Category Archives: television

I need to get you all up to date with the telly I’m watching.
As you know, I’m a big fat Smallville fan, and cannot justify this passion with any sensible reason. I don’t find the protagonist (or anyone else in the program) particularly hawt (though Lana’s real-life athletic ability blows my brain. I LOVE that she’s far more athletic and body-aware than Clark’s actor). I don’t much care about the story (though I do like the idea of a pre-superman Clarky, and have speculated at length about his eventual superhero/secret identity split, not to mention the relationship between Clark and Lex as possible motivation for their falling out – slash-gone-wrong!).
I think it’s a combination of speculative fiction-ness + bright colours + teen telly + serial narrative.
We are still waiting on season 3 of Deadwood. Now that’s the fushizzle.
We have just finished season 5 (or is it 4?) of The Sopranos, and while I’d really like to see the next season(s), I do find it a bit dark and distressing.
We have given up on rewatching Buffy and Angel, but you know.
Forced to the point of desperation, I decided to start on Supernatural. Browsing my local video shop, it was either that or Party of Five (goddess forbid). It’s ok, I like it. It looks good (though there are some dodgy moments – don’t pay too much attention to where the window frame is when the boys are talking while driving in their car), the characters are hawt (Lana’s boyfriend is here, as Dean – and much better cast), we keep running into people from Angel (Angel’s son, Fred and – most fabulously – Darla, in a top episode about faith healing) and there’s a big fat muscle car that would make Glen weep.

It’s the big fat muscle car that kind of set up my viewing for me, really.
Does anyone else remember Good Guys Bad Guys? I think, more importantly, does anyone remember a) the car? and b) Marcus Graham, gay man extrordinaire? Watching Supernatural, all I can think of is that excellent Aussie drama, particularly when the boys slip into their eternally-shiny muscle car.
Maybe it’s just that I’m geared towards romantic comedies with a supernatural twist, but I need to see a little unrequited lust action. As with Lex and Clark, I just know that Dean and Sam are suppressing deep, reciprocated, yet repressed desires. The whole being brothers thing? Ah, we all know it’s a sham, a cover up. And I’m sure I’m not the only one noticing this relationship – the doods are continually checking into cheap motel rooms together. And remember that episode Bugs, where they were mistaken for a couple investing in a property on a new housing estate (not once but a few times)?
I don’t really know what I like about this program. I’m easily scared, and get a good scaring each episode (sad but true). I get a bit annoyed by the excessive contrast – too much dark. Too much blue light. I know that’s the point and that this is a semi-horror show, but…
I’m also a bit annoyed by the sloooow meta-arc (is that the term – you know, the overarching story arc that links all the episodes in the season together). These are in part problems resulting from my binge-viewing (man, who watches telly one episode at a time any more? That’s crazy talk!), but perhaps also part of the first-season problems that happen with most of these programs. I’m also a bit yeah-yeah, monster of the week, but that could improve – look where buffy went from there.
I’m also a bit unsure of the gender stuff. So far (I’m only part way through season one), girls are to be ogled (usually by Dean, though surreptitiously by Sam on occasion… though he spends far more time looking at Dean), saved and then left behind. Except for that hitchhiking wicca chick. But I just figure, this whole program is so mega-masculinity it kind of topples over under its own weight, crumbling into delicious homoerotic subtext. No one does uber-macho like a gay man.
But if you’re looking for beautiful fannish stuff (and we are, of course), then you have to check out the Supernatural action on Misplaced Moments. If you’re a Buffy, Firefly of other supernatural fan, you’ll find plenty of other lovely things on that site.
And beyond Supernatural, we’ve also gotten hold of the first eight episodes of Heroes, which we’re… hm. I want to say enjoying. But goddamn, that’s some gorey shit. I don’t much like guts, and Heroes is riddled with it. I’d definitely not let a kid watch it, so I’m not sure what Channel 7 (or is 9?) are thinking with their advertising. I’m not sure about the gender stuff there yet, either. All fairly traditional stuff, and the writing is a bit ordinary (at episode 3), so I’m not expecting anything particularly subersive. I’ve also noticed a few too many continuity errors, which does not please me. But I need some good, solid telly action, on DVD so I don’t have to fool with ad breaks and not seeing the whole thing all at once.

Shameless, however, rocks the free world.
[EDIT: I had to add that pic of the Heroes doods because I’m a bit fascinated by the whole ‘ensemble cast’ thing in these sorts of telly shows. I remember Joss Whedon explaining that Firefly wouldn’t have really worked long term because the cast was too small – too few major characters to sustain a program over a long period of time. This is an interesting thought, and makes me wonder if it’s a marker of nowen days telly. Did programs like …um, name blank. That 70s cop drama with the two women cops. Anyway, did it have a big ensemble cast? Is it a drama thing, because shows like Raymond (gag) manage with a small cast. If you have too small a cast, do you end up in monster-of-the-week territory (poor Sam and Dean. Destined to travel the deep south scuffling with monsters til someone discovers they need a few more characters. Sigh)?
2nd EDIT: I forgot to mention. The thing that I REALLY hate about Supernatural is the way the supernatural stuff is always really evil. There’s no sitting down at a poker table to gamble for kittens with these doods.
3rd EDIT: Link to official Supernatural via Glenn’s interesting post. I am so five minutes ago.]

The other night there was a story about the Exclusive Brethren on Four Corners which we watched all the way through.
This was mostly a story about people who had left this very conservative relgious group, and there was much discussion of the Brethren’s equivalent to ‘shunnning’, where ‘excommunicated’ members were excluded from the community. This meant that they weren’t allowed to talk to, touch or interact with their families or any other Brethren after they’d been excommunicated. When you take into account the fact that this group do not allow their members to eat or drink with non-members – effectively ‘separating’ them from the rest of society, being ‘excommunicated’ is a devastating practice.
One of the things that I noticed was how passive and unaggressive all the former Brethren members were. They spoke of experiences which made us cry, but their manner remained largely ‘flat’ – definitely unaggressive. And while there was reference made at one point to one man’s ‘aggressive’ response to being excommunicated, it wasn’t really in the range of ‘normal’ aggression, as I’d put it.
It was frightening stuff: to see people who’s lives had been devastated responding calmly. It made me wonder if perhaps they were all seriously depressed (though they probably were – suicide rates for excommunicate Brethren are frighteningly high), but it also made me think about how such controlling religions encourage passivity. It also made me think about what it would be like to teach students who’d been trained so thoroughly not to think critically, or to question.
Scary stuff.

While I’m almost ready to drop this particular bundle (dang I’m carrying some thesis-anxiety), the BB discussion continues.
There’s another article by Mark up at Lavartus Prodeo (where I’m quoted a bit, as are a few other interesting items by people like Galaxy (also here) and Ms Fits and others).
One of the heaviest heavy weights, Ms Greer, has chimed in, which must have the BB people “hugging themselves with glee” (to quote this article), PR-wise. This is an article which addresses the sorts of issues I’m most interested in, yet when Greer writes:

When Camilla heard that Ashley and John had been evicted, her response was baffling. “I’m really sorry, guys,” she wept. “I feel so bad.”

I’m surprised. Surely she can understand why this woman felt this way at that moment? I mean, it’s nothing new to see a woman ladened with guilt for the actions of male sexual misbehaviour… If only we could all be as robust as Germaine, strong enough not to carry that guilt*.
Perhaps more interestingly, surely its not so baffling that Camilla’s having a bit of a cry, when it’s been made so clear that she (of the three) was not expelled from the house? I imagine I’d be up there in the crying stakes in such a strange, pressure-cooker situation even without mysterious suprise ‘evictions’, public humiliation and implied guilt-by-exemption.
And as this story continues, part of me wonders why it’s so simple for BB to evict difficult housemates, when it always took us weeks and weeks to get rid of difficult housemates when I was share-housing? If we could simply have whisked them away, perhaps I’d still have my copy of The Mists of Avalon.**
…in an aside, I wonder if it’s worth thinking about the context of this ‘sexual harassment’ (I use quotes because the status of the incident is still in doubt in some minds… not mine, though). These things happened ‘in the home’. Yet this is a very public private space. Am I pushing too far when I wonder if this issue, the entire BB program, offers a fascinating opportunity to think about the perormance of public and private space, the sexual relationships between young people in public/private space?
Of course, we can’t really say that BB offers an ‘authentic’ view of private domestic life, but it does offer us an opportunity to think about the way particular types of men and women live and behave together under trying circumstances. And while the issue of sex seems foremost on everyone’s minds (anyone who objects to mixed-sex showering should avoid Herrang… hell, any dance camp), the gastropod in me is always wondering what exactly they’re cooking for dinner, and who will do the washing up.
Though not to forget Ms Greer’s points:

Every picture tells a story, but no picture tells the whole story. No word is more abused by Big Brother producers than “live”, unless it is “uncut”. Perhaps universities should start running courses on how to watch Big Brother, teaching students to discern how, when and where the mix is being manipulated, and what insultingly tatty television it is, in terms of production values.

Setting aside the whole issue of ‘taste’ (something Galaxy and others could no doubt discuss more cleverly than I), is anyone else kind of digging the fact that all of this online bloggage (rather than ‘news’) on the topic is conducted by people who are engaged in teaching the ‘BB demograph’ (ie young men and women) about media and cultural studies and gender and so on, as made particularly clear on Moment to Moment?
Speaking as someone who’s had to explain why feminism is important in a media studies subject, to a group of young(er than me) people who are training to become media producers, I think that the comments and ideas we’re sharing online are kind of important. After all, these bloggers are the sorts of people who are on the ‘front line’ of these university courses Greer suggests. And many of us will go on to do the sorts of jobs that Lumby is doing.
Really, if anyone’s in a position to ask the sorts of endlessly nitpicky questions, or to spend hours thinking about and talking about this issue, aren’t we postgraduate/early-career academic types the one(s)?
Even if we really should be off editing chapters.
Speaking of guilt…
*This is kind of a joke. If were speaking about this, in person, you’d have been cued in by tone of voice.
**Was that too frivolous a joke? I mean, we are kind of talking about feminist readings of history, ideologically informed narrative and all…

Ok, so watching the OC, the brown-haired boy with all the ‘witty one-liners and pop culture quips’ and the dumb ex-barbie girlfriend is hanging out with a blonde girl in the city where Brown Uni is.
They totally have to be a couple – they have matching novelty voices.