I’ve discovered a hitherto unforeseen skill, which is rather ironic considering what the skill is. When I predicted that I would most likely pathetically not be able to keep up with the weekly blog, how right I was, and how psychic! Sorry about last week.
So Spooks is good value until the next season of 24 starts (where is that, btw?). It’s got that 24 fast-action, split-screen, implausible outcome thing going on, with so many corrupt government ministers, terrorist cells and threats to Britain that it turns into a big amoral soup where no-one is innocent and there are, actually, no conclusions to be drawn whatever. I do wonder if it is capturing something of the zeitgeist of Britain 2007, where there have been actual terrorist acts.
Oh my God! You killed Jay! You bastards! Just when we were thinking that Shortland Street was like Hotel California – you can check out but you can never leave – they’re getting rid of characters willy-nilly like a communist purge. Very much liking the Nurse Alice and the New Doctor storyline (did he come to find her? Is he her one that got away? Could he take his shirt off before 7.30pm?). Alice and Craig never seemed that great a fit. Toni Potter (Alice) and Will Hall (Dr Kip) are doing a video chat on Monday.
Some links for Sat-Mon:
Saturday
• Movies are a bit rubbish: The Mummy Returns (TV3) gets a three; My Boss’s Daughter (TV2) gets a three; and The Naked Gun (TV2) gets a five from Philip in the Listener.
• Diana: Last Days of a Princess (TV1) is a weird docu-drama type of thing that Kathryn Flett in the Guardian thought might have been written by chimps given access to Olivetti typewriters. Be thankful we’re on the other side of the world during the 10th anniversary commemorations, although Simon Hoggart’s recollections here are amusing and the News of the World editor at the time of the crash has finally said he felt bad about it.
• The classic Serpico is on MGM.
Sunday
• The lovely Dean Lennox Kelly (Shameless) plays William Shakespeare in Doctor Who (Prime).
• The movies are better tonight: Emma (TV1) gets a seven; The School of Rock (TV2) gets a nine; Super Size Me (C4) gets a 10; and The Woodsman (Maori) gets a nine from Philip.
• Don’t miss Artsville (TV1); it’s Shirley Horrocks’ doco The Comics Show, which screened at the Film Festival this year.
Monday
• The lovely Jane Espenson wrote for Jake in Progress (TV3, 11.00am), which is really just an excuse to mention her name. Here’s a story she wrote for the New Republic about liking Harry Potter. Her blog is here.
• Hollyoaks starts on C4.
• Piha Rescue returns on TV1, reinforcing my determination never to go swimming at Piha.
• 60 Minutes (TV3) has stories about Kiwi women marrying younger foreigners; the wife of Australian swimmer Kieran Perkins undergoing experimental surgery to alleviate her debilitating migraines; and a woman who bought what could be a Jackson Pollock painting for $5.
• Spooks has learned a lesson from Joss Whedon: put your much-loved characters in danger. Tonight: Ruth.
• Grant Lahood’s short film Lemming Aid (Maori) won at Cannes in 1994. He and producer John Keir will have a studio korero with Ainsley Gardiner and Tearepa Kahi.
• Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton and musical guests Willie Nelson and Kenny Chesney are on Letterman.