Having just watched the first episode of the fifth series of 24, we have to say Aaarrrghhh. It's amazing, and they don't save the best bits for the end. Within the first five minutes, even the most god-fearing of you will have sworn out loud at the first of several history-stomping twists. We don't want to give it away - just avoid reading anything about it before you watch it.
Things we can give away: the useless US president is back and this time he's brought his totally bonkers wife with him. The fantastic Chloe also returns with new hair, an increasingly pivotal role in the plot and a hunky boffin of a boyfriend, as does her old sparring partner Edgar, who seems a tad less incompetent and oddly voiced than before. New players include Jack's - sorry, Frank's - new girlfriend, played by Spin City's Connie Britten, and her irritating son who we hope dies very quickly.
This Sunday's preview isn't really that great - save yourself for the following week. Demented drama is back!
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
What a Carve Up... Revisited
So Quentin is the Carver - Nip/Tuck's own crazy slasher. To be honest, who else could it have been? There weren't many other suspects on the horizon. Except for the crazy-accented Detective Lara Croft (Rhona Mitri, who apparently was transferred to Miami from Stepney Green) - and she, rather brilliantly, turned out to be his loopy accomplice/sister. It transpires that Quentin was dickless and went around slashing and dry-humping with a strap-on beautiful people to make up for that. Bless. He went out with several bangs though, working through a dorm of young women, before chopping off Sean's finger and nearly slicing through Christian's arm. And he got away with it too, a testament to Nip/Tuck's open-ended, totally unpredictable plotting where anyone can get away with anything. Excellent.
Day-time TV Plots in Prime-Time Soaps
While we accept that EastEnders is really trying to drag itself out of the tepid cesspit it has spent the past few years loudly drowning in, recent plots - despite showing promise - are more contrived than ever. Many of which have either been copied from less high-profile soaps, many of which the less high-profile soaps wouldn't touch with a cattle prod.
The drugging of Stacey Slater was straight out of Hollyoaks, just without the courage of its convictions to see through a reasonable gritty storyline which would have involved a seemingly popular, good-looking character proving to be a shifty drug-rapist. Wouldn't it have been great if pantomine cockney Deano Wicks - the latest in a long line of Joe Wicks/Spencer Moon clones - turned out to be a thoroughly evil character? And as for last night's storyline which saw new doctor, Dr Oliver, (who, as all docs are, is rather posh and very rude to single mothers) stranded naked on his doorstep (which appeared to be the doorstep to the doctors surgery - can't he afford a flat in east London, or is that only the domain of wealthy clans such as the Millers?) was pure Neighbours from 1988. Rubbish. As for Pauline marrying in haste to a man with a mysterious past, can we just shout at you RICHARD HILLMAN? Honestly, this was only supposed to be a short post, but - in the words of Mr Furious - anger rising, fingers typing...
The drugging of Stacey Slater was straight out of Hollyoaks, just without the courage of its convictions to see through a reasonable gritty storyline which would have involved a seemingly popular, good-looking character proving to be a shifty drug-rapist. Wouldn't it have been great if pantomine cockney Deano Wicks - the latest in a long line of Joe Wicks/Spencer Moon clones - turned out to be a thoroughly evil character? And as for last night's storyline which saw new doctor, Dr Oliver, (who, as all docs are, is rather posh and very rude to single mothers) stranded naked on his doorstep (which appeared to be the doorstep to the doctors surgery - can't he afford a flat in east London, or is that only the domain of wealthy clans such as the Millers?) was pure Neighbours from 1988. Rubbish. As for Pauline marrying in haste to a man with a mysterious past, can we just shout at you RICHARD HILLMAN? Honestly, this was only supposed to be a short post, but - in the words of Mr Furious - anger rising, fingers typing...
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
McKeith Alert
Good lord. There we were, expecting the new series of Shameless to be Tuesday’s pick of the TV, and then wham! Dreadful dietary dwarf Gillian McKeith popped out of the box and started chasing the general public round a shopping centre, taunting them with vials of salt and test-tubes of gastric juices, bearing more than a passingl resemblance to the minute, red-anorak-clad killer from Don’t Look Now. Like a violent version of Delia Smith mixed with an angry Jim Henson fraggle, Gillian is a truly terrifying creation and we rather quite like her.
All the trimmings
If there was an award at this year’s National Television Awards for the most fucked-up series, then Nip/Tuck would have to be the winner. Series three has managed to be even more twisted than the last – and let us not forget that season two climaxed with granny-grabbing teenager Matt discovering that not only was his older, life coach girlfriend bedding her adopted son, but also that she used to be a man, while Christian was raped and mutilated by masked slasher The Carver.
Not only have the cases of the week been more disturbing than usual (elderly women demanding surgery, men wanting breasts), they’ve also been incredibly topical (a face transplant that didn’t take, the tragic separation of co-joined twins). And the private lives of the surgeons are madder than ever. Matt, who already has considered going gay, beating up a transsexual and divorcing his dad, is now dating a neo-Nazi, while mum Julia is thankfully taking things slowly with the bisexual, soldier-shagging new partner in the practice. Sean had had enough, and went to work as a surgeon for the witness relocation programme – but following the shockingly ambiguous fate of his new identity girlfriend and her son, he’s returned to force crazy Quentin out of the surgery. And as for Christian, after a brief dalliance with being the responsible member of the team, he’s back to sleeping around and degrading fatties. He thinks he was jilted at the altar by porn star girlfriend Kimber – little realised she has in fact been nabbed by The Carver. We’re hoping for a happy ending for Kimber – especially now we’ve discovered the identity of the serial slasher. But this being Nip/Tuck, the crazier the plot, the better – and no one, or any part of their body, is really safe…
Not only have the cases of the week been more disturbing than usual (elderly women demanding surgery, men wanting breasts), they’ve also been incredibly topical (a face transplant that didn’t take, the tragic separation of co-joined twins). And the private lives of the surgeons are madder than ever. Matt, who already has considered going gay, beating up a transsexual and divorcing his dad, is now dating a neo-Nazi, while mum Julia is thankfully taking things slowly with the bisexual, soldier-shagging new partner in the practice. Sean had had enough, and went to work as a surgeon for the witness relocation programme – but following the shockingly ambiguous fate of his new identity girlfriend and her son, he’s returned to force crazy Quentin out of the surgery. And as for Christian, after a brief dalliance with being the responsible member of the team, he’s back to sleeping around and degrading fatties. He thinks he was jilted at the altar by porn star girlfriend Kimber – little realised she has in fact been nabbed by The Carver. We’re hoping for a happy ending for Kimber – especially now we’ve discovered the identity of the serial slasher. But this being Nip/Tuck, the crazier the plot, the better – and no one, or any part of their body, is really safe…
The End of the Affair
Five’s only home-grown drama series, Family Affairs, ground to a halt last Friday, leaving Hollyoaks as the only UK soap so low on the radar it can get away with crazy, made-up-on-the-day-of-filming plots and providing inexperienced actors with an off-peak training ground. Where the big three soaps are going to pillage future writing, directing and acting talent from is anyone’s guess.
It’d be fair to say that Family Affairs has been rubbish for the past few months. The show’s latest revamp was a disastrous attempt at becoming a slightly more grown-up Hollyoaks, doing away with all the families and bringing in a host of young faces who unfortunately all looked the same – making it impossible to really be sure what was going on. And to make Charnham a tad more glamorous, all the newcomers had names like Rex, Meredith, Hester or Coral, ie names that no one living in an Acton-inspred neighbourhood would possess.
Which is a shame, because when Family Affairs got it right, it was brilliant. Pete convincing wife Siobhan she’d killed her lover Josh was a truly original storyline, recently ripped off by EastEnders to prop up their rubbish Den Watts murder plot. In fact, anything involving bad guy Pete was a triumph – mainly because the actor and the writers knew who Pete was and never altered him for the sake of a plot. Parachute David Easter into EastEnders now, along with Rosie Rowell (wife Eileen). Those two could kick some life into the dormant sdrama.
Characters were what once made Family Affairs the soap it was, with all the soap archetypes present. Preachy Nicki Warrington – holier than thou, but always willing to shag a neighbour/step-son. Lovely Roy Farmer – a nice guy who was just a tad stupid. Tragic landlady Eileen Callan – all her attempts to make things better involved fake pregnancies and arson attempts. Frequently married Yasmin McHugh, whose husbands have ended up invariably murdered, fleeing the country or being exposed as con artists. And the Hart clan who the show originally centred on may have been boring at times, but they were all genuinely well-drawn and likeable characters. Which is something Hollyoaks is still struggling to find after 10 years on the box.
Anyway, it’s sad Family Affairs ended in such a jumble as the final episode showed there were still a few tricks left in the old. Thankfully Eileen Callan returned – complete with lottery win and non-speaking toyboy extra in tow – making up for the recent erroneous axing of her and soap lynchpin Pete. And young Katie Williams noticed her new boyfriend had been going around killing his ex-wives. Which was brilliant ambiguously handled. Farewell Family Affairs – we’ll kind of miss you. But please Five, commission a new soap to replace it. Reruns of Joey just won’t do.
It’d be fair to say that Family Affairs has been rubbish for the past few months. The show’s latest revamp was a disastrous attempt at becoming a slightly more grown-up Hollyoaks, doing away with all the families and bringing in a host of young faces who unfortunately all looked the same – making it impossible to really be sure what was going on. And to make Charnham a tad more glamorous, all the newcomers had names like Rex, Meredith, Hester or Coral, ie names that no one living in an Acton-inspred neighbourhood would possess.
Which is a shame, because when Family Affairs got it right, it was brilliant. Pete convincing wife Siobhan she’d killed her lover Josh was a truly original storyline, recently ripped off by EastEnders to prop up their rubbish Den Watts murder plot. In fact, anything involving bad guy Pete was a triumph – mainly because the actor and the writers knew who Pete was and never altered him for the sake of a plot. Parachute David Easter into EastEnders now, along with Rosie Rowell (wife Eileen). Those two could kick some life into the dormant sdrama.
Characters were what once made Family Affairs the soap it was, with all the soap archetypes present. Preachy Nicki Warrington – holier than thou, but always willing to shag a neighbour/step-son. Lovely Roy Farmer – a nice guy who was just a tad stupid. Tragic landlady Eileen Callan – all her attempts to make things better involved fake pregnancies and arson attempts. Frequently married Yasmin McHugh, whose husbands have ended up invariably murdered, fleeing the country or being exposed as con artists. And the Hart clan who the show originally centred on may have been boring at times, but they were all genuinely well-drawn and likeable characters. Which is something Hollyoaks is still struggling to find after 10 years on the box.
Anyway, it’s sad Family Affairs ended in such a jumble as the final episode showed there were still a few tricks left in the old. Thankfully Eileen Callan returned – complete with lottery win and non-speaking toyboy extra in tow – making up for the recent erroneous axing of her and soap lynchpin Pete. And young Katie Williams noticed her new boyfriend had been going around killing his ex-wives. Which was brilliant ambiguously handled. Farewell Family Affairs – we’ll kind of miss you. But please Five, commission a new soap to replace it. Reruns of Joey just won’t do.
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