Idea Fix - The Blog

I have been a life long fan of Dr Who. I’m the only non-nerd Dr Who fan in the world or I keep my nerdiness well hidden, one of the two. But with the new series and its driving force Russell T Davies, I can keep silent no longer!

I love the original series, all of it, right up to the end of the Tom Baker era, then the Peter Davison and Colin Baker eras were alright, with the Sylvester McCoy era, generally, sucking Sontaran dick.

So, it was with delight a few years back that I heard of the shows return, after that mediocre 90’s telemovie. Russell T Davies, the resurrector of the show, gets for this one feat a place on the Gallifreyian council, guaranteed.

Christopher Ecceleston’s new Doctor was cool, David Tennant’s is equally good. Billie Piper was a good companion too, pert, bit of a tart, cheeky, etc. The show brought back old villains and had some good episodes, vastly improved the special effects and even had some effective tearjerker comebacks from the likes of my favourite female companion Sarah Jane Smith. This is all the good news.

Now, the bad news. It’s the stories. They kind of suck. They set up a villain or story, then there is 30 minutes of manic peril, followed by a conclusion. Now the FX are great, etc. But that’s all we get now. Dr Who used to be about ideas, a whole Galaxy of them.

We have to blame Russell T Davies, the new shows shamen. Maybe he’s under some form of experimental mind control from Davros? He wrote most of the offending episodes. They’re a bit ‘gay’. I mean the term in the way of ‘lame’, not homosexual; yes I know Davies invented “Queer as Folk”, a gay lifestyle drama. Maybe that’s the problem. The show is too politically correct. The Villains in Dr Who were never PC. They were always manifestations of various forms of alien fascism. Ruthless, blood curdling, terrifying, once you get over the plastic suits and look at the content of the show.

Not only that, the original show was rich on ideas about every conceivable sci fi tale, parable, metaphor or situation you can imagine in this dimension or the next. Classic Who touched many political, ethical and social issues and not in some ‘gay’ PC way either, but in a way that was unsettling, original and unconventional.

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Dr Who was daring as a children’s show, for being so legitimately disturbing. It treated its audience, both child and adult alike, as if they had brains and could actually make up their own minds about what they see. The Doctor is a very morally ambivalent character, essentially good but nuanced and with a dark side. Best exemplified in episodes like Genesis of the Daleks, The Green Death, The Silurians, Tomb of the Cybermen, The Invasion, The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, Talons of Weng Chiang, The Ark In Space, The Sontaran Experiment and many others. These episodes all dealt with issues using more intelligence, heavier subject matter and better scripts than most American sci fi movie blockbusters of today! I shit you, not.

While we may not expect such daring and intelligence to be manifest in the beige and pop TV land of the 00’s. I was hoping to see some of the great ideas of Who return. And they have sometimes. Mark Gatiss, from League of Gentlemen, has written a few good eps in the new show and the one with the statues that moved from the last season, was classic Who. Even, the RTD’s episode that had Derek Jacobi revealed as the Master, made the hair stand up on my neck and had me jump for joy (ala Tom Cruise), on the sofa at this arch villain’s return. What a shame they had to bring in John Simm, who gave us a ‘too much Ritalin’ young funky Master. Jacobi’s Master was magisterial and magnificent, but all too brief, he can come back, though. After all the show is about time travel…

In coming weeks I’ll review a classic Who episode, to explicate the complexities of ideas going on in the old show and the apparent idea/content wasteland of the current series. Russell T Davies, get off the cybercock and start bringing Ideas back to Who. Daring, challenging, chilling ideas, need to be new catch words at the BBC Wales. The episode about the Who fan’s video diary was good Mr Davies, so you have ideas within you. Channel the disturbing non-PC threat of the original show, its there to see in hundreds of classic episodes. Do that and you will be nominated an honouree Time Lord, in perpetuity. You can still keep a PG 13 rating, just make it subversive and in the subtext.

Oh and please bring back Tom Baker, for just one or two episodes. That would be a truly timeless gift from the Vortex.

Chris Lilley’s Summer Heights Hight is an excellent new Australian comedy show that stands up to International standards. I like to wait to see interesting TV shows either on DVD or pirated off US TV, etc, so I waited for this show to come out locally on Digital Versatile Disc. It was well worth the wait. Summer Heights High is as Mr G might call it “Comedy Gold”.

Lilley stars in three roles; that of Mr G, a bossy fey drama teacher with a heart of mold and a megalomaniacal streak, Jonah, the bully delinquent Tonga school boy and Ja’mie the up her self private school exchange kid. The show is deeply perverse in its humour content and even in Lilley’s performance with a character like Ja’mie. How did 32 year old Lilley convince the ABC he wanted to star in drag along side 16 year old school girls, date a twelve year old boy all the time making every sexist, homophobic and racist comment imagineable. If wanted to do that, I’d probably end up arrested or locked up in the funny farm, God knows be able convince the ABC to fund a TV series out of it!

Anywho, the show is brilliant and so “random” on a number of levels. The humour is delightfully cruel and un-PC touching on a number of sensitive areas in most unsensitive ways like race, class, homosexuality, mental handicaps, etc. The three main protagonists are archetypal Australian school characters, the over ambitious gay drama teacher, the bully delinquent Islander student (standing in for an Aboriginal student, perhaps?) and the bitchy up herself girl.

The show is clever, it starts cruel but it slowly lets you learn to like these characters, in particular Jonah. At the start he is an annoying thick headed student who disrupts every class constantly, that you find funny… but you dislike him. But soon you see home problems, the failure of the school ’system’ and learning difficulties are behind some of his problems. The ending with Jonah being expelled and the one teacher who understood him, was actually moving and very well done.

Mr G is a hit classic character, he is completely insensitive to all around him as he pursues his grand dream of artistic creation. He delights when the head of drama leaves (due to a family illness) and he takes over the school musical. He drops the old play and after a student dies of an E overdose, he makes this the subject of his new musical. After the parents complain about the script that describe their dead daughter as a drug taking slut, Mr G self titles a rewrite and makes it all about him trying to save a girl from drugs. Mr G is brutal about telling students their failings to the point of abuse and hates the disabled students. The disabled character of Toby eventually takes over the lead in the play when an actor drops out at the last minute and Mr. G finally accepts and gets along with him. This is a great Down Syndrome character in Toby, as opposed to recent cinematic The Black Balloon. Toby overcomes Mr. G’s prejudice and ends up portraying one of the best parts in the bizarre Strictly Ballroomesque stage show in the series final - “Mr G”. A catchy song called Naughty Girl is out now as a single with choruses like “E-E-E-E-E Esctasy” and “She was a naughty girl with a bad habit, bad habit for drugs”.

Ja’mie is the most irredeemable character in the show, a stuck up private school bitch that comes to Summer Heights and calls them all “povo” and “losers”. She highlights, no screams out, the class distinction in Australia well with her snobby bitchy ways. She hates the fugly girls she’s first put with and then she dumps them and then hangs with a group of 16 year old “hotties”. To be different, fashionable and stand out she dates a year seven 12 year old student, pretends to be a lesbian and organises a school formal by faking an AIDS charity to get the funds for it. She has some great lines like “I’d rather be a pedophile, than a lesbian” and she consistently abuses the public school kids for being povo and having no future. She is deeply self absorbed and her character is completely classic.

Chris Lilley’s performances are truly amazing. He nails each character and deserves major awards for his work here. He did win a Logie for his last show We Can be Heroes, but this work here deserves AFI’s and International recognition. I can’t speak highly enough of how good he is in his characters. The performances are detailed, observational, cruel, hilarious, mannered and true to life. The shows style of a mockumentary and the direction by Stuart McDonald too is tight, funky and fast moving… like an Australian The Office.

The show works with its mix of savagery and tenderness because life is like that, especially school life. People and especially school kids are not politically correct. They are racist, sexist, homophobic, whatever and Summer Heights High captures this reality with brilliant sardonic satirical wit and observational humour. It reflects life in Australia as it is and not how The Government would like it to be perceived or portrayed. I for one look forward to whatever Mr Lilley does next. Maybe, we hope, even a Summer Heights 2?

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As opposed to the Aussie cinema doldrums, Oz TV seems to be producing some classic works at present. I am ten episodes into Underbelly, the TV series about the Melbourne crime war and its the best Australian TV show since Blue Murder. I’ll file a report on this Aussie masterpiece when I see the last three eps.

Australian cinema must lift its game as local TV has clearly surpassed it…

Hanging out with the Savage brothers this weekend brought my attention to two sick US TV shows, Moment of Truth and To Catch a Predator from Dateline NBC.

Moment of Truth is where a contestant takes a lie detector test on every personal or private matter in their entire lives and all they have to do to win $ is answer the questions correctly a second time. Only this time in front of the family and friends that they are generally hurting, deriding or insulting. Its sort of like Scientology Auditing on live TV in front of a crowd but with your family and pals present. Its a purely sadistic show as people are forced to confess ever form of horrid personal feelings about everybody around them. They do this of course as the Network dangles the all mighty dollar on a stick in front of the contestants donkey like noses. A preview is below.

Dateline NBC’s series To Catch a Predator is the more troubling, though. Well, hard as it might be to say this…it basically exploits pedophilia for ratings. In conjunction with law enforcement and social anti-pedophile groups they set up sting operations where they pose as 13 or 12 year old girls online and set up ‘dates’. Of course soon a deranged gaggle of pedophile’s turn up in various cities to meet they’re supposed jail bait prey. The show is guilty of entrapment and cases have been dropped in the US from the shows methods…. but getting pedophiles off the streets is not the shows intention, exploiting the freak factor for ratings is. Yes, as your friendly neighborhood kiddy fiddler turns up for his ‘date’ instead of finding her or him, he finds an actress who is over eighteen but could be under, playing the ‘victim’. She asks if he has condoms and is ready for action, etc. Then bang in comes host Chris Hanson from behind a screen to start the ‘public humiliation of the pedophile for ratings show’ before the police come out of hiding. Hanson of course does his best to humiliate these losers on national TV before they apologize, go to leave and then of course the Police swoop in and arrest them. The show is pure sickening manipulation from both ends. I include a clip below from the show.

To Catch a Preadator is sick on two, maybe three levels. Firstly, obviously the pedophiles net prowling and second NBC’s decision to exploit these attempted crimes for ratings. There have been suicides from the show and it adds the punishment of  public humiliation to the predators entrapment on the show. Thirdly, it is sick because it creates the crime it seeks to stop, by trawling the net with lures and invitations from a 13 year old to get it on. Without TV camera’s a case could be made to legally do this, but with them it becomes a vial form of sadistic Entertainment. Its as if watching crack whores, meth heads and white trash getting busted on Cops is now not enough. Now we need, Pedocatch-TV! There are not many shows that confirm a completely misanthropic outlook on humanity…but this is one.

What’s next? To Catch a Killer or better yet To catch a Cannibal - Set up a show for murderer’s or cannibals by posting online fake id’s as willing victims, just so you can lecture the psycho’s who turn up about the error of their ways? Where does this quest for harsher reality TV end?

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In Hawaii, in late 07, I was switching between 100 channels on US cable one night before going Tiki bar hunting. I thought if TV can represent our collective unconscious, the mix of 100 channels I was self editing at random, like a Burroughs cut up, represented the collective unconscious of someone who is deeply insane. Strange synchronicities in dialogue began to occur and even stranger juxtapositioning of images. Anyone can do it…just sit in front of US cable (or Aussie) and change channel every 8 to 15 seconds and you will soon see what I mean. I’m sure most of us have done this many times? What do we see. The unconscious of an utterly insane entity. Throw in To catch a Predator and Moment of Truth and you have two more touch stones of Western mental unhingedness.

Technically, all of us who live in the West, are in America in some way…so their mental picture is not that far ahead (or behind) of ours. Not that it’s news to anyone ….but its clear the Capitalist West has clearly gone Insane. Psychopathology run amok.

Are we all doomed? How can we harness this ‘greatest danger’ from the media and technology in general and turn it into what Heidegger referred to as the ’saving power’? That is the question, Comrades, that indeed is the question…

Here are the two clips to boggle the mind. You wonder if American society isn’t terminally ill after watching these two latest forms of ‘Entertainment’.

I just finished watching the SBS Australian TV series Wilfred on DVD. Wilfred started as an award winning short that later was developed by Renegade Films with the shorts creators Adam Zwar and Jason Gann into a funny little TV show. Its about a mid twenties girl who has a Dog and her new boyfriend. The main joke of the show is the Dog is a full grown guy in a Dog suit who amongst other things likes to smoke bongs (that’d be Jason Gann). The girls bumbling new boyfriend (Adam Zwar) then gets into various adventures, predicaments and existential conversations with the dog. The first three episodes wore the premise a bit thin from the short… then suddenly the show took a walkie and got better when a Dog Whisperer shows up, an old boyfriend with his own man-dog (Angus Sampson) visits. The episode of Wilfred at the beach and a funny break out a kennel are episodes that are also very good.

By the end of the season of 8 episodes its really beginning to grow on you like flea eczema. Wilfred’s laconic and psychotic nature are oft witty with an odd surreal humor. The show itself is surreal and funny because you are unsure if the dog is just a guy in a suit playing a dog in reality and Zwar’s wimp cahracter accepts this kinky relationship. Or that the guy in the suit represents what your average dog might be thinking, feeling and saying if he could talk, etc.

Gann is excellent as Wilfred and comes up with inspired lines about scratching his ass on the rug, digging holes in th backyard for bones and bodies, barking at ducks in a pond, insulting people who ring the front door and many other ‘dog’ issues. This all goes to prove there is probably more to your pooch than an unthinking automaton science tells us he is. Wilfred is clever here in its portrayal of man’s favorite animal that thinks, does odd behavioral things and protects its mistress. It is both endearing and bizarre at once and one of the better comedy TV shows from Australia in recent years. Maybe not as daring as The Chasers War on Everything or the world class suburban tragi-comedy of Kath and Kim or prankster John Safran’s media interventions. But Wilfred holds his own close to these aforementioned three Oz comedy gems and that is something all involved should be proud of.

Australian TV is much healthier than its film industry it would seem…

If your a fan of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 6, does not disappoint.

In Ep 1. Larry’s smoke detector is on the blink. Cheryl talks Larry into adopting a family from a Hurricane Katrina type situation. So along comes an African American family called the Blacks, who Larry jests “That’s like if my last name was Larry Jew”…they don’t get the joke and are offended. They are loud and obnoxious and Larry wants to ask Loretta Black if she can stop smoking in the house to her rancor… which causes Loretta to put it out in a bin which (due to the malfunctioning smoke detector) causes the house to burn down. It’s the classical circular disaster story of misanthropy one has grown to love about the series and is near perfect.

Pretty soon Larry bonds with the Black’s. Particularly Loretta’s uninvited brother Leon, who turns up on his doorstep to move in, and starts teaching Larry some street moves. When confronted by a skin head anti-semite, Leon says to LD, he’s got to “get in that ass”…i.e. stand up for himself and pick a fight. Back at the same location where the skin head accosted him, Larry yells at another bald chap, trying to “get in his ass”, but is told he is not a skin… but a chemo patient.

In another classic ep., Cheryl calls Larry from an airplane phone during a storm worrying the plane will go down. Larry can’t really hear her over the TiVo guy talking to him and her talking to him at once, and he says he is too busy with the TiVo guy to talk to her. Cheryl then splits up with Larry over the issue leading to LD then dating other gals to much amusement and ending up falling for Loretta Black.

Other classic episodes include Larry’s rage at a sample abuser (someone who abuses the free samples at ice cream shops), Larry also overhears someone having a racist conversation using the word Nigger and when he (loudly) retells the story… a black Doctor walks past and hears Nigger and proceeds to tear Larry D a new one. Of course Larry can’t explain he was only retelling a conversation he heard because of the MD’s fury, etc..

These are only some of the interwoven comic tales of manners, class, race, identity, money and misery that are so funny when set amongst the LA upper class world LD inhabits. The people hating pettiness, stinginess and insensitivity of LD. Add also the failure for people to understand the many honest faux pas and bad calls LD makes. It all adds up to another classic HBO season that is funny as fuck and wrong in so many right ways. If you haven’t got into this show start at Season 1. I expect a comment of thanks after you have watched it or I’ll “get in your ass”. Why locale TV don’t put this on in prime time is beyond me. Its like Seinfeld but meaner, nastier, funnier and more crude.