martin_whyte2 Reviews

Live from Studio Five (2009–2011)

Vacuous to an absurd degree

[2/10 · 3 October 2009]

In the 1990s, Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish presented a comedy sketch show called "The Adam and Joe Show". One sketch involved them pretending to be television presenters for a vapid mid afternoon show called "people places". In this show the presenters would go to public places such as shopping centres, and coerce members of the public into performing absurd tasks (talent competitions and so forth). The presenters yapped very quickly and every event seemed to be a rush for a sound bite, with no real substance.

And now, several years later, we have a full one hour version!

At least, that's what I think this is. The alternative, that this is a serious attempt at a news programme, is just too terrifying. The presenters' "buddy buddy" atmosphere is transparently insincere. The content lineup tackles news issues such as rugby players' new line of pasta sauces, or sections asking members of the public called 'Madge' to send in their photos.

This show is perfect for those of you who found loose women too high brow and intellectual.

Smallville (2001–2017)

Such promise...

[3/10 · 28 July 2008]

With the renaissance of comic books to movies, a TV show like "Smallville" was destined to be. I initially avoided it, but after several friends telling me it was worth watching, I gave it a look.

Season 1 is excusably formulaic. It suffers most heavily from "monster of the week" syndrome (see early Buffy the Vampire Slayer for details). However, unlike Buffy, it hasn't outgrown this feature by season 3 (I haven't watched further than this, as I seriously don't have any reason to keep watching). Furthermore, no plot development really happens. At all. 3 seasons equates to 3 years in the story, yet the structure of the characters' relationships are almost totally static. Given that these characters are teenagers (where 3 years is a lifetime!), a substantial shift in opinions and alliances would be expected. But no, we're presented with the same tired love triangle. By season 3 Pete has been all but written out (given that he's Clark's best friend, this seems a bit lazy).

The writers have managed to create a never ending supply of bad guys by deciding that Kryptonite gives many inhabitants of Smallville crazy powers, which they can never seem to control and always end up doing harm with. They will then get into a tussle with Superman who will gain the upper hand, but then be

* pushed into a Kryptonite rock garden

* fall in Kryptonite manure

* be sprayed by Kryptonite perfume

* eat some Kryptonite gummy bears

unsurprisingly, this mechanic got tedious very quickly.

The characters in this show are, at best, irritating. The "good guys" (Kents, Chloe, Lana) are all hell-bent on being martyrs and will take the blame for anything going wrong, even if they were only vaguely involved (and especially if what happened was out-width their control...for example Clark's persistent "all the trouble happening here is my fault, if I hadn't landed in Smallville everything would be fine" whining). The writers of the show clearly don't like grey area characters, and feel the best way to show someone is a goodie is to make them try to take blame for everything.

Beyond the general self blaming they all tend to have their individual irritating personality foibles. The only one that deserves a special mention is Lana.

Lana wears her heart on her sleeve and gets angsty and upset at the slightest thing. A substantial number of episodes see her going off in a huff with Chloe or Clark for the episode, only for everyone to hug and be best buds at the end. How this whiny bitch can be the girl everyone in school loves is beyond me. She comes across as cold and uninteresting (the fact that she ends up running a coffee house at 16 is also very stupid, but we can chalk that up to stupid teen drama plots).

To be fair the back and forth between Lex and Lionel Luthor is entertaining (despite Lex's persistent pseudo-intellectualism). They manage to keep the power struggle and scheming between themselves quite interesting.

This show had some potential to presenting an interesting perspective on how Superman became what he is. However, the Superman lore is only a thin veneer over a second rate teen drama. If you want superheroes, go watch the 4400. If you want teen drama, watch Dawsons Creek. Only watch Smallville if you want a tedious mix of the two that fails at both.

In summary, I can best describe this as the worst of early Buffy mixed with some Dawsons Creek/The OC/One Tree Hill angsty teen drama. In fact it's mostly angsty teen drama with the occasional moment when Clark has to defeat some unimaginative Kryptonite monster.

One Tree Hill (2003–2012)

Mediocre never looked so good

[4/10 · 21 March 2008]

Anyone who has seen "The OC" or, more historically, "Dawsons Creek" can identify very quickly the kind of show this is. A coming of age teen drama which explores sex, drugs, school, relationships and all other things teenagers care about from the applied perspective of some 17 year olds (despite the show being written by 40 year olds and staring 20something year olds). And of course, as is the rule of teen dramas, everyone's good looking except the characters whose plot line is that they aren't good looking.

Your stereotypes are all present and accounted for. From the tortured pretty boy 'new kid', to the hot (and inexplicably ignored by her peers) geeky girl, to the misunderstood bitchy cheerleader. This show won't surprise you by presenting you with complex characters, the only surprise you'll get is when the convoluted plot throws a curve ball.

The writing on this show is appallingly lazy. Cheap get outs that I had hoped writers had moved beyond seem to be alive and well in One Tree Hill (people surviving fatal accidents, random long lost relatives appearing...REPEATEDLY). There's no "meat" to the plots, just every standard teen drama plot line possible ran through in a hollow, half hearted manner.

All you need to keep a show going nowadays it seems is a contemporary young person soundtrack and lots of partial nudity. Oh that and constant advertising such as the repeated blatant advertising of Sunkist soft drinks and the pimping of a few bands (including one drawn-out section with Fall Out Boy).

The stories and character actions are painfully melodramatic (though I suppose this is typical of teenagers and teen dramas really). Characters engage in a perpetual love hate relationship with one-another in a heart-on-sleeve world. Miss 3 episodes and you'll miss a "I hate you and never want to see you ever again" break up and make up.

This isn't compelling television. This is background noise sandwiched between pieces of pseudo-intellectualism (tip: opening and ending your show with quotes from good pieces of writing doesn't improve your show, it just makes it worse by contrast). Most of the entertainment I've gotten out of this show is laughing at how genuinely unbelievably poor the writing is (my favourite being characters flashing back to scenes they weren't in).

WATCH THIS IF: You're looking for background noise while doing something else You've never seen a teen drama (it's not the best, by any stretch, but it's so vanilla that it covers pretty much all the bases)