Why I love Wednesdays... Part 2

Laid isn’t at all what I was expecting. To be honest I’m not sure what it is I was expecting but it certainly wasn’t something this sweet and subtle and complex.

I think I thought it would be a lot more in your face. The premise does lend itself to graphic sex jokes and dialogue that makes you all squirmy. Instead its all warm and fuzzy. Like hugs or something. (I like this show a lot, you’ll have to deal with the gushing)

Lately, as I’m writing myself, I’ve been contemplating something. Where is the line between “that would never happen” and “I wish I was that cool”? Because we don’t want reality from fiction. We want hyper-reality. The kind of thing we wish our life was like. We want to dialogue you can never think of at, the moment you would never come up with it. We want inspiring but flawed heroines and slightly too perfect men. But we want it to be believable. Impossible but achievable. Is it a wonder most writers are slightly insane?

Laid does all of this magnificently. The simple fact is that the whole concept should be totally ludicrous. We shouldn’t believe a word of it. But we do. Every word. As far as I’m concerned, Roo could be living up the road. All this stuff could be happening right now. I really don’t see why it couldn’t be real.

All the characters, even the minor ones, are rich and developed. The boss in the office, who has hardly any lines, is three dimensional. And its funny. Regularly, properly, laugh out loud (and not in the lol way) funny. I know its supposed to be but I didn’t expect to laugh so much (if that makes sense).

I adore Roo and I'm in love with Charlie. EJ is the sort of best friend everyone would like to have (I have an excellent best friend actually. Hello beccamarsh!) and even her boyfriend, flawed as he is, is distinctly lovable.

I get quite sad when each episode ends. I know I’ll be devastated when the whole series is over. But that’s good. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this in love with an Australian made show. Ten points.

I can’t wait til next week.

Why I love Wednesdays... Part 1

I like talk shows.

I’m not really sure what it is about them that I find so fascinating but fascinating they are. I watch Graham Norton most weeks. I love the weird combinations of guests they throw together and the occasions this hits gold. And then there’s The Late Late Show, which I continue to loose sleep over. The rest of uni is out partying at 11pm. I’m watching late night TV. Funny thing is, when Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight was announced I wasn’t like “HURRAH! It’s a talk show! I love talk shows!”
Maybe I’m in denial.

There are a lot of things I love about IGST. I love the credits and the set and logo. I love that it isn’t trying to be something its not. They’re acknowledging and celebrating the long tradition this show is stepping into. No one’s trying to make something ground breaking or innovative. They set out to do and talk show and do it well. It’s a little bit retro and a little bit kitch. I love that.

But you know what? Without trying to make something totally new, they have. This is unique. Because what they’ve done is take everything the world loves about Adam and distil it into an hour of TV.

One of my favourite things is the audience interaction. On Graham Norton they have The Red Chair. Which is hilarious. But where everyone else is cutting and cynical Adam is nice to his audience. He sets them up on dates and gives them singing daleks and asks about their lives. You just want to invite him over to your house and make him biscuits.

I’m not usually a fan of the musical bits. It tends to be when I switch the jug on or make a dash to the loo but I adore Gorgon Street Classics. I’ve been utterly captivated by them. Its not just people trotting out their latest single to promote a concert tour, its artists trying to genuinely do justice to a song with history. And that’s incredibly powerful.

I could go on for quite a while about this show. About how lovely the combinations of guests are and how well the regulars slot into the format. To be honest I could rave for a while about the camera work. And the writing. I love the writing. But you’ve all seen it yourselves.
And I want to know what you think.

Is there life on mars?

Ok. So you’re about to be subjected to one of my crack pot television theories. Once you’ve stared looking at script writing and television production its impossible to watch TV the same way again. As a result I have a lot of theories like this one. The reason people tend to ignore them is because they’re almost completely irrelevant.

This is a theory on how Ashley Pharaoh and co wrote series 3 of Ashes to Ashes. I happen to think that they’ve constructed the entire series using the lyrics to “Life on Mars” as a kind of scaffold. Each episode so far represents a two line section of the song. Thus-

Episode one is like the musical introduction. Completely ignoring the fact that Life on Mars doesn’t have one.  

It’s a god awful small affair, to the girl with the mousy hair…
Episode 2 was about Shaz and how suffocated she felt in the police force. She felt isolated and excluded and wanted to quit. And no, her hair isn’t exactly brown but she is slightly mousy. Go with it.

But her mummy is yelling no, and her daddy has told her to go…
We learnt more about Ray in Episode 3 than I think we ever have before. His dad tried to pressure him into joining the army and while his mother was relieved he didn’t, his father never forgave him.

But her friend is nowhere to be seen, now she walks through her sunken dream…
The focus of episode 4 was a women who’s name I’ve forgotten. We’ll call her “Sarah.” She felt as though the police force had abandoned her during an undercover mission. She became detached from the outside world.

To the seat with the clearest view, and she’s hocked to the silver screen…
Ok, so directly relating this line to Episode 5 is hard. But you can’t deny that, if you weren’t already, you would have been totally hocked after that. It took me ages to calm down when it was over. I haven’t been that stressed since that last time I watched The Great Game.

But the film is a saddening bore, for she’s lived it ten times or more…
The whole prison siege thing did seem a tad bit familiar at first. But most of all this episode was about events repeating themselves. The tension was heightened by the fact the we have no idea what those
events are. There are things in the past that the team have lived but Alex (and us) are still unaware of.

So that leaves us with the chorus and three episodes to go. From the tiny spoilers I’ve been unlucky enough to chance upon I think there’s a fair chance the rest of the series will fit the pattern. It’ll be interesting to see. So do you guys think I'm a nutter? Or do you see my point?

She could spit in the eyes of fools, as they ask her to focus on, sailors! Fighting in the dance hall. Oh man, look at those cavemen go. it’s the freakiest show. Take a look at the law man, beating up the wrong guy. Oh man, wonder if they’ll ever know, he’s in the best selling show. 

Is there life on mars?

What we've got to look forward to

Its that time of year again. When we emerge blinking and sticky from summer holidays and grudgingly re-enter the daily grind. Back to school or work or uni or whatever it is you people do with you time. Sucks doesn’t it?
Never fear, Alex is here to help.

Nothing makes bad things better than the anticipation of good television on the horizon. So here’s what you’ve got to look forward to in 2011.

Doctor Who

The new series (which I’ve heard referred to as 11.2) stands to be, possibly, the best so far. I know that’s a big claim to make but Moffat and co have been making so pretty big claims themselves. Monsters scarier than the weeping angels, surprises bigger than ever before and the cliff hanger to end all cliff hangers. For anyone who’s been living under a rock, Doctor Who in 2011 is going to be split into two blocks. The first block is 6 episodes long and will air in the UK at Easter. The second 7 episode block will air there in Autumn. The purpose of this, according to Moffat, is the create the biggest most mind blowing story arch OF ALL TIME. But really I think its so he can use his powers for evil and kill us all with a cliff hanger of terrifying proportions. When will we get to see it? After the success of Smithmas and judging by the fact the ABC have already started advertising it as part of their “Coming Soon” line-up, I think the chances of a fast tracking are looking pretty good.

Sherlock

I probably shouldn’t talk about this one because its going to cause almost as much pain as joy. The estimated air date in the UK is Autumn. That’s our Spring. AKA a fucking long time away. But its coming and it’ll be amazing. There’ll be more speculation about this as we get closer to time. Nine included Sherlock in their 2011 trailer which is seriously promising. It rated well last time round and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they invested in fast tracking it.

Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight

We’re talking seriously near future now. The new Wednesday night line-up on the ABC is a cracker. Along with new Spicks and Specks they’ve given Adam Hills his own talk show. I think its going to take a fairly traditional format with two or so guests and a live comedy/music bit. Adams Hills is always great when he’s in the slightly less child friendly environments like GNW and I think this’ll give him a bit more room to move than Spicks and Speaks does. It starts next Wednesday at 8:30pm. Set your alarms.

Laid

I’m seriously looking forward to this. Maybe it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but I rather like Marieke Hardy. Co-written with Kirsty Fisher this is about a women who finds all her sexual partners begin to drop dead. Its not going to be easy, happy viewing and probably not something to watch with the grandparents but I think it’ll be worth sticking with.

Being Human

Series 3 people! The new series is currently airing in the UK and I keep chancing upon spoilers in gif form on Tumblr. So I was overjoyed to see a Coming Soon trailer on the ABC. For anyone who hasn’t yet discovered this show, now’s the time. Its about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who share a house which sounds like a bad knock knock joke. The show is anything but. Its funny and sexy. Its emotionally charged and cleverly written. It is AMAZING. I’d really recommend catching up on the first two series in time for ABC2 to start airing the new episodes. 

Good News Week

So I’m slightly biased but I’m terribly excited about new GNW. The first episode is going to be HUGE. They're filming it at the State Theatre in Sydney and it’s going to have rafts of special guests and glitter cannons galore. They’ll be less GNW than usual this year so I’d get in and enjoy it while you can. Monday night and as far as I’m aware they’re still on at 9:30pm.

Dance Academy

They started production on the new series this week. . Sure, a teen drama set at the National Academy of Dance might not be everyone’s thing but this is slick. Its well written (which you may have noticed is my main requirement for television) and it manages to bypass a lot of clichés. It doesn’t play up to the export market, instead representing Australia honestly. There was a lot of loose ends left at the end of series 1 and I can’t wait to see what happens next. This won’t air til later in the year though.

There’s a bunch of other things on the horizon too. The ABC have commissioned a heap of new comedy from people like Frank Woodley, Judith Lucy and Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell (who write for GNW). There’s new Top Gear and Spicks and Specks and Gruen. The digital landscape stands to get more and more competitive, which means we’ll be seeing a lot more fresh content. I also think that we can look forward to a lot more fast tracking. The industries finally caught on that they need to move faster than our internet connections. Good on them.

It’s going to be a good year. For television anyway.