla Garrity (Scott Porter & Minka Kelly) start out as the picture perfect quarterback/cheerleader couple. He is charming and chiseled. She is cute as a button, and is almost certain to play Rose Byrne's sister one day. But I do hope she is kicking herself for being involved in the horrid tv remake of Charlie's Angels (What? Axed already? Colour me shocked!)

But the character I am truly besotted with, the dude that just might have made it into my favorite TV characters ever (hmm, there is an idea for a post...!) is Tim Riggins. I can't even really think of him as a real person actor type human Taylor Kitsch. This dude is like the white trash seven dwarves all rolled into one being. Broody, Pouty, Boozy, Punchy, Sexy, Smirky and Occasionally Deep. Ridiculously good looking. Brilliant hair. A smile that could calm me down in the middle of 5th period Year 9. He is an utterly watchable rogue.



Phwoar!!!!

 At first I felt a little bit icky about being so pervy on a teenage character, given my daily dealings at The Boy Factory. But then I remembered that he wouldn't have been PLAYED by a smelly teenage boy - and it turns out he is only a year younger than me! (Thanks imdb.com for being so fantastic at alleviating Dragon 'Are You Old Enough' style guilt!!) And then I realised that he actually looks a great deal like my very own teenage pouty crush, River Phoenix. And then I realised that he played Gambit  in X-Men: First Class - my third favourite character EVER from the cartoons. Now I think I might very well hold my breath until they make an X-Men film focused entirely on Gambit. With Riggins back in the role.
Having my own life mirrored in Texan drawl is surreal and arresting. This show might sneak about like trashy teen drama, but it is gutsy and funny and highly addictive.

Post Scripts:
So after I wrote this entry, I have found/figured out some other bits of info...
The acronym FNL is an anagram of NFL!! Too word nerdy? Oh. Sorry.
ABC2 (for Aussie readers) is playing FNL on Friday nights!!! Fitting, yes??

A total tool. In the best way.

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Sherlock is my Holmes boy

A few weeks ago I started devouring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock short stories. Despite the fact that earlier I said it wasn't really my bag. I really enjoyed the kickarse Downey Jr-Ritchie version, and so when the BBC released 3 feature length episodes of Sherlock set in modern times, my interest was piqued.

And it is FANTASTIC. As other reviewers have noted, there is a total dirth of sleuths in modern pop culture. A CSI and NCIS for every city. NYPD and L&A: SVU and CI and all manner of other crime fighting acronyms that show the super brainy and logical detectives hunting out the bad guys and knocking them down. And so this version of Mr Holmes and Dr Watson needs to bring the best game it can. "And the game is on"

Created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gattiss, the Beeb has brought witty and intriguing crime television to life. Conan Doyle's details are brought to life in modern London, with all the trappings of a technological society to aid his brilliant powers of deduction (or induction, if you want to be a pedant about it) - text messaging, smart phones. The original Holmes tale A Study in Scarlet has been tweaked for Ep 1 as "A study in pink". Instead of a pipe, there is nicotine patches. Instead of horse drawn handsome cabs, it is black cabs. And Holmes has the wonders of modern refridgeration for his severed heads and other experiments. Watson doesn't keep a journal, he is a blogger (bless his soul) - and he blogs about his adventures with his new flatmate. The vibe of Conan Doyle's original stories is by no means destroyed in this new one - just tweaked to make it fit in the modern world. Guy Ritchie kind of messed with the vibe a little bit - it was less of a scuffle and more of a full blown action bonanza. Moffat and Gattiss have brought the scuffle back to the sleuth work.

And should there be any doubt as to the quality of the show if Moffat is behind it? He is credited as the Man Who Saved Dr Who. He was also the gendudeius behind the highly addictive Jekyll from a few years ago. He is responsible for the much loved Press Gang. But most importantly, he is the comedy genius behind the oh-so-brilliant Coupling - one of the best written sitcoms of all time, witty and insightful commentary on the difficulties of negotiating relationships and friendships across the great divide of Gender. But I think that is a-whole-nother blogpost. Perhaps it deserves a rewatch...? The point is that Moffat is no stranger to brilliant tele, and Sherlock is no exception.

The principal performers also bring a touch of the brilliant. Bendedict Cumberbatch not only has a tasty and chunky name, he also inhabits this oft-performed role to perfection. He is simultaneously prickly and endearing. He captures the Asperger's tendencies, and has a chilliness to his stare (last seen in Atonement) that hints at the enromity of the calculations of his brain, and the lack of emotion behind them. Yet another emotional retard/amputee? Martin Freeman has comic timing by the bucket load. His every-man face, made famous and endearing in The Office (the original and the best, UK of course) and Love Actually. He brings a little more internal turmoil to Dr Watson - war vet from Afganistan with PTSD. He is more emotionally engaged in the cases than the world's only Consulting Detective, but his empathy forces Holmes to view events through different lenses. Freeman isn't just playing the sad clown or the awkward lover, and is showing a greater depth in his characterisation.

But I think my favourite character is not Holmes. Or Watson. Or Scotland Yard detective Lestrade.

It is the city of London. Gatiss, in the geeky making-of special features doco, says that they were trying to fetishise the streets of Modern London in the way the traditional interpretations of Victorian London are shown, with the fog, and the cobbles, and the handsome cabs. And it works!! I mean, it doesn't take much for me to swoon at shots of London, and I was especially treated with glimpses of the South Bank and Waterloo Bridge - which has been redubbed the Pinch Me Bridge (as in 'Pinch me, I'm in London, and from this bridge I can see pretty much all of the cliched sites of the city!). From his famous base on Baker Street, Sherlock and his sidekick flit all about the fantastic city. Chinatown, Battersea, Hungerford footbridge, the Gherkin... The beautiful cinematography is almost enough for me to chuck in my job and hightail it all the way to Londres for good.

But three episodes is not nearly enough. Moffat has hinted that there are current negotiations for timing and format for further episodes. Crossing all of my fingers!

When Flood Damage(s) is a good thing

Just a few weeks ago, The Boy Factory was flooded in. As in, both roads to the "civalisation" of West Bubblefuck were completely cut off. Drive through at own risk, of being swept off the road, of having car impaled with debris, of forfeiting any insurance you might have... of being booked by the watchful constabulary.

Fortunatley I was all stocked up in the fridge. And with my beloved espresso machine, my caffeine addiction was sated. No Supercoaching, no Saturday morning omelette at The Toothie. Last year the Mighty U13s didn't miss one game due to weather. We did play our semi-final in a dust storm... This year it seems like we have only played half the season. Droughts and flooding rains indeed!

But the vindictive wealther finally gave me a chance to devour the highly recommended Damages. So many people have told me how good this show is, that I had already purchased both available seasons. And once I started watching, there was just no stopping me. Season 1 was consumed on Saturday, and 80% of season 2 was gobbled up on Sunday.

Set in NY city, in the cut-throat world of corporate law. The show focuses on the relationship between the meglamaniacal Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) and the rookie lawyer Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne). The performances from these two incredible actresses are phenomenal, these characters stay with you, and colour the way you see the world for days afterwards. If I had have been at the mercy of Channel 9, having to wait a week between episodes, I may have gone insane with these two women in my head the whole time.

The structure is non-linear - starting with a flashforward and skipping between timeframes. The viewer sometimes knows much more than the characters, but is always asking so many questions. Why is Ellen covered in blood? Did she get attacked? Was she the attacker? Was Patty behind it? Every little piece of information given is both satisfying with the questions that it answers, and frustrating in the further question marks that are created. The fact that there is not a mysterious smoke monster or strange loops in the time-space contiunuum makes this show infinitely superior to the drawn out and convaluted Lost. Instead, at the end of each season, most questions are answered. Most character arcs are complete, with just enough open-endedness to spark up interest for the next season.

The powerplay between the Mentor and the Novice is central premise of each season. Trust and Power and Intention and Motivation. Whether the end justifies the means. This is not just a fluff-piece - the martini-swilling teenagers of Gossip Girl's NY are not here. There are slight parallels to The Devil Wears Prada, and seeing as I always have to think twice about the distiction between Close and Streep, I think those parallels are quite fitting. In fact, doe-eyed Byrnes is a little bit matching with doe-eyed Anne Hathaway too... But this is not the overly feminised world of fashion we're talking about here, but the masculinised realm of corporate law.

Gender is not something that is explicitly discussed, but the Woman In Power = Bitch is an idea that is played with - supported, subverted, questioned and affirmed. Whether or not a Woman Can Have It All. Patty Hewes sees herself as a failure as a mother. Incapable. Not wired that way. She is pretty discouraging of Parsons' engagement, and of motherhood in general. And maybe the fact that the show has been created by three blokes is reasoning behind this.

There are some other social commentaries throughout both seasons. Corporations are inherently evil, money grabbing bastards. Energy companies are manipulative and corrupt, with little regard for consumers or the environment. I imagine Season 3 has an equally topical case to chase down.

I can't believe I left this show on the shelf for so many months. Entirely addictive TV!!

What Whedon did next

Joss Whedon can't seem to get a break. He is a master auteur of the television medium, especially in cult dramas with a comic twist. Buffy was a televisual masterpiece. A perfect example of a kick-arse female protagonist, who is successfully juggling identity, puberty, relationships and the responsibility of being a superhero. Fight scenes, monster make-up, morality tales of sex-before marriage, with some killer one liners and brilliant concept episodes. Like "Hush", which had hardly any dialogue in it at all. And "Once More With Feeling", the musical episode. Now while I don't really understand how US television networks operate, this show was dumped by one network and picked up by another. It ran 7 seasons in total, and pretty much finished up when star Sarah Michelle Gellar didn't sign up for an 8th season.

Angel is the darker, ever-so-slightly inferior spin off. I never thought it had the same depth as Buffy but it was pretty addictive television nevertheless. It was cancelled by the network at the end of the 5th season despite high ratings, allegedly because Joss pushed the execs for a renewal, and they canned the show instead.

Firefly was a hybrid sci-fi western with witty dialogue and characters to fall in love with. It was so popular in DVDs and less-than-legal downloads that the feature film Serenity was released in cinemas. Despite Whedon's plans for the show to run for 7 years, the network cancelled the show about mid-way through the first season.

And next? Dollhouse. Starring Eliza Dushku, the premise of this show sounds a little naff. It is based around a corporation that hires out humans to the uber-rich at highly inflated prices for whatever the client desires. The bodies are filled with the memories and skills from the library of minds. And while I am a hardcore Whedon fan, I found it a little tricky to emerse myself into this one early on, I was eventually won over. I think the reason I had difficulty is because the characters don't ever have the same personality from episode to episode, except in flashbacks. I mustn't have been the only one that thought that, because as Season 1 went on, the characteristics of the protagonists began to shine through.

Central to Dollhouse, as with the other 3 shows, are the ideas of mind control and the ultimate power of corporations, and of feminism and feminine strength. The presence of Big Brother (1984 George Orwell style, not reality television social experiment style) is constant and sinister.

Unfortunately, during its 2nd season in the States, this show has been canned too.

High Trash

Not as in high brow trash. As in trash of the trashiest order.

I feel a little bit dirty when I think about how much I love Gossip Girl. It is hideously predictable. Heinously overacted. Hilariously unlikely. I mean the chances of such hot hot HOT humans actually being on 16 years old is laughable. And them being served cocktails in New York bars (legal age = 21 there, right?) until their spines turn to tequila is hysterical.

But, like all my other TVDVD addictions, I am well and truly hooked. It could be the traditional tale of fish out of water, the divinely-jawed Daniel Humphries from Brooklyn with a scholarship to the Upper East Side. It could be the inherent bitchiness of high school that is portrayed with accurate hyperbole. It could be the lavish party scenes or nonchanlant way these children talk about jumping a private jet to Europe, filling me with such envy that I need to vicariously live through them. It could be the incredibly and impossibly gorgeous Blake Lively with her stunning blonde tresses and her healthy and voluptuous butt that are both just hypnotising. It could possibly the the angles of Chuck, with his sculpted eyebrows and lineated eyes, and the muscle that he flexes in his jaw.

But it is probably just because I have a penchant for the melodramatic. Gossip Girl is almost a bonnet drama - unrealistically tight dresses, overly embellished curls of hair, inexplicable social mores. It is very Dangerous Liasons. Like a TV version of Cruel Intentions.

And now I have churned my way through season 2, what's a girl to do?
You know you love me. XOXO

It's all about Sexy Vampires

I have always had a bit of a fetish for a good vampire story. Can't say I am a huge fan of the damsel in distress style sob story. But a kick arse chick in a vampire story is usually enough to pique my interest. And yes, by this I mean that I have no time whatsoever for the Twilight series. Yes, I read it. All 4 books. But I hated myself for it. And I can't get behind the film. Even the previews make me feel slightly stabby.

Buffy I guess is my original inroad to the vampire thing. From there, there was some Bram Stoker, and some Anne Rice. And of course Angel.

And now there is True Blood.

Set in an alternate reality, where vampires have lived among humans for years, but have recently 'come out of the coffin', demanding equal rights as humans. Most of the action takes place in the 'small' town on Bon Temps in Louisinana. It's all Alan Ball and his obsession with death (he was the guy behind Six Feet Under). It's pretty high in the melodrama, and as a result, pretty overacted, but it makes for some compelling viewing!

The cast has a fair whack of the antipodean - Ryan Kwanten (of Home & Away fame) has trimmed down and must be on some kind of incredible regeime, because he is totally ripped. You know that line of muscle that runs down the inside of a boy's hip - commonly known amongst my friends as the 'sex bones'? Kwanten's Jason Stackhouse has sex bones to climb over broken tiles for. And Kiwi Anna Paquin might have what I am now calling 'shoulder boobs' (they just seem unfeasibly high and perky) and she might do a terrible screen cry, but her Sooky Stackhouse (shit name, right?) is cute as a button and totally self righteous. Plus the token Brit is the very broody (because you can't be a vampire love interest hero without being broody, right?) is Stephen Moyer's Bill Compton. Who kind of looks like Jon Bon Jovi on his imdb page...

The whole premise works as a metaphor about prejudice and justice and shifting power bases. The race card is played often - and beautifully - by Sooky's childhood friend Tara (who has hypnotically beautful skin) and her incredibly camp cousin Lafayette who also plays the homophobia card too (was there any doubt about his orientation when his folks chose that name...?). The show also deals with issues of addiction, with vampire blood working as a narcotic on humans. And there is the serial killer/murder mystery/Nancy Drew component. All this on top of the usual fare of high melodrama - star crossed lovers, unrequited love, casual sex getting serious... I think they were trying to do a something for everyone arrangement. Oh, did I mention the hard core sex scenes??

The Louisiana accent is so addictive. After only a few episodes, I found myself thinking in the Southern drawl. And when Bill says "Sooky" (it kind of rhymes with 'sucky' if you say it right) it is enough to make your insides melt. If you could just get over the giggling.

I've only seen season 1. And I can't wait to sink my teeth into season 2!

Happy Daiz

Spaced has its 10th birthday this week. The unparalleled, most brilliant, genius television show ever created in the history of this universe... without a hint of hyperbole.

Spaced makes other sitcoms seem like someone is using a paintball gun to permanently damage your kidneys by shooting you a million times, from the front. It makes other sitcoms seem like a never ending sweaty room full of baked-on, caked-on, greasy dishes to wash up that goes FOREVER. It makes other sitcoms seem like you are humiliating yourself at a job interview.

Wittier than Bill Bailey and Ricky Jervais put together. More random hilarity than David Walliams could conceive. More quotable than Anchorman. More likeable characters than The Goodies. More intertextual references than Shrek (or as channel4 says, more pop culture references than you can shake a light sabre at).

And I'm not the only one besotted by this TV brilliance. This week other (more serious) writers have been inspired to opine ad nauseum about just how fantastic it is - NME and The Guardian for a start.

In the heady days of Astolat Manor, Spaced was a Tuesday night ritual. In the pokey flat above the pub in Waterloo, Spaced was the room to breathe and the post-work tonic. In the Kilburn sharehouse, Spaced was my educational gift to the flatmates (just down the road from the pub where they did the shooting of the pub scenes, where we turned down getting pissed with David Soul for a lamb roast!).

Spaced is a love affair that has stood the test of time. Boyfriends have gone (and a divorce like settlement over who owned the VHS tapes did ensue) and come and gone again (possibly because he couldn't see what I thought was so incredible about this show), but Spaced stays true.

This kind of show makes you want to buy a miniature schauzer. To smoke a big fat doobie on the way to a pub in Camden. To dance cheesy soldier like moves to a remix of The A-Team theme song. To eat too many twiglets and punch a performance artist in the face. To have a slow motion gunfight in a back alley with teenage thugs. To build a robot and join an illegal robot fight club. Oops, I'm not allowed to talk about that...

If you have seen Spaced, and you feel like I do, then we are destined to be friends. If you have not seen Spaced, then I don't know why you are still reading this when the 3 disc box set is such a reasonable price on Amazon (or other cheaper, less legal avenues). If you have seen it, and you didn't like it, best not mention it to me really. I might take it the wrong way.

Happy birthday, Spaced.

Funk to funky, We know Danne's now a junky

My love for Life on Mars and its most important character, Gene Hunt has been documented before. The show was intriguing and confusing and compelling. Plus there were car chase scenes and awesome better-than-Arnie one line throw aways.

When I watched the last episode of season 2, the last season I was sad. At the same time I was delighted that the BBC weren't going to keep it going until they were flogging the dead horse with the bones of the other dead horse. I'm happy there was no jumping the shark in this one. They left me wanting more.

So while trawling Google to find images of the Gene Genie for my last post about him, I happened across some info about a SEQUEL!!!!!

Much like with Shameless, I don't want this to end! I am already over half way through and am mourning the loss of this show already.

Ashes to Ashes is also named after a Bowie song (and a very good Bowie song at that). This time the protagonist (who is by NO means the character that I care about the most) is a female - Alex Drake. She's a police psych who deals with negotiations, and has studied Sam Tyler's file so knows his case. She is shot in the first ep, which leads to her time travel/coma hallucinations to 1981 London and the seemy underbelly of the city at this time.

Sure, there are plot holes so big you could drive a semi-trailer through them. Like why are the Gene Genie and his bumbling sidekicks kicking the arse of armed bastards in London now? And where did that freaky Bowie clown come from?

Alex has a perm, and always seems to wear the same off-the-shoulder-shirt-with-brastrap-showing that can't have been the DI uniform for the Met police at the time. She is dealing with some heavy shit, like not dying, and possibly preventing the death of her parents in that same year. She drinks like a college kid, and flirts fantastically with just about everyone.

Gene Hunt is... phenomenal. I actually think there might be a little bit of a whiff of the unhealthy when it comes to my relationship with this character. When I hear his gutteral voice, growling the completely unPC opinions and pushing around underworld figures, it is like a punch in the guts. The sexual tension between he and Alex is great - and pretty much the only thing that makes me identify with her and her pouty, shouty, permed up face. The lines he is given, and the delicious way he delivers them makes me want to go down to the police station to see if I can find myself a portly, pocky fella with a penchant for scotch and sexual harrassment. As I said, this obsession is getting to be a little unhealthy...

I also really appreciate the design of the DVD. The box set is designed to look like an old school VHS case. The DVD menu looks like an Atari game and the opening credits simultaneously pays homage to the 80s icons of veneitan blinds, wailing electric guitar and cop shows. And the closing credits looks like the old Green On Black DOS screen. While I don't think all of these elements of 1981 hang together cohesively, I think points are deserved for effort.

And I think I deserve points for not spending every waking hour glued to the box watching this show on repeat.

Chucked In

There is a special place in my heart for trashy tv. Especially well written, witty dramedy.

A master of this genre is Josh Schwartz. Thanks for The OC. Thanks even more for the guilty pleasure that is Gossip Girl. And the biggest thank you now comes for Chuck.

Who would have thought that the skinny, awkward Jewish boy with a quick wit and not so much luck with the ladies would have me hooked?

Chuck like Seth Cohen from the OC has landed in the middle of Alias without all that creepy Rimbaldi (or however you spell it) sci-fi stuff. There are undercover ops, surveillance, double crossings and awesome fight scenes. Giggles, and action, and that Unresolved Sexual Tension that is the basis for almost every good tele show.

The premise is that this going-nowhere geeky guy accidentally downloads a huge secret computer into his brain, making him an asset to all kinds of organisations, both good and evil. Sure, it isn't the most believable premise for a show, but the zippy pace and the cute as a button characters are such compelling viewing. Plus the hammy melodrama of the retail scenes is so hyperreal you can taste the polycotton polos, and leaves a sensation on your fingers like you have been counting notes all afternoon.

Of course, Zachary Levi (who shall now be known as Cousin Zach) is just far too impossibly cute to be a computer nerd who never gets the ladies. And Adam Baldwin really is just playing his character out of Firefly, with slightly more sanity. But only slightly. And faces from Alias and The OC keep popping up in cameos all the time.

I knocked the whole season over in a few days, and am now desperate for Season 2 to be released on DVD. Another waiting game!

Escape to Chatsworth Estate

Channel 4 may well be behind the greatest scripted television ever created. Britain's commercial station with a youngish bent (but not as trashy/ soft porn as Channel Five). They made Spaced, the show that turns my legs to jelly and my belly to squishy chocolate cake. They made the greatest celebration of nerdyness - The IT Crowd.

And they are the home of Shameless.

This show started when I was Over There, but I really didn't get entirely hooked until I snaffled a super cheap copy of season 1 on DVD, and since then I have wanted to emerse myself in northern slang, take up smoking and return to drinking pints. I also really really really want to punch someone in the nose.

Set in the grimey world of the houseing esates, following the less than functional Gallagher family, this show is seriously addictive and so so well made. Intelligent structures and adorable flawed heroes. Season One also cradled James McAvoy (oh my) (and perhaps I only watch each subsequent episode with the tiniest of shining hopes that he will come back into it, but alas, he is somewhere in Spain with Fiona on the run from the boys in blue).

This show kinda glorifies the world of the coupon and the gyro and the quick scam. Not quite to a point where we want to be involved, but almost. There is not much that makes me want to live near the Maguires (ooh and I love the way the Maguires say their name. Ma Gwy Ahs. !!) or take a spot in Lilian's home made brothel. And I don't fancy getting my bag snatched at the Jockey or getting lost in the streets of the estate. Frank (or Vernon Francis) is a slug, a worm, a germ of a man. His latest (and original but not only) wife Monica is an annoying narcissist who really deserves a knitting needle through one of her central organs. Fiona was a little too self righteous for me, plus she was a monkey wingnut (or maybe I'm just jealous that she used to snog James on a regular basis). But Lip (I want him back too) is a heavy browed sex god, Ian is the gay brother I want to have and Debbie has grown into a narky sarcastic cow that I wish I had the guts to be when I was a teenager. I do feel like the Gallaghers are a part of my life.

And what astounds me is that 5 years later, the kiddie actors they hired - especially Our Carl and Debbie - are pretty bloody good, really.

I'm rationing myself on Season 5 at the moment (having picked up the 1-4 box set when I was Over There last year, and then ordered #5 on Amazon, because SBS DVD only want Season 1 to be on DVD here - bastards) because I missed most of it last year, being on Boy Factory duty on Monday nights. And I am avoiding watching Season 6 on Mondays, because it might ruin #5 for me.

If you love character dramas with dark dark humour and a fair whack of silliness, then you will love this show. If you like to steer clear of obscene language, sex scenes, hand held cameras (counting out David Stratton here I guess), vomit, punched noses or gratuitous drinking, or you can't catch on to a thick Northern accent then I'd give it a miss. But never let me know you have spurned it. Or I might call you one of the creative insults like they have on the show, like.

Oh. And the bad news. Like most things of beauty, that hint at originality on TV, the Yanks are going to do their own version. I don't care if the "writers" do come from West Wing pedigree. Leave this televisiual masterpiece alone, you vultures!!!

Most of my favourite words are only Four Letters

2001.

My first year of the working world, out from the comfy blankets of a BA. My second year of the heady days of Astolat Manor. And it may have been the greatest year of television I can recall.
It was the year I discovered Spaced. The year of weekly Buffy gatherings in Kensington. And this.
Love Is A Four Letter Word.
In an Inner-West of Sydney, post-Olympics. In an era of nasty pokies laws and the death of live music venues. Set in a pub, following the dysfuntional and lovable pub crew (at the time when my then-amour was one such pub person) through expulsion and addiction and planned accidental pregnancies and the most vivid and beautiful image of a man destroying a pokie in the middle of the street.

It was simultaneous frantic and rambling (a bit like the Inner-West, I guess). It felt like Albie and Larissa and Angus were my life long friends and I wanted to spend more time with them than the half-hour on Tuesday nights on Aunty that I got. This show was a shining beacon for what was possible in the creation of Australian television, highlighting the incredible musical talent that Australia (and in particular Sydney) had on offer at the time.

The reviews I have found online universally slam it. Considered to be only for those with minute attention spans, thought to have too much explicit language, too much flash, too many close ups, too much fast motion. Too much style. Not enough substance.... Well that is just bullshit. These nitwit reviewers seemed elated that the show was canned. Baby Boomer Arseholes.

I found it entirely addictive television, and I have been desperate to get my hands on a copy of the DVD, pretty much since I bought a DVD player.

The ABC site for the show has been archived, which means that nobody there has cared for it since 2001. And it makes me sad, because it is such a rich tangled site. Impossible to navigate, but that is pretty much the point of it. And in 2001 the web WAS still tangled, and sites were meant to engage and take dedicated exploration. And the

I don't really know if this post is a review, or a plea to the universe for other believers, or something I have just needed to opine about for years. I guess I feel better now.