[UPDATE: Actually, today he's all grins - trying to look like he's got everyone's support in the party after their 'meeting'. Costello etc all grinning their fake plastic smiles too. Just as nauseating really, if not more so.]
Anyway, I mean to give politics a break and talk about other drivel instead.
I seem to be punishing myself lately. I watched some of Idol on Sunday, not a show I've followed since the first series. Don't get me wrong, a few of the singers were really good and I am pleased for them when they do well. I say to the telly, 'Good on you, well done' like a right twit. (You see, this is why I find myself amusing.)
But the real pain was to have someone choose a bloody awesome song - Awright! About time! - and have the judges say they haven't heard of it and that the girl ought to choose songs people have heard of. The song was by The Gossip (Standing in the Way of Control) who apparently do it quite well live. And the girl's voice was fine, she did ok; but she couldn't get near the original [audio link].
Then they all get excited by a Justin Timberlake song that I may have heard possibly once. I thought it sounded none too flash. Another time a girl did a song which was apparently by Fergie that I had never - thank God - ever heard. Apparently that was a good choice too. And yet Regina Spektor was considered too out there. Honestly, I felt very mainstream when I bought her latest from JBhifi a while back. Of course, the girl who did the Spektor song wrecked it.
Oh, and it turns out the girl who chose the awesome Gossip number to cover was the first to get booted.
Yes, yes, I know. What do I expect watching these shows. I really am just torturing myself.
But I really copped a beauty last night when I - Lord only knows why - watched NCIS (I think that's what it was, all those shows look the same to me; I never usually watch any of them). It was just horrifically bad. Apparently it is written by children for children (I guess the same audience as Idol). All the characters where in fact behaving like children.
If this show is accurate, then people solving serious crimes giggle and make faces at each other the majority of their working day. Not a comforting thought. (Although, if you look at Bush it is easy to believe that the US is in fact run by children.)
And I don't mean to be cruel to kids here.
Also disappointing was Californication the other night. I saw the first episode and watched most of this third one.* It left me pretty cold.
I like that it's a show doing something different. I liked Entourage for the same reason. I think it's good for a show to have characters, including a main character, that aren't likable. Jeremy Piven in Entourage for example; you love to hate him and when I used to watch that show he did that character very well. I think David Duchovny's character's agent might be trying to be a bit like Piven actually. But I think I'd rather see Piven spanking a lass's bare behind, he'd manage more humour.
Anyway, it's fine to have unlikeable characters; that's more realistic. But the other night they were trying to get the audience to sympathise with DD's character. Worse still was this was badly done through the use of soppy music while DD watches his pretty ex and his daughter frolic on the beach. Hair blowing in the breeze, child happily playing with a puppy. I was too busy rolling my eyes to care whether or not this was 'real' or a daydream with it's sepia lens action happening. Yes, have a shitty male character who we love to hate, but don't try and make us feel for him. Not unless you're going to do the show seriously which, if that's their intention they are failing miserably.
Anyhoo, there may be hope yet. My inner child is looking forward to The Bionic Woman coming soon. It will probably be shite of course, but it might be good. I watched the original and never really got attached to any of the characters but I loved the idea - and I'm that juvenile I still do! As a bonus, it was easy to play pretend games of The Bionic Woman cause to be really super fast all you had to do was run in slow motion and make a fake sh-ki-ke-ke-ke-ke-ker kinda noise - and of course, flick your hair around a lot.
* In part because I hadn't realised that the little girl from The Nanny was the one riding Duchovny and punching him in the face during sex (thanks Edward).
