Having pretensions towards being a middle-class intellectual, I should pretend that I don't watch TV. Apparently, TV is for the unwashed uneducated underclass. When I got satellite TV, I explained that it was for the intellectual channels and football.
Besides, if you admit to watching TV, it is like admitting that you don't go out, and for pseudo-intellectuals that is a dreadful admission. Apparently, it is intellectually okay to go to the cinema but, watching the same film on the TV isn't. Or doesn't actually count as TV watching. And going out, even if it's to Karaoke Night at the pub or to indulge in narcissism in a gym, are intellectually superior to enjoying the comforts of one's own home on a dark winter's night.
So, I reckon if you subtract from my total TV viewing hours the films I didn't get round to seeing at the cinema, and operas, whether broadcast or on DVD, plus Manchester United live (although this idiot even missed highlights of a six-nil victory over Newcastle) and also the news, which isn't really telly at all, I don't watch telly.
Not much, anyway. On Thursday I watched Waterloo Road, and the end of Little Miss Jocelyn (which looks worth watching next week). On Friday I watched two episodes of both Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach, and Jam and Jerusalem. Last night I watched West Wing and two films - World Trade Center and You've Got Mail.
In respect of the films, they were both reasonably good in their different ways, and worthwhile for this phase I'm going through of watching a lot of films, but I don't think that failing to have seen them would have diminished my life. I found the WTC uncomfortable. We all know what happened on 11 September 2001; I can see that it was important for posterity to make the film, but even though it was based upon the real experiences of real people, I did feel uncomfortable using this as entertainment as I pootled around, eating dinner, doing the ironing and so on.
You've Got Mail was feel good Chick Flick and nothing profoundly wrong with that. The 'moral' of the story is that people present a different persona depending on the context. I was amused by the anachronisms presented by a) the leitmotif of a dial-up, a sound one rarely hears in this broadband era, and the incredible 'you have no new mail' - well, obviously you have not subscribed to any Yahoo Groups nor do you have marketing emails from chosen suppliers - I regularly receive emails from organisations and companies with which I have repeat business, and I receive some of my household bills via email. Some spam gets through, although, thankfully, not too much.
As for TV, well, I keep watching Waterloo Road even though it is becoming increasingly crap. They have these inspired story lines and then they fail to bring them off convincingly. It is way too convenient that everything is resolved at the end of an episode, which inevitably is happy, with no baggage carried over to the next episode, which is inadequate resolution in my opinion. Also, there are far too many incidents that suddenly erupt with no back-story having been hinted at. It's as if they plan each episode in isolation. The acting isn't generally bad, although there are a few characters whose prominence exceeds their acting ability.
Echo Beach is dire, really bad. Having seen Moving Wallpaper, I spent some time assuming it was also parody, with the clichéd dialogue, and Martine McCutcheon's wooden acting. I think Hugo Speer is wasted in this, being capable of portraying more subtle characters. And darling Jason Donovan. I can't believe they've made him play an old person - in Moving Wallpaper they accused him of being forty, when in actual fact he was born the same year as me, 1968. And he is cute, but I'm not sure what's going on with the accent. Still it's not as bad as Ringo Starr who sounded hilarious on the news as Liverpool had a concert to kick off their year as European City of Culture (a pretty ridiculous notion anyway, and it seems the star turn was Ringo Starr, singing - you know, he was the Beatle who (nearly) played the drums). I see they use the Martha and the Muffins song as a theme, but noticeably wordless, because any casual reading of that classic pop song will understand that it is about the contrast between a dull office job and a beautiful beach, whereas this is all about people who live and work
in a seaside resort.
But Moving Wallpaper is engaging and genuinely laugh out loud funny. Sadly, in order fully to enjoy it, one has to endure the really bad Echo Beach. So as the weeks go by, it will be interesting to see how the balance goes.
West Wing was excellent. Although it was mainly creating the backstory for future episodes, including the returns of Danny Concannon and Zoe Bartlett it managed also to give us some insight into the characters, notably of Jed, Josh and Toby. There was an appearance by the Whiffenpoofs. I can understand that they are technically brilliant and I can see why some people might find them beautiful. But I really hate this a capella style singing, Barbershop Quartets and the like. It sounds to me so anaemic, washed out and soulless.
Anyway, there's a whole night's telly on tonight, including clashes beyond the ability of Sky+...oh why oh why oh why oh why don't Terrestrial channels have +1 channels? (The answer, of course, is to do with their desperation for ratings...). So I must go...
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