TMINE

Keep/starting watching Heroes. Plus CSI science?

1 May 2007 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

UK viewers: if you haven’t been watching Heroes on SciFi or hadn’t been planning on watching it when it arrived on BBC2, reconsider now. Cos I promise you you’ll be giggling like 12-years-old thanks to the sheer unadulterated coolness of the show by the end of the series (or at least by last night’s episode, which was episode 20, BTW).

Also, I know CSI: Miami is a load of old rubbish, but I draw the line at this kind of inane cobblers coming out the mouth of a forensic scientist: “when gasoline burns, it produces carbon dioxide and there was no trace of carbon dioxide on your clothes”; and “that fire wasn’t going to start until you introduced oxygen into the mix.”

Seriously, there’s fudging science for entertainment purposes and then there’s the level of giving David Caruso one of Professor Zarkov’s rays to zap criminals with. CSI: Miami has now gone too far.

‘Who do you identify with?’ meme

20 March 2007 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

Okay, maybe that should have been “With whom do you identify?” but that’s veering towards poncy-ness.

Anyway, a while ago, Stu_N and I were having a discussion about whether children needed a character in a TV show with whom they could identify in order to watch and enjoy said show. He argued that they didn’t, citing the opinion of the inestimable Oliver Postgate (creator of untold numbers of wonderful children’s shows including Ivor the Engine and The Clangers).

My counter-argument was the somewhat weaker point that I thought he was right, but apparently teenage girls wouldn’t have watched the last couple of series of Doctor Who if it weren’t for the character of Rose – someone supposedly with whom they could identify – so maybe there were certain groups of people (maybe just teenagers) who need a central figure just like them in order to watch and enjoy the show. It’ll be interesting to see if the randy med student Martha Jones will pull in the crowds as well.

I was pondering that thought yesterday and I’ve decided to launch a pseudo-scientific investigation of it that will also be a meme. You see, off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single character on a TV show that I’ve ever enjoyed whom I identified with. Admired, maybe. Thought ‘What a great character’? Yes. But identified with? Can’t think of anyone. But I’ve still watched a load of tele.

So, the burning question/meme for today – and for who knows how much longer – is “Is there a character on a TV show that you’ve ever identified with?”. Clearly, it would be fun to run psychological tests on everyone to see what their self-esteem is like and correlate that with the results, but I’ve run out of virtual clipboards and pens.

Thus, leave your answer below or on your own blogs, if you will, and perhaps also your musings on this vital question of the day. The Earth’s fate depends on it.

Too much?

Things I learnt from watching television last week

5 March 2007 Rob Buckley Post a comment

24: As long as something exciting happens all the time, I can watch the most mindless drivel.

30 Rock: Manatee. Hee, hee!

Battlestar Galactica: It is possible for Starbuck to be boring.

Heroes: Even people you suspect can’t act will start acting if you give them something to do. “Claire-bear” can reduce a grown man to tears. Sniff.

Jericho: Flashbacks are only interesting if you give a monkey’s about the flasher. If you know what I mean.

Lewis: Occasionally the writers can be funny. Lewis “not a professional Northerner”? Hee hee!

Lost: Oh yes. Lost used to be fun. I remember now.

Primeval: As long as something exciting happens all the time, I can watch the most mindless drivel. Also, the right backing track for a flock of dodos is Kasabian’s “Club Foot”.

The Unit: Eric Haney should be allowed to write episodes, too, not just Lynn Mamet as I suggested last week – another lesson learned. Also, all previous attempts to write realistic war dialogue have been rubbish: if it was authentic, we wouldn’t understand a word of it, as Haney has just proved. I had to watch it twice to work out what was going on.

Embarrassing impulse purchases meme

2 March 2007 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

There are certain risks involved in going into shops like HMV or Virgin Megastore: the DVD sections. Ooh, so many tempting things.

I have to keep these impulses under control. Last time I went in, those Man From UNCLE movies looked pretty tempting: nothing quite says mid-80s BBC2 at teatime like the Man From UNCLE films. Well, except for box sets of Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes films, The Invaders or The Martian Chronicles.

If I gave in, I’d be bankrupt.

But I do have, languishing on my shelves:

  1. Clint Eastwood’s Firefox
  2. He-Man and She-Ra’s A Christmas Special
  3. Four different versions of Dune: the original David Lynch movie, the extended David Lynch movie, the special edition David Lynch movie with documentary and the SciFi Channel mini-series version.

Oh dear.

But now I’ve shared, it’s time for a meme: fess up, everyone – what are the three most embarrassing impulse-purchase DVDs sitting on your shelves. They can either be embarrassing for you or something that others consider embarrassing. I don’t care whether it’s TV, film or even Jade’s workout programme. Just name those DVDs!