I'm still alive!

Yeah, it's been a while. University work continues to get in the way of regular blogging and circumstances have meant I've been watching more films instead of tv. I've finally got a few minutes to myself to update but I'm away from my flat so you're getting a slimmed down blog from my iPhone instead. This means the usual colour coding is damn near impossible so I will try and keep it short and organised.

First, Waterloo road returned in a rather subdued style. Without the usual mid season drama, it wasn't really necessery to do any big reveals. Term just picked up where it left off. It struck me as odd that the new pastoral care teacher wasn't fired in her first 5 minutes just for being so bloody difficult, never mind by the end of the day when she had deliberately disobeyed orders from the headmistress. I think this will set the tone for this series. No-one doing as they are told. Takes away from the realism and reminds me it's not real. Not good. Also distracting was George sampsons bad acting. For the first 10 minutes or so. Until I remembered no one on Waterloo road can act and I'd accepted that a long time ago. Last episode toms missing adopted daughter cloe got a mention. You'd think shed visit every now and then.

Also crashing back on to my iplayer, being human, as bloody as ever and still guaranteed to have me in tears of both laughter and sadness... In the space of about 30 seconds. That's the great thing about this show. Toby whithouse has a magical ability to turn from tragedy to comedy and back to tragedy without taking anything away from the authenticity of the moment. It's just a shame that spin off show becoming human does not reflect its sister's greatness. I appreciate their dedication to giving being human's massive online fanbase a little bit extra each week but 10minutes is just not enough time to get decent character development and the plot feels shallow. In short, I just don't care. There's lots of other awesome stuff to be had on the blog though, perfect distraction from the ever increasing pile of assignments on my desk.

iPhone typing hurts my thumbs, so I'm out for now.

Modern Family (short)

Gah the days blur into one and I'm not even aware if I even wrote a blog yesterday... no I didn't. Need more coffee...
*24 hours passes*
Wow... umm... yeah, took a long time to get that coffee. Sorry. I've been busy... uni is hard :(

Anyways, I started watching Modern Family after much persuasion. To be honest I wasn't overly impressed by the first episode, but it was late and I was tired. I think watching more episodes I might start to warm to the characters. In retrospect I can remember several funny moments, but they just didn't seem funny enough and none of the story was really compelling me to continue. I should be watching that on Wednesday nights from now on, so we'll see. Give it time.

Tonight is the triumphant return of Being Human. I've said a lot about this show already, so I'm gonna give up now and enjoy a night in with my second favourite vampire (top favourite is still Eric from True Blood... even with his nasty short hair :P). Lots of love and hope to have a proper blog with you soon.

Connections (Short)

I just found out that Lucy Gaskell who played Kathy Nightingale in Blink (Doctor Who) plays Kirsty in Casualty and played Sam in Being Human (that girl that George goes out with for a while. Single Mum). It's like the BBC just has this incredibly small list of actors and just uses the same ones over and over ad nausiem. Also, Andrew Garfield, Eduardo in The Social Network, Next Spider-Man and rising star of our generation. Yeah, he was in Doctor Who as well! He was Frank in Daleks of Manhattan! I knew I knew him from somewhere.

Note: Getting in a blog everyday will require shorter blogs like this. I will still be writing the same number of longer and more thought out blogs, they will just have short blogs inbetween, instead of silence. This format is still under change, and I think we'll see many more changes until I settle on something that works best for everybody.

Hustle and Being Human

What? I missed a blog yesterday? I did indeed. That is what happens when you have to pack your entire life into a suitcase and move it somewhere else. Things get pushed out. Yesterday I made the big trip back to uni after the summer holidays, so this whole daily blog thing might be about to get a bit tricky. On the bright side, you'll be able to look forward to the second part of In the Absence of Television pretty darn soon.

Friday night I watched the second episode of the new series of Hustle, a show that is gradually slipping and slipping, but the BBC keep showing it and I keep watching it. In the old days the cons were clever and the hustlers were witty. These days the plots are help together mostly by luck and duct tape. The shows follow a predictable formula in which the team decide on a person to con, set out a plan, start the plan, everything goes wrong but OH! That was part of the plan the whole time and everything gets sorted out in time for them to go to the bar and enjoy a victory glass of bubbly. The show needs a shake up or it risks slipping into oblivion.

Yesterday I didn't watch any TV... oops. Tell a lie. I watched the first episode of Heroes! I might even watch the rest of it. I've heard many good things about it, but all the good American shows are starting again right now, and Being Human and Doctor Who are expected on our screens VERY soon, so I might not have time. In fact, new Being Human starts just 1 week from today! We can expect the gorgeous Mitchell back on our screens in just 7 short days. This season the gang will be trying to save tea-making Annie from beyond the door. Word is she's in hell! Let's hope they get her home safe. Mitchell's got his own demons to face though, after falling quite spectacularly off the wagon. Also, keep an eye open for new series Becoming Human on the Being Human website, a spin off following a younger vampire, ghost and werewolf, struggling with their own problems.

The Gap In My Life... and Russell Brand

He's left me. He's gone. He's left this great big gaping gap in my wall... sorry life. He'll be away for months. What if it's not the same when he comes back? What if I no longer find his jokes funny or his quirky dress sense adorable? Nah that could never be. I am of course wittering about the fact that Doctor Who will not be on again until Christmas! You might think that my whining is a little over dramatic. It's only one tiny little show. The hole in my life is only 45 minutes a week. Right? Wrong! You see, there's a lot more than just the show. The fun starts on Saturday afternoon, going on the website and finding the weeks activity. Usually something to print, cut and make. Here's my brother and I in a rather fetching pair of Smiler masks.

Then we get drinks and snacks and settle down in front of the TV. That's about a half hour of prep BEFORE the show even starts. Then the 45 minute show. Then the post show discussion with my mum and brother. Say 15 minutes. They are not obsessive. Sometime later that night I'll log onto msn for post show discussion with fellow whovians (half an hour) and the haters (at least an hour). During this time I'll be going through the facebook news feed liking and commenting on Who related statuses. Sometime that night, or maybe the next day, there's blogs to be read (half an hour). On Sunday I watch Doctor Who Confidential on the BBC i-player(45 minutes). Some point during the week, I usually end up watching the episode again, either with a friend who missed it the first time, or because I'm writing about it (45 minutes). Are you counting this? That's 4 and a half hours a week I've got to fill. That's about the same amount of hours I spent in psych lectures in my first year! I could take Doctor Who as a degree with the amount of time I spend on it! I tell you this not to emphasise what a massive nerd I am, but hopefully to get you to understand why I feel there's a gap in my life. In fact, there are some people I no longer have anything to say to! Doctor Who is not just a show. It became a major part of my social world!

I was just coming to terms with the fact that there would be no Doctor, no Bow-Tie and no running tonight, when my mum delivered some sad news. There would also be no Casualty tonight. It seems the BBC is quite determined to kill my Saturday. I've been home a week, and I'm already dreaming of campus. I needed that episode of Casualty. That episode of Casualty, was keeping me sane. What happened? The flipping World Cup happened. I've made my views on this televising travesty well known. Let’s face it; everyone has Sky Sports by now. We've had a digital revolution. If people want the football, they can watch it on a sports channel. Or on the red button! Why, oh why, must you change my regular schedule to pander to these sports freaks! It's not like England are even playing! Who is playing? I haven't got a clue... *goes check* Paraguay and Spain. *sigh* And Spain won. Well I could have told you that! And I don't pay attention to the football, other than to bitch when it gets in my way.

I've done this rant before. I'm sorry for repeating myself, but I feel it's important you understand quite how fed up and bored I was when I curled up on the sofa with a double chocolate chip cookie, just before 10pm this evening. It made me do something quite out of character.

I have never been a fan of Russell Brand. I'm not some no-life Daily Mail reader, and I do appreciate the whole situation with Andrew Sachs was blown completely out of proportion. It's just he's always come across as a rather egotistical and immature low-life, who pulled stunts just to be controversial and get his name in the papers. I was amused by his performance in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but it was only a small role, and surely he was just delivering lines written by someone else. I put it to the back of my mind and didn't think anymore of it until Thursday night. I'd seen he was in a new film called Get Him to The Greek. Despite myself I thought I'd go see if he could pull it off twice. I didn't realise until the film started that it was in fact a spinoff of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, featuring Russell as the same character, rock star Aldous. I thought the film was hilarious. One for the 18-30's, don't take your parents (unless they are pretty open minded), and CERTAINLY don't take the kids.

I'm going off point again. These events led me this evening, at 10pm to notice that Russell Brand was doing stand up on Channel 4, from the "Scandalous" show. I didn't expect much. I flicked it on. "5 minutes" I told myself, "He's got 5 minutes to impress me". An hour later I was almost sorry to see the credits roll. He wasn't at all like I expected from what I've seen before. His take on the whole Andrew Sachs incident was really interesting. The man really can't believe the whole media storm but has taken it in his stride and shrugged it off in his usual confident manner. He also talked at length about presenting the VMAs. I'd seen a little of the show, and heard he'd made a disgrace of himself, turning up drunk and forgetting his script. What I didn't know was that he'd written a script, and did indeed remember it, but realised after his first joke that the script would not go down well with the American audience. Yes, he should have realised this a little earlier, perhaps tested out the script on a small pilot audience, but knowing that, it makes his presenting that little bit less shocking. He even mocks the way the Daily Mail reports him, predicting headlines from the jokes he tells. While the jokes were mildly controversial, particularly the ones about Michael Jackson or religion, it is possible to see how they could be spun out of perspective to sound a hell of a lot more shocking. In conclusion, it's changed my perspective on Russell Brand, and I'm hopefully going to check out a bit more of his work, see if this was just a one off. I've got to admit, I feel a little confused. If you'd have told me in November that I'd be skipping the early Eclipse showings and watching Russell Brand instead, I've have called you a liar. I guess a lot can change in a few months.

Hopefully the gap in my life will be closed quite soon. Filming continues on Season 3 of Being Human, which should hit our screens some time in autumn, just in time for the nights to get longer. There's nothing quite like snuggling up in bed on a dark night and watching the bloodshed with a nice glass of red. In season 1, the threat was the other monsters, Herrick, Tully and like. In season 2, the threat was human, coming from CenSSA. Now, Season 3, "The Threat Comes From Within". I reckon it's got to me Mitchell going cold turkey. He finished season 2 with a major blood binge, and now he's got to pay the price. We've been promised some big stars this season, though I'll be happiest if they bring back Sykes <3. style="color: rgb(102, 0, 204);">Eastenders. Mitchell meets her "on the other side" as he tries to save Annie, so she must be some sort of ghost. We've also been promised one of the following "witch/zombie/demon/banshee/warlock/goblin/fairy/pixie/angel". Since a lot of the action is taking place on the other side, I think it's going to be either a demon or an angel, and if it's Lacey Turner, my money's on demon, because she plays the bad girl quite well. Also picked up from the twitter, there's going to be a lot of blood (well duh) and some definite staking action (hell yeah!).

WAIT! I hear you cry. That's not on until autumn, what am I to do until then! Well I've been focusing on enjoying the little things in life. Playing my guitar, painting faces, trying to learn to cook... TV wise, we're having a slow time of it. The new season of Being Erica is not to be missed, though it's becoming rather predictable. Erica wants to change something, goes back in time and learns a valuable lesson about herself, which is relevant to whatever drama in her life that week... kind of like Scrubs... but with time travel. Heck, what am I saying, that's an awesome show! Sunday/Wednesday is the season finale of Desperate Housewives, so expect big deaths and bigger cliff-hangers. I've checked the schedule for you (because I'm nice like that) and Desperate Housewives is being replaced with... Big Brother *headdesk* so get ready to fill another gap in your evening. Suggestion coming up soon ;) Thursday nights retain their comedy mix with Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother and new girl Accidentally On Purpose. And it all goes downhill from there :P Seriously, looks like it's time to find a new hobby because there's not going to be a lot on TV for a while *hopes to be proved wrong*.

Ah yes, my suggestion to fill the gap. I've just started watching The IT Crowd, on a recommendation from a friend. I am three episodes in and liking it so far. It's a little step out of the ordinary for me. I usually like my sitcoms a little more realistic and the characters in this show are like caricatures... or you know, it's a show about people with psychiatric disorders and I haven't realised it yet... I also realised with this show that my ability to distinguish between English and American accents has apparently disappeared. It's easy when it's in context. When Captain Jack first beamed into Doctor Who, I knew he was American. He sounded different. Likewise, when Emily first appeared in FRIENDS, I knew she was English (because she was a STEREOTYPE!!!), but watching The IT Crowd I realised I had no idea whether the show was English or American. It had a very American Sitcom feel, so I pegged it as American, before I realised the character of Roy is played by Chris O'Dowd who plays Simple Simon in The Boat That Rocked (one of my all time favourite films, very British). Anyways, good British sitcom :O and all 4 seasons are currently available on 4od. A friend recommended I whack in a link to the shows website when I talk about a new show. I'm going to do one better than that, I'm going to give you a link straight to the first episode, because I reckon you're a bit tired of reading by now :P CLICK ME