I missed the first series of Primeval, despite the rave reviews it received. So when I caught the season premiere over the weekend, I had high expectations.
For those of you who don’t know, Primeval is like Torchwood, but with dinosaurs instead of aliens. You’ve got some kind of obscure agency dedicated to capturing and containing stray dinosaurs.
The problems I had with this episode are many…
Welcome back to the town of Grandview folks. It seems like ages since we last did a review of Melinda Gordon’s liaisons with the restless spirits of that town.
Tonight’s episode is a doozie, paving the way for an awesome series two climax. Not only does Melinda meet another ‘ghost whisperer’, but she discovers some unfinished business from series one, and uncovers a dark secret Professor Payne has been hiding. Phew! Read on for more…
To his friends and family, Dexter Morgan is a somewhat straight-laced blood spatter analyst at Miami Metro’s homicide division. However, behind the scenes, Dexter is a cold blooded killer who satisfies his need by hunting down uncaught murderers, hacking them up and disposing of them along the ocean floor.
In daylight, Dexter’s the guy who arrives at work with a box of doughnuts for his colleagues. He works diligently, but doesn’t draw undue attention to himself. He very successfully fakes his relationships with others, but sometimes drops the ball by not showing emotion when he probably should.
At night, Dexter stalks his prey armed with a syringe full of horse tranquillizers and an assortment of razor-sharp cutting tools. Using his access to police resources, Dexter identifies unsolved crimes and uses his skills to track down killers and administer his own brand of justice.
Forgive the sudden departure from television-related news folks. We’ve been having fun with a Yoda-speak thread over on the forum tonight, and it forced me to dredge up this Star Wars spoof video:
It’s an animation featuring the original characters from Star Wars in a spoof rap video. There are too many good moments to watch, including Darth Vader flipping the W sign and Yoda doing a cool solo.
Matter of fact, can anybody translate Yoda’s lines from the video? I can’t quite work them out.
Journeyman is a gritty new drama that features time-travelling journalist Dan Vasser. Vasser’s already fragile marriage is put under immense strain when uncontrollable time shifts start happening - he starts disappearing without warning, leaving friends and family thinking he’s in trouble of some kind.
To cap it all off, the extremely hot Fiance he presumed was dead reappears in his past, and happily, she’s a time traveller too!
If you’re new to Journeyman, here’s the Unreality Primetime guide to the main characters in Journeyman.
As you all know, I’m an avid watcher of Ghost Whisperer. I thought I’d put together this post for anybody who’s thinking of getting into the series. The regular cast is mercifully quite small, which is part of the strength of the show - we get to know the lead characters intimately.
Melinda is the Ghost Whisperer of the show’s title. She has the ability to communicate with the dead, something which runs in her family and which she has known about since an early age.
She’s married to paramedic Jim Clancy, although for some strange reason she didn’t change her name upon getting married.
Despite her blissful home life, she is pained by the fact that her father left home when she was a child, and she has a distant relationship with her mother (who is also a whisperer, but denies/hides the ability). She had a close relationship with her grandmother, who taught her about her gift. However, when her grandmother died, she was isolated by her ability and had no-one to talk to about it.
Melinda’s character is sweet, down to earth and loving. Plus she has the body of Jennifer Love Hewitt (don’t underestimate this point, ladies).
Ah, Jim Clancy. A man so perfect that he could only exist in fiction.
Jim is Melinda’s husband. They met when Jim was attending a fire in Melinda’s apartment building, and after an initially frosty start, the pair started dating. The rest is history.
Square-jawed, life-saving Jim knows all about Melinda’s supernatural secret, and being the missing link between man and god, is totally supportive of his wife communing with the dead. He helps her in whatever way he can, getting access to databases for research or talking to colleagues to find out more about the ghosts she’s tracking.
This loving, understanding, won’t have his wife sectioned for seeing ghosts character is played by David Conrad. He is reviled by normal men worldwide for his unrealistic depiction of a married man. OK, we could probably learn a lot from him…
Delia became Melinda’s friend and colleague when a big plane landed on her previous co-worker, Andrea (see below). Delia is a widow and has a son, Ned. She has a loving relationship with her son, but her tendency to dwell on the death of her husband sometimes overshadows her relationship with Ned.
Delia previously worked in real estate, but accepted the offer of a job with Melinda when business was going downhill. She sometimes uses her connections and access to information to help answer Melinda’s seemingly strange queries about past owners of houses, etc.
After the loss of Andrea, Melinda seems reluctant to share her secret with Delia, so Delia thinks Melinda’s behaviour is slightly unhinged from time to time. Melinda’s typical strategy when a ghost appears in the store is to send Delia out for coffee.
In the second season of Ghost Whisperer, Delia has a potential romance with Jim’s colleague, Tim Flaherty. However, Tim’s cold feet and her preoccupation with her dead husband get in the way. Delia is played by the award winning actress Camryn Manheim.
Not-so-slick Rick is the stereotypical university professor who has a rather obvious crush on Melinda. Whether Melinda knows this or not, it is her key to discovering a lot of information.
You see, Rick is a Professor of Occult Sciences and Melinda visits him regularly to get his input on whatever spook is currently bothering her.
Aside from his input into the paranormal, Professor Payne’s relationship with Melinda is worth watching on Ghost Whisperer. At first, he’s a complete sceptic about ghosts, treating them as an academic topic. Melinda approaches him with questions, but doesn’t reveal why she’s looking for particular information. It’s not until later that she tells him about her secret and he witnesses ghostly activity first hand.
Professor Payne is played by actor/comedian Jay Mohr, best known to me for being Jennifer Aniston’s camera toting love interest in Picture Perfect.
If you’re watching the first season of Ghost Whisperer, Andrea is Melinda’s friend and co-worker from Same As It Never Was. Unlike Delia, Andrea knew about Melinda’s secret, so we find ourselves wondering why Melinda keeps Delia in the dark about her prowess with the paranormal.
Sadly, Andrea was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a plane crashed outside the sleepy town of Grandview. Initially thinking she was still alive, she returned to Grandview where she became the subject of a tug of war between Melinda and the evil Romano. Thankfully, Melinda prevailed and now Ms Moreno is sorting out second hand junk in heaven…
Andrea was played by the (very sexy) actress Aisha Tyler, who briefly played Ross’ girlfriend in Friends.
I just don’t get all this nonsense about Jennifer Love Hewitt being fat. Seriously. She’s a sexy, curvy woman. Her figure may have filled out a little in recent years, but if you ask me, in all the right places.
Anyway, I could wax lyrical about Ms Love Hewitt’s perfect body all day. It’s one of the reasons Ghost Whisperer is such a watchable show, after all.
Why the extended pervy intro? Well, in last night’s Ghost Whisperer, a slightly horny Melinda stripped off and dived into bed beside her husband. I couldn’t help but feel slightly jealous of David Conrad (who plays Jim). What a lucky dog….
The third documentary in Channel 4’s new strand for up-and-coming directors, First Cut , is Karaoke Soul . Set in and around a northern town, Karaoke Soul follows three people who find relief from their everyday lives through song. Director Joshua Neale mixes stylised musical performances with intimate observational documentary to tell the very personal stories of three people through the songs that are close to their hearts. As pub landlord and the narrator of the film, Terry, says: “Karaoke. That’s where it all comes out”.
Friday 30 November 2007
7:30pm, Channel 4
You know how each episode of Scooby Doo follows roughly the same plot?
The gang will roll up at some house and hear stories of a supernatural terror haunting the place. After twenty minutes of chasing through caverns, tunnels and secret passageways, Fred or Velma will hit on a plan. Shaggy and Scooby will balls up that plan, but inevitably land on the ‘ghost’, stunning them enough to be apprehended. Finally the unmasking reveals a corrupt minor character who “would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids and their dumb dog”. And the episode will end with a “rooby rooby doo”!
Channel 4’s High Society season returns with four fascinating documentaries examining secret scandals and notorious figures from the higher echelons of British society. This month Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip will celebrate 60 years of marriage. The Royal Wedding in November 1947 was a day of national celebration. However, the young couple’s path to the altar had been strewn with controversy and difficulties. Behind the smiling faces and the colourful regalia lay a story of political machination, public hostility and court intrigue.
Thursday 29 November 2007
9:00pm, Channel 4
