Category Archives: TV

People Like Us series 2 on DVD!

I’ve been waiting years for the second series of People Like Us to be released on dvd, and I’d pretty much given up. One of the reasons was that there was no sign of it appearing in the UK, so an Australian release seemed to be completely out of the question … yet, it has just turned up , and as far as I can tell is only an Australian release. I was quite surprised when the first series got a region 4 release, the show had long been off the radar and I’d already mail ordered it from the UK a year or two earlier. It must have sold well here (and perhaps I wasn’t the only one emailing Hopscotch Entertainment asking for series 2). The rise to fame of David “Dr Who” Tennant may have helped too since he appears in one episode as a struggling actor.

I think the second series is better than the first (which was also very good), highly recommended.

On the topic of DVDs, I notice that Harvery Birdman Attorney at Law has finally been given a R4 release (at least the first two volumes). There is one more volume to come. There are plenty of episodes that to my knowledge have not been shown on SBS (at least not at any reasonable hour).

I can’t have a DVD thread without having a whinge about the classic ABC dramas Phoenix and Janus still not being available. It’s crazy that two of the best Australian shows ever are unavailable when such a huge range of TV shows have been released on dvd.

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The Peter Serafinowicz Show

Peter Serafinowicz was one of the creators of Look Around You, which never screened in Australia. Now he’s got his own sketch comedy show which hopefully will. In the meantime much of it is on YouTube. Here are a few clips

A Guide to Modern Life – Let’s Have a Good Night’s Sleep

[youtube qnJfEY_zuOs]

Elephants & Trains Magazine

[youtube klS92A8YzfY]

Gravies of the Ancients

[youtube A19y7Jjt6xs]

The Butterfield Diet Plan

[youtube vjnuBTPOaKY]

Darth Vader in Love

[youtube 8NdSL2NUoWk]

The Original Movember

Despite what some people might tell you, Movember began in Adelaide in 1999. I know this since I’ve been a participant ever since the first one. Channel 7 news were there to document it and now this is available on You Tube

[youtube NPH0qQFqs0M]

Watch right to the end for the classic comment that gave us the motto – Joins est Brucingus. Love the file footage of Tom Selleck as well, as a spokesman for an entirely made up association of moustache enthusiasts.

The original Movember crew can be found at www.movember.org 

RAN Repeats

Only just noticed that SBS are currently repeating the 6 part drama series R.A.N.- Remote Area Nurse starring Susie Porter as a nurse working on a remote Torres Strait island. It’s an excellent series, and I’d recommend watching it even if you missed the repeat of episode 1 last Sunday. Read more at the SBS site.

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Polar Bear Beat Up

Last night Media Watch had a look at the recent story about animal rights activists wanting to have a polar bear cub put down and found that it originated with a tabloid beat up that completely misrepresented the people in question. It seems that pretty much every week they have a story which has been passed around the world’s media without anyone checking the facts behind it (for example last week there was misrepresentation of the comments of an ADHD expert). Should every news outlet check out the details of every story they come across from the source? Well, can you imagine being the subject of a story that gains attention worldwide and having every newspaper, radio station, tv station, news websites ..etc contacting you for verification? Also it would be a huge burden for these people to check every single story that crosses the news desk by contacting the source, on the other hand they must bear responsibility for anything they present as news. I’m not sure exactly where a reasonable compomise lies, but I suspect that currently we are not there. For a start, if someone gets a story from another news source, perhaps they could at least find out whether that news source obtained it or verified it first hand. At the very least, in a case where the story involves something quite outrageous (like animal activists wanting to kill an animal) then it seems that extra checking should be done.
Media Watch had a particular interest in polar bears last night with another story about the questionable use of a photograph of polar bears. This is an interesting example as the photo illustrates a scenario which is predicted to occur (or possibly already is), but that is not what is actually depicted in the photo. The proper use of this image would have been to say that it was taken in summer, close to the coast, but to point out that under the predictions of climate models that this is a scenario that would be played out far from land, leaving the bears stranded. I note however, that those using the photo were not necessarily aware of this, so I’m not suggesting dishonesty. Essentially it is the same problem as above – something gets passed through enough hands that the origin is forgotten – so there is basically the same solution, given that it is such a striking image some investigation into its origin would have been wise.

I want Phoenix & Janus on DVD

I’m not much of a DVD collector, but I like to get a few shows that I really like, especially if they are hard to come by on TV. I’m happy to see that series 2 of Twin Peaks is finally due for a (region 4) release in a couple of weeks but it reminds me of pretty much the only other shows that I could think of right now that I’d like to get (apart from Vol 3 of Harvey Birdman when it turns up) – those are two fantastic dramas which the ABC made in the early 90’s: Phoenix & Janus. Each consisted of two series of something like 13 episodes (rough guess, it was a long time ago). Phoenix series one followed an investigation by the Major Crimes Squad into a bombing that killed a police officer, and series 2 saw the same squad (with a few cast changes) investigate a violent armed robbery and sexual assault. One of the main characters was Sgt Peter Faithfull played by Simon Westaway. I remember it as being essential viewing. Each season had one long story arc and the whole thing was fantastically written and acted, and had a gritty realistic atmosphere that really made it stand out at the time and I have no doubt that it would still stand up today.
Sgt Faithfull returned in Janus which was centred on the court system rather than the police, with most of the action taking place in the courtroom as various members of the Hennessy family were put on trial. I recall not quite being into Janus as much as Phoenix but it was still really top class drama.

I was quite surprised when I did a bit of a search around the ABC & online DVD stores and found that these are not available (well, except for ABC program sales where you can get them for $1100 per season). Have you seen what is available? There are some pretty obscure things easily available these days – I find it amazing that the ABC can’t manage to release a couple of landmark shows in Australian drama. I also find it disappointing since I’d love to watch them again.

So does anyone remember these shows? Would you buy either or both of them?

UPDATE: Some good comments here and here on these series.

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What are you doing for Australia Day?

Or so the TV ads ask. I guess the government have changed agencies or it would have been “what the bloody hell are you doing?”. I’m really not too sure why they feel the need to advertise it anyway, so people don’t accidentally go to work tomorrow? I think everyone will notice a public holiday, and will probably work out what it’s for. If they need to advertise a public holiday I think it’s the October long weekend, no-one ever seems to know what that’s about. I suppose it might be Labour Day, which would mean the coalition wouldn’t be so keen on advertising it.

Anyway, since the ads have posed the question I’ll answer it, ANTaR SA are holding a community picnic on the lawns beside Tandanya, here is their flyer for the event. It starts from 5pm and will include food, music and guest speakers from the new Aboriginal Alliance Coalition Movement.

Afterwards I’ll be going to Melvofest as previously mentioned.

Almost forgot – throughout the day and into the evening remember that 3d radio will have their top 100+1 for 2006

Heaven’s Gate on TV tonight

I possibly should have called this “the short notice blog”, but anyway, I just noticed that Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate is on free to air TV tonight (in Adelaide at least). Since it goes from 12:10 to 4:30 it’s looking like the proper version too. It has the reputation of being a major disaster (and I believe that financially it was), but the panning from the critics was mostly directed at a shorter version which apparently made very little sense.

I was fortunate enought to see the full length version at the Adelaide Film Festival a couple of years ago, and it really was rather good. I’m not sure that it really does need to be quite so long, but on the other hand I never really felt that it dragged. It’s an epic anti-western starring Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, John Hurt and Christopher Walken. Hardly the first movie to put the old west in a different light (Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs Miller comes to mind), but overall a fine film and not deserving of it’s poor reputation. So if you weren’t planning on sleeping tonight, check it out. Can’t help but wonder if these means that they’ve run out of infomercials though.
Whilst on the topic of TV I’d like to put in a favourable mention for the Shakespeare Retold series currently showing on the ABC on Monday nights. I really enjoyed last week’s retelling of Macbeth, with an excellent performance from James McAvoy (who is also appearing in the repeats of the superb “State of Play”, but not the new series of “Shameless”), and word has it that this week’s “Much Ado About Nothing” is even better. Being an uncouth cretin I’m not actually familiar with that particular play, I think I’ll go into it without looking up the plot to see what I make of it, which will make a change from last week when I was constantly wondering how they would interpret various aspects of Macbeth (incidently I thought the “pigs will fly” was a bit of a weak point)