Did you see Nip/Tuck come over all Six Feet Under last week? Just when I thought N/T was merely a series of comeuppances for dastardly Dr Christian, a corpse’s head started talking to Sean.
The whole scene had that Space Odyssey nothingness about it: an almost empty white room, a neat row of corpses’ heads on trolleys, a neat row of surgeons breaking the coprses’ noses in unison. No wonder Sean started hallucinating.
But Nip/Tuck’s a funny programme. After the initial sex-death-disposing of the body in the Florida swamp opening, it’s settled down to become a series of moral dilemmas for the characters and those aforementioned small comeuppances for Christian, who never learns from being tied to the bed for a couple of days by his mad ex-girlfriend, or whatever else.
He’s never going to be right until he gets the woman of his dreams, Julia, although why he wants that tearful, nasal hysteric is a mystery. You’d think she would have stopped crying by now.
There’s only three episodes left in the current season; reportedly, Famke Janssen (Jean Grey in X-Men) will play Julia’s life coach in season two, and Vanessa Redgrave will play her mother. The show has been looking for a woman in her early 40s-50s with a good bod to be a nude double for her. Guess it’s impossible to go on Nip/Tuck without getting your gear off.
Flea comments:
Has anyone else commented on how great Maori TV is? We are really enjoying it as an alternative -- we have been turning to it randomly when there is nothing else to watch on the other channels -- which is quite often -- and are always pleasantly surprised but what we see!
Yes! Peter McLennan loves DIY Marae:
It’s genius. Same theme as DIY Rescue, but with cultural values added. Some landscaping, gardening, painting, but also getting the kids to clean and repaint the carvings and panels. At the start of the show, they send the old kuia off while they do up the marae. Then they come back at the end, visibly moved, crying ... its amazing. One old fella talked about doing in four days what they’d been trying to do for the last 30 years. He said Some of the koro and kuia who are no longer with us would’ve loved to see this -- you can almost hear them, not turning in their graves, but dancing in them!
It was so choice. Catch it if you can. Its taking an incredibly played out TV idea and giving it new meaning, hell, giving it some meaning beyond vacuous entertainment. Tu meke!
Meanwhile, Rose couldn’t understand why I liked Serial Killers:
Oh Fiona, what on God’s green earth could possibly move you to surmise that “Serial Killers was great ...”? I watched it with, admittedly, fairly high expectations (why, oh why was it billed as the new The Office? The comparison was cruelly misleading -- the only similarity being a poor imitation of the jittery camera work. I thought the characters were half-baked, cringe-worthy stereotypes and the comedy was seriously lacking. In fact about half way through I started to wonder if it was really intended to be comedy at all, it was just so safe and conventional and flat. I don’t blame the actors for this, I thought Robyn Malcolm was good and I love Oliver Driver and John Leigh. I’m sure that given the right script they would have the capacity to be funny, and in fact I reckon both Driver and Leigh had better comic moments in their roles on Shortland Street than they did in the first episode of Serial Killers.
The whole situation depresses me. I just think it’s lamentable that we as kiwis have such a natural feel for the irreverent, subversive, risk-takingly humorous, and yet very rarely does that translate into good television comedy.
What can I say? I laughed, which is generally an indication that I’m amused, although the second episode on Friday wasn’t quite as good as the first – except for the excellent exchange between Oliver Driver’s character and Sara Wiseman’s annoying hippie: “You’re so angry …”
“I am now.”
In other news, this link takes you to the Two and a Half Men website, where the video tour “Angus T Jones (Jake) gives a tour of the set!” features our own Melanie Lynskey, who plays Rose on the show. Entertainment Weekly thought she “makes mild insanity adorable” in its recent appraisal of the sitcom, giving it a B-, pretty high praise in the current US sitcom wasteland.
Check out the new website for TVNZ, which was officially launched last week. Shamefully, there is no separate info for Serial Killers. Also, this NZ TV website, which covers the local TV sites -- although not Idol blog.
Quotes:
“You know why iron’s like a woman don’t you? The hotter you get her, the easier she is to handle.” – A blacksmith on a One News item.
“It was an outside job.” – Gil Grissom, referring to a bee that killed a guy. Even Sara smiled at that one.
Further to what we were saying about the relevance, or not, of David Beckham's private life, TV2 is screening Rebecca Loos -- My Story tomorrow night (Tues 27th) at 9.35pm (replaces Alias), followed by The Real Beckhams at 10.35pm. The press release can barely contain itself: "Catch Rebecca Loos when she reveals all the sordid details of her alleged affair with David Beckham -- from steamy hotel room romps -- to the details of those infamous sex texts."
Lastly, we’re getting The Apprentice, guys, the one with Donald Trump. Lucky us.