Last Night's TV

I can't believe I'm writing about telly, but I really want to write about some actual thing that I've seen (as this blog was intended for), even if it's not exactly live performance (as this blog was intended for).

Firstly, I should declare my prejudice: I love TV. I particularly love TV now that we have a house, with a proper sofa and a hard drive recorder with a freeview box. My OH has band rehearsal on Monday nights and from time to time, if I don't have work to do, I like to treat myself to a full 4-5 hour evening session of whatever happens to be on.

I seem to be lucky, as Monday nights tend to have a bit of variety going for them. There have been some excellent BBC4 documentary series over the last year and of course, there's always University "Danny Kendall died in Mr Bronson's car you idiot! Don't you remember? When were you born, you foetus?" Challenge. And also the guilty pleasures of Five US.

So here's how last night went:

7.00 - 7.30 This World: India's Missing Girls (BBC2)
Focusing on the illicit practice of aborting, abandoning or murdering baby girls, simply because their gender paints them a burden to the family - primarily because they lose the family name and wealth (via dowry) on marriage. I'd heard about this story on the World Service, months ago and it still really freaks me out. I just cannot imagine the utter hopelessness you must have to feel to be able to abandon, abort or or kill your own daughter.

It was a extremely sensitive documentary, which neither patronized the people it documented, nor shied away from the brutal horror of what this sacrifice meant. The thing that pulled it away from any notion of 'poverty tourism' was that our main guide was a lady who ran a home for these abandoned kids, loving them, teaching them to value themselves and each other, and visiting mothers-to-be to try and convince them to keep their daughters. It was such a valuable lesson to watch this impossibly kind, strong woman maintaining such conviction that society has to, and will change, even if it's just one person at a time. Equality is not something to take for granted and, I suppose, is as much a question of culture as it is of politics.

I don't often watch the This World series. I don't know whether it's the irregularity of when and where they get scheduled... perhaps my instinct is not to give so much weight to a documentary strand which the BBC feels able to shunt around the schedules like filler. Shame.*

7.30 - 7.45: Not the advertised show about swords but some sort of animation about the plague narrated by Kenneth Branaaaaaaaagh (BBC4)
Well, I'm really turning over because I need to set the recorder for Doctor Who 'The Daemons' - I've been dying to see this one for ages and it's not out on DVD yet, how excited was I when I found out they were showing it on BBC4. To quote Russell T Davies, "Hooray!" Anyway, I hadn't yet watched the first part so it couldn't form part of yesterday's viewing but that was rectified this morning. I really enjoyed it, despite all the to-ing and fro-ing (maybe running up and down a country road is a bit more watchable than running up and down a corridor), and it's got some lovely odd bits of dialogue. It also has the best last line of a Doctor Who episode ever - Brigadier: "I think I'd rather have a pint."

Anyway, the animation was good to look at, but I missed the beginning and couldn't really get into it. Something about the Branaaaaaagh's voice I think. It always makes me feel like someone's reading me a really dull - worthy, but dull - olden daye storye. Which, given that it was based on Defoe, he probably was. Reminded me how much I used to love Dope Sheet though, and how much Channel 4 seems to have lost it's proper fucking cool, recently.

7.45 - 8.00pm: Mastermind (BBC2)
This is filler, obviously, and I mainly read the Guardian Guide article about forthcoming fantasy films. The fact that it takes me 15 mins to read such a short article tells me that I must be spending a good proportion of my time trying to answer the questions. I worry that I'm no longer much younger than most of the contestants.

8.00 - 9.00pm: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Five US)

OK, OK, OK, OK, OK. I know it's wrong, but I love it. I'm not a huge fan of the Miami/New York fakerz, but I could seriously watch CSI Vegas for hours on end. Weirdly, I don't think I'd ever watch any of the box sets. I'm not interested in going to the trouble of choosing to watch CSI, choosing which episode to watch, putting the DVD in the machine, scrolling through the copyright etc. But if it happens to be on, and I'm watching, I get totally sucked in.

I think what lifts original CSI way above Miami and New York is that there is definitely a sense of humour tucked in there somewhere. It's Las Vegas - they can open about how weird, ridiculous and unbelievable the crimes are, because hey, it's Vegas. I also think the team characters are much better drawn out in CSI Vegas than the others, though I've probably seen too few CSI: NY eps to properly form an opinion there. Basically, if I had a crime scene to investigate, I'd DEFINITELY call on Gil Grissom (thoughtful, geeky, possibly somewhere on the autistic spectrum) rather than Horatio Kane (states the obvious... but slowly, dubious attitude to women, dependence on sunglasses) or Mac Taylor (troubled, way too troubled).

What makes me slightly embarrassed about enjoying CSI, is that it has no shame in it's exposition. Even extreme sci-fi usually makes an effort to hide it. Instead, I'm supposed to believe that Sarah really needs to tell Warwick that she found this fingerprint by using yadda yadda powder under yadda yadda specialist light gun after pulling the blah fragment out of the monkey's trousers. It still makes me cringe a little, but it's just such a frighteningly watchable production. There's absolutely nothing British-made I could compare it to - I'd say precisely because I can't imagine any British production really carrying off that outrageous exposition with conviction.

Last night's was season 1. Serial killer trucker kidnapping women from supermarkets and putting them in the freezer. They didn't really have enough time to tell this story properly because there was some ruckus with a day trader killing his brother for inheritance and some random back story business with Nick Stokes and prostitute accused of shoplifting. See what I mean? It really shouldn't work. When I put it down like this it sounds rubbish, but it's so damned watchable!

9.00 - 10.00pm: Fanny Hill (BBC4)
I don't think I've actually seen that many Andrew Davies adaptations. I haven't read "Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" either. I don't really know how to assess this. It was ok. It wasn't exactly a rollercoaster, but it didn't drag too much. I just didn't find it especially interesting - there wasn't anything extraordinary in it for me. It was a bit too "nice" I suppose. It wasn't properly filthy or harsh or, to be honest, sexy. It was more basic about the sex it was having, which is refreshing on one hand, but just a bit dull on the other.

I also found the blokes to be really uncharismatic throughout. There was just something a bit ordinary about the whole thing. I mean, I've generally thought James Hawes' work on Doctor Who had great scope and dynamisim, but this seems very uninspired. I think I was expecting something with a lot more cheekiness and energy. That'll teach me to watch too many trailers.

I dunno, maybe the second part will be better. The bottom line was that I felt like I was watching a literary adaptation, rather than a TV show.

10.00 - 10.30pm: Californication (Five US)
Speaking of trailers - when this was being trailed on 5 at EVERY single opportunity (I'd love to know how many minutes of trailers this show took up prior to broadcast), I thought, "hmmm, doesn't look as bad as I thought it might be, but I'm not sure I can be arsed to watch a man sort his life out via women."

But tonight I was going to watch TV right up until the boyf got back, so I thought ok I'll give it a go. Actually, what I really wanted to catch was '30 Rock', as the trailer for that looked proper funny. Given the timing, the most sensible option was to fill the gap with 'Californication'...

...which was ACE! As I've said, my expectations were by no means Himalayan, but I really didn't expect something that was so funny, engaging, well-written, uncompromising, surprising, foul-mouthed or well-performed. You can always tell that something is really funny when it makes you laugh even though you're watching it by yourself. And this did it a few times. And it wasn't just the gags that were funny - it was the way people looked at each other; or sometimes just the way people looked. It was full of swears, properly rude, and wonderfully unafraid to show characters with some individuality - no matter how impolite. It was way sharper than I expected it to be. I can't wait to see it again.

10.35 - 11.05pm: 30 Rock (Five US)
I think '30 Rock' is a good sitcom. Alec Baldwin is extraordinary - it would be easy to play his character as out and out grotesque. but he plays it with so much charm and subtlety that it's always funny when you're reminded what an utter twat he is. But ultimately, '30Rock' is a sitcom, and one of the generic motifs of sitcom is that you're always just getting to the punchline. And for me, that's never going to be quite as satisfying as a dynamic which is driven by character. Unless it's an amazing punchline - but that's rarely going to be more than once in a show. You can tell it was written by someone who was good at writing gags. This was definitely a comedian's show. But there's a slight theatricality to it - almost like playing to the floor - that for me makes it less absorbing TV. Having said that, it is funny. It is in no way pompous. I had a good time watching it and I'd certainly recommend it - if only for Alec Baldwin's performance.

*Edit: I've since realised that This World is actually pretty constant in the schedules. I must have got confused with it's moving between digital and terrestrial telly. Sorry BBC. My bad.