Public Address: Radiation

Signing off, moving on

Fiona Rae — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:32:00 +1200

Looks like my evil plan to become the world’s worst blogger has come to pass; although it turns out that being the world’s worst blogger just means never writing anything. Consequently, me and the Queen of England are total badasses.
I feel bad about this state of affairs, and friends, it’s time to end the pain. I need to blog or get off the site, so it’s time to retire Radiation. Those heady days when I had a surprising amount to say about television are behind me; some of you will know that all that energy has been used for…

Not funny

Fiona Rae — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:43:00 +1300

Comedy Central New Zealand no longer has broadcasting licences for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, in case you were wondering where they went. A shame, considering the Rally to Restore Sanity is coming up and also this is happening. And let’s not forget Colbert’s March to Keep Fear Alive. There is video on The Daily Show and Colbert Nation websites, of course, or your favourite aunt in America may have to send you the VHS. Thanks for all your comments about the changing Listener website. Early days and all that. I’m afraid I had my fingers in my…

This Is Not My Dan Carter

Fiona Rae — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:01:00 +1200

You can say a lot of things about TVNZ – and people do – but you can’t say they’ve been mean to local drama lately. Go Girls always gets a big push, and they are promoting the crap out of This Is Not My Life, especially the Charles Mesure in his undies angle. Dude is all over town in his undies. Anyone would think he was Dan Carter. The story I did about TINML is here, and the interview I did with Charles is online here. The cast of V, including Charles, has been at Comic-Con and are interviewed by…

Better than Twilight

Fiona Rae — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:15:00 +1200

Sexy old True Blood has started in the US, but don’t worry, if your favourite aunt in America hasn’t sent you a VHS already, Prime is rolling out the naked Viking vampire pretty soon after the American transmission. Two weeks after, in fact, starting on June 30. Grant Bowler has made his first, albeit brief, appearance; there’s a little chat between Stephen Moyer and Grant here. Don’t worry, no spoilers, unless you didn’t know that GB is a werewolf (oops). On the other hand, there will be spoilers in EW’s coverage, which is ginormous. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with…

Geek, annoyed

Fiona Rae — Sun, 30 May 2010 15:50:00 +1200

That was disappointing. Perhaps I expected too much. It’s been consistently cryptic for five seasons, why stop now? Cynically, you could suggest that the series finale of Lost left so many questions unanswered in order to squeeze a few more dollars out of the fans in DVD sales. Honestly, there were logic holes big enough to, er, fly a plane through. If the island and everything that happened on it were real, what was the point of the flash sideways? Was it just some sort of giant MacGuffin? And if flash sideways was just a staging post for heaven, why…

Lost on Internet Island

Fiona Rae — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:02:00 +1200

Next week, the internet will not be safe. Not unless your favourite auntie who lives in America has taped the final of Lost on a compatible format and posted it to you after it screens in the US on May 23 and before it screens here on May 29. If you don’t want to know that the island is really a spaceship, or that it was all an illusion manufactured by machines so they can harvest human bodies for energy, don’t go near the internets, because that shit is going to be totally up in our grills. Lost is looking…

Big bang theory

Fiona Rae — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:24:00 +1300

Hello! Gosh. Long time no blog, I know. It's been so long – since June last year, in fact, that I hardly know where to begin. So much water under the bridge, so much television into the ether. How was the rest of your 2009? Mine ended with a bang and a whimper. But more of that later. I like the fact that we can say "twenty-ten" now, instead of that annoying "and" in "2000-and-nine". But what have we got to look forward to in 20-10? Singing and vampires, that's what. Oh, and werewolves. True Blood season three spoilers here,…

It was all a dream

Fiona Rae — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:47:00 +1200

I really hope that Lost doesn’t turn out to be the collective fantasy of a bunch of hippies on spiked Kool-Aid, because after the Life on Mars hibernation-sleep ending, and House’s Vicodin hallucinations, I don’t think I could take it. Admittedly, House’s fifth-season ending was the logical end to his drug-fuelled self-loathing, but Life on Mars? After the initial surprise wore off, I was kinda annoyed. It’s like Dallas – if it all turns out to be a dream, it risks rendering everything that came before meaningless. Plus, Gretchen Mol’s hair was really annoying. When does the commander of a…

The death of television, again

Fiona Rae — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 14:03:00 +1300

I was working on getting Radiation down to the very bottom of the opening page of Public Address, but seeing as the blog at the bottom is ARD Fairburn from 2006, it’s not working out very well. “Yay! I’d be first at the wrong end!” I was thinking, but “Second at the wrong end” doesn’t sound nearly so cool. It’s no fair coming up against a dead guy anyway, as Robert Downey Jr discovered at the Golden Globes and will probably find out at the Oscars too. Admittedly, there hasn’t been that much telly to write about, and my summer…

Some light on Friday

Fiona Rae — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 14:59:00 +1200

How good is Friday Night Lights? Only one of the best things on US television, according to salon.com, which gave it a Buffy last year – that’s their award for an underappreciated TV show. I love it too, and it’s fun to contrast and compare Lights with Gossip Girl, which was screening at the same time (TV2 is moving Gossip Girl and the odious Make Me a Supermodel to later timeslots as of this Friday). One is a frothy, expensive confection of nothingness, but is so pretty we cannot turn away; the other is a complex, tightly-plotted evocation of small-town…