2011 : what to watch on TV
Category Archives: Thats Entertainment (or not)
Frightened Rabbit – Swim Until You Cant See Land
How to get funded by the Dragons’ Den
I have a simple, yet cunning plan to get funding from the Dragons’ Den for my project.
Hello Dragons, can i start by letting you taste my product? They all enthusiastically have a taste of my new delicious products, some more than others. When they have finished I say, this may look like a jar of wasabi but it’s actually the antidote.
The antidote to what, says Peter Jones? What do you think Peter?? Don’t worry, you have a few minutes, Now let’s talk about Sushi Akabusi.
Lost: the things i liked and the things i didn’t
Well, i watched every episode of Lost, the mrs and i sat through all 121 of them. There were times when we considered giving up, around the end of series 4 we watched it begrudgingly with a view to kicking the habit, then the producers announced that there would only be 6 series so we decided to see it through. This isn’t a review, as to review a series like Lost seems completely futile, it defies a conventional TV critique.
Things that i liked:
That it was steeped in myth, in that it ambitiously drew on eternal mythical themes with gusto. Paradise and Hell; redemption; triumph of the will; monster in the forest; kill the thing one loves the most; resurrection; heroism etc and more specifically that it wore it all on its sleeve. Desmond as Odysseus shipwrecked on an island only caring about getting back to the women he loved. Jack as the man of science who preservers with his rational world view in the face of obvious irrational goings-on. He eventually becomes as it were, a man of faith, he believes in the island, talks about ‘meaning’ and destiny and the island rewards him and values him for it. Locke , who is healed by the island shortly after the crash is a true believer from the start, he wants to stay on the island, he imbraces it and eventually it kills him and uses him for evil. The madona who hides her special new born son from evil hordes who want to use him for who knows what. Hume (Scottish like des), Locke, Lewis, Rousseau (the noble savage), Burke…free will, existence, morality, Tabla Rasa…
I liked the backstory flash backs, especially Charlie and Hurley and Locke. I can’t find Drive Shaft’s ‘we are everybody’ on Spotify though!
Things i didn’t like:
I wanted people to sit down and have a chat about their backstories, i wanted Hurley to tell everyone that the numbers on the hatch are the numbers he was strangely given and with which he won the lottery. All the Dharma initiative crap never led anywhere, it was irrelevant.
Worst of all, too many major questions went unanswered. We don’t even really blooming know who Widmore was or what he was up to. If they were all dead and in some sort of purgatory then who were The Others? what was Dharma ? who were the researchers who parachuted on to the island? what happened to Walt? why did people die, if they were already dead? when they got off the island and then decided to go back, theres no reason why the series could have ended there, it was no different to the finale. Worst of all, the time travel dimension hurts the sense of progressive narrative. They could easily all flash back from the final church scene to 1977 again !
In the end it just didn’t hand together in any kind of logical way, but it was still great TV.
Political TV Debates : X-factor redux
It’s TV, its X-factor, it’s Britian’s Got Talent. We’re not looking for who we agree with or impress us we’re looking for who’s got the best journey, who’s learning from the experience and coming out the other side with the better story to R Kelly’s ‘I believe i can fly, i believe i can touch the sky!’ It’s Westlife flying without wings.
We’re humans and we can’t emote about statistics, we need the narrative, one picture of a dying African child means infinitely more than statics about millions others. ‘i spoke to a woman who couldn’t get a hospital operation because there weren’t enough nurses, because immigration was blocked’ boooo more immigration now !!! ‘i met a family who couldn’t get a council house because an immigration had taken it’ booo stop immigration now !
Cameron is the early favorite who has nowhere to go but down, Clegg is the surprise that everyone thinks they are original in deciding they like, we bond over it, we agree that he’s great but we can’t quite articulate why, he’s the little engine that could, that’s enough for us. Brown is the talented but uncomfortable in his skin, he’s Leona. He’s the aging has-been back for one last shot if only he can find a way to make him self relevent, he’s Steve Brookestien. It gets down to the wire, Cameron is still on top but hasn’t made a journey, suddenly we’re rooting for guy who’s struggling, but keeps hanging in there like a trooper. We’re voting for the winner, not for who we want to win, we just want to be part of making his dreams come true. We want him to cry at the end and thank us all for our votes, dreams do come true. I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky.
Existential Doctor Who?
So we’re giving the new Doctor Who a chance. So far so good, but its early days. Saturday’s episode unexpectedly strayed on to one of my favorite topics, the link between memory, responsibility and humanity. Unexpected indeed.
The story is that the earth has died and the inhabitants can only escape by torturing a friendly Space Whale which transports them to a far away land. There is of course an anti vivisection narrative but the interesting part is that when the residents are 18 they are all told the truth about how they are surviving and given the chance to vote, If they vote to remember then the creature is set free and all the humans die, if they vote to forget then they go back to a state of ignorance, never knowing how the ship is being powered.
So the good people on the ship choose to hit the ‘forget’ button. Every once in a while someone works out the truth again and is given the chance to object or forget again.
By forgetting the horrible truth about the pain they are responsible for they are somehow absolved of responsibitly. If I kill a man, and then genuinely forget that I have done it, what good is it to punish me? Maybe you committed a terrible crime last week and have genuinely forgotten, when the evidence is presented to you do you feel personally responsible or is it like you are viewing the evidence as an external observer, a completely separate human entity? What would be the point of punishing you for this crime? Would i as a victim feel any justice if I punished a person who couldn’t remember the crime, and was impossible for him to feel remorse or guilt?
Is the ‘I’ that I call myself, simply the sum of my memory? Without my memory of past interaction with other humans, my whole social life would collapse, I’d be barely human, or at least barely adult, I’d be a whole new fresh human.
Stewart Lee being brilliant
The Reader – creeps up on you
I think, if i had not known that she turns out to have been an SS Guard, this may have been the best movie i’d seen in a long time. But, because i knew what was coming, i felt during the first hour that that it was dragging. Then it kicks in, and its mainly Kate Winslet’s acting. It’s uncomfortable but completely believable. The moral interchanges between the law students and their teacher, disusing the nature of German guilt. When Hannah is questioned by the judge and asked why she didn’t release the prisoners who were dying in the burning barn, she replies ‘i was a guard, what would you have done?’ suddenly in a breath a simple statement exposes the hypocrisy , that most Germans, just like Hannah, just went with the flow. And perhaps, most of us would do the same. shiver.
The weekend’s politics
A couple of crumbs of information stuck in my mind over the weekend regards the BNP. Nick Griffen is planing to run for Parliament in Barking and there is a real fear he could win, on The Daily Politics Andrew Neil had John Denham and Normal Tebitt on to discuss it. I thought Tebbit made a good if tetcy point about the new tactics to beat the BNP. Both Labour and Lib Dems are stressing that the way to defeat the far right is not to pronounce that the reasons people vote for them are invalid, but instead to talk about the way immigration does affect these communities, sometimes for the worse, and to address and respond to the sense of cultural alienation. Tebbit’s response was that these are the things he was saying 20 years ago, and was almost expelled from the Tory party. Strange. The other thing to remember about the far right is that we shouldn’t over sell them. In the UK the far right is relatively weak, in France, Italy, Spain etc they are entrenched and not a million miles from government.
The other TV event for Gordon Brown on the celebrity interview circuit with Peirs Morgan. Maybe he does it intentionally to show that he’s rubbish at that kind of thing, so when the voters get to the ballot box they will see that as a sign of substance. Because one things for sure, he’s not a performer. Me? i like performers, orators, inspirers… but i also like hard work, drive and vision. Hmm…
A comic vignette
Whilst watching Avatar I wrote a sit com sketch in my head. I’m not sure what this says about the movie.
Our protagonist goes to see a 3D movie for the first time, and starts to imagine that the entire movie theatre is part of the show. He’s amazed as he looks around, imagining that he could almost touch the person sitting beside him, it seems so real. Hilarity ensues!!
I’m not saying there’s an entire half hours material, but there we have it.
Lady Gaga Geddit
A big bit cooky, part Madonna, part Tina, part Prince ,sexually explicit in the way that doesn’t really shock us when its Prince, but when its a female we get all prudish. knows-what-shes-got-knows-what-to-do-with-it. On the verge of madness with bizarre outlandish live appearances, stupidly talented pianist and vocalist in a way that mocks xfactor without trying. but i didn’t really get her, until i watched her at glastonbury.
turn up the bass on this, feel the burn
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa853m_lady-gaga-poker-face-live-festival_music
Chaos Reigns
Chaos Theory – one of those ideas that try as i might, i couldn’t get any kind of grasp on. BUT, last night I watched a TV program for an hour, and suddenly i understand tiny bit. result. It’s the end of the Newtonian Dream! more and more information won’t necessarily yield more knowledge about the universe – or the weather!!
Recommended by the chaos monkey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pv1c3/The_Secret_Life_of_Chaos/
Mystery Spotify Playlist
TWW vs TTOI
The new series of The Thick Of It starts this Saturday
The difference between The West Wing and The Thick Of It, says much about the British cynical view of themselves and their political class
The end of ownership
Vox mentioned The Gaslight Anthem on twitter/facebook last night, within seconds i had it booming in my living room through Spotify, and have it playing on my head phones at the moment in work. If i join Spotify’s premium service i can have it with my on my (Android) mobile phone.
I quite like The Gaslight Anthem, but not 100% sure its my cuppa tea (the Vox loves da boss and all his children), so I probably won’t buy it.
Even if i really liked it i probably wouldnt buy it becuase i ‘have’ it on Spotify. I haven’t bought a CD in 5+ years but i listen to more new music now than i ever have. The thing is, i havent even bought an MP3 in the last six months or so.
Will the 20th centruy turn out to be the only century when people had a desire and a concept of ‘owning’ music?
