WeatherGirl’s Station

Saturday, the young’un and I indulged ourselves in a Top Chef marathon. When we left the States in August we were part the way through season three of Top Chef. Very kindly, a friend, recorded the rest of the episodes and sent us three discs worth of mayhem plus the reunion show. Well, I must say, it felt incredibly decadent to watch all those episodes one after another. We loved it! How any restaurant can organise itself to serve multiple sittings of people and serve high quality food never ceases to amaze me after watching shows like this. Clearly you can’t run a restaurant and be a slacker. Bring on season four.

PS Tom Colicchio rocks! Just so you know.

Current temperature: here 7c/45F, there 28F/-2C

Diverting. So we didn’t see this on its initial release for some reason so I rented the dvd to see if Michael Mann had captured some of the spirit of the original and to see how Foxx and Farrell measured up.

I had enjoyed watching the original tv series when it first aired. My parents thought I was only just old enough to watch it so it was quite something for that to happen given how adult the material was. On rewatching recently, with a more critical and experienced eye, it certain was a show where style won out over substance though I found the Sonny becomes his alter ego story line held up well. I’m just a junkie for all that angst.

So the movie provides quite a big bang for your buck and I loved the style of the piece and the set pieces. I didn’t feel very emotionally engaged but it certainly was not wasted time looking at the pretty.

Current Temperature: here 7C/45F, there 25F/-4C

It’s called, North and South, not the novel/tv show about the US Civil War but a four part BBC production of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel. It is an almost perfect production with great writing, direction and a pitch perfect cast. It has a number of similarities to the Pride and Prejudice production staring Colin Firth which I adore but this is even better. Yes there are a few convenient events that make the story work but I must confess they are most satisfying. Every time I watch the end of episode two, even though I know what’s coming, it just tears me up inside.

Go, buy, make yourself happy!

To buy or find viewer reviews and a more detailed description of the production, check it out here amazon.co.uk or here amazon.com.

Current temperature: here 13C/55F, there 39F/4C

CSI, for us, has always been a one pony show with Vegas being the be all and end all. New York has its pleasures and Miami is an easy on the eyes sugary treat. Sadly the opening episode of Vegas CSI’s new season was a huge disappointment. Let’s hope the real scriptwriters are invited back and the show is wrested from the lowly intern who seems to be in charge and thinks this pile of drivel is worth spending time watching.

I was so looking forward to the new season and it sucked so bad I’m wondering if the shark has been jumped. Let’s hope not as I really enjoy my weekly Grissom fix of sense, logic and reason.

Current temperature 54F/12C

So a new season of US television has begun and we’re still in August and can hardly be said to be headed into the autumn months. At least not yet!

Last season I only made it 4 or 5 episodes into this show before I had to admit defeat and give up watching. (Actually it was Michael’s loss of a couple of important digits that did me in.) The tension was just too much and I knew there was no way I would make it to the end of the season with my sanity intact. Confinement plus the threat of serious physical injury hit all the wrong buttons for me and suggested serious unhingedness was likely.

Happily our hero and his brother made it out of the building at the end of last season and consequently I’ve decided to give the show another go. Let’s see how many episodes I manage this time!

Current temperature 81F/27C

When I was a kid, Saturday tea times would be spent hiding behind the couch in terror. A good kind of terror I hasten to add. All sorts of monsters would be loose in my imagination while watching a certain tv show. The daleks along with the Master were particularly scary to me. The show sadly became known for it’s ropey sets and less that stella special effects but it had heart, interesting ideas and great characters.

I’m talking about Dr Who which has returned to the airwaves after a break of some years. We saw much of the first new series whilst visiting the UK last summer and have finally seen the episodes we missed on the Sci Fi channel these last few weeks. It’s been a lot of fun and brought back some great memories. Even the daleks are back which is a big plus in my book. Christopher Ecclestone has been a great Dr and it’s sad to see him quit after just one series. Not sure what I think of David Tennant as the Doctor but we’ll see when the next season starts.

One of the the great pluses of the show has been the character of Captain Jack and the whole attitude to sexual orientation. Captain Jack flirts with everyone regardless of gender. Initially he’s a bit of a wheeler dealer out for what he can get and he uses his charm on everyone. There’s lots of witty repartee with both Rose and the Doctor.

Then there was the final episode. Jack is saying goodbye, to his two friends, as he expects to die in the coming fight. He gives Rose a big smack of a kiss on the lips and then does the same to the Dr. Nobody bats an eye, or reacts in anyway that suggests this is strange. Congratulations go to Russell T. Davies for the relaxed attitude to orientation. It’s about time we saw characters like this on tv.

Current temperature 66F/19c

I’m going to have serious stress issues for the next 19 hours of 24. They’re dropping like flies already, yikes. One of my favourites has already bitten the dust and another is hanging on by their fingertips. (I’m not saying who just in case, dear reader, you haven’t seen the first five hours.)

I love this show, flaws et al. While each season has its weak moments, they still manage to get me hooked for the rollercoast ride they embark on.

Current temperature 27F/-3C

I just want to shake the script writers on this show and jiggle loose whatever part of their brains have become stuck in the ’stupid’ position. They manage to come up with some very scary ideas and yet this show is let down time after time by the little details and the resolution of the stories. It’s so frustrating. It’s like they expend all this energy coming up with the creepiest outlines but then don’t have enough time to pay attention to the details that will give the characters the depth they deserve.

The two leads have a great chemisty together but the writers have to get their brains in gear and raise their game a great deal if they’re going to produce a product that will survive beyond a single season.

Current temperature 18F/-8

… those who love the grand tours thought their fairy godmother had come in the shape of OLN. There was wall to wall coverage of the Giro, the Tour and the Vuelta. We were in seventh heaven. I fell in love the Vuelta, not so flashy as the Tour but much more likely to go down to the wire.

Then, after the 2004 Tour, it all went south. OLN dumped the the 2004 Vuelta and is currently covering only the weekend stages of the 2005 Giro. Their behaviour is bizarre. With the success of Lance Armstrong, and the depth of their coverage, they had built up a really hardcore following. The potential audience was huge. All it needed was nuturing and instead they blow the whole thing out of the water.

To my rescue has come the web site cyclingfans.com Here you can find all the differnet ways it is possible to follow the Giro. So now I’m listening to the live audio feed of the Eurosport tv channel and reading the ticker at cyclingnews.com. Then later in the day I can watch the web feed of Itallian tv coverage of the day’s stage. (I can’t use the OLN web feed of live pictures as I’m a Mac user.)

No Paul, Phil or Bob fix until the weekend.

What ever happened to pleasing the customer?

Current temperature 55F/13C

Current favourite programme title sequence - Medium. Cool visuals with super cool audio track. The colour palette used is stunning as is how the visuals morph from one thing to another, visually suggesting a variety of elements without having to illustrate them all literally. Even if the show doesn’t appeal you should check out the opening title sequence.

What’s with those dead bodies on the mortuary slab in NCIS? For some reason this show feels obliged to have naked bodies on their slabs but makes the genitals ‘disappear’ by unknown means. (They seem to be using de-sexed manikins and lighting effects.) I have no problem with them actually not showing a corpses’ genitals but they could handle the issue more adeptly. All they need do is use cloth draped across the body. It seems more appropriate to have a ‘modest’ corpse than a corpse that is anatomically incorrect. The morgue scenes are made more freaky by this strange treatment of the bodies.

Project Runway is over for the season (apparently there will be another since this one has done so well!) and Jay has been declared the winner. Based on the final three collections I think the judges made the right decision. Wendy wasn’t really in the running though she did a lot better than many expected but she wasn’t in the same league as the others. Kara must have been the favourite going into the final round but her collection was overly fussy and she broke the rules by getting a contact to make free shoes to match her collection. Jay’s collection was the most interesting of the three and had a clear vision and personality.

Current temperature 7F/-14C