It’s a pity the TVNZ reporter who recorded the biffo on Dixon Street between TVNZ and TV3 journos didn’t send the footage in to work so that it went in here and came out there. Jeez, isn’t it supposed to be our news now?
As every blog I write these days seems to contain an apology, here’s this month’s one: I’m sorry, oh god, I’m so sorry. I won’t bore you with the details, but I can say that being ill means watching all the catch-up TV you want and becoming hypnotised by the Commonwealth Games. Although, could the music TV1 is using for the links and behind the information be any worse? Okay if you’re a Mudvayne fan I suppose. Geoff Bryan, who is not a heavy metal kind of guy, is having to yell to be heard, although nothing’s yelling louder than that ug-lee studio they’ve built all special for the Games. Ah well, at least there’s Moss Burmester to “steal our hearts”, according to Geoff anyway.
So as the mild-mannered David Slack has pointed out, I interviewed John Clarke, which was an entirely pleasurable experience. Yes, we talked for ages, John and me, about many things, including the state of Australian television. Not good. The free trade agreement with the US is going to screw the industry, he says. According to US new media commentator Mark Pesce, Australia could become little more than an American cultural outpost. That’s what he said in a speech to the Screen Producers Association of Australia, anyway. Here’s a good rundown from the Australian Writers’ Guild too. And if there comes a time when there are a lot of Australians working in the New Zealand television industry, you’ll know why.
God knows I’ve been trying to like CSI and its various franchises, I really have, but whenever I start watching and an ad break comes along – and there are a lot of those – I get distracted by other things. You know, by other channels, the kettle that needs switching on in the kitchen, some particularly interesting paint that’s drying on a wall somewhere in the house.
I know it’s a selling point, but basically, CSI: BigAmericanCity is not emotionally satisfying. I don’t know if it’s a girl thing or a me thing, but I don’t watch drama to see guys with a lot of belt attachments swab semen off hotel windows. Or tweezer minute pieces of gravel out of skull fragments. Or, and this sounds like a Maori insult, boil someone’s head in a large cooking pot.
I need a bit more emotional connection than that, to be perfectly Francis with you, but back to back Cold Case and Close to Home, presumably supposed to be a kind of Chick Scene Investigation ploy to reel in female viewers, is too much fake emotion in one evening, even if Christian Kane from Buffy is in the latter.
Okay, that’s all I’ve got, pretty pathetic I know, but the boyfriend has threatened to sic the blog police onto me if I don’t post right now.