Year: 2007

Once upon a time, I imagine this was a cracking idea. Something like The Smoking Room or Phone Booth. “Imagine a low-budget comedy set entirely in a car being driven down the freeway by a bunch of guys in a car pool,” the idea probably went. “They’d talk about life, their lives, their feelings. It could be an illustration of the ordinary working man’s lot in life in the early 21st century.”

I imagine then that some network suit thought that a bigger budget and a bit more activity was needed or else no one would watch, certainly not during primetime.

And thus this version of Carpoolers was born. It is, in a sense, the partner programme to ABC’s Big Shots. While Big Shots is about rich idiots who are supposed to represent men but who are in fact misogynistic morons, Carpoolers is about middle class idiots who are supposed to represent men but who are in fact misogynistic morons.

Continue reading “Review: Carpoolers 1.1”

Oh dear. I’m a girlie wuss. I’m a mental feeb.

I’m addicted to Gossip Girl.

This everyday tale of irritating rich kids, narrated by an equally irritating blogger obsessed with Upper East Side rich kids (thank God someone finally had the guts to expose those evil bloggers for what they are in this week’s CSi: Miami) is as powerful as crack cocaine.

Fundamentally, I love a good romance and this is a traditional romance – rich girl meets poor boy and two worlds collide – with a Web 2.0, cell phone-enabled polish. The leads are all very appealing and endearing, the baddies are suitably mean but sympathetic. The plots are light and fluffy without much realism.

It’s all so marvellous.

It might not appeal to adults that much, but if you can tolerate near-teen angst and rich-kid anxieties, you’ll enjoy Gossip Girl as of holiday, chick lit reading for the small screen.

The Medium is Not Enough declares Gossip Girl to be 1 or “Caruso free” on The Carusometer quality scale. A one on The Carusometer corresponds to “a show in which David Caruso might try to appear, claiming to be the best actor to play the part of a mid-30s father of an early-20s ‘teen’. Despite brushing down his hair to cover his bald patches and ostentatiously listening to ‘young people’s music’ such as Led Zeppelin, he’ll fail to get the part and be forced to lurk around at the corner of party scenes, glowering.”