All Saints

Have you seen All Saints?

For international readers, All Saints is an Australian-made hospital drama which appears to focus on some kind of emergency response unit.

I had never watched it, but earlier this week found myself flicking over to it mid-episode.
What I found was glorious.

The premise of the show seems to allow for low-key 'day in the life' hospital stories to sit beside balls-to-the-wall emergency plots.

Now, don't get me wrong, the show appears to be terrible, and I did not make it to the end of this episode, as it features that quality shared by almost all Australian drama - it is also a soap.
Seriously, no matter what genre an Australian drama occupies, it will inevitably be a soap opera. If not right away, then in the fullness of time.

But I had to mention this show because, judging by my 20 minutes of exposure, it is the most melodramatic experience available in today's world.

As well as a woman (pictured above, thanks All Saints website) who was allergic to the whole world, the ambulance squad - led by a man with silver hair and a chunky ring in his ear - were called to a car accident.
Not that exciting you say? Well they found a man trapped in a truck that was surrounded by live electrical cables! This meant:

This entire vehicle was electrified!

If he moved, or touched any metal surface, he would be electrocuted!

This was especially serious, because he was also having a heart attack!

Is was amazing. They tried to pass him medication by way of a wooden broom. It didn't work, so they had to resort to desperate measures! I know this because they told us.
The measures in question? Discovering that the key was in the ignition and had a small plastic cover on it, the man was instructed to drive a small distance forward! And he did! And it worked! Thank God!

Then I stopped watching. I assume the man went on to thwart a terrorist attack by driving forward slightly, before the entire hospital filled with wrist blood, which gushed fourth from a million audience members wringing their hands into oblivion.

Fox and Friends

The following video is magnificent.

All who disagree are mistaken.

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Good news everyone!

Futurama is back!

Comedy Central has ordered 26 new episodes, because people love the hell out of this show.

I'm paraphrasing - they've cited solid DVD and rerun performance - but that's the spirit of the thing.

The first four seasons of Futurama are rewatched often in our house. The show is smart, hilarious, and superior to the Simpsons, at least in our geeky household.

The movies were good too. They weren't great, but I feel like that was a format problem, and I'm very happy to see the show return in episodic format.

Photo by General Disarray

Happy birthday Queenie!

Today Australia celebrates the Queen's Birthday, and so everyone (except me) gets a day off work.

It's certainly one of those miscellaneous public holidays, given that the Queen of England has little bearing on the day-to-day life of the average Australian, and that England has been scrubbed entirely from much of the nation's consciousness (but cheers for exiling the criminals to a place with a superior climate).

Of course, as Australians, we'll take a long weekend for any reason, so who's complaining?

This is all terribly uninteresting.

What is more interesting is the thriving lego community I have stumbled across on Flickr. Almost every search I've undertaken over there has returned at least one photograph rendered in lego. for example, a search for Queen returned the excellent image above. I love lego, so this is awesome. Check it out.

Photo by ....Tim

Top Five TV Villains

The five best villains to ever grace a TV screen, as decided by me on an entirely arbitrary basis, are:

Twin Peak's Leland Palmer

LOST's Benjamin Linus

Buffy's Mayor Wilkins

The Wire's Chris and Snoop

Arrested Development's Lucille Bluth

So what do you think? Do you agree? Does this list make you want to stab me in the eye with a spork because I missed your favourite, or perhaps because you will film it in the hopes of appearing on a later list?

Photo provided by Stoneflower

Top Five TV Villains: Lucille Bluth

Where She's From: Arrested Development (Spoilers below)

Why She's Evil: She masterminded the Bluth family's illegal dealings, including some 'light treason'.

Why She's Awesome: She is the acerbic matriarch of the most dysfunctional family ever. The family's lack of social skills, life skills, tact and general ability are surprising at first, until you meet their mother.
Through much of the series she exists as a comic foil, undercutting her children's efforts and reminding them that they are too fat or stupid to succeed in what one assumes is a defense mechanism aimed at keeping them close. It is only at the end that we realise that she is behind the Bluth's illegal business dealings, and had allowed the blame to fall on her husband.
The joy of Lucille is her dialogue - razor-sharp, withering lines come with regularity.
Most importantly, her grand, greedy scheme is what kicks off Arrested Development, and for that we should all be grateful.

Best Moments: "Everything they do is so dramatic and flamboyant. It just makes me want to set myself on fire", "I never cared for GOB", "your father with his disgusting tweaking. I couldn't breast feed any of you kids because of that man", "You are a worse psychiatrist than you are a son-in-law, and you will never get work as an actor because you have no talent", wine is only alcoholic if you let it sit ... I could go on.

Honourable Mentions from Arrested Development: George Snr, J Walker Weatherman, Mr F, Wayne Jarvis

Top Five TV Villains: Chris and Snoop

Where They're From: The Wire

Why They're Evil: As enforcers for the coldest drug dealer around, these two killed a whole mess o' people.

Why They're Awesome: I know I'm cheating here by counting two characters as one, but Chris and Snoop shine as a duo. These two are terrifying. Chris is around in season 3 and Snoop appears with no fanfare at the end, but season four belongs to these two. Their cold method of adversary removal is a new level of creepiness for the show, and the wholesale disposal of people is made worse by the businesslike fashion in which these two work. They're entirely unfazed by the job they do. Snoop is especially creepy, as her small body houses a twisted soul who has seen too much. Chris' single flash of rage is shocking when it happens, and lends the glimmer of humanity needed to make him truly terrifying. These two are the creepiest people there are.

Best Moments: Snoop buying the nail gun, and the shopkeeper's changing expression, Chris noticing Avon's car, Chris tutoring Michael, their disbelief at Omar's fate, Chris hanging with Wee-Bey, "How my hair look, man?".

Honourable Mentions From The Wire: Avon, Stringer, Marlow, anyone in any position of power whatsoever.

Top Five TV Villains: Mayor WIlkins

Where He's From: Buffy

Why He's Evil: He turned himself into a giant, immortal snake and planned to eat an entire town. Also, he's a politician.

Why He's Awesome: There were a lot of good 'Big Bads' in Buffy, the villains who took all season to vanquish, but the Mayor is my favourite. He's just so nice. The juxtaposition of impeccable manners and mass murder, of cleanliness and eating demon spiders, were played note-perfect. He's like a nice uncle whose jokes are bad but you don't mind because he means well. He really cared about Faith. When, at the very end of the season, there's a flash of rage, it feels real. It's scarier than immortal vampires and cyborg terrors.

The Mayor is also a nice little metaphor for the fear we all feel when we're finishing school, that the real world will be absolutely terrifying.

Best Moments: Buying clothes for Faith, talking with Buffy in the hospital, "well gosh", getting the box of spiders back, demanding cleanliness.

Honourable Mentions from Buffy: Glory, The Master, Angel, Druscilla, Willow.

Top Five TV Villains: Benjamin Linus

Where He's From: LOST (spoilers below)

Why He's Evil: While his motivations are as yet unclear, one thing is - Ben is a stone cold, schemin' bastard.

Why He's Awesome: It's not clear yet whether Ben is a true villain, but he is without a doubt one of the most villainous characters on television. He may end up a hero, but certainly in an 'ends justifies the means' kind of way.
Everything he says is suspect, and the joy in the character is in rolling his words around in your head and trying to figure out what they mean, and if they mean anything. He has a teenage streak of petulance which nicely counteracts his ability to be one step ahead. He's stone cold, and he 'always has a plan'. Even though he's a bastard, half the time he's your favourite character. In season five, when you get the rare chance to see him lying while knowing what actually happened, it's a sight to behold.

Best Moments: The whole Henry Gale sequence, especially his creepy speech over breakfast, taking Juliet to see Goodwin, the look on his face when his daughter falls to the grass, visiting Widmore in the dead of night, a legion of facial ticks, possible lies and creepy inflections.

Honourable Mentions From LOST: Keamy, the Smoke Monster, Radzinsky, Ethan circa season one.

Top Five TV Villains: Leland Palmer

Where He's From: Twin Peaks (Spoilers below).

Why He's Evil: He murdered quite a few people - most notably his own daughter.

Why He's Awesome: For a start, he was less of a cold-blooded killer and more of an unwilling host to the homicidal spirit Bob. Twin Peaks is so great because it starts of as a murder mystery and grows into a sitcom, a soap, a thriller and a horror movie all at once. Leland Palmer is an excellent symbol of all this. He's at times hilarious, awkward and terrifying, sometimes all at once. He's batshit crazy and is equally likely to burst into awkward song as he is to murder someone. He grows from a subject of pity to a feared entity, but at the end of his life, he just feels used up and ashamed. He's got a great arc, and you've got to love him.
Once you watch Fire Walk With Me and can see the whole span of his character, it's really impressive. The casts a wide shadow over proceedings. I love the Twin Peaks mythology, but he works equally well if you want to think that he's just a nutjob.

Best Moments: Jumping on his daughter's coffin, dancing, his heart-wrenching interrogation.

Honourable Mentions from Twin Peaks: Bob, the Man From Another Place, Ben Horne, Evil Cooper.