The Best Thing Has Gone

I only found out the Frankie Boyle has quit Mock the week today.  Not a big deal you might think, but he was the best ting about it.  Russel Howard is a close second, but he is the only one that gets close.

Andy Parsons is rubbish, just a bald guy with a stupid voice, Hugh Dennis has one joke about paying too much for car insurance.  You can guarantee that if Rory Bremner is on there, at least once an episode he will impersonate Nelson Mandela.

Dara O’Brian or O’Breeen as its apparantly pronounced is good, but he would be better in the stand up side.

I just hope that Frankie goes on to do other good things, his stand up is brilliant, but he had better not turn into Jim Davidson or Roy Chubby Brown.

Now I am just being angry for the fun of it, just like the man himself.

SGU Episode 3

Because I am a little bit dull and geeky, I watched episode 3 of the new Stargate Universe twice yesterday, which must prove that I like it.  Even Greer is growing on me, but I still like Eli.

God, I can’t wait to get this month of blogging over with, some of these are rubbish.

Stargate Universe

The first episode of SG-U was on on tuesday, but as I was out I didn’t get a chance to watch it until last night.  It was good, I really enjoyed the way that it kicked straight into the action and has set the scene for the next episode and beyond.

At the moment I am not overly keen on Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyles character), but I do like the guy playing Eli Wallace (David Blue) as the scientist, so it looks like its going to build into a firm favourite.

Sorry, but more filler today then…

Television: Drug Of The Nation

OK, so its that time of year again where all of the big and rather excellent US TV shows start.  I can see the recorder going overtime in the coming weeks as there is so much good stuff on.  Last week kicked it off with FlashForward (a cross between the 4400 and the X-Files) with Joseph Fiennes investigating why everyone in the world had stopped moving and had premonitions for 2minutes and 17 seconds. 

Then last night season 6 (oh no I have turned american calling them seasons rather than series) of House started, in which our titular anti-hero is in an Asylum.   This was followed by the start of Fringe season 2, and its good to see that this hasn’t got any less weird/exciting/disgusting/all of the above.

Tomorrow is the one that I am really looking forward to.  The third of the Stargate franchise starts Stargate Universe.  I have only seen the trailers, but it looks good already.  A young team is lost aboard an Ancients ship seeding Stargates across the universe.  Sounds good to me.  Plus its got Robert Carlyle in the lead role.

Thursday is the return of Bones and Lie To Me in which Tim Roth is outstanding as the body Language expert Kal Lightman.  Unfortunately on Friday Trueblood has finished but is being replaced by the American Version of Life on Mars, which should be interesting.

I am not even going to pretend that I have a life for the next 12 weeks or so, this will be much better than reality.

PS.  Trying to blog everyday for 30 days is difficult.  I am 5 days in and running out of things to talk about….can you tell.

Superb

Everyone who knows me well knows that  love a good cover version, which is why I was watching Orange unsignedAct with so much interest.  For those of you who don’t know this is like the X-Factor but not full of crappy pop acts.  They are real bands that write and play their own songs.  This week though the competition was particularly good as the judges including the lovely Lauren Laverne had asked the contestants to do a cover version.

There were some particularly good ones including a rather good version of Blue Monday and a pop punk version of Take on Me. 

The stand out by a mile was from Tommy Reilly, the rather wonderful Scottish Singer Songwriter (Think busker with better lyrics) playing Mr Brightside, a tune that is fairly heavily led by guitars.  Stood on the stage behind a piano, the guy played an absolute stormer.  It was brilliant, so here it is for you.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

US TV

I have been watching a lot of TV lately, mainly because there is a lot of good stuff on.  However, I don’t watch any British TV (apart from Top Gear and Last Man Standing at the moment).  Its all US hour long series that I have become addicted to. 

I think that it started with the X-Files back in the day, with American Gothic with Space above and Beyond (Ive just re watched this, and having never seen the last episode before, I am really dissappointed, not because its a bad story, but because there should have been a second series) on late on friday nights, but then you had about a 10 year spell with nothing really good coming out.

All of a sudden about 4 years ago you had utter brilliance all around.  24, was completely addictive, even if Jack Bauers daughter is the most annoying person in the world, I mean who gets kidnapped twice in one day.  Lost was so fresh and new when itcame out, it was a shame when the latest series got so confusing it was almost unwatchable.  House on the other hand is almost constantly brilliant, now in series 5, Hugh Laurie rules best actor awards for his protrayal of the grumpy, pain-killer addicted, sarcasm monger, and deservedly so.  The worst you can say about that series is that it was formulaic in the way cases were solved every week.

Now, there are new anti-heroes in ever more watchable programmes, where attractive women and guns are the order of the day In Dexter for example, the likeable hero is a police forensics expert and serial killer, Burn Notice I guess is a bit of an update on Macgyver with an ex-spy helping out those that need it.  Chuck however has had the CIA database uploaded into his head and has forced him to turn into a Spy (this has also brought about the Chuck Chug drinking game, where you have to down a shot everytime he remembers something and the image flashes).  Eli Stone has resurrected the career of Jonny Lee Miller (The first Mr Angelina Jolie) as the eponymous lawyer-turned-prophet who has visions of George Michael singing in his office (Its much better than it sounds).

The 2 biggest though have to be Heroes (orinary people discovering their super powers) and Fringe (like the x-files, but with Pacy from Dawsons creek in it). 

What I want to know is why can Britain not make anything like this?  All we get is the very good, but incredibly camp Dr Who, and aimed at the saturday night family audience Merlin and Robin Hood.  I am fed up with sit-coms and reality TV, and have not watched a soap opera since Madge was in neighbours.  I can’t be the only one, so why is there nobody in this country that can make a 24 part comedy/drama/sci-fi series that is cinema qulaity?  I guess its because they are all in America doing exactly that. 

 

*(I will grant you Life On Mars was good, but I missed the sequal).

Ninja Warrior: Could this be the only true sport?

Working from home I get to see all of the crappy daytime TV, and most of it I can’t stand so I watch the film channels instead.  The one programme that I always make time to watch though is Ninja Warrior (or Sasuke to give its Japanese name).  The basic premise of this show is 100 contestants have to try and make it through obstacle courses (4 stages geting progressively harder) in the time limits and without touching the water…well nearly drowning.

This program gives me the full range of emotions, with laughing at peoples failure (harsh but true, its quite amusing to see people fall from the obstacles) to the sheer how the hell do they do that.  The fact is that it looks fun and I really want a go.  I think that I could become a legend on Mount Midoryama, or more than likely go out on the rolling log in the first round.

 Now the main thing that gets me with this program is that the contestents don’t do this for prize money, they do it for the honour of being crowned King or Queen of Ninja Warrior.  They train hard all year and build copies of the obstacles to practice on and personally I feel Premier league footballers could do with taking a leaf from their book, rather than taking 150k a week in wages. 

 There you go, 6pm on challenge TV after Takeshis Castle.  Sit down and switch off your brain.  Watch it, you know you want to!