The Cutprice Guignol

The Ninth Year: The Haunting of Swill House

Category: Television Review

September 16, 2014

Doctor Who: Terrific Acting, Radical Developments, Intrinsically Sensational

It’s taken me this long to get this review up because my mind is still boggled. Some of thay bogglation comes from a return to uni (I got asked twice how I as enjoying my first week in university, and gave directions to a first year who was at least five years older than me. It’s all wrong, so very wrong) and a majestic thrity-hour streak of sleeplessness, but the majority of it comes from this week’s episode of Doctor Who, Listen.

I’ve long considered Doctor Who to have two main stories running parallel to each other at all times. One story, which is usually the dominant one, is just the plot of the episode- the first, second, and third act of a usually self-contained script. The second is a larger plot by scale, but not by screentime- it’s the overarching mythology of Doctor Who, the thread that ties together decades of TV into a cohesive, singular character. It’s the Doctor’s story.

Listen, an episode that re-established Steven Moffat as the television genius that I’ve been missing in the last few years (yes, I didn’t like the last season of Sherlock. Handle it), was an exploration of the latter. Frankly, the story itself- the Doctor obsessively trying to catch a creature he has theorised that can hide from everyone- is no great shakes, though it provides some properly creepy moments. The b-plot, concerning Clara going on a date with Danny Pink, was irritating in so much as it forced conflict with some obviously provocative lines about his ex-soldiership, but tied in nicely with the main story that implies that Pink and Clara will do the familial nasty and pop out some sprogs later down the line (I also watched Samuel Anderson, who plays Pink, behind the scenes of the show, and can confirm that his engaging enthusiasm isn’t just in that character. Seriously, he might be one of the most likeable actors on TV, both on and off screen). It’s hard to explain the central plot as it was scattered across a number of places and times, basically following the Doctor’s obsessive search for something that may or may not exist. It’s a cool theory, and one that lets Capaldi take a microscope to the iconic role to great effect. In my mind, at least, he IS the Doctor now. Clara had a good run too, as Coleman is totally engaging and brings so much to the table as an assistant and as a character in her own right.

The story is really there to let us examine the Doctor a little more closely. He doesn’t even start the episode off with Clara, the pre-credits cold open featuring a monologue from a lonely Doctor who later refuses to reveal how long he’s been travelling alone for. Here, he’s mad in a way that he hasn’t been in a long time- not the David Tennant overworking brain, or Matt Smith mania, but obsessive and, possibly, wrong. But by far the most interesting part of his plot- and the most interesting part of the series so far- features the Tardis crash-landing in a barn. Clara steps out and hears a child crying, and goes to comfort him. It’s then revealed that the child is, in fact, the Doctor, as Clara delivers a speech to him that echoes exactly a speech given by the Doctor to a terrified child earlier in the episode. I imagine that, like me, a thousand Whovians exploded simultaneously-I properly, with no hint of irony, gasped- but it was more than just shallow fanservice or Steven Moffat deliberately picking the path of most resistance, which is how I’ve often felt about big reveals like this. This was organic, genuinely shocking, and rendered the whole episode more meaningful. They had successfully managed to move the much larger plot along without completely losing the story in the mix, pulling in events from Day of the Doctor an the rebirth of Gallifrey in a way that gave us a deeper look into the current Doctor, while setting up longer strands for Clara and Danny Pink in the future.

Reading all that back, it is a miracle that this episode didn’t get overwhelmed in it’s own substance. I can honestly say, though, that Listen ranks among the best episodes of the new series, taking my worry about a running of steam and pissing them to the four winds with glee. You know what, Moffat? I won’t have you, yet. Congratulations.

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September 7, 2014

Doctor Who: Tosh and Rambunctious Dithering In South

My dad grew up with Doctor Who in much the same way I have. He kept up with a few episodes of the new series, and we were discussing the newest season in Skype last week. I had my pouty face on because I hadn’t enjoyed the last couple of episodes-too serious, too clunky, not quite Doctor Who enough. Me and my father came to the conclusion that the problem with those episodes (and some episodes of the previous series) was that the creators had forgotten their roots- Doctor Who was created, after all, as a children’s television show that taught unsuspecting kids about history. It was always a little bit naff and a little bit silly- which is not to say it couldn’t be scary, funny, and emotionally resonant at the same time, but, ultimately, this is Saturday night family TV and the show is best when it remembers that. 

I felt like this point had been vindicated with last night’s episode Robot of Sherwood (it’s always fun to see a historical episode that isn’t set in Victorian London, though it was clear that the cast and crew had just sidled over to the few remaining sets from the BBC’s ill-advised Robin Hood redo a few years ago while no-one was looking). It was terrible on surface level, but actually pretty carefully constructed on closer inspection. It followed the story of the Doctor and Clara foiling a plan by the evil Sheriff of Nottingham with the help of Robin Hood- despite the fact the Doctor is convinced that the entire legend of Robin Hood is just a legend.

It seems like someone had just bothered watching The Thick of It for the first time, after having the DVDs gathering dust in the writer’s room for six months, and realised that this Peter Capaldi guy is pretty funny when you put him in conflict with someone else, whether he’s swordfighting with a spoon or engaging in a three-way archery contest. The Doctor really developed for me in this episode, becoming, like a pokemon in cool shoes, the next stage of his evolution- the funny Doctor. The script split him and Clara up for much of the running time, leaving him bickering with Robin Hood and leading peasants in rebellion against evil robot knights. I mean, just read that sentence back- that’s what I come to Doctor Who for, that zenith of nonsense and fun. 

Splitting Clara off from the Doc proved a good plan too, as her level and type of energy was matched by the numerous periphery characters in almost every scene instead of clashing with that sour energy that Capaldi puts out. Ben Elton, as the sleazy Sheriff, was brilliant and a little bit sexy (I’ve still got a hangover crush from Primeval), and the merry men were appropriately merry and manly. The episode broadly tied in to the plot established in the first episode about robots trying to rebuild themselves and return to the promised land (a plot I assume will culminate with the cybermen, who we know will appear in the finale with Missy), but was basically just an audaciously plotted, utterly ridiculous slice of family TV. I was willing to forgive some of the silly plot wobbles (like the golden arrow being shot into the spaceship) because Robot of Sherwood never set itself up as a fiendish masterpiece. It came in with a party hat on squint and a bottle of cheap wine in it’s hand looking to have fun.

I’ve long been a supporter of the art of TV that’s simply fun, and here was an episode that provided me with a score of reasons why. I’m not claiming this was any great shakes at theme, or emotional depth, or fascinating ideas- I’m saying this was an episode of TV that succeeded in entertaining me for fifty minutes, the very reason I fell in love with the show in the first place. Welcome back, Doctor Who. 

That theme song is still the root cause for all evil in the world, though. I’ll have you yet, Moffat.

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August 24, 2014

Doctor Who: Tertiary Aliens Rapidly Devolve Interesting Story

Do you know how long I’ve waited? After a bland Christmas special (which was somewhat of a misnomer) and the promise of a new, darker, older, more Scottish Doctor, eight months sailed by in an agonising trill of teasers and Coleman. By the time last night came around, I was practically sick with excitement- here, we had the introduction of a potentially game-changing Doctor, handled by one of the most experienced and competent showrunners in the industry. This, as I declared several minutes before starting the episode, could not go wrong.

As I’m sure you can guess, it swiftly did. The episode wasn’t a complete write-off, to be fair- I chuckled at a few of the less ham-fisted jokes, and appreciated a magnificent Matt Smith cameo that only made me pine for him more- but overall, I was left, not just dissapointed, but fuming by the Doctor Who season eight opener, Deep Breath. Indulge me for a moment, would you?

Infuriation Point 1: The Plot was Sloppy

Let’s cast our eye back over some wonderful DW episodes of yesteryear- Blink, The Empty Child two-parter, The God Complex. These are all episodes that are utterly airtight. You can watch these and watch these and watch these and not find one slip-up in the writing, one loophole that the characters presumably missed. Within half an hour of Deep Breath ending, me and the Consort had successfully picked obvious holes all over the plot (for example, the title was taken from the idea that the villains were unable to sense living creatures of they were holding their breath. So the central characters just stood very, very still at a climatic moment, holding their breath and waiting for the Doctor to come through, instead of running as far away from the monsters as they could while they were under their radar, which has been established as possible earlier in the episode). The episode would have made a very passable forty-minute mid-series romp, but it flagged hugely in it’s almost eighty-minute runtime. I don’t want to pick holes in Doctor Who, but if the writing is as slapdash as this was, I have to. Moffat has written some of the hands-down best episodes of the series ever, but that doesn’t give him a free pass to oversee episodes that both a) pointlessly reuse pretty good villains from six years ago that everyone sort of forgot about or b) contain a plot with the structural integrity of a skyscraper made of trifle.

Infuriation Point 2: Strax, Vastra, Jenny

I discussed in a review for The Crimson Horror last season that Strax, Madame Vastra, and Jenny were great characters who would, in the great Doctor Who tradition, be overused until we were sick of the sight of them (see: The Ood, The Daleks, Martha, etc). And I’ve been proved right against my will here, as they twirled into a room in tight leather brandishing swords and suspended by ribbons without a hint of a tongue anywhere near a cheek. Vastra came off as kind of patronising, and the heeeeee-larious Sontarans-don’t-get-people-LOL jokes are getting pretty boring. More to the point, I would have much preferred Capaldi’s opening episode to be about him and Clara, as opposed to wasting scenes with Clara nipping at tertiary characters.

Infuriation Point 3: Capaldi

Right, let’s be clear here: I thought Peter Capaldi was EXCELLENT in this episode. He was funny, charming, and extremely likeable. And my gripe with this new Doctor might be just mine, but it’s this: he didn’t seem like the Doctor. He didn’t have that mania or that sense of two thousand years of history or that ability to make it look as if his brain was about to burst with thought even when he was saying nothing at all. Whether or not this was a stylistic choice to depict his confusion after regeneration I don’t know, but I’ll be keen to see if this changes as the series goes on. I wonder, too, if the fact that every other Doctor I’ve seen I’ve been coming to with next to no prior knowledge of, while Capaldi inhabited one of the most iconic comedy roles of the decade has something to do with my inability to see him as a timelord. I did catch myself willing him on to declare something the “FUCKING OMNISHAMBLES” more than once. 

Miscellaneous 

Ben Wheately, an indie film director who helmed this episode, managed to make it look actively sloppy a few times. I didn’t like the utterly pointless re-use of old villains, especially not when you have a brand-new Doctor to play with. The ending suggested a rehash of the dreaded River Song plot, which I am minus okay with. There was no mention of Gallifrey, despite the fact they brought it back in the 50th Anniversary Special to great fanfare. The Scottish jokes (“You all sound ENGLISH!”) were pointless and, frankly, can we keep the independence campaign out of a kid’s teatime show? 

With all that said, there was a lot to recommend to this seventy-six minutes of television. A nod to the Doctor’s moral ambiguity with a jumped/pushed question mark, a few meta nods to the fact that Peter Capaldi was in the series before, and some musing on the nature of the Doctor’s relationship with Clara (which apparently a lot of people hated but I utterly adored) that was pulled off with tenderness and subtlety. There’s enough here to go on to tempt me back, dammit, and it looks like, as Capaldi, Clara and the new improved Tardis, I’ll be back next week.

But hang on: did I spot some Daleks “done in a new way” (floating Dalek eyes???!?!??!??!?!) yet again in next week’s teaser? I’ll have you yet, Moffat. 

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August 12, 2014

A Wanker’s Literary Reaction: Smash

I came home from a night out a few weeks ago, drunk, suffering from what my social group colorfully refers to as the “drunchies”. On the way home, I had picked up a tactical loaf of bread, some cheese, and some delicious pickle. Sloppy, drunk, fancy cheese on toast was on, son. I got home, assembled my pieces of toast with magnificent stacks of cheese, lashings of pickle, a positive monument to all things good. I whacked it in the grill and promptly forgot about it. By the time I remembered, my towering temple of dairy was black and my toast was cinders. It was heartbreaking. Seeing something with so much potential, so many chances and possibilities to be great, is never right. And that brings me neatly onto my topic of the day- Smash.

Smash was pitched to me as a kind of West-Wing-On-Broadway affair, a behind-the-scenes dramedy about putting on a Broadway show. A kind of grown-up Glee with bonafide stars and original songs. It sounded like the perfect show for me.

And I’ll give it it’s due; I watched both series. But I don’t think I’ve even got space in this review to tell you everything that was wrong about this show. And I have an unlimited wordcount. The whole thing reeks of unrealized potential. Take Jack Davenport, playing wankery director Derek, a man a penchant for sleeping with his leading ladies. Cliché as fuck, certainly, but possibly offering a chance to explore the people behind the people. As it was, Davenport swaggered around dreaming of his bit part in Pirates of the Caribbean.

And he was probably the best character in the show. Anjelica Houston, Tom Borle, the magnificent Broadway actress Megan Hilty….carried to the four winds by a rearing, tri-headed beast of bad writing, no characterization, and unenthusiastic performances. Of course, credit must go to leading lady Katherine MacPhee. An American Idol contestant, she can sort of sing if you squint your ears a bit, but sadly often resembles a child’s crude drawing of happy/sad faces sellotaped onto a bollard. Chick can’t act.

Many of the writers spoke out about the apparently tyrannical rule of showrunner and creator Theresa Rebeck, claiming she was insistent on carrying dull, unimportant storylines to their sorry conclusion despite attempts at intervention. This theory would hold up better had she not been replaced in the second series, which promptly proved itself to be more boring than the first and, disquietingly, apparently co-opting on a real-life tragedy. The first series at least succeeded in inflating the camp (often with a laborious foot-pump, but still) to an enjoyable level on occasion, but the second became a stream of non-sensical plots and characters who were surely the last, festering pieces of shit to be picked off the wall.

The show did occasionally prove itself brilliant to Broadway nerds like me (hashtag watchedthetonyawards) particularly with the staged song numbers like the one below.

That’s Megan Hilty singing as Marilyn Monroe on the set of Some Like It Hot.

And that’s what made it even more frustrating. In different hands, with different writers and a rejigged cast, this could have been a catty, clever, campy jewel. The Smash we’re left with is a desolate wasteland of humorless, questionable, often dull television. But on the horizon, there are distant sparkles of West End glitter. And the perfect slice of cheese on toast.

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April 3, 2014

How They Ruined How I Met Your Mother

I’ve been watching CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother for more than five years now; what started off as a slightly clever dramady turned into one of the sitcom mainstays of American television, running for nine years as it followed the story of five friends trying to make it in New York. No, not friends-don’t mention Friends. The people behind this show have never heard of Friends. They didn’t know what that show was about, though maybe they caught a few episodes when the TV was on in the background. But HIMYM is nothing like Friends, when you think about it-for a start, there were SIX people on Friends. They could go on, but there’s no need, as there is literally not one similarity between their original creation and Friends. Not one.

Either way, the show came to an end on Monday night after nine seasons and many ups and downs-both in the lives of the central characters and the quality of the show. But I stuck with it and it became a regular in my weekly viewing-funny, occasionally sad, a little surreal and ultimately predictable. Told in a framing device where the central character recounts the story of how he met his children’s mother to his bemused offspring, it played off fore-knowledge, flashback and unreliable narration for pathos. And after watching the finale, it’s safe to say I’m furious with how the show chose to throw nine years back in it’s audience’s face while prancing around blowing raspberries and stealing their cigarettes.

I’ll try to avoid spoilers here, but suffice to say the show indulged in a spectacular amount of flashforwards for it’s final hour-and in doing so managed to undermine the relationships they spent so long building, both this season and for nine years. Much of the show revolved around main character Ted’s relationship with (female) Robin-we knew from the off that she was not the mother, but Ted frequently found himself drifting back into the fantasy that she might be The One. Eventually, he began to slowly, painfully let go of that belief and open himself to someone different-someone, probably, better. A brave and interesting way to handle a will they/won’t they, it was believable and felt like an earned growth of character as he finally let her go for the last time.

I think what makes a great sitcom finale is the idea that life goes on. Friends and Frasier did it best; you got the sense that everyone’s lives were going to continue, but you just wouldn’t watch them living them any more. How I Met Your Mother lay everything out with no room for argument-here is exactly what happened to everyone for the rest of their lives. If you don’t like it-tough. There’s no room for speculation. If we want to repeal character development, major relationships, and key plot points, we will. There was a distinct feeling on the ending being decided on years in advance-and it was, with some character’s reactions having to be recorded within the first few years of the show’s inception- and the writers found themselves stuck with it, attempting to steer the careering plot lorry away from the edge of a cliff they knew they couldn’t avoid.

Some people have argued that by making unexpected (and unpopular) choices, the writers have moved HIMYM towards some semblance of reality. What they forgot was that we don’t come here for reality-we come here for glossy fiction. You can’t feed us exotic eclairs for almost nine years then act surprised when we spit out soggy toast and margarine-nine seasons of charming, witty fiction matched with an hour of sad, depressing, unlikely and unguessable stabs at reality left many viewers (including me) feeling cheated. The finale was not the ending to the show I’d been watching for five years-so I’ve decided to erase the ending from my memory and enjoy it at it’s-entirely unrealistic-best.

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February 24, 2014

A Wanker’s Literary Reaction: Girls

Now, let’s get this straight. Girls is by no means an awful show. In fact, it’s one of the more entertaining comedies to come out of America in the last three years. At no point during my binge-watching of this polarizing sitcom was I actively not enjoying the brainchild of the supremely talented Lena Dunham, and what follows is mainly a reaction to the astonishingly passionate reception the show’s garnered over it’s three-season run. point-by-point, shall we?

It’s Derivative as Shit

Now, literally any show that follows the lives of twenty-somethings in New York can be considered original. That’s just a fact. With the existence of Friends, Will & Grace, Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother, 2 Broke Girls, etc etc ad finitum, no show is going to truly break new ground with this premise as it’s been gone over a thousand times in a thousand different ways by a thousand different people. That’s not to say that’s a bad thing, necessarily- New York holds a certain allure to film and television that almost no other city holds. That’s not my issue, though-my issue is the fact that Girls is Sex and The City.

The first episode shows one of the lead characters with a poster for the SATC movie on her wall; this pale nudge-nudge attempt to deflect attention from the almost unbelievable amount of crap these shows have in common. Like Carrie, lead character Hannah (played by Dunham) is a writer with a chequered sexual history and a gay best friend. The other three girls fall more or less into their respective roles- uptight Marnie works at an art gallery and describes herself as a serial dater (Charlotte), Soshanna is an ambitious and romantically reticent with a brilliantly logical mind (Miranda), and Jessa is promiscuous, straight-talking sexual free spirit (Samantha). Now, just one of these similarities you might have gotten away with- you have to consider the us of archetypes, after all-but there are various other plot points peppered throughout the series that stuck in my proverbial craw- one character dating an older, aloof artist who’s really kind of a dick, the destructive on/off relationship between the lead character and a man with a compelling nose, and the issue-of-the-week episodes (abortion, STDs, break-ups, etc) make the whole suspicious similarity thing a bit too, I don’t know, fucking clear to anyone with a mind. Now, I’m not defending SATC here-a 7/10 show at it’s best- but credit where credit’s due, Dunham. Subconsciously or consciously, you’ve created a Muppet-Babies version of Michael Patrick King’s adored series, but with nudity squared. And that brings me too…

The Nudity is Not Groundbreaking

Now, we’re comfortably past the point where seeing tits on TV leaves everyone clutching their pearls and swooning into the nearest mantlepiece, so it’s not the mere act of nudity that’s been deemed “groundbreaking” in Girls. No, it’s that we see Lena Dunham-a basically normal-looking woman-with her clothes off! Now, I’m all for trying to break down the destructive image that media presents of people at every juncture, and showing a normal person naked without trying to smooth out all the jiggly bits is undoubtedly a damn good thing to do (and a brave choice for Dunham). But the whole furore about it is undermined by the fact that every single other character on the show-man or woman-is inestimably buff, well-groomed, and up to the physical standards we’ve come to expect from people we deem worthy to point a camera at. With numerous accusations of black tokenism in the show, I’m surprised no-one has brought up the other blatant token in the show; the token normal.

It’s Also Just Not that Groundbreaking

Many people have commented on the realistic depictions of post-college, pre-family life-the disappointment, the financial difficulty, the fallible but hilarious female leads. But you know what? I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen women struggling, being unglamorous and still remaining stonkingly funny at the same time in Spaced, Black Books, Fawlty Towers. I’ve seen life as a young adult in Fresh Meat, Coupling and Peep Show (interestingly, all British shows). I don’t find Dunham’s creation to be anything new- a decent riff on an old theme, no doubt, but by no means nobly breaking down barriers for realistic, less-than-perfect women in comedy or the brutal realities of real life as a young adult.

And the presentation of characters who are often unlikable and make bad choices in almost every fucking episode (revving up for a rant here) is nothing new, either; in fact, it’s far easier to create unlikable characters who we cringe at than it is to create bastards we really relate to. Maybe my vision on Girls is somewhat blurry because I’ve never been a young adult striking out on my own in New York City for the first time, but that shouldn’t be a problem-characters and situations can transcend, and in Girls they simply don’t. It’s like watching a life I don’t want to lead starring people I don’t want to be doing things I don’t want to do.

Other than that, decent stuff.

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January 24, 2014

It’s Always Sick in Philadelphia

A good orgasm is like a good orgasm. The physical reaction can’t be recreated in any other way (except maybe eating prawn cocktail crisps) and are vitally individual to each person. There are some experiences and events that are simply incomparable to anything else, and there are so few things that aren’t moderately universal. With literally everything shared online, next no to phenomenon, cultural, social, or otherwise, is individual to any one group any more. One of the most important parts of a person, in my eyes, is the little things that are solely theirs; and by far the one I value most in a sense of humour. And I believe I may have found the people with possibly the most wildly creative, surreal and, most importantly, one-of-a-kind sense of humour in the world: Kaitlin Olson, Charlie Day, Rob McElhenny and Glenn Howerton, also known as the main cast and creators of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

A basic sitcom premise-four friends own and work in a bar in Philly-quickly evolved into being one of the most shockingly unpleasant and consistently hilarious shows on television. The real genius lies in the characters- selfish and shrill Dee, insurmountably disturbed but cheek-tuggingly cute Charlie, half-manipulative, half-blindingly thick Mac, and psychopath Dennis. Many, many shows have tried to create something dark and edgy and boundary-pushing (the only one that has succeeded on this level, and for the same reason, is League of Gentlemen), but their first mistake is making the characters even vaguely likable. While most sitcoms will try to deal with innocent-ish characters battered by a bizarre and incomprehensible world, It’s Always Sunny presents a world that’s constantly horrified and confused by the gang’s exploits.

While similair things have been attempted in sketch shows, these characters work on a long-term basis (nine seasons, no less) because we know what awful, awful people they are. We know the lengths they’ll go to, and we’ve seen them go further-and this works on the double stakes of managing to slightly ground the majority on the wild exploits they wind up on (highlights include: performing an impromptu and highly destructive Extreme Home Makeover on a bewildered Spanish family, kidnapping and torturing a reviewer who fails to heap praise on the bar, applying boot polish to a baby in order for it to have an illustrious career as a latino child actor) because that’s the kind of terrible, terrible people their characters are. They make me want to kill myself in a wonderful way.

When it comes down to it, though, it’s just a funny show. Not since I discovered Community and heard Angela Bisset deliver the line “white-ass cracker bitch” in AHS have I laughed so hard at the wonderfully engrossing world they’ve created in Philadelphia (like all great comedies, the cast of supporting characters are genius creations-look out for the stomach-churning MacPoyle family). Yes, it’s sick, surreal, horrible and shouty, but it’s also one of the most consistently well-written, well-performed and tight half-hours of comedy you’ll find anywhere in the world right now. Cheers to that.

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January 9, 2014

World War Bun

With the last season of The Great British Bake-Off nothing but a distant memory, I’ve been grappling around for another competitive baking show to while away the hours. And I thought I’d found it in Cupcake Wars, an long-running American show in which professional bakers battle it out to create cupcakes for a glitzy event-sort of Masterchef: The Professionals meets Glee. Perfect, eh? Well, no.

To start, we’ve got the host. Now, I’ve watched about seven episodes of this nonsense and I couldn’t for the life of me actually give you his name: turns out he’s Justin Willman, enigma. Some casual research reveals he broke both his arms as a child trying to ride a bike while on rollerblades (brilliant), is a magician (superb), and presumably has a twisted fetish for presenting low-stakes gameshows in his spare time (as well as Cupcake Bores, his credits include Last Cake Standing and the momentously hilarious Scrabble Showdown). We can only hope that he’s created some elaborate illusion of himself and sent it to daytime TV, laughing all the way to the magic bank.

Anyway, Willman is cursed with both an impossibly terrible script and a surgical lack of charm; his witty comments basically amount to “A man walks into a bar…cupcakes” or “Knock knock…frosting”. His only use is explaining the self-explanatory rules of the game and looking simultaneously slightly inhuman and infuriatingly like someone else you can’t quite remember.

If Willman is a charisma vaccumn, the judges are a positive black hole of likability. First, there’s the magnificent Florian Bellanger, co-owner of Mad Mac Macaroons (get it?) and full claimant to a French accent last heard in a crass 1970s British sketch about the frog-eating continentals. Seriously, you can’t prepare yourself for how screamingly unbelievable this voice is; maybe that really is how he speaks English, but as long as people continue to laugh at me for sounding a bit plummy when I’m drunk I shall continue to piss myself every time Florian croons out another sentence about candied walnuts or fondant. A guest judge, usually linked tenuously with the event the winners will be catering, rolls up to plug their existence and attempt to say anything other than “huh, cupcakes” and nod sagely as Florian speaks entirely in vowels. They’re joined by someone so dramatically unremarkable that even this sentence about her isn’t worth writi

The contestants are delightfully predictable; you’ve got the down-to-earth, endearing ones (usually with the word “soul” in their team name; one went by the moniker of “Soul Cups” which, to me, sounded like a pair of especially spiritual tits), the shrieky, “You go girl!” chicks, the clear winners, and the overly-confident losers who end up setting their bun cases on fire or something equally unlikely.

As my closing statement, I’d like you to consider this: over the course of its entire run, Cupcake Wars has created somewhere in the realm of 231, 380 glorified afternoon teas. That’s enough to start World War Bun!

I’ll see myself out.

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December 15, 2013

America’s Next Top Model: Redux

Last year, I wrote a protracted and essentially pointless rampage against America’s Next Top Model while drunk, that involved a whole lot of babbling about sandwiches and the conclusion that the show was a bit grim but essentially harmless. I was wrong. Oh, how wrong was I. Apparently, I feel the urge to devour a couple of seasons of this unrelenting tripe a couple of times a year, usually when I’m sick or fighting off some bout of crippling boredom or depression (pause for uncomfortable laughter; is she joking? Are we allowed to laugh at it if she is? If she’s not, isn’t that the sort of thing you just shouldn’t joke about? I mean, it’s a bit far, really, and frankly I hope The Guardian launch a liberal hate campaign against her, the scummy, anti-mental health “satirist” cow. Bet she’s sexist too. How many women have you employed, eh, Louise? That’s the question the public are clamoring for an answer to.).

In theory, the show actually comes from a pretty reasonable place. Tyra Banks, who spends much of her time forgetting to put on trousers, decided to re-define beauty in the fashion industry because….well, I don’t know actually. Maybe she had an afternoon free or something. Either way, I kind of respect her buisness acumen; being a model is a career with a built-in sell-by-date, so turning your attentions to becoming Oprah-building a TV empire seems pretty savvy. And giving less conventionally beautiful women (like all these hideously unattractive women here) a chance to break into an industry that would have previously simply laughed in their faces because they were plus-size or short is actually a really nice idea.

While much of the criticism for the show can be drawn for the fashion industry itself-with models being told they are “too slim for plus-size modelling” and the majority of winners being skinny, conventionally gorgeous women in their late teens-I’m going to focus on what’s off with the show alone. For one, not one-NOT ONE- winner or contestants have gone on to become what is, by anyone’s standards, a top model. A top model is an instantly recognisable name, someone who’s probably run around with rock stars for a while, somebody for whom their actual profession takes a back seat to the maelstrom of publicity surrounding them because they’re kind of fascinating and cool. Now, Cara Develigne has proved supermodels still exist-it’s just that the show doesn’t prepare it’s victims for the fashion industry in any way. Ex-winner Caridee English released a statement regarding the effect the show has on the models involved, after contestant Jael Strauss was discovered to be harboring a pretty sizeable meth addiction. Basically, she claimed that participants were greeted by a world in which they were lofty celebrities but unqualified and inexperienced models. There’s something tragically misleading about baring this in mind when watching the show, as the girls go through a heap of emotional distress, upsetting photoshoots and the constantly drilled-in belief that they will have a sky-rocketing career should they win the show. On a related note, both an ex-contestant and a judge have appeared on Celebrity Rehab since their stint of ANTM.

Backing away from the heavy stuff, there’s also the made-up words and phrases the show shoves down your throat at every opportunity. Smize, for example. Which is a word ellision, one that represents the notion of “smiling with one’s eyes”. Can I ask you something? Go to a mirror right now. And try to do that; try to imbue your eyes with emotion without moving the rest of your face. Can’t be done, can it? No, it fucking can’t. Maybe I’m stupid and a terrible model (it would explain the current faliure of my modelling career), but I like to believe that an expression requires some movement of your whole face. “Smizing” is not just an irritating anti-word, it’s also bullshit. This, along with forcing the attractive and charming British photographer Nigel Barker to continually use the word “fierce”, is enough to condemn the show to hell from my point of view.

Then, of course, there’s this: a collection of words so outrageous you’ll die, right here, in front of your computer or preferred device. On the All-Stars Cycle (What?), Tyra Banks filmed a “Motion Editorial” (eh?) for her novel (Come again)? Modelland, about an elite model’s boarding school (Okay, seriously now) featuring anthropomorphic people (I don’t even-), which starred the finalists from that series fondling blood oranges and gorging on whipped cream (a single flatline will suffice).

I first saw this monstrosity in the early hours of the morning and genuinley considered the option that I’d completely lost my mind. Basically, it sums up the show beautifully; a pointless, pretentious, unironically awful piece of crap that has less to do with modelling than my breakfast. Thank you, and kill me.

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November 20, 2013

American Horror Story: Burn, Witch, Burn!/The Axeman Cometh

I’ve noticed something about this series of AMH; each pair of episodes seems to play out at a set-up/pay-off rate from week-to-week. One week there’s a plot heavy furore where we get introduced to all the shit that’s going to go down in the next episode. I don’t particularly mind this set-up, but it still leaves the season with an overall sense of uneveness and lack of coherency.

Take the last two episodes as an example: Burn, Witch, Burn! was a ridiculous, thrilling, breathlessly entertaining hour that blasted through a bunch of brilliantly fun plot points, climaxing in an outrageously slick finale/tribute to Resevoir Dogs in which a stake-burning took place to the strains of Right Place, Wrong Time. It was sickeningly cool; fuck, Jessica Lange lit to pyre with her cigarette. Also scattered around the episode were some cool zombies, Taissa Farmiga growing some balls (and wielding a chainsaw into the bargain), and Jessica Lange winning herself an Emmy in the course of five minutes, a hospital room and a stillborn baby. It was a manic, hilarious, grotesquely affecting episode that hit all the markers set up by last week’s outing.

Then the latest episode-featuring Danny Huston as real-life serial killer The Axeman of New Orleans-just seemed to be preparing us for what was about to happen. Aside from Angela Bisset delivering the line “white-ass cracker bitch” and some gratefully recieved Lily Rabe, there wasn’t much actually going on in The Axeman Cometh. It was still entertaining enough (and benefited from a lack of Kathy Bates, who the writers just don’t seem to know what to do with), but there was a real sense of tantric TV; they brought us to the pitch of excitement then did nothing about it because they’re saving their metaphorical ejaculation for next week’s outing.

On a side note, I’ve been doing a bit of research into this series (which Stevie Nicks has confirmed her appearance in, yeah!), and discovered that no less than three characters are based directly off people who really existed. The least offensive of these is probably Angela Bisset as Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Because there’s clearly a lot of mythos surrounding her anyway, adapting her into a kick-ass voodoo bitch-slapper isn’t really much of a leap. But then you’ve got Kathy Bates as Madame LaLaurie. Now, forgive me if you disagree, but when you take someone who genuinley existed, and did some really quite upsettingly horrible things to innocent people for a large part of her life, and whack her in a semi-serious show as an immortal, highly racist bit of comic relief, aren’t you somewhat undermining the nature of the astoundingly awful things she’s done?

So, this week on AMH: I over-analyse my over-analysing. Great.

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