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.

Back From Disney!

What's that? Oh you've really missed me. Oh, I've missed you too! Yeah, it's been a bit quiet on the blogging front, because I've been in Euro Disney! It was so super duper awesome! Here's a picture of me and my best friends in front of the magic castle :D

And while we were there, we saw a girl who looked a lot like Lex, from you-tube. James shouted "Lex!" But she didn't turn round, so we figured it wasn't her, but when I got home and checked out her twitter, turns out it was her :O Crazy stuff. Probably the closest I'll ever get to a YouTube celebrity... oh well. On with the TV stuff.

Now, you may recall I was quite devastated to be missing Derren Brown's next big special (Hero at 30,000 feet) which aired on the day we flew out to France. Fortunately I managed to pick it up on 4od on my return. Derren said this was his favourite show to date, but I'm going to have to disagree with him. Though the show had a lovely message to go with it, we didn't really see anything new from Derren, and the show lacked the WOW factor of shows like The Heist and Russian roulette. I'm expecting something new from Derren soon, as he has been filming all summer and I've got a friend who has been to one of his filming evenings. Perhaps another series of Tricks of The Mind? It would make my season :P

I also missed a stunning episode of Casualty while I was away, which I managed to catch up on this morning on the I-Player. In the aftermath of last week’s shooting, someone has to take the fall and Charlie is in the firing line. I spent the majority of the episode on the edge of my seat. Another very strong Casualty episode, when I was expecting them to have a lower episode after all the excitement of last week’s feature length episode. As usual you've got all the heart-warming hospital moments, funny one liners and devastating blows. The whole range of human emotion in one hour. Worth staying in on a Saturday night for... or you know, watching on the I-Player half a week later.

In contrast, this week’s Waterloo Road had a Sex Education Special that felt like an hour long public service announcement. We went through the stories of "The one who thinks sex will make her happy" "The one whose condom broke" "The young single mum" and "The one struggling with his sexuality" With disaster and tragedy all round. The majority of these stories seemed to fly up from no-where. Two of the characters have never been seen before (and will probably never be seen again) and that poor lad has never given any indication of being gay before. Sorry Waterloo Road writers, D-, Could do better.

The Autumn Season Begins

Shhh... Listen... do you hear that? That is the blissful sound of silence. No longer do the kids crowd the streets screaming and dancing and I will no longer have to battle against tweenagers to browse the DVD sale in HMV. Life has returned to a state resembling normality as we are now in September and school is back in session.

Of course it's not just the real world in which school is back in. This week we got treated to two wonderful episodes of Waterloo Road, which as per usual started with a bang. We are welcoming a new Head Mistress in the shape of Karen Fisher (Amanda Burton), who starts with drastic new policies, much to the annoyance of the existing teachers, but it all works out in the end and she solves a lot of the schools problems... much like every other new head in this school. The story line seems much a carbon copy of when Rachel Mason started! Come on writers, get your act together! She's also got a whole host of personal problems including a missing child, a delinquent daughter and a cheating husband... also seems to be showing signs of early depression (though I can see why). From the brief glimpses we've seen it looks like her missing daughter is played by Tina O'Brien, so I can't see her staying missing for very long.

Also new staff wise is the stunning Francesca Montoya (Karen David), Head of Spanish. Not sure why they need a Head of Spanish, since there is no one else in the Spanish department for her to be head of. Spanish seems to have replaced French as the only language taught at this school. The two French teachers, Stephanie Haydock and Jo Lipsett have disappeared without explanation! I'm really not sure how this school gets through any of its exams... apart from English, the only fully staffed department.

Casualty also returned to our screens this week, after a 1 week absence. It made up for this loss with a feature length episode! Yay! My Dad keeps telling me I shouldn't watch Casualty as I "can't handle it". Excuse me if I find the death of several college kids upsetting! I'm not going to give much away about this one, I recommend picking it up on the I-player. Even if you've never seen Casualty before, now is a good time to pick it up, as the plot of this special episode takes place completely out of existing plot lines, showing the hospital dealing with a great amount of pressure after a shooting in a college. I hope the rest of the series can keep up the drama all the way through autumn. Now, go on, what else are you going to do with the next hour and a half? Click Here

X-Factor has also shot back onto our screens with the usual array of delusional wannabes, quiet superstars and diva strops. Yes, it is becoming one big massive cliché (if I hear "1 million percent yes" one more time, I'm going to beat Simon Cowel to death with a math textbook), but it's still sociable Saturday Night television! Worth sticking with through the auditions, but only time will tell if the talent will keep me interested through the live shows.

This Weeks Recommendation: I'm dying to watch Derren Brown: Hero at 30,000 feet on Wednesday at 10pm on Channel 4, but I'm going to be out of the country! Yes, I'll be jetting off to Disney Land Paris, obscenely early on Wednesday morning, but I hope there's nothing stopping you enjoying it. I'll be catching up on the magic some time Monday. For those of you who have been living under the proverbial rock, Derren Brown is a Psychologist, Illusionist and Showman who performs seemingly impossible feats using his odd array of skills. The man himself says this is his favourite show to date, so it will be well worth a watch. Enjoy, and I'll see you some point next week :)

P.S. The rather wonderful James Raynard (CottonWoolWorld) was lovely enough to give me a shout out on his latest vlog! Isn't that nice of him? Since he said very nice things, and is a clever, interesting and funny guy (and has, what I've been told is "an adorable English accent") you should go check out his videos! HERE

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

Saturday Night & Eurovision

Ah Saturday Night. The one night a week that there is bound to be something good on TV. Many a family across the UK come together for some well earned "family time". Sadly, I find myself without family at the moment. Not that there's anything wrong with them, I'm just living at university at the moment. Nevertheless, my enjoyment of Saturday night TV is not diminished. 6.30pm usually finds my cross legged in front of the box, ice cream in hand eagerly enjoying the latest episode of Doctor Who. This comes much to the disgust of my housemates, who would rather do anything else. Last Saturday they declared that football took priority and cast me out on the street. Undeterred ended up cross legged on a sympathetic friend's floor. It'll take more than football to keep me from my weekly who fix.
After Doctor Who, I've been watching Over The Rainbow, the Andrew Lloyd Webbers latest search for a new Broadway "star", but that finished last week. I really didn't enjoy this series as much as I have done the previous ones. I miss John Barrowmans wit and campness. The show just isn't the same without "Fantastic! Fantastic! Fantastic" Mr Barrowman. Another frustrating element is that I was expecting a search for a male star this time. I love watching the girls sing but those Josephs had... appeal the girls just can't deliver.
We're currently in the midst of another round of Britain's Got Talent, a show which conclusively proves... Britain THINKS It's Got Talent. There's some sheer rubbish ends up on this show (and a lot of it even gets through to the next round), but I guess that's part of the fun. What really gets to me is the amount of singing acts that turn up. You have to wonder why they don't audition for the x-factor if they really want singing success. Last years winners Diversity have also inspired a multitude of dance acts, mostly repeating the same old stuff we've already seen many times before. They really need to step up their game if they have any chance of winning. This is another show that's just getting old now. For a variety show, it needs a bit more variety if it wants to avoid getting stale.
Lastly, I've been following Casualty. This is seen to be a rather odd choice, in fact I don't think many of my friends watch it. It all started as something I did with my mum, but now it's a show I watch every week. Most of the time I question why I do, as it's possibly the most depressing show I watch. There's death, disease and misery (and that's just the doctors!). The current appeal comes from following the stories of the F2s, the trainee doctors. Maybe I just relate to them because they are young, starting out in the world, trying to find their feet, or maybe it's just because they only started over Easter so I've been able to follow their entire story and I'm not being confused by some part of the back story that happened over a year ago. That said, the show seems to be loosing F2s at an alarming rate. They started off with about 12 and they seem to be down to two... I'm not even sure where they all went! But Yuki is my favourite, so I don't mind :D
So, I think I've established, Saturday Night Tv is one of the highlights of my week, but I was quite content to ditch the usual schedule this week in favour of EUROVISION! This year saw a rather condensed show. They ditched the naff VTs of each country's scenery, daft hats and weird trivia in favour of a pre-midnight finish. Not complaining, I got to watch the whole show on campus and still manage to get a late bus home. UK were... well we were rubbish. Come on Pete Waterman, it's 2010. We've moved on from the 90's, it's time for you to move on too. Or retire... on second thoughts, just retire. Perhaps the right singer could have made it work, but Josh Dubovie was out of tune, and not even in time with the music. The saddest part was the look on his face about half way through, when he seemed to realise just how bad it was. BBC news this morning reports he is "still smiling", but this must be a brave face for the cameras. I don't blame him. He shouldn't have been put on the stage! UK just doesn't take the competition seriously. Turkey's entry MaNga are MTV award winners, and accordingly came second. Britain have got some great artists, but we have something against sending people who are already established. Imagine if we stuck Robbie Williams up there. We'd win by a landslide.
I expected Cyprus to do better, but it seems no-one really warmed to the fact that they'd nabbed a little welsh lad to sing for them. Perhaps Wales should consider entering solo next year? With talent like that, I reckon they'd do quite well.
The winner Lena... she was okay... From the black lipstick I was expecting something a little more alternative from her. She was referred to as "The German Lilly Allen", but I think that's a bit of an insult to Lilly Allen. The song... well it didn't make sense to me, containing stunning lyrics like "I painted my toe nails for you". Is this considered a romantic gesture in Germany? Personally, I just paint my toe nails when I'm bored, or I know I'm going to be wearing strappy shoes. I don't think I've ever painted them for someone else... Upon winning Lena came across as quite the diva, refusing to hold her trophy or flowers claiming she didn't have the strength... she was also reported to be very subdued in later interviews. Guess it was past her bed time.