Stuff I Watched: 4th Oct – 7th Oct 2009

FlashForward: Channel 5 (Recorded 28th Sept Watched 4th Oct)

This was the first episode of a new high concept US drama series in which the entire planet’s population blacks out for two minutes (and 17 seconds) and has a vision of their future.  It’s an intriguing premise, but my main question during the show was whether that glamorous blonde model lady was really likely to be a terrorist.  I don’t want to judge a book by its cover, but I’m guessing it wasn’t very likely.

And the plot itself? Well, the writers have a difficult job to achieve in the opening episode of these kind of programmes as they have to set the scene and establish the concept, as well as trying to make an hour of gripping television.  I’m not entirely sure that they succeeded, and none of the characters are compelling at the moment, but it’s definitely interesting enough for me to give it time to bed in.

I have to give a special mention to the FBI agent who, within a few hours, was able to check every CCTV camera in the world, and then pick out a single person in a sports arena, who wasn’t even visible.  That’s quite an impressive morning’s work.

10 Things I Hate About You: Fiver (R 30th Sept W 4th Oct)

After watching the first episode, last week, it took less than a minute of this second episode before I decided that I really shouldn’t be watching this and deleted it.  There’s nothing wrong with it per se, I’m just very much in the wrong demographic, and I felt slightly wrong for even having recorded it.

Life: ITV3 (R 30th W 4th Oct)

’3 Women’ – Charlie has a new (temporary) partner, so I can only assume that Sarah Shahi is still on maternity leave.  Having written that last sentence, I realised that I’m just assuming, so I did a quick google and she really was pregnant. Maybe I really should be a detective.

Perhaps I should make a comment on the programme itself while I’m here.  Although, I don’t really have a great deal to say about it.  It’s an enjoyable enough hour of  television, but I could honestly take it or leave it.  The most interesting thing about it is the way that the tone of the show has shifted so much since the start of season one that you’d barely know it was the same series.

Eastbound and Down: FX (R 1st Oct W 5th Oct)

This was the first episode of a new comedy series that one of the broadsheets compared favourably with Alan Partridge and Curb Your Enthusiasm.  In which case, it was was almost inevitable that it was going to disappoint, and it did.  I found it staggeringly unfunny.

It’s the story of Kenny Powers, an egotistical and bankrupt (morally and financially), former baseball star, who returns to his home town.  There’s a knack to being a successful unlikeable comedy character; you have to be either unlikeable but somehow still likeable or unlikeable but really funny.  Powers is neither, he’s  just crass but boring (crass and funny would have been more than OK).  Strangely, I’ll probably give this another go; sometimes when a comedy is ‘different’ it can take you a while to tune in to it.  Let’s hope for a drastic improvement then.

Important Things with Demetri Martin:  E4 (R 1st Oct W 5th Oct)

Episode 2.  I really wanted to like it.  I didn’t.  I deleted it.

How Not To Live Your Life: BBC HD (R 6th Oct W 7th Oct)

‘Don Goes Gay’ – This could have been another stereotypical, ‘let’s laugh at the gays’, half hour of comedy, but it ended up being the funniest episode yet.  Instead of being freaked out by someone assuming he was gay, Don decided that he must be gay and fully embraced becoming a ‘gayman’.  The results were hilarious and were clearly poking fun at his preconceptions of what it meant to be gay.