Talking Telly

All the best stuff is on telly when you’re either at work, asleep or down the pub. Speaking of said pub have you ever sat there saying ‘have you seen blah this week?’‚ and they say ’no’, ‘well did you see blah,blah ?’‚ and they say ‘no’. It’s like what do these people do with their lives? Make time to cook proper food? Spend quality time with their kids? My advice is use that video. Use that video and get a life. Festering around watching a backlog of the week’s telly is what mornings off work were made for.

Here’s a selection of what’s going on at the moment (U.K terrestrial only until someone around here coughs up for cable). Not bothering with the too obvious Sopranos‚ Simpsons‚..etc.. Feel free to e-mail your current faves, comments, whatever to: talkingtelly@onetel.net.uk

Youth Is Wasted On The Young Here’s at least two reasons exactly why that statement is true.

SMALLVILLE. CH4. 6pm WED. Where a teenage Clark Kent comes to terms with his superpowers and Lex Luther nurtures that pesky evil streak of his.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. BBC2. 6.45pm. THURS. So there’s Buffy an unfeasibly perfect all-American teenager and there’s a load of reconstituted and unreconstituted vampires and demons living at the Hell Mouth, an unofficial suburb of L.A. It doesn’t get much better than this. A Quiz: Nerf Herder wrote the theme for Buffy, who wrote the score? (Check out the credits you may be surprised). Incidentally, Buffy as usual has been temporarily dropped for sport, currently Winter Olympics ( one good argument for global warming). Utterly outrageous.
And The Premise Is... BRIMSTONE. CH4. 4am. SAT. Wife of cop gets raped. Cop kills perpetrator. Cop goes to Hell. 15 years pass. 113 people escape from Hell. Devil gives cop another chance of life on earth if he can track down all 113 and send them back to him. Wicked.

CRUSADE. CH4.4.35am. SUN. Set 250 years into the future, the Starship Excalibur cruises the Earth Alliance and territories to find a cure for the Drock plague. People rather oddly use expressions like ‘six feet under’‚ when they probably mean vaporised and the only way to distinguish between tribes is a lack of eyebrows, but when the action is taken outside the starship the landscapes are fab.

CODENAME ETERNITY. CH4. 3.45am.SUN. The premise ? F*ck knows. Totally weird, totally watchable Si-Fi with aliens and loads of weird sh*t.

THIRD WATCH. CH4. 3.15am. SAT. A tale of everyday Fire and Police Officers in New York.

C.S.I. CH5. 9pm. SAT. No one watched the last series, now people are getting turned on to the gruesome charms of forensics and entymology in Las Vegas. Starring William Petersen who foiled the serial killer and er.. grilled Hannibal Lecter in Red Dragon and Marg Helgenbergen. who was briefly shagging both Dr. Doug Ross and his estranged dad in E.R.
Speaking of which repeats of E.R. C4. 11am. Every Weekday are back but it’s probably only for the half term so make the most of it.
O Lardy FAT CLUB. ITV. 8.30pm. TUES. A cautionary tale of how difficult it can be to lose weight for those of us who spend too much time sitting around watching telly. Inspiring never-the-less. Series nearly over though.

CLOCKING OFF. BBC1. 9pm. THURS. Third series of Paul Abbott's absorbing comedy drama set in a factory in the north-west. Features the cream of British acting talent and there’s often a guest slot: i.e. Christopher Eccleston, Sarah Lancashire. Fab.

SEX IN THE CITY. CH4.10pm. WED. Each series of this classy comedy is better than the one before. Last week Samantha lost her orgasm and having exhausted her toy drawer imaginatively employed various household items to retrieve it. Hilarious and educational.
And Finally For Now... Who hasn’t walked into a lamp post because they can’t resist snouting in someone else’s front window? Now there’s a much safer option. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. CH4. 830pm. WED. Estate agents Phil Spencer and Kirstie Allsopp find the perfect home for buyers in various locations around the country.

HOUSE DOCTOR. CH5. 9.30am. Every Weekday. Californian interior designer Ann Maurice re-styles those hard to sell houses around the country. A lot of beige, sea grass and de-cluttering with Fung Shui. Marvellous.

P.S. If you were wondering what happened to the re-runs of TWIN PEAKS. CH5. 12am.SUN. I phoned CH5 and I was told they have the rights to show the next 14 episodes but no plans to schedule them just yet. Let’s hope they get a move on and finish what they started.