Articles in “Television”

If there can only be one, why does it have to be Christopher Lambert?

Feel free to dispute my claim, but I’m sticking by it.

Perhaps the most perfect pop song of the 1980s, anyway. (Although another contender for that title would be “Levi Stubbs’ Tears.” Nick’s vote is for “Just Like Heaven,” and I’m not going to dispute that, either.)

And, really, what is there not to like about Madness?

There were so many of them! There’s a band who didn’t feel that there was any point in restricting their numbers.

Plus, they wrote a gorgeous song about a teenage boy trying to buy his first packet of condoms, but being distracted by his own embarrassment—which made him speak entirely in euphemisms—and by the fact that his neighbours kept coming into the chemist’s.

And, as if that weren’t sufficient reason to love Madness, they also appeared in two separate episodes of The Young Ones, which would be sufficient in itself to make me love them. (Especially since most of the bands who played The Young Ones have since completely disappeared—except Motorhead. That was odd.)

But thinking about The Young Ones led me to Google Alexei Sayle and his biscuit quote, find this:

That’s a Zapata moustache, ennit? He’s Mexican, wasn’t he, eh? Funny, really, you know, Zapata. He starts out as a peasant revolutionary, and ends up as a kind of moustache. Che Guevara, he’s another one. South American revolutionary, ends up as a sort of boutique. Garibaldi, Italian revolutionary, ends up as a kind of biscuit. It’s quite interesting, you know, the number of biscuits that are named after revolutionaries. You’ve got your Garibaldi, of course, you’ve got your Bourbons, then of course you’ve got your Peek Freens Trotsky Assortment.

And then laugh so hard I made myself cough horribly.

But I can’t really blame Madness for that.

Thanks to Laura, who commented on this post about Jane Austen sequels, I’ve now found out about this:

Lost in Austen.

According to Wikipedia—and why wouldn’t we believe what Wikipedia says?—it’s a four-part series about an Austen fan who switches places with Elizabeth Bennet via a magical door in the former’s bathroom.

Oooh-er.

I honestly don’t think my life could have been complete had I never found out about this. Sure, I may have had professional success, perhaps children, a successful personal relationship, many joys—but there would have been an aching hole and, since this scenario depends on me never finding out about Lost in Austen, I would never have known why that hole was there.

Okay, that was marking-induced, semi-hysterical hyperbole. (And let that be a lesson to you, Nick: he tried to claim earlier that “I don’t like cushions” was hyperbole, instead of a negative comment on my decorating abilities.)

But, hyperbole aside, I would very much like to see this programme.

I mentioned it to Nick, and his response was “That looks as though it would be rather fun”—whereupon I stared at him incredulously for about five minutes before exclaiming, “Have you seen my Jasper Fforde novels?”

It also stars Jemima Rooper, whom Nick and I always refer to as “the lesbian ghost,” which I’m sure is so discriminatory a comment that we could be sued in a number of countries. But, though we’ve seen her in a few things—and, unexpectedly, saw her topless in the second part of Perfect Day recently—we always remember her as Cassie’s dead girlfriend in Hex.

I’ll be honest: I don’t know much more about this programme than that the general synopsis hits some primal, geeky, nineteenth-century fiction and fantasy-freak fan-girl button at the base of my spine, making it impossible for me not to watch it.

(I’m also mildly surprised that everyone is thinking “Pride and Prejudice meets Life on Mars“ when I’m thinking “Wasn’t there a sub-plot in a later Thursday Next novel where they ran Pride and Prejudice as a Big-Brother-style reality-TV show?”)

But if you want the opinions of people who know much more about both Austen and the programme than I do, the Austen Blog has been keeping an eye on it, and the fabulous John Sutherland has a piece in the equally wonderful Guardian.

I’m going to watch it regardless.

Nick and I were waiting for Bones to start tonight—and on that note, how grotesque is that show? Seriously, CSI was never this revolting—and watching the final ten minutes of City Homicide.

I’ve never seen an entire episode of that show, although I understand it’s both very good and attracting some interest in the U.S.: largely Bittorrent-y attention, but still.

But mostly, we were waiting for it to end, and enjoying recognising all the characters, including one of my former Play School favourites.

And then they advertised next week’s episode with what I think is the greatest line I’ve ever heard on television: “Craig McLachlan is going to wish he never crossed Noni Hazlehurst.”

My money’s on Noni.

This brief dialogue, which I’ve just exchanged with the television during the ABC’s airing of Cards on the Table, sums up my attitude towards these current adaptations of Agatha Christie novels:

RANDOM CHARACTER: Why would she do that?
ME: She didn’t. Now I’m bored.

And yet the adaptation of Cards on the Table was doing so well up to this point. It was beautifully set-dressed, relatively faithful to the plot, and fairly well acted (excluding the woman playing Anne Meredith; she’s fine in this, but she was dreadful in Rome, as Cleopatra, and that’s all I can see when I’m watching this.)

But then it all went to hell in the last ten minutes.

Frankly, I’m fairly impressed that they managed to make such hay out of such an intricate and carefully organised plot with so little time left.

I suppose that’s a compliment of sorts.

And, as I type this, Poirot has just outed the murderer and his “regular bridge partner” Mr. Craddock, who “practise for hours with the door closed.”

And I thought Nick was being far-fetched with his comment about lesbian Nazi nuns.

(On the plus side, this post is bound to turn up some interesting Google results.)

They always disappoint me.

I had thought, back when I bewailed the unnecessary Nazis in At Bertram’s Hotel—173 days ago, apparently—that the Poirot adaptations were more accurate than the Miss Marple ones.

But now I’m watching After the Funeral, and I’m not so sure.

So far, they’ve already removed one of Richard Abernethy’s siblings, making the unreliable nephew George the son of Helen, instead of her nephew.

And they’ve disinherited him, for no reason.

They’ve removed another of Richard Abernethy’s siblings, making Susan (now Susanna) and Rosamund sisters instead of cousins.

And they’ve made Cora’s late husband an Italian instead of a Frenchman. She’s Mrs Gallachio (or something along those lines: I haven’t seen the actual spelling) rather than Mrs Lansqueset.

And they’ve introduced the theft of the deeds of Enderby, Abernethy’s house, making its sale impossible, which adds an apparently unnecessary sub-plot.

Oh, dear: now George has just woken up on a park bench being licked by a Labrador (not a euphemism) and Susanna is haranguing a congregation on the subject of foreign missions. I think I miss the Susan who was a keen businesswoman, planning on opening her own emporium to capitalise on her own and her husband’s strengths.

I don’t think I need to mark that as a spoiler, because I doubt this is going to follow the book’s plot too closely. Susanna, for example, is unmarried, and apparently both inappropriately involved with her cousin George and also planning on sailing to Africa to pursue her work with foreign missions.

So far the most interesting point in this adaptation., from my perspective, is the fact that George Abernethy is Michael Fassbender, who was a Spartan whose name I’ve forgotten in 300 and the fallen angel in Hex. But that’s not why I’m interested in seeing him. Rather, it’s because the name Fassbender has reminded me of Ruth Rendell’s Put On By Cunning, in which the plot turns on the fact that “fassbender” is, apparently, the German term for a cooper. (At least I think it was German; it sounds German. I’m sure you’ll correct me if I’m wrong.)

It’s made me think that at least I might be able to wile away the time during the programme thinking of slightly better crime fiction.

And yet Christie really is very good.

So why? Why on earth do they make these changes?

I would have thought that Christie’s plots were ideally designed for adaptation to the television. They’re cunning, but she prides herself on setting everything out for the reader, for all she may employ sleight of hand to draw the reader’s attention away from the main points.

So why these broad, sweeping changes? And, something that irritates me even more, the minor changes, like adjusting Mrs Lansqueset’s surname? It seems so unnecessary.

I once went to see Troy with Nick and a friend. I gave up on the film at the point at which (spoiler! but it’s a bad film) Menelaus died. But, after the film, I pointed out that Menelaus’s death was the point at which the whole thing became thoroughly absurd, but our friend disagreed, saying it was liberating: “You didn’t know what was going to happen next!”

I admire that kind of optimism. But I can’t put it into practice myself.

Why, oh why, if you must write plots involving Nazis, murderous nuns, or drunken, disinherited gamblers, do do you not present them as brand new mysteries? Why tell us it’s Christie, and get all our hopes up?

Oh, I know: saying that it’s Agatha Christie brings in a certain audience who, by the time they realise the plot’s gone haywire, are already committed to watching the rest of the programme.

But it disappoints me every, every time.

I’ve been watching episodes of Monkey while waiting for Nick to get back from the concert. Monkey fills me with a deep sense of uncomplicated joy; I loved it as a child so deeply that it still makes me happy every time I watch it.

I like the way the programme is thoroughly relaxed about cross-dressing: Tripitaka is clearly a woman, and isn’t fooling anyone; Sandy’s just turned into a female form, meaning the actor is wearing a dress and heavy make-up; and the Boddhisatva who regularly turns up is often in her female incarnation, in which she’s the same actor, but in a dress.

I love the music.

I’ve even got a soft spot for Sandy, the chronically depressed water demon.

(I don’t like the second Pigsy, though—the first one was much better. I’m also not a big fan of the horse-dragon once he learns how to turn into a man; I find it makes the idea of using him as a horse a little . . . disturbing.)

I also find it hilarious, as in these quotes from an episode about a unicorn demon.

Tripitaka to Monkey: “You’re always hitting everybody too quickly.”

The Unicorn King to Pigsy: “You should take the form of a man, occasionally, as I do. You’d still be ugly, but I find people are more receptive.”

And after Pigsy’s transformation: “You really are . . . not quite so revolting now.”

Sandy’s self-image: “I won’t keep reminding you; I’m no eel! I hate the brutes; they’re all slimy.”

Pigsy flirting fairly ineptly, with the help of a flower: “The petals are a little droopy, but it made me think of you.”

Monkey: “Pigsy, you’ll regret this!”
Pigsy: “I know I will.”

And my absolute favourite quote of the episode:

The Unicorn King: “We unicorns could take over the entire world. It’s only because we’re mythical and nice that we don’t.”

Nick’s gone out to a concert with two friends—a concert in which I’m not slightly interested—so I’m home alone, learning the following important life lessons while watching Stardust.

It gets a little confused, because some of the lessons have to do with me and some with the film, but I’m sure they’ll all come in useful after a while.

1. Tristan’s true love is never going to be Sienna Miller. Obviously. Although she is strangely appealing in some parts of this film.

2. I’m far too nervous to spend many evenings on my own. I’m nervous enough during the day, but I’m especially nervous during the night, because I’m a little frightened of the dark, truth be told. Too many vampire and werewolf stories as a child, I think.

I say “nervous” because it’s a neat middle ground between Nick’s preferred word “jumpy” and my default term “highly strung”—except that if I describe myself as highly strung I suspect that I sound as though I’m trying to make myself seem interesting.

3. I’m always surprised when I realise that Rupert Everett is in this film. This is, I think, the third time I’ve seen this film, and every time I forget that Rupert Everett is in it.

4. I genuinely don’t know how to operate what I will call—for want of a better word—our “home entertainment system.” By which I mean, I can’t tell the television and the DVD player remote controls apart. Before I managed to start this movie, I spent ten minutes staring alternately at the menu on the screen and then at the television remote, looking for an “enter” button.

Seriously. Ten minutes.

But I don’t feel that bad—I once watched my mother try valiantly to manipulate the television with the aid of her cordless telephone.

5. Peter O’Toole is strangely good in this, despite having such a small role and not having to cry. He’s an excellent crier, Peter O’Toole—every time he cried in Russell T. Davies’s version of Casanova, he made me want to cry.

Though now I think about it, I don’t think I ever watched the end of Casanova.

6. It’s not just the interaction between the television and the DVD player that bother me, either. I can’t operate the television alone, either. After I found the “enter” button—by double checking which remote control I was using—I then spent another few minutes trying to change the way the picture was set up, from 14.3 (or some such ratio) to Movie, so I could see everything.

Apparently, the relevant button is called “Zoom.” Does that seem plausible to anyone else?

7. Dear lord, Michelle Pfeiffer is gorgeous. If she’s had surgery, whoever’s done it is a genius. She doesn’t look exactly as she did in Ladyhawke, but she still looks amazing.

And, by a process of association controlled only by what’s on the screen, I find Nathaniel Parker strangely appealing. Tommy Linley is an annoying character, but I like Parker. Claire Danes is very sweet and pretty in this, too.

8. I’d probably be a better person if I spent more time thinking about my own life and/or real life and less time thinking about fictional worlds.

Then again, I wouldn’t be as good at my job. So it’s a trade-off.

9. I’m really glad that, despite all the fairy-tale, folklore, and nursery-rhyme elements that didn’t translate from Gaiman’s story to this, they at least kept the idea of Babylon candles. When I first heard the term, the first thing I thought was “How many miles to Babylon?” Do people still recite that nursery rhyme?

10. My parents never forbade the reading of any books. But I almost wish they’d forbade me to read Virginia Andrews. I read all of the Flowers in the Attic series and My Sweet Audrina, and I’ve regretted it for some time.

I don’ t think it would have harmed me not to read them, but I sometimes think that reading them did harm me, a little.

11. I’m very tired for some reason. I don’t think I’m at my most coherent.

12. Perhaps I should just watch the film?

I’ve mentioned before, I think, how much I’m enjoying Burn Notice. It surprised me—in fact, I think it even surprised the network. They’ve certainly been advertising it as “the surprise hit of last summer.” Of course, it was treated badly on Australian television, which has only just got around to airing last season’s finale.

It’s light and fun, Burn Notice, especially for a spy programme. In fact, that’s one of the things I enjoy most about it; we’ve had at least two episodes dealing with the Russian mafia, but you can be sure that no one’s getting an electric drill to the kneecaps.

But as far as spy programmes go, Burn Notice is essentially a cross between Alias and Lovejoy. Does anyone remember Lovejoy? The books drove me nuts fairly quickly, because I have no patience with men who have no compunction about slapping women around to get their way, but the television series was fun. But the most interesting thing about Lovejoy was the way the books gave hints about how to fake antiques.

Burn Notice does the same thing, but with spy techniques and equipment, most of which can apparently be created with equipment available at a local Harvey Norman (or the American equivalent). I don’t know how accurate their spy tips are, but I’m certainly keeping them in mind, in case I need to impress people at parties (or, at a pinch, escape from the Russian mafia).

But one of the things I enjoy the most is Fiona, the main character’s former IRA ex-girlfriend.

I have a soft spot for Gabrielle Anwar anyway, reaching back to when she was Sam, the bitchy head of graphics at the Junior Gazette. She’s looking slightly too thin, these days, is curiously orange, and seems to have done something to her upper lip. (And, honestly? Leave the upper lip alone. I don’t care how good plastic surgery is getting these days, there’s no way to plump the upper lip without ending up looking rather like a duck.) But still: she’s Gabrielle Anwar and she’s lovely.

But Fi—Fi is fun. And Fi subverts a lot of the conventions that normally shackle the protagonist’s girlfriend. When Fi puts on a apron, it’s usually a sign she’s cooking up a batch of C4. And the fact that she does it in an apron makes me think that they’re playing with these conventions deliberately.

Add to this Sharon Gless—who’s fabulous as always, and has a glorious, over-the-top house that hasn’t been redecorated since the early 1970s and which I covet—and Bruce Campbell—who is, essentially, Bruce Campbell—and you have something that’s always going to be fun to watch.

I certainly don’t think it’s the greatest television programme ever made: it’s not Dexter or Deadwood, by any stretch.

But then neither Dexter nor Deadwood had Bruce Campbell in them.

Life’s all about these little trade-offs.

So, Nick and I ended up eating dinner a little late, so we just turned The Simpsons on for the duration. I haven’t voluntarily watched The Simpsons in years, and this tends to make me not to want to watch it again.

This, it seems, was a Valentine’s Day special, with three, vaguely linked stories. This is something of a guess, since we came in halfway through the second story, a re-visioning of Lady and the Tramp with Homer and Marge as dogs.

But it was the last story that bothered me: Bart, compelled to choose a romantic story, selected Sid and Nancy.

I’ll say that again: Sid Vicious and Nancy Spurgeon.

In his version, heroin was replaced with illicit “chocolate”—so at one point, Sid (Nelson) and Nancy (Lisa) were cutting lines of chocolate milk.

By this point, Nick and I were staring open-mouthed at the television, while our neglected spoons slowly dripped soup into our laps.

But it was the end that made me write this entry.

Nancy, having made Sid quit The Sex Pistols, leads him to a career in a duo, where they dress in the archetypally “preppy” outfits of 1950s’ America. But this doesn’t work for the punk club they’re playing in, and they’re kicked out into the alley.

Never mind, says Nancy: why don’t we got back to the bedsit and get smashed (on chocolate)?

Sure, says Sid: after all, he loves her. And she loves him.

And they kiss in the alleyway, while Homer rains “confetti”—in the form of shredded rubbish from a wastepaper bin—down on them.

“Oh, sod off,” says Homer: “It’s Valentine’s Day.”

Um.

They died?

And it was fairly horrible?

In fact, it’s highly likely that he stabbed her to death, but doesn’t remember it because he was so heavily under the influence?

And then he died as well, after a heroin overdose?

I don’t know: I’d hate to think I was entirely humourless, but this? This seems just a little . . . off.

But then I have been rather cranky today.

I mentioned back during the second stage of my Magical Mystery Bookshelf Tour that I thought L. M. Montgomery was most interesting when she was exploring the darker side of late-Victorian provincial life.

I shouldn’t have anticipated that I would be the only one who thought that, but I hadn’t thought it would take such an odd turn.

You see, I was surfing through Wikipedia this afternoon—almost as dangerous an activity as surfing around on Amazon.com, and with a greater chance of unexpectedly coming across some examples of necrophotography—when I discovered that Emily of New Moon—one of my favourite Montgomery books, still—was made into a television series in the late 1990s.

(Honestly, I owe some my happiest television-watching hours to Canadian television. Unfortunately, Nick never enjoyed Degrassi Junior High, so I haven’t been able to rewatch that recently, but we both loved The Nero Wolfe Mysteries.)

So I would have been intrigued by this, anyway—getting, as I am, to an age where I find inaccurate adaptations of my favourite stories amusing rather than depressing, assuming that they don’t include random Nazis.

But then I stumbled across a review on the website of the L. M. Montgomery Reading Group’s website and, oddly enough, the stated inaccuracies only intrigued me more in this case.

I’ll quote:

[T]he series writers [. . .] added a number of elements and subplots that offered a record of 1890s Prince Edward Island that is radically different in tone and in topic from Montgomery’s. Emily’s “flash” and encounters with the supernatural are heightened in the television series, so much so that Ellen Vanstone refers to the production as “The X-Files meets Anne of Green Gables” (C1). As well, characters such as Aunt Laura (McCarthy), Aunt Thom (Janet Wright), and Margaux Lavoie (Jacqueline MacKenzie) [sic] all contribute to the series’ unflinching rejection of the Victorian idolization of courtship and its creation of situations that entrap women legally, sexually, and emotionally.

Now that does sound interesting.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Montgomery was well aware of the strictures on women in small communities in the late nineteenth century, so I can’t be sure how far away from the tone of her novels this has stepped. (The supernatural elements were certainly present in the original; Emily used what was called “second sight” to solve mysteries and prevent disasters in all three novels.)

But I’m certainly keen to find out, which is a shame, really, since the series aired ten years ago and was cancelled because of poor ratings.

But I see, thanks to Amazon.com that it’s coming out on DVD later this year.

So now all I need to do is convince Nick that he really does want to watch a Canadian children’s television programme set in the 1890s.

In no particular order of importance:

I’ve always enjoyed Mars advertisements, but this new one, with the people sprouting dragons’ or bats’ wings, isn’t a patch on the old one with the aliens at the low-gravity pool party. That filled me with a deep sense of envy.

On a different note, though: you really shouldn’t fold your girlfriend up and stick her in your front pocket. That’s . . . in fact, that’s not a girlfriend: that’s an aid. Or a toy, if you prefer.

I also don’t understand the new QUT advertisement: it makes sense that they’re trying to promote the idea that attending university will give you direction, but the image of the boy pushing the trolleys? I don’t understand what they’re trying to suggest with that. Are the trolleys emblematic of your career, and his sharp control of them—mainly, his ability to stop them scraping the car—indicative of the skills that he will learn at university? Or is it a suggestion that if you don’t attend university, you’ll end up pushing trolleys for a living?

I think the strangest advertisement I’ve seen recently, though, is the ad. for V with the tortoise that works as a lifeguard. I assume it’s an American ad., based on the female lifeguards’ red swimming costumes. But I’m not entirely certain what it’s trying to suggest: that drinking V will somehow negate a large body mass and physical awkwardness? Actually, that could be useful. Still, if I’m ever in trouble in the surf (impossible: too many sharks), I hope I don’t need to rely on the services of a tortoise.

When was the last time that Eddie Murphy starred in a movie with anyone other than Eddie Murphy?

Don’t get me wrong: the more Eddie Murphies there are in a movie, the happier I feel about not going to see it.

But is this not the ultimate in narcissism?

I’ve commented on more than one occasion about the pit of sheer, unremitting horror that is Lynx’s advertising department’s gender politics.

It’s only fair that I redress the balance, since I’ve just seen the follow up to AAMI’s awful new advertising campaign.

When Nick and I saw the first one—with the woman directing a passive-aggressive appeal to her boyfriend to take out a personal loan so he could buy an expensive engagement ring and propose to her—we were . . . well, gob-smacked, I think is the only word.

I’ve never had any patience with the “I must be married to anyone, anywhere, it doesn’t really matter, as long as I’m married” attitude that so much chick-lit (and chick-TV and rom coms) seem to feel is the appropriate attitude for women . . . and I have even less patience now that I’m in my thirties and people keep asking me when I’m getting married.

Don’t get me wrong; plenty of people marry because they are in love, and that’s a different issue. I’m not mocking that. But I don’t know anyone who ever went into a jewellry store and recorded a message demanding that their significant other propose and, by the way, here’s the ring I want you to buy me.

But, now, I’ve just seen the follow-up ad. where she’s now “the new Mrs Todd,” but apparently the honeymoon wasn’t up to her standards, so could he take out another loan—but a bigger one, this time, because she’d like to go to Paris.

I don’t think I’ve been too hard on Lynx, frankly. But these ads—these are almost the girly equivalent of the Lynx ads.

If the idea that men will do absolutely anything—including transform sentient beings into automatons—in the pursuit of the opposite sex is the most degrading way of depicting men, then this is the equivalent for women.

Dear AAMI,

You insure my car. Thank you. But this ad. campaign is grotesque. Not all women are passive-aggressive harridans, you know. And, you know what? The marriage angle wouldn’t even bother me—this ad. would be awful under any circumstances—if it weren’t for the media’s increasing obsession with bridal porn, with the trappings of the wedding instead of the ceremony itself.

Dear Woman in the AAMI Ad.,

You might want to consider whether you should have brought up your honeymoon concerns prior to, I don’t know, maybe the honeymoon? Because at this stage, I’m assuming that the next ad. will be you suggesting that Todd takes out a loan because your alimony payments aren’t high enough.

I saw an advertisement for the new Mazda 6 earlier tonight and, while I have next to no interest in car advertisements, something struck me as a little odd.

Then, when I saw it again a moment ago, I realised what it was: they were quoting a magazine review that apparently read “Most cars have a fatal flaw, but not this one.”

A fatal flaw?

Most cars have a fatal flaw?

I know mine gets a little tetchy with me if I leave the air conditioning running for too long, but the situation’s never proven fatal.

The only way this would reassure me if they meant fatal flaw as it’s used to describe Shakespeare’s tragic heroes.

It’s a noble ambition in a car manufacturer, to work so hard to remove the hubris, jealousy, and ambition from their vehicles.