Greg Proops just had to do a whole routine about Shrek didn’t he? I was so embarrassed. But then I realised, no wait – he’s got Dubya. That’s a whole lot more embarrassment right there. But, oh god, he was right. Are we so starved for entertainment that we have devote whole live television shows to a sheep?
Shrek’s cave, Shrek’s view for god’s sake. They stopped short at showing Shrek’s poop on Holmes, but I swear I saw some when they were inspecting Shrek’s food source, which was – no really – the grasses growing outside his cave.
Holmes huffed and puffed his way around the high country like a bag of lard, and then huffed and puffed his way around the television shearing shed. “What more is there to say?” he asked at one point, and I had to wonder. What indeed. It’s a friggin’ sheep! But Holmes, who has clearly never heard of letting the picture tell the story (and is that a simple story or what?) waffled desperately on. Apparently, his every waking moment has to be filled with speech of some kind.
Possibly the only interesting moment was when Shrek’s owner revealed why he’d chosen to have Shrek shorn with the good old manual blades, rather than the vicious electric kind. He didn’t want to stress the sheep too much, which I think is farmer talk for, ‘it would be a really bad look if a sheep that hasn’t been shorn for six years karked it of shock right there on television’. Personally, I think it would really have livened things up.
And what about all those little kids holding up signs reading “Shrek Rocks”? That is just sad. Haven’t they heard of Playstation down there? Anyway, enough! Argh! It’s just a friggin’ sheep!
I am so busted. There I was thinking I was an ordinary mother of two living a happy life in Pt Chev doing a few blogs about the telly and then a weird guy with deformities and a cowboy hat walked into the bedroom where I was lying in a heroin-induced stupor and said, ‘time to wake up little girl’ and I come around to find I am Damian Christie! Bring on the dwarves …
Which is a nice segue into this email from Ant Timpson:
I can’t believe you haven’t devoted any pixels to the most rancid piece of reality TV ever to come slurping down the pike.
Paradise Hotel is, bar none, the most compulsively watchable, slickly packaged and masterful edited, hunk of excrement ever to grace the ugly glowbox.
Watch in awe at the insipid, shallow, vain, petty monster -- and that’s just the host! It’s also the only show that confuses its audience into thinking they’re losing their minds, what with Prime and Sky 1 both showing the show slightly out of sequence, you never know what you’re watching isn’t future history past. And don’t even try to follow the show’s logic. They changed the format halfway through due to budgetary cuts! They’re making it up as it goes along. I’m serious! It’s quite incredible.
All this plus my fave show coming soon -- The Littlest Bachelor. Yes you heard right. The Bachelor with midgets and dwarves. And then in the surprise twist ala Average Joe they bring in the full height people. Can you wait?
Also one local women’s rag already spoiled the end of the new Trump show. Doesn't anyone subedit those turdrags? They’ve spoiled Survivor in the past but never have they ruined a show that hasn’t even started screening.
I actually did have a look at Paradise Hotel on your recommendation Ant, but about 20 seconds in I had a brain aneurysm and fell into a coma. When I come round (again), I found I had the intellectual capacity of Paris Hilton. Damian Christie is actually writing this blog.
Which segues into this link from Chris, about the reality spin 20/20 in the US put on an item where couples were vying, on camera, to adopt a baby. Weirdly, spoon bender Uri Geller is threatening legal action, claiming the idea comes from his unpublished novel. Even more weirdly, Geller has the patent on the idea.
James writes that he’d like to take credit for the MTV Blag show mentioned in the last post in connection with Brent Hansen:
I sat next to Brent at last year’s bnet NZ music awards for the entire evening, and having discussed various other topics (mostly our mutual upbringings in Chch), eventually came to the topic of my presence: “So how are you involved in all of this [the bnet awards]?” he asked. “I'm not,” I replied honestly, “I blagged my way in -- I'm actually just the librarian at the Metservice.” Oh how he laughed! I wonder if I can get a look-in on the profits?
Paul writes that he just doesn’t get Nip/Tuck:
I watched the first couple but there isn’t anyone that I empathise with or anyone I could give a rat’s arse about (to put it bluntly). Not the kids, not the patients, not the doctors, not the girlfriends ... what's the point? Now, Buffy, that’s a different matter. Have just ordered Season 2 on DVD from Aus cos it’s on sale. Mmmmm Willow.
And that James Griffin had promised that “Big Hairy Balls”, the Serial Killers ep on Friday was good:
… and by the gods he was right! More like that. Yes. Got it in one. Excellent comedy – wouldn’t have been out of place in a series like Frontline I would suggest. Boffo, a good one.
Lastly, I’ve just seen the first ep of The Insiders Guide to Happiness, which starts May 20, and I can report good things. It’s a sort of weddings-funerals-anything crossed with Chaos Theory, Karma and Wellington. The ep was a bit more serious than I thought it would be and it has a challenging criss-cross of characters, events and even timelines, but hell, we’ve seen Pulp Fiction and Memento. Heck, even episodes of ER have been told backwards. We can cope.