ROME
I was going to write something long and complicated about this, but I am a bit non-plussed so far and so will merely list a few good/bad points:

CLASSIC
I like Pullo; the legionnaire who runs around drinking, whoring, gambling, brawling, stabbing people in the neck and saying “RAAARGHHH!” He is practically a PIRATE, only disguised as a soldier. Also he has a metal plate in his head, which makes him a CYBORG too!! Awesome. (his accent is a bit posh though – he should have been a cockerney or from oop north or something).

Attia of the Julii (aka Alexisus Colbeyus, aka Julii Cooper of the OC) is good value. Every roman TV series needs a manipulative bitch type character (see Livia in “I Clavdivs”) and she has been manipulating and bitching like a trooper. Alexisus has had her drippy son-in-law killed, is shagging half of Rome, has bathed in arterial bulls blood for our viewing pleasure and has all the best lines. I am now waiting with bated breath for her and Servalan (or whoever the hell Lindsey Duncan is playing) to have a catfight and both fall into a swimming pool. What? They had baths in Rome, innit?

Mark Anthony is fit and frequently takes his clothes off. Cheers!

There are some quite good sly little jokes, like the graffiti that is briefly glimpsed saying “Attia is a slaggg. Tru” in Latin. Also there was a funny bit where a soldier had just finished crucifying a bunch of Gauls and then had to take them all down again and made a pissy face. I thought it was funny anyway.

DUD
They cut the first three episodes down into two because apparently everyone in the UK knows Roman History – um, hello, no they don’t!! I only know the period of Roman history covered by “I Clavdivs” which appears to have started a while after “Rome” (seeing as how Octavian is a smarmy brat in this and was Brain Blessed (I think) in “Clavdivs”).

I still have no idea who half the people are in Pompey’s Posse or why they were so arsey about Julius Ceasar coming back to Rome in the first place. As if that wasn’t bad enough, all the scenes in the senate remind me fatally of Star Wars I – III. “Caesar has crossed the Rubicon and Naboo does not recognise the Trade Federations authority.” Etc etc.

Then, after having two over-edited, hard to understand episodes they have a really dull one where nothing much happens and Alexisus isn’t very entertaining. Booo.

Vorenus appears to have mistaken “playing an uptight rigid character” with “being totally wooden”. Also his wife and her sister appear to be from totally different continents. What’s that all about? As it happens, I am not particularly interested in common people’s marital problems. I can watch Eastenders for that. More of Attia having people killed and unleashing her bosoms in the name of POWER plz thanks.

Typical – not long after saying that Lost is awesome I get bored of it and give up. Sorry dudes, even Dr Jack’s hotness is not enough to keep me watching. Just as well that there are more series on the horizon – Rome is coming up soon. Woo hoo! - but first of all…

BLEAK HOUSE

Hmmm, I am not a huge fan of Dickens but think it is a brilliant idea to schedule a TV adaptation like a prime time soap, rather than a Sunday evening malarkey with two hour episodes etc, as after all this is how Dickens’ original readers got their fix of thrills. I know nothing about the plot of Bleak House either so all the plot twists and excitement will work brilliantly with me, assuming I keep watching it…

First couple of episodes were OK, with tons of exposition and a host of speedily introduced new characters. There is a long standing legal case about a will and some of the young people who might get £££ from the will are packed off to stay with nice Dennis Lawson and his midget maid. Agent Scully pops up as some kind of posh Victorian goth lady with a shady past, and some bloke who might be her long lost lurver karks it in opium drug shame shocker.

At present, most of the fun is to be had by spotting people in the cast you recognise – Johnny Vegas is a slum landlord! Charles Dance is a baleful lawyer! Irene from EE and Liza Tarbuck are Charitably Inclined Ladies of Good Character! Juhneen from EE is a downtrodden member of the proletariat! Timothy West is married to Agent Scully! the Judge was in that thing about the smarmy politician who murdered people! Uncle Monty from “Withnail and I” is a poncy doctor with a wack moustache.

There are many plot lines going on – some are not interesting (the young ward wondering what to do for a living), some are semi interesting (our heroine is stalked by a young legal clerk with a weird mouth) and some are v interesting (Charles Dance investigating Agent Scully’s past). I am not exactly dying to know what happens next but will continue to give it a try.

TOP FIVE MOMENTS IN STRICTLY COME DANCING – SO FAR (in no particular order)

1. Darren Gough transforming before our very eyes from a burly beer monster into Fred Astaire

2. Patsy Palmer’s 1930s style tango hair helmut

3. Will from Casualty taking his shirt off (PS. How gay is he???)

4. Fiona Phillips attempting to look sassy and swing her sash around in the jive. Ha
ha ha. If you looked up “hapless” in the dictionary it would be illustrated with this clip.

5. Colin Jackson jumping 6 feet into the air and doing a fancy toe touching manouevre – wowsa!!!


Colin to win!!!

Toddler TV: a warning from the edge of sleep

This is what parenthood does to your taste hormones.

I like Hi-5.

They're pleasant, they sing in tune, and they seem to genuinely like small children. Mr P reckons that Charli's boyfriend has a special DVD of her crawling around pretending to be a fluffy animal to help him through those long lonely nights when she's off on tour with hunky ocker Nathan and sensitive Tim.

I have also discovered what happened to all those Star Trek crew members who got zapped in the first ten minutes. They ended up in Australia as The Wiggles. They scare me.

What is it with Australia and weird preschool programmes? First Bananas in Pyjamas, then Hi 5 (Steps without the edge), now Star Trek Extras sing with Dinosaurs.

It's like Canada and cartoons. Speaking of which, the five commissioners have managed to find the most Canadian cartoon ever. Roly Poly Olie - an alien robot child constructed entirely out of deely boppers, goes on a manners hunt, where he finds examples of politeness and explains them his little sister. We also get BottleTop Bill (and his best friend Corky), in which a former cohort of Jasper Carrott teams up with Miranda Richardson (no, really), in a world made up of recycled cardboard and kitchen utensils.

I'd tell you more, but I'm still trying to work out how come I ended up watching TV at 7am. I used to be a grown up. I listened to the Today programme...

I wish there was something to Blog about apart from LOST

After initial doubts (and boredom) this is now kicking off in a major way. First of all Dellen from Babylon 5 is discovered on the island, pretending to be a French lady! (called Rousseau – yawn, what with her and Locke, I am just counting the days until we discover that Bitchy Girl’s surname is Wittgenstein, Alpha Girl’s is Heiddeger, etc etc) Then someone has the bright idea of counting the survivors and checking their names against the flight passenger list. They discover that one of the castaways is actually not on the list and therefore can’t have been on the aeroplane – gasp – and what’s more he is Tom Cruise’s cousin or something!!

In other news, preggers aussie girl Claire is subjected to flashback fever this week. (Claire is v pretty and likeable but she runs around far too briskly for someone who is supposed to be 8.5 months pregnant) It turns out that her no good boyfriend abandoned her and she was going to give the baby up for adoption, but then a spooky psychic said that she had to raise the baby herself or else GREAT EVIL would come of it or some such. There is the idea that he deliberately put her on the flight as he knew it would crash and she would be forced to raise the baby far away from evil cultists.

So let’s see – we have spontaneous healing, polar bears, invisible bitey monsters, mysterious whispering, French-alien-yugoslav ladies who do not run out of anything in 16 years and now Rosemary’s Baby??? What are the chances that any of these things are going to be resolved by the end of the series??

Anyway, Claire thinks someone tried to attack her in the night. Dr Jack thinks she is hysterical but Claire is sure it is true. Who could it be etc?? Of course it is Tom Cruise’s Cousin, who appears at the end of the episode looking all mean and evil and ready to drag her and Hobbit off to the Secret Valley of the Scientologists.

Cliffhanger!!!