Radiation by Fiona Rae

Sometimes I think Alias only exists to show Jennifer Garner in her underwear. Or a bikini – did you see that on Tuesday? The panning shots, the slo-mo. If the acting thing doesn’t work out for her, there’s a great career awaiting at Victoria’s Secret or Sports Illustrated.

Ah well, in these post-Buffy times we have to get our thrills somewhere and Alias has the Buffy metaphor thing going: stuck in a life she desperately wants out of, an unattainable boyfriend (that is until she, er, attained him this week), distant father, the fate of the world at stake. And the yearning, always with the yearning.

Bennie disagrees however:

How come we get endless episodes of Alias with a bored looking actress walking around and getting beaten up all the time, yet Dark Angel, simply the best action-chick-beats-up-guys show since Buffy gets two series left with a huge cliffhanger and then relegated to Sky? I don't dislike my parents or anything, but seeing them every week just to watch Sky is getting on my tits.

Actually, I thought Dark Angel was a typical James Cameron load of old bollocks, but to each his own kick-ass action chick. You could check out which episode you’re up to at this guide at tvtome.com, Bennie.

I usually get the guest list for Letterman each week from Prime, tonight it’s Matthew Perry and Lou Reed. Tomorrow (Friday), Johnny Knoxville and The Walkmen, Monday (5th) The Rock and Liz Phair, Tuesday and Wednesday are TBA, Thursday (8th) is Bruce Willis and a wolf rescue lady, and Friday (9th) is comedian Jimmy Fallon and Britney Spears. Prime also says that we’re two days behind, so if you go to the website, you can work it out. Unfortunately, we missed Janet Jackson last night.

Kris Lane would prefer to see The Daily Show, however:

Something that we never see over here in New Zealand but I'm sure it would be much better than David Letterman's fawning on Prime would be The Daily Show.

I like the internet combined with TiVo with one women's BLOG on media gets us a whole heap of topical QuickTime clips to crack up over -- www.onlisareinsradar.com.

Supported in part by Archive.org, who provide bandwidth and have the mean task of archiving the internet and moving image (they have George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead available for download).

It's a great use of the internet that is freely available (not a great thing for my Jetstream bill though).

But on the case of TiVo, I want one that could work without straining my frontal lobe to get it to work with the NZ infrastructure.

Some bloke called Russell Brown wrote about TiVo in his Listener column recently. We’ve been loaned one, but can’t get it to see our Sky decoder. Plus, its proximity to the TV screen caused that “gaussing” effect or whatever it’s called, when a magnet gets too close to the screen. Besides, have you seen the weekend papers? Chock-full of ads for PVRs which all have timeslip capability. It won't be long before they're selling them at the supermarket.

Lastly, both networks are rescreening interviews with Michael King. TV One’s is the Kim Hill interview on Friday at 10.15pm, TV3 screens the John Campbell Home Truths interview on Sunday 10.30pm.

Salon.com's Heather Havrilesky recently held a Fix 24 contest; the top six entries included the gem: "Two words: musical episode." Sadly, Jack's unlikely to break out into song ("Regrets, I've had a few ..."), he's wrecked his voice with all that heroin and shouting for a start, but you get the point: maybe the "real-time" concept was never meant to go to three seasons.

My pick for a fix would be a flashback to Jack's time with the Salazar Gang - you know, getting his tattoo, getting high, slickly killing Ramon and Hector's enemies and having sex with Mexican hos for his country. Looks like I might get my wish too, after Thursday's double-double cross. He's already given the clearly expendable Pedro the scissor legs of death, the partying can't be too far away.

Jack's an anti-hero, but I'm not sure my sympathies lie with him anymore. 24 often seems to be an exercise in getting Jack into the most inextricable positions possible, then finding novel ways to extricate him. They also seem to think they needed a Sherry substitute, but I'm not buying the President's brother, either, even if it is DB Woodside, the spunky principal from the last season of Buffy. They don't even look alike.

But sometimes you have to sit back and feel the width: that's about a million bucks on screen right there, folks, in unmarked US banknotes, including some for Kiwi DOP Rodney Charters.

And now let's open the mail bag. John Watson comments that,

The BBC has regular roundtable discussions between media correspondents on topical local and international affairs. We need more open discussion -- not the pre-recorded sanitised variety we are getting.

That we do, although who's going to run the thing? I happened to catch a bit of Marae one morning and guess what? They were having not so much a round table discussion as a round couch one about Brash's speech/race relations etc that was enlightening. The only programme to actually get all parties together. Incredible. That would be Marae, on Sunday morning. At 11am.

And a big squishy welcome to Vibeke, who is a mum who liked Sesame Street. A lot. (Motherhood will do that to you. The technical term is "Mummybrain".) Unfortunately it's been replaced:

Options now seem stupid pink and lime green party animals, whose sole purpose in life is to say party party party, a mouse that likes ballet, hardly very punchy either, or High Five or the Wiggles and YES I KNOW THE KIDS LIKE IT, the kids like just about anything that moves ... but High Five is blond girlies in short tops looking sexy and the boys are showing off their fashionable jeans and they all pout and purr and I know that young people look nice, but why would you have to be under 22, and look like a tvdatingshowhost to be a child entertainer? And the Wiggles, well they are a bit wooden. And then Blue's Clues, DO YOU REALLY NEED TO SPELL EVERYTHING OUT LIKE THAT?

How about children's TV that is funny, and a little twisted and down to earth and has real people in it and represents the diversity or our society and is not about clothes or things you want to own or have to get, and is imaginative and not preachy and not overly goody-good educational but simply good TV, good story telling, good variety, and a little bit wacky?

Gosh I'm lucky I missed the era of High Five and my kids never liked the Christian fervour of the Wiggles. It was all Thomas the Tank Engine in my day. You wait, Vibeke - the hell of Yu-gi-oh! and the excruciating Dragonball Z may yet come. If you think High Five is bad, try sitting through the Pokemon movie. Twice. Current fave in our house: Megaman.

Some websites we like:
Square Eyes recommends www.tvshowsondvd.com and the Six Feet Under site is kick-ass, according to Magz. Yeah, those HBO sites are really good - check out The Sopranos. You just have to be careful of spoilers, as The Sopranos has just started in the US. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Steve Buscemi is in it this season. Yay! TV One will be playing the fourth season of Six Feet Under (a few of you are hanging out!). I'll see if they can give me an approximate on when.

I've also had an email from Robyn at idolblog.com, which is a fantastic site. I've been thinking about NZ Idol, so will address that in the near future.

Big, warm, squishy thank yous to everyone who emailed, there are far too many for just one post. We have lots to talk about. Game freakin’ on guys.

Actually, “game freakin’ on” is what Entertainment Weekly said about Survivor: Allstars. They were very excited about it, and it’s huge in the US, but Simon Aimer prefers to read about it on Television Without Pity, which has great, if rather lengthy, blow-by-blows. Nic Igusa also recommended TWoP.

But before I get to more mail, what do we think of Christopher Eccleston being the new Dr Who? He didn’t seem quite right at first, he’s such a serious actor don’t you know, but I’m warming to the idea and he was fantastic in Clocking Off. He’s got the requisite weirdness and doesn’t mind a bit a ass-baring (Elizabeth), but I hope the BBC doesn’t try to turn him into too much of an action hero. Serious consideration should also be given to using the Blam Blam Blam version of the Dr Who theme. This interview in The Guardian shows him to be not as dour as we’ve been led to believe. Flesh and Blood has been screening on the Rialto channel, if you’ve got Sky.

Like Lindsay Vette, I can’t stand reality shows. I mean, who cares?

Our preference is for just about anything but reality TV (and Coronation St). Apparently this doesn't sell enough Persil or carpet or whatever, so after about six episodes, it seems to be canned or reshuffled out of prime time to 11pm or later.

Examples: Sea Change, The Secret Life of Us, Keen Eddie.

Maybe we should just accept our lot, have the lobotomy and start watching Paradise Hotel and Survivor. As it is we seem to have a huge stock of recorded programmes that we now need to take a week’s leave to watch.

Yes, the great god of ratings, Tangata Mita, rules over all the television in the land. Maori Television has a carving in the foyer. The latest series of The Secret Life of Us has been on at 11pm all along – I love it, such attractive characters, but it’s a little bit like that song that goes “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens …” I can tell you that only 13 eps of Keen Eddie were made, but I don’t know if TV3 played all of them.

Quite a few of you complained about time shifts – we hate the networks playing fast and loose with series. Michael Wynd was also watching Joan of Arcadia, but it’s been pulled in favour of the “old and very, very tired” Charmed. He also had things to say about Paul Homes interview with Kevin Barry: “Did Holmes feel any sense that it was unbalanced and frankly gave Barry a venue to make dubious allegations against his former client?” You may also see that Russell Brown has plenty to say about Holmes’ interview with Nick Smith on Wednesday night.

Peter McLennan loves the bogan heaven of Monster Garage on Prime. Actually, so do my boy children. It’s kinda nice that they didn’t think it was that unusual that there were girls in the chop shop last week, wielding welding gear and getting tattoos. Kung Faux on C4 gets the nod from Peter as well.

Ian Parkes is really pissed off about Sunday Theatre, the new promos are “just bloody movies and other recycled tosh.” Although I don’t think you can blame Ralston, Ian, he’s strictly news and current affairs.

I spent three years in Singapore -- the land of the three-letter acronym -- and they had the most godawful TV on the planet. At least I hope it was. What it lacked most was a healthy weekly injection of QBD -- quality British drama. It was one of the things I remembered most fondly about NZ. And now I come back, not only to find that Prime has sold out and now offers only fragments of its formerly stunning programming but to see that Sunday Theatre, the holy of holies is being sodded about with as well. It's an outrage, etc.

There has been some wailing and gnashing of teeth in Britain about the state of drama, it’s not as abundant as it used to be and for a while there it all starred Michelle Collins. According to TVNZ, the new ST season also includes Prime Suspect VI, which got really good reviews in Britain, the Jimmy McGovern-penned Sunday, which is about Bloody Sunday and stars Dr Who, sorry, Christopher Eccleston, and something called Suspicion, which is … oh god, another murder mystery.

I did think Murphy’s Law was really bloody good btw. The opening sequences were brilliantly edited.

Radiation also welcomes Mark Everton, an actual TV producer-type person, who sent his best wishes:

Careful, considered, informed and passionate debate is what we need -- from people who actually do care and have some positive thoughts to share.

Gemma Gracewood would like to see a twice-yearly critique of Shortland Street, which I’m sure is possible – you can write it, hon. Btw, could someone please slap Nelson? But maybe after he takes his shirt off again.

Lastly, Dave Chowdhury says his solution is to not watch TV. I’m sorry, Dave, but that just doesn’t count.

Unusually, there were a couple of responses to my last column in e.g. about stuff that's been annoying me on television lately. I say unusually because I didn't think anyone actually read those columns, and hardly anyone ever bothers to email me about them, unless it's to complain.

David Bott complained that Judy Bailey's voice has become nothing better than a screeching canary and also asked why TV One's weather presenters occasionally appear in different places around the country to present the weather, which is a very good point. The saddest time was when Kay had to do the weather from Matamata, the home of Hobbiton, when nearly all the other presenters were living it up on the red carpet interviewing Elijah and Liv for the world premiere of Return of the King in Wellywood. I'm sure she's too nice to say, but I know a few thoughts about where I'd have liked to insert Anduril into my news director would have been crossing my mind had I been her.

It's not just weather presenters either: Tony Veitch had to shout (at least he's good at that) the sports news over the racket being made by The Crusty Demons at Western Springs last weekend.

Chris Barry emailed to say he and his mates were also annoyed about TV3 screening season two of Angel, but did I know that they were now showing season four? I'd been told by the PR department that they were showing season two and wasn't bothering to watch, but TV3 switched a few episodes in to the new episodes. We all missed it, of course.

Happily, TV3 were good enough to send me tapes, but unhappily, didn't bother to reply to Chris's emails. Just as well we're fangeeks, and can swap tapes, then.

But I digress, which is possibly what this blog should be called, because the real reason for starting Radiation is to see if anyone's interested in a TV dialogue. Let's start the discussion. We don't have to have an inquiry or anything, just air our views. Most people have something to say about television, although if you write to say "It's all crap" that probably won't count. You have to say why.

Also welcome: your favourite TV sites, interesting stories you've found, anything fun or illuminating. Let's talk: the phone lines are open.