American Horror Story Series Blog: Episodes Ten and Eleven

Posted: January 27, 2012 by Ian Dunn in American Horror Story, TV
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"Congratulations! It's a The Antichrist"

Episode 10: Smouldering Children.

In a development that was entirely expected, episode 10 of American Horror Story featured a shocking twist that made absolutely no sense.

Apparently Violet Harmon, troubled daughter of the Harmon family, died four episodes ago and has been a ghost ever since.

I was initially quite chuffed when they revealed this, as I’d had an inkling this might be the case and I’m generally a bit dim when it comes to things like that.

For example, the first time I saw the Sixth Sense I thought Bruce Willis was a good actor. Read the rest of this entry »

Have You Been Watching…One Born Every Minute?

Posted: January 26, 2012 by Hilary Wardle in Reality TV, TV
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"Ok, own up- who fed this baby helium?"

By Kate Diamond

‘For seven weeks Channel 4 filmed around the clock in a busy maternity hospital to find out what it really feels like to bring new life into the world,’ boast the opening credits.

Well, not what it really feels like. 21st century technology is incredible and, while HDTV can accurately depict life as one of Noel Edmonds’ beard crumbs, it can’t replicate the sensation of a fully dilated cervix. And nor should it strive to.

That said, the cameras at the Clarendon Wing of Leeds General Hospital do seem to have captured the requisite mix of screaming women, gunky newborns and midwives drinking tea from comedically large mugs. Read the rest of this entry »

Skins: Series 6, Episode 1

Posted: January 25, 2012 by Ian Dunn in Skins, TV
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"Stop having fun! Think of the consequences! Dear God, won't someone please think of the consequences?"

Much like the teenagers it seeks to portray, when Skins is good it’s exciting, imaginative and rollicking good fun. But when it’s bad it’s so stupid you want to string it up from a tree and smash it in the face with a cricket bat while shouting ‘YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW THE REAL WORLD WORKS’.

Ahem, not that we’re condoning that kind of parenting of course.

At its peak back in season two it was one of the best dramas on British TV with rich, complex characters being whirled around inside a furious storm of a plot.

But that was then and we’re now six series in. While replacing the cast every second series has undoubtedly extended the show’s lifespan, it’s also meant that the successful template of the first two seasons has been replicated too many times, leading to increasingly diminishing returns. Read the rest of this entry »

Superscrimpers: Waste Not Want Not

Posted: January 25, 2012 by Hilary Wardle in Reality TV, TV
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She made the hat out of some old forks and a discarded crisp packet

By Gina

What with the impending economic meltdown and stuff, it’s hardly surprising that SuperScrimpers, the money-saving tips show from Channel 4, has been recommissioned. Soon everyone will be so skint they’ll have to construct shoes from empty yoghurt pots and use rusty old hubcaps as plates whether they like it or not.

Picking up on what seems to be the trend for a retro ‘make do and mend’ aesthetic, SuperScrimpers lurches between decent, sensible financial advice and the altogether weirder world of ‘top tips’ normally purveyed by gauche women’s magazines and parodied relentlessly by Viz. Read the rest of this entry »

Whatever Happened To…After School Kids’ Telly?

Posted: January 24, 2012 by Hilary Wardle in Miscellaneous nonsense, TV
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Pat Sharp's mullet left to present its own programme after just one series of Fun House.

By Matthew Laidlow.

If you gave someone the opportunity to live in the nineties instead of the present day, chances are they’d pick 2012. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in an age where technology can be slotted up your nostril or where there’s an upmarket KFC (Nando’s), on every corner?

But though the past is unappealingly full of brick sized mobile phones, Global Hypercolour t-shirts and endless, hideous Celine Dion hits, surely you’d revisit that period if you happen to be the owner of a small child?

Everybody knows that when the kiddywinks come home after learning pointless mathematical theories that they’ll never use in later life, they’ll want some light relief. But flick on the TV for your munchkins these days and what do you find? Nothing. That’s right, an absolute void of entertainment for children. At time of writing, this is the BBC’s post-school offering: Read the rest of this entry »

Skins Season 6 Preview

Posted: January 23, 2012 by Ian Dunn in Skins, TV
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Ok, fine. Maybe Alex isn't really a 47 year old postman.

Skins returns to our screens tonight. Amazingly, the show is now in it’s sixth season and third generation of impossibly good-looking young scamps.

If like me, you persist in risking being placed on the sex offenders register by continuing to watch the madcap adventures of these teenagers in trouble, we can exclusively reveal what season six will feature.

Ok, fine, it’s largely made up:  but after six series the plots aren’t exactly hard to predict.

Episode 1 –  Everyone

It’s a long-standing Skins tradition that every character over the age of twenty is a complete idiot. That looks set to continue this season as the main characters’ parents are apparently very happy for their teenage offspring to traipse off to Morocco for a hugely debauched holiday. You’d think the Arab Spring had never happened, which to be fair, in the alternate Skins-iverse it may not have. What we can be sure of is that this episode will feature drug taking, some sort of beach based rave and a terrible sea-related accident resulting in much hysterical pouting. Read the rest of this entry »

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