Law & Order

Starting in September 2009, I will be yet again sitting down waiting in anticipation for the new series of the old American classic, "Law & Order". This year is the veginnings of it's 20th (!!!) season on American television, thereby making it the joint longest running primetime drama in American television history, and as everyone knows, it's not exactly easy keeping your show popular in the US. What's even harder, is keeping a show going that long, as the public knows, popular shows such as Scrubs, Desperate Housewives, even the supposed favourites such as Channel 4's Big Brother, struggle beyond the 5th season. They can still be popular, no question about it...however the strength in writing seems to start going downhill, or you begin to think you have seen it all before. Scrubs has even poked fun at themselves through the episode "My Deja Vu, My Deja Vu" where they admit they are running out of storylines. So the ability to keep a series still going strongly intowards 20 seasons is an amazing achievement. So how is it done?
The creator, Dick Wolf, has regularly admitted that the STORY, not the actors, are important. The premise is simplicity. The first half of the show is devoted to two detectives and their boss investigating a crime, quite often murder. They will find evidence and arrest a suspect usually half an hour into the show. This is the Law half, the second half is devoted to the District Attorney and his assistant trying to prosecute the suspect, with their boss helping them. A simple premise that has been used with varying circumstances for 433 episodes and a feature length TV-Movie. But what makes it more astounding, is that of the original 6 main characters in the first episode, of the first season, all of them have been replaced.

Since the Senior Detective Sgt Max Greevey debuted in the first episode, he has been replaced by 5 other actors. Since the Junior Detective Mike Logan debuted, he has been replaced by 6 other actors. Since the debut of Captain Donald Cragen, he has been replaced by Lt. Van Buren, who is now approaching her 17th season of Law & Order. Since the introduction of Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone, he has been replace by 2 actors, including the famed Jack McCoy, the second longest running character at 15 seasons. Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette was introduced and has been replaced by 6 actresses during the 2o seasons. And finally, the District Attorney, Alfred Wentworth, who appeared in just the pilot, has been replace by 4 other actors, including the famed Jack McCoy. This is an example of how the actors aren't the main part, but the premise and storylines. Since the 90's, Law & Order has been succesful enough to spin-off two shows, Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent, which follows similar premises and have reached their 10th and 8th succesful seasons.

The creator, Dick Wolf, when asked why he feels the show has done so well, had this to say: "Most shows when debuted, are the equivalent of a 100 yard dash, hitting the ground running and eventually running out of steam. Law & Order, however, is the equivalent of a marathon, it's prepared for the long run." And despite the fact that the story and premise is supposed to be the main focus, the characters are all 3-dimensional with backgrounds ranging from recovering alcoholics, sons of abusive fathers, divorced mother, grandparents, ex-gamblers, all with a slight hint that resonates with real life people. They are all perfectly imperfect characters, with a perfect premise, that draws an audience in again and again. For people with an interest in intelligent crime dramas where the storylines matter, but with realistic characters, this should be a show for you. And shall surely be drawn in, from the first moment you hear "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."

A review of ....LOST: Namaste AKA "The one where Sawyer ownz Jack"

Well the first sign of an uneventful episode is surely that, only three hours after I watched it and I can only really remember one thing that happened . So to sum up this episode Check the post title.

OK so a few other things happened. All the lostiees were finally reunited for a start. Well not all exactly. Sun has been inexplicably left with Lapidus, Ben and the rest of the brand new survivors in the present day (err...presumably?). Being the plane-crash-on-a-creepy-island veteran that she is, this time Sun knows exactly what to do. Follow anyone suspiciously walking into the jungle until he tells you his plan, lul him into a false sense of security, then hit him over the head with a boat oar. So just in case you missed it from all the new power suits and clandestine meetings, this means Sun is a bad ass. Maybe that's why she was left of Jacob's list for all the time warping fun.

Also not at the lostiee's reunion was Syid. He was too late to join Sawyer's plan to pass the others off as new Dharma recruits due to having landed somewhere in the jungle, yet still in 1977, so had to take the next best option; admit to being a "Hostile" (although that's not how they refer to themselves- so says Syid- fitting into the role a little too well) and being put in prison with things going in a very torture or death kind of a way. Let that be a lesson to you about punctuality. Things ar'n't looking good for him righ now as he gets little help from his old friend Sawyer.

No too surprising really as through this episode we see that for the first time in his life Sawyer is a respected and upstanding member of the community. Making a good honest living, coming home to his lady, putting his feet up and reading a good book. Hell, he even has the white picket fence and the pet smoke monster in the back garden. And then along come some people he new for a couple of months three years ago and he has to put it all on the line.

Particularly lame considering one of those is Kate, who still passes him significant glances wherever possible, despite having been nearly married to his former love rival. Please stop with this now writers! Is there anyone who can't see how this story line is going to play out? If there is may I suggest watching any other series of lost, there will be the same love triangle in any one of them. It's like being in the groundhog day of whiny romances and it constantly gets in the way of Sawyer's character and any development Jack may have, not to mention it has completely made Kate into a 2D "love interest". Do something different. Have Sawyer stay with Juliette and please God don't ruin her by having her be the jealous, underwritten house wife all season! Not the it wouldn't be good to see a few more scenes like when Kate's name was not on the new recruits list and she was moments away fro a similar fate to Syid, before Juliette saves the day. Coincidence- I think not. Hell hath no fury like a 'bad ass baby doctor' scorned.

Then there was of cause the best moment in the episode. OK some fans may still like Jack (well some people like Marzipan, you just can't trust some people) and dislike Sawyer's Cowboy stylings but, hay if being a bit rude is what it takes to take Saint Jack down a peg or two then fine. Besides, Sawyer isn't really an uneducated hick don't you know. He reads books and knows about Churchill. Churchill see Jack, who's the smart one now eh?! O what's that you say? You're a top spinal surgeon? Books and Churchill! Just focus on the books and Churchill. Intellectual damn it, Intellectual...will you people never see past the 'married to my sister' accent!?

O and then there was some weirdness with Christian and a floodlit house in Dharma town, which for some reason Sun and Lapidus needed a torch to enter. But well have to wait until next week to find out whats is going on there.

Unanswered Questions:

Was that Clair or just a blond 'runner' reflected in the glass at the Dharma house? Are some people sitting far too close to thier TV screens?

Does any one care enough about this Cesar guy for him to be randomly in episodes without any significant point? I smell a new Nikki and Paulo in the making.

Where the hell are Rose and Bernard? Have they gone into the same other world of characters lost in the time space continuum *cough* the writer's memories *cough, cough* as Catlin from Heroes?

Where exactly is Daniel? except for "not hear"-Thanks Sawyer- real helpful. Surely it is somehow connected to the ill fated coms officer building the Swan model?

A Review of....America's Next Top Model: 12 Cycles on but still compulsive viewing

America’s Next Top Model is the perfect viewing experience: mindless, brightly coloured and addictive. The show, presented and produced by Tyra Banks, is now airing its twelfth season (or cycle as the Americans would have it) and the format has been exported to countries around the world. A thirteenth cycle is being put together at this very moment.
I’m certainly conscious of what I wear and how I want to be perceived but I’m definitely not a fashion slave, partly due to financial constraints and partly because the whole concept is clearly dubious from an environmental or basic human happiness point of view. Nevertheless I am a dedicated and unashamed Top Model fan and I am committed to spreading the love far and wide. So, here goes!

For anyone who doesn’t know, Top Model follows your basic elimination reality game show format. Thirteen model wannabes are whittled down over the course of the series by process of elimination based on their performance in the weekly tasks. Each series contains a number of standard set pieces: the makeovers, the runway challenge, the go-see challenge and the Covergirl commercial. Eliminations take place in front of a panel of industry expert judges who critique the photos and performance of the girls. The winner receives a modelling contract with Covergirl cosmetics and gets signed up to a modelling agency.

From the first episode that I watched I was instantly hooked and ended up watching the entire series in a single night (I believe in seeing an addiction through to the end). The appeal of Top model is simple yet contradictory. Ultimately it’s pure escapism. During the show the girls don’t have to worry about work or the mundane features of everyday life. They are thrown into an extravagant illusion of easy success based on looks alone. Yet it’s hard to say whether watching girls, who are prettier and thinner than me, having a good time actually makes me feel better about myself or worse. It’s rather like facebook stalking: you only stalk the people with more exciting lives than yourself even though you know it’ll make you feel inadequate.

But even with the escapism aside Top Model is worth watching for its visual appeal alone. The American version is the clear winner over the export versions in this respect. The budgets are incomparable. The American version is brighter and more lavish from the photo shoots to the judging rooms. The judging room in series one of Britain’s Next Top Model, for example, looks like the conference suite of a cheap hotel with a ‘Top Model’ sign stapled onto a grotty curtain. The Canadian judging room looks like it was borrowed from the set of an awful eighties quiz show.

As to the photos, some are truly stunning and you always look forward to the photo critique each week. In Britain’s Next Top Model the photo shoots are approached with a good, British dose of realism that reflects the overwhelming probability that even the winner is unlikely to feature in any serious fashion editorials. The judges’ in the American original make claims to look for an all-round winner who can do ‘commercial’ and ‘high fashion’ but there’s no sustained commitment to preparing the contestants for the realities of the less glamorous end of the fashion industry. The show never sacrifices the aesthetic glory of the dream for such dreary concerns.

So you’ve got escapism and aesthetics but Top Model also has some good, clean, family-fun entertainment thanks to the foibles of some of the judges and contestants. My all time favourite contestants from this point of view include Robin (cycle 1) who seems to have a biblical or moral maxim justification for everything she does, including buying $400 boots. There’s also Melrose (cycle 7), who epitomises the bitchiness that elimination shows can produce in people who are probably perfectly pleasant in the real world. In fact there’s a bitchy one for every cycle and usually a pair of girls who can’t stand each other so this never disappoints. The girls in Britain’s Next Top Model are arguably bitchier on the whole than their American counterparts and seem to form factions rather than there just being one or two bitchy girls within a larger group of nice girls. The first episode is always a selection episode and some of the auditions are priceless. Jaslene’s audition in cycle 7 is utterly glorious.

My all time favourite contestant by far, for entertainment value, has to be Jade Cole from cycle 6. She is outrageously arrogant, not only because of her looks and modelling abilities (frustratingly she does produce good photos) but also from a wildly misplaced belief in her level of intelligence. You have to see it to believe it but she has a unique vocabulary featuring words such as ‘analystic’, ‘tornness’, ‘dwelve’, ‘withhandle’ and ‘derrogatoriness’ which she not only believes are accepted words but that they make her sound intelligent. My favourite quote is “Elephants are just incredible. They’re so preposterous” but there are countless others.

Some of the judges are brilliant too. Janice Dickinson (cycles 1-4), boldly asserting herself as the world’s first supermodel, represents the brutal voice of the fashion industry and generally berates the girls for being ‘too fat’. She also has a hilarious argument with another judge Jay Manuel (who presents the Canadian version and claims that his skin is naturally that colour) in cycle 1 and is eventually replaced with Twiggy (cycles 5-9), the lovable fashion aunty who has a genuine claim to being the world’s first supermodel. The veteran model in Britain’s Next top Model is Huggy Ragnarsson: a walking warning to anyone considering plastic surgery. Back in America, two- time judge Nole Marin (cycles 3 and 4) ought to have some sort of statue erected in his honour for fulfilling so many fashion stereotypes. He’s a fashion editior who is gay, bitchy, short and a bit tubby, ruthless in judging the girls on their weight and has a miniature dog. Nigel Barker, the most enduring judge, probably owes the longevity of his service to the fact that there would be a tidal wave of abuse letters if the female viewers didn’t get to look at him each episode. His English accent appears to particular advantage next to the Americans and makes him all the more handsome.

Finally, there’s Tyra herself. There’re moments in the cycles when she shows surprising insights and she usually has intelligent and worthwhile advice for the contestants. There’s also her achingly awful attempt at a pop single and her frequent crazy moments which I can only assume are unfortunate attempts to make her look a bit quirky or original. When watching the programme you may sometimes wonder if you’re watching some sort of speech therapy programme as both Tyra and Jay Manuel belong to the presenter school of thought that believes in speaking patronisingly slowly and over-enunciating. There’s also the scandal as to whether cycle 9 was fixed so that Saleisha would win. It’s all on Youtube but the evidence looks pretty convincing to me, particularly as Chantal, the runner-up was basically a goddess.

The real question though, after twelve cycles, is does Tyra actually care about the girls anymore? Certainly comparing cycle 1 to the following cycles there’s a massive decline in the amount of time that Tyra personally invests into the girls’ progress. However, anyone questioning her interests needs to watch Tyra yelling at Tiffany in Cycle 4. Literally watch it now! It’s the rawest emotion that I’ve ever seen on a reality TV show, or maybe on any TV show, and it’s hard to believe that they didn’t edit it out.

So where should the Top Model novice begin their obsession? At the very beginning... Cycle 1 is probably still my favourite cycle and as I said there’s a lot more Tyra time and a feeling that there’s more at stake as there can only be one original top model winner. Cycles 8, 2 and 7 closely follow as my next favourites but, believe me, once you’ve watched one you will NEED to watch them all!

A Review of... Duffy: Rain on your Parade Video.

It's this kind of thing that the word 'cool' was invented for. Frank Sinatra, Tarantino movies and Uber stylish monochrome 60's style music videos.

The video isn't wildly original, it reminds me of two things; Emma Bunton's 'Maybe' video, (amazing video, bad song- which always takes down the cool factor) only Duffy's is moody where Bunton's was stylised. And of cause Bunton's was a homage to the 60s to start with.

Then, weirdly Duffy's own 'Mercy'. I don't know if the record company felt they should keep to a theme for her videos or weather the Mercy vid was so cheep they thought "what the hell, they won't notice if we do it again"? But hay, if it ain't broke! And the simple lighting, sharp dancers and 60's style Duffy defiantly ain't broke.

Tones of kudos to the dancers and choreographers here for such an incredibly slick job. It all fits so perfectly with the music and lyrics as well, not just a load of people dancing around.

Also Duffy looks amazing. I wonder if that's people mean when they say smart casual? As long as you have the jacket who needs anything else?

The tragedy of it is though is that the Mercy Video was re-made for the U.S. as it was too simplistic...What!? Simple = dramatic! It makes me hope Duffy is a one hit wonder over there so this doesn't suffer the same fate. Our weather may suck but at least when we are stuck inside we can watch the unedited versions of mini masterpieces like this! God it feels good to be British... I'm off to drink some tea out of a Bowler hat and salute a picture of the Queen.

A review of..... Lost: La Fleur - SPOILERS (obviously)

Remember grizzled, sarcastic, pain-in-the-ass Sawyer?...nope neither do I. At least not after La Fleur. I'm guessing the choice of name was no coincidence- James Ford's old alter ego is now dead and we are left with soft sensitive Jim La Fleur and with all the twists and turns that Lost offers up, the biggest surprise this episode is just how well Sawyer suits sensitive.

'La Fleur' is thankfully Sawyer centric, which is a welcome breath of fresh air as season four was criminally short on Sawyer. Although it could have centered around any of the 'Island crew' and it would have been a hundred times better than any o6 episode. Even the likable o6 members are getting tired and as for Kate and Jack you almost have to respect the writers for keeping them as central characters when their popularity has plummeted. They are needed, I get that but just so annoying. Hell! At least it's enjoyable to watch the them suffer!

Luckily unlike the o6 Sawyer's fate seems to be pretty good, in fact, with the exception of poor Danial who's heart brake over loosing Charlotte was genuinely touching, everyone seems to be loving the 70s. Jin is finally interacting with more characters now he can speak English well, Sawyer is head of security for Dahma and playing house pretty convincingly with Juliet.

Of cause they can't play Brady Bunch forever. Along come the o6 to complicate things and Horace's (love him, not sure why) question "is three years long enough to get over someone?" is fresh in Sawyer's mind. Well, personally I damn well hope so. I'd rather say something rude about Keamy's mum and suffer the results than sit through any more Jack, Sawyer, Kate angst. And after Daniel and Charlot's o so sweet relationship was cut rudely short I couldn't take it.

Although this episode was light on plot there were so many good character moments it was a real high note to go out on one week hiatus with. Besides, a bit of a brake from the Linus/Hawking/Widmore mind fu*kary is pretty welcome. It got the story where it needed to be in a artful engaging way- what Lost does best at the moment. All survivors are now back together, likewise the action and we have at last stopped the time travel. Whilst it's a shame this means the tantalising glimpse of the 4 toed statue will be the last and therefore there are no chances of a story line where Kate gets bloodily sacrificed by an ancient culture, the time jump cut off in the 70s worked out nicely. There will be three years of island life now for the writers to explore and it's given our islanders time to develop together. Plus it opens doors for lots of mystery solving involving the 1970's crew, like where did Adam and Eve (skeletons in the cave) come from?

The time travel was a huge risk for the writers and so far they have avoided any massive plot holes. It is incredible but they really have pulled it off. OK so it may have slightly 'jumped the shark' plot wise, but they jumped it with style! Lost is still keeping it fresh and me on the edge of my seat.

New questions: So John's resurrection was a given but there is new intrigue from this seasons 'suspicious newbee with ulterior motives' Cesar. I would be tired of another character like this but Dan, Charlotte and Miles have fast become my favorites, (we better not have seen the last of Charlotte) so fingers crossed.

Plus, for the love of Jacobe, who are the giant statue building-4 toed civilisation? (we are so never going to get the answer to that.)

A review of....Heroes : A recent times overview

*Jump, thud* - That right there, that was the sound of me jumping on the Heroes Haters band wagon. God that was a painful jump. But after one bad season finale and two bad Volumes of defending it, fooling my self it will get back to old form; it is time to vent the anger!

Kudos at least to producers for making one of the most compulsive shows on TV. That people seam to be masochistically sticking with it, in the vain hope it will return to form, rather than just giving up says something about it’s originally quality. After all it's just a TV show, right? Why the dedication? Like no other show I can think of it seems to have a seriously addictive quality and just like any hard drug addiction it will leave you confused, angry and wondering what the hell you are doing wit your life! If all the people who seemed to hate it, yet still watch it, gave up then the already plummeting ratings would half. It is the only shows I have ever seen get a cover story on ways to 'fix’ it (EW apparently told them it was a promotional story- sneaky but I like it!). Is it the whole wish fulfilment thing? We so wanted to be those people with cool powers we can’t let them go easily. But is it worth the effort and faith it is given or has actually morphed into a ‘love to hate it’ show- Heroes, in the words of Dylan Moran "I hate you so much it gives me energy."

Somewhere between the first and second season something seriously weird happened. Ok the season finale wasn’t good, but at least it felt like the same show! Slowly (very slowly in Volume Two’s case) the show started to descend into a super hero soap opera, completely ignoring original premise of ordinary people in their home towns, with extraordinary destinies- and don't get me wrong that needed to develop, but in the opposite way to the one they chose- characters needed to come together, if anything, not be flung around the time-space continuum like superhuman trash in a trippy episode of Dynasty.

So my theories on what possibly went wrong (well this is the internet-everyone needs theories):

1) I remember seeing an interview with Milo Ventimiglia on Regis and Kelly where Regis told him that his daughter had been brought on as a writer in Vol. 2 - It's all Regis’s fault! Well may be not only Regis's daughter, but there was a change in writing staff. Writers from The OC, amongst others were brought in to write Clair’s arc. How anyone thought this was a good idea I don't know, half the writing staff are from Smallville already , which is hardly appropriate given Heroes was supposed to be the grown-up, realistic (well ish) side to superheroes - that was the point! The only other writers are Kirng alums from Crossing Jordan etc-i.e. no genre experience, no grasp of the average fangirl/boy’s memory for detail. Only one name really stands out on the writers list as having real calibre, which brings me to point 2...

2) Brian Fuller left. The exist of an exec producer who only wrote one episode would hardly be a big deal. However, that one episode just happened to be the fan and critic favourite of the whole show by a mile- a bench mark of what the show could and should be if it reached its potential. I.e. the reason so many people keep watching... "Remember how good Company Man was- it could be that good again". Also Fuller has proven himself an extremely talented show runner with Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies all critically acclaimed shows that he created. Whereas Tim Kring has two generic dramas and no experience in the genre on his CV (fuller worked on Star track previous to his own shows). Perhaps without him to oversee things and rein in the pure insanity and quash the “hay it’s Sci-Fi, we can do ANYTHING”s it all went down hill. Having said that, thanks to the fact that Pushing Daises is now…well...pushing daises, Fuller is back on board from episode 20 Vol 4. Disturbingly however (SPOILER ALERT) Fuller has said that season 4 will concentrate on Clair and the Petrellis....o good.

3) A lot of the complaints about the show seem to smack of poor management. In general Kring is to TV what Gorge Bush is to politics. If he is not calling his live TV viewers Dip S***s, he is blaming the serialised format for loss of viewers (yea coz 24, LOST, Desperate Housewives are all really unpopular) and my personal favourite, talking up the way the Heroes writers write it as they go along! He frankly deserves the flack he gets after making comments about Lost only having one good season...ha! There seem to be bizarre decisions coming from every department. Writing inconsistencies everywhere and writers complaining that it is because directors cut crucial lines of dialogue, the 4 million budget per episode is blown and no surprise when you see expensive sets like the Japanese strip joint set in Vol. 4 used for about five minuets. One thing they could learn from Smallville is how to use a budget.

Most bizarre though is the decision to give Hayden a distractingly terrible wig that literally looks like it is from a Barbie after she cut her hair a few inches. They even had a several week long time gap between Volumes- would it not have been easier to say Clair got a new hair cut? They constantly want her to grow up -so why not her hair too? It works for Future Clair. I mean do a few inches really make a difference? (dirty!) Seriously are they spending some of the 4 mil budget on crack!? Who came up with that idea? Peter was aloud a hair cut! (although ratings started to drop when the emo hair was cut- maybe that’s why they are worried?)

Surely there should be some people to oversee that lines of communication are open and decisions are thought through ...o weight there are! In know that producing a massive show is hard but it worked first season- what happened since? Well Jeb Lobe and Jesse Alexander got caught in the cross fire from an unhappy NBC. In Lobes case it may have been his time- comic book legend though he is, clearly his recent work has suffered from massive continuity errors and I doubt that it is a coincidence that Heroes does too. However the buck should stop at Kring. Some new writers don't seam to know what happened in previous seasons and the show no longer sticks to its own rules and ultimately it is Kring’s responsibility to remember all the little and not so little details and see that the rest of the crew do too- because the fans sure as hell will.

When Heroes started critics raved about how it actually answered questions, unlike Lost, but now there are just more questions than answers, not only about the show but about its production: Why are all the women blond? who the hell came up with the whole eclipses take away and give powers thing, (because I seem to remember a lot of powers going on before the last eclipse) and how have they not been fired? Who taught the heroes writers the theory of relativity? They did a bead job. What the F**K was with the hunger, since when was it a power based thing? Talk about pissing all over a character. Sylar the empath? WTF? Has that been all forgotten for Vol. 4? Is Clair's wig made of Golden Labrador fur? Is the whole show a secret promotional campaign for Italian supremacy? Why do the writers make thing so difficult for themselves (Clair's Jesus blood, Peter absorbing everything from Kirby Plaza)? Are they as masochistic as Heroes viewers maybe? And most importantly why am I still watching?

P.S. For anyone who is sick of the Lost vs. Heroes debate and wishes both would just get along...well it may look something like this...

A review of...The 2008 Emmys

The Emmys are back! With the red carpet hotter than ever before! The award show began in spectacular fashion as always by the red carpet event. Stars from all across the States and Britain were interviewed by E!News presenter Giuliana Rancic and Ryan Seacrest. What you wear on the red carpet is almost more than important than the award ceremony itself! E! Daily Ten presenter Catt Sadler said ‘Showing up on a best or worst dress list in this town somehow manages to have a more lasting impact than a statue!’
Styles that were particularly prominent these years were metallics, and bright bold colours were very popular as seen on Brooke Shields in her fuchsia Badgley Mischka dress, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Mariska Hargitay. Black was surprisingly popular this year with Kate Walsh, America Ferrera, and Debra Messing all arriving in black dresses. The Emmys are the first award show of the season so there is even more importance within the fashion stakes as anything celebrities wear can be remembered and talked about for a long time. First presenters were Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, fresh from there work on the SNL spoof of Sarah Palin & Hilary Clinton, the pair looked glamorous as they presented the first award for ‘Outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series’.

It was all a far cry from the first show back in 1949, where the first award was given to Shirley Dinsdale for the Most Outstanding Television Personality.
1950 was the first national Emmy award show. Originally there was only one award show per year, this changed with the arrival of the Daytime Emmy, and the first daytime Emmy was given to The Doctors Best Show Daytime Emmy in 1972. Now that’s enough on the history! On to the red carpet – everyone’s’
favourite part!


The rest of last years award winners were:

Outstanding Drama Series –
Mad Men

Outstanding Comedy Series
30 Rock – Winner

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series –
Bryan Cranston – Breaking Bad

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series –
Glenn Close, Damages- Winner

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series –
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock - Winner


Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series –
Tina Fey – 30 Rock

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie –
Paul Giamatti-John Adams


Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series - Zeljko Ivanek, Damages

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series –
Dianne west – In Treatment

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series –
Jeremy Piven – Entourage

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series – Jean Smart – Samantha Who?

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie –
Tom Wilkinson – John Adams


Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series –
Glynn Turman – In Treatment


Outstanding guest actress in a drama series –
Cynthia Nixon – Law and order : special victims unit

Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program –
Don Rickles, performer; Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project


Outstanding Reality-Competition Program –
The Amazing Race

Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program –
Jeff Probst – Survivor

Outstanding Miniseries
John Adams

Outstanding Made for Television Movie – Recount


Outstanding director for a variety, music, or comedy program
Louis.J.Horvitz


Outstanding writing for for a comedy variety or music show
Colbert Report

Oustanding directing for a miniseries movie or dramatic special
Jay Rooch – Recount

Outstanding writing for a miniseries , movie, or dramatic special
Kirk Ellis – John Adams

Outstanding writing for a drama series
Matthew Weiner – Mad Men – Smoke gets in your eyes


Surprisingly enough both Chandra Wilson and Sandra Oh missed out on ANOTHER Outstanding supporting actress in a drama series award for the third and fourth year running respectively. 30 Rock’s Tina Fey won three awards for Outstanding comedy series, Outstanding lead actress in a Comedy Series, and Outstanding writing for a Comedy Series. On top of her three wins, Fey also lost her purse! In a purple dress Fey accepted her awards, minus those famous glasses. This was rumoured to be because she wanted to distance herself from Sarah Palin for at least one night. The Hills start Lauren Conrad also made an appearance as a host, amid some criticism that she shouldn’t be giving out awards due to the fact she is not a ‘proper actress’
One of the highlights of the show was Veteran actor Don Rickles making an appearance with Kathy Griffin star of ‘My Life On The D-List’. Apparently Griffin was told not to go off script as she usually can be quite controversial, that was basically wasted as Rickles went off script for her. When Kathy Griffin asked people to stand up in honour of the legendary, Rickles then asked if it was a Jewish holiday. With the red carpet being so amazing, the overall show left a lot to be desired, as this was the 60th you would think that the organisers would have pulled out all the stops? But they didn’t hopefully next years will be more impressive!
E!’s presenter Catt Sadler commented ‘Overall, this year's 60th Anniversary of the Emmys lacked fire. It was rather boring. The ratings reflect that. TV shows in general suffered this past year because of the writer's strike and what have you... So the nominations and categories seemed somewhat lacklustre. Much respect to all of the nominees of course, but for the global viewing audience... I think it was a rather dull ceremony.’

A review of......M.I.A.

I know where the root of musical genius comes from. It's not there from birth and you can't teach it, no it comes from brightly coloured leggings. Every artist I have passionately loved over the last few years has proudly sported a pair. Santogold, Love fox from CSS and everybody in the 80's (you can't beat a good bit of 80's fun), hell I bet tights/leggings were everywhere in Mozart's day. Maybe Thom York and Morrisey like to ware them as thermals when the weather get chilly...who knows! It's a good theory and I am sticking by it and the person who best proves it at the moment is the shiny legged M.I.A.
You know how good music must be when one of the first things people are discussing when cumming out of a movie is the soundtrack, especially when that sound track is largely by one artist and extra especially when that movie is multi Oscar/BAFTA award winning in it's own right. There is a lot that is good about Slumdog Millionaire but M.I.A's soundtrack makes those moments great. Her laid back rhythmic beats compliment the movies montage moments perfectly and turns what could have been down beat earnest moments of the film into colourful spirited memories, which is what they were- Slumdog was never supposed to be a feature length Comic Relief video, it is a life story and the sound track adds that life and colour. Imagine the train scene without paper planes- it's a completely different scene.

At the same time it isn't an over the top fun track, it never lightens the mood of the kid's situation to much but you could just as much imagine stoner Americans chilling out to it as friends having fun on a train in India.This is the very reason Pineapple Express also benefited from the brilliance of paper planes, Pineapple Express's trailer was about five times better than the actual movie just because the cool atmosphere magicked up that one track.

Hollywood only just seams to have discovered M.I.A. and she seems to be everywhere at the moment-well good I say! She seems to be concentrating on fashion lines at the moment but I hope Hollywood never gets tired of her music, I know I haven't. Maybe one of the best things to love about MIA is how easily her songs can be mashed with other tracks. I know it's sacrilege- but it's funny sacrilege. If you check out the link to Life the Universe and Anything's youtube account you will find many of them there. My absolute favourite has to be the sublime but ridiculous Jimmymore. You MUST listen now!

A review of ...Clementines

Cool name. Crap fruit.
Ahhhgggghh, just, agggghh, they make me angry. Fruit really shouldn't make you angry. The problem with Clementines is not that they are a particularly bad tasting fruit (they could be Lychies nothing that is used to make potpourri can ever taste good), but it's just that they are basically just a worse version of the glorious Satsuma!
Satsumas are sooo good. they are the bast thing for giving up Chocolate, they have just the right amount of sweetness to make a sweet toots of ten happy and they are just as convenient as snack food. Clementines though, pips everywhere hard to peel and the sweetness is taken over by enough citric acid to corrode Titanium. They even make body butter out of Satsumas- clearly they are the most wholesome fruit.

All this may be bearable had it not been for the fact that during the good satsuma months preceding the dark days of Clementine season you had gotten completely addicted to Satsumas, having bags a day, Jamie Oliver would be proud, and then post Christmas, when you need to loose a bit weight and keep out the winter colds- suddenly all the Satsumas are cruelly stolen away and the inferior excuses for citrus fruits take their place! Well I won't stand for it any more! It is a matter a great importance to national health that a nice convenient fruit stays on the shelves all year around? Allthees scientists working on giant pink carrots and not one can make all year round Satsumas? And what kind of place is that grows one kind of fruit and then changes to a slightly different kind of that fruit- surly they grow in the exact same climates? Who is it that suddenly decides to switch fruit? And most of all considering their bad quality why is it that people are named after Clementines but there are very few Satsumas christened? I demand answers!!

A Review Of.....Aspirational T.V. Teens

If you have ever seen Charlie Brooker's amazing rant on aspirational TV you may have an idea of where I'm going with this. Having grown up watching various different long running American T.V. shows, one major difference between my life and theirs began to occur to me. Not the fact that generally they are all loaded (The O.C, 91210, Gossip Girl- it just makes easier for writers/producers as they are not limited by pesky reality), it's the fact that their central characters all seem to have one God given talent or dream that they can follow their heart to achieve.

In The O.C. Ryan was a gifted architect and Seth a born graphic artist who had a comic published and had met George Lucas by the second series (although to be fair Marisa did help to balance things a bit). Today's version, Gossip Girl is no better, Dan has always wanted to be a writer, although his stuff sounds mind numbing. His sister, Jenny/irritatingly angelic goodie godie/ irritatingly whinging teen/ irritatingly two faced bitch girl, is focused on fashion, and luckily for her she is already more talented than an Blair's Mum, an established designer. Really? Chloe On Smallville has always been after a Journalism career, likewise Rory on Gilmore Girls. Dawson from the Creek was making films before he could breath for God's sake!...I could go on. In fact the only T.V. American teens that don't have a dream either have some kind of supernatural calling or are 'IT' girls with issues.

By far the worst offender of this trend though has to be One Tree Hill. Lucas again wants to be a writer (an excuse for pretentious voice overs with all manner of intellectual quoting going on, just to prove that he maybe pretty, but he's still smart, honest). Brooke is again a talented fashion designer. Peyton makes up for the struggle she must have had in life from having such a ridiculous name by having two amazing talents, she rocks the decks and is an artistic prodigy. Haley is the worst of all with a singing career that rockets with ease.

Now I know that a lot of people who are talented find those talents early and know what they want as soon as they can crawl, but seriously, those must account of at most 20% of people. The rest of us are left to muddle through life feeling horrifyingly inadequate that we haven't had our life goal in place since nursery and are left to wonder when our special talent will emerge and if one never does does that make us useless?

What exactly are writers trying to achieve with this? They may be able to claim that it encourages goals and striving for your dreams. However dreams are a whole lot harder to achieve when you can't write in convenient plot twists that boost you to stardom. No doubt having a dream is a good thing, but for a lot of people they are stumbled on at different times of life- not handily pre-ordained, and I fail to see how pushing that idea is healthy.

UK T.V. teen shows are generally a lot better where this is concerned, proving that it is not a necessary plot device. 'As If' was full of confused complicated characters, in 'Hollyoaks' kids are mostly dealing with normal , if exaggerated, teen things, Grange Hill, Bicker Grove (What? I'm a child of the Nighties- P.j. & Duncan NOT Ant &Dec) even Neighbours from the ozzy end of things present real-ish young people that you can identify with not feel inferior to.

Not entirely free of the whole aspiration business and maybe in a worse way though is Skins (pictured above- just look at the pictures next to each other and ask which show looks more 'real' to you. I rest my case). Amazing show though it is and as much as it American rivals dead in the water quality and reality wise, it does have it's own aspirational quality. If I watch one episode I am left thinking "Damn, I never had that much Sex, Drugs and Rock and Role going on in my life- clearly I went wrong somewhere".

Well to everyone who, like me wonders why they are not as confident, focused or talented as the shiny people on T.V. The real people who have a million things they love to do, or are good at diverse things from maths to drama, people who have talents but have to keep them as hobbies and make their money elsewhere. Well if you are one of these people and are wondering if they are wrong in some way, well I find listening to sunscreen usually helps. Baz Lerman produced it, God bless him. I really hope the song is right. I think the woman who wrote it is an Angel.

A Review Of....The Universe...

Ok, so for my next review I'm scaling things down a bit, so...THE UNIVERSE.
Actually, there are many similarities with life. Nothing but vacuum-y darkness, rocks with nothing on them and big balls of gas, and then BANG!... lobsters, Cherry aid, Turtles, Topiary, potpurri.... ok not getting into that again. Plus, this way we get to look at the rest of the Universe form the comfort of our little earth, and the rest of the Universe is quite pretty. It has all those colourful clouds of stars and swirly galaxies and shiny stars (BTW for all those of you who live in LA or any major city in China- stars are those twinkly things you hear about in poems, songs and nursery rhymes etc.).
If you are lucky enough to live in the country, like what I do, then you can see the whole Milky Way on a clear night. While seeing it you may have had the terrifying realisation that you are looking at an entire arm of the Galaxy and that you are stuck onto the edge of a rock hurtling through it, by something invisible and not that strong (a fridge magnet is stronger than gravity- it can pick up a paper clip, thus countering gravity- think about that next time you go star gazing!).
Whilst It would be excellent to have a good explore of space there are a few problems. First, if we did go and we find, say, a planet made of chocolate with beer instead of water (for the girls and the boys - Space is very gender stereotypical) only a few people would ever be able to get there, it would take decades and cost enough to end poverty on the earth we actually inhabit. Even if it didn't and Ryan Air chartered shuttles there (God help us), it would just be another place you may get around to visiting one day, but probably never will. The world is already too depressingly big to explore every where you want to- if you can't get round to going to Maliga, Betelgeuse seems unlikely. Of cause the benefit to perfecting space travel is that in the event of us destroying the world in some way, which seems to be that way it's going, we could always fly far, far away (or maybe I've just watched too much Firefly).

The Second problem, well an avert on at the moment says it well. "would you rather know that we are all alone in the Universe, or discover that we are not?" - Scary

Thirdly. Everything goes well. Humanity survives Billions of years. We colonise the Universe and discover all it's beauties and wonders. Life is good...only for one thing...the Universe is Imploding!...ah bugger.

Ali xo

A review of....Life....

Ok so here is the first review to christen my new style blog! And I'm going to start out small, so first up- a simple review of life.
Well...er.....ummm.... I guess the first thing to say is that there is and was quite a lot of it that in no way involves Humanity, although I doubt any of it will feature heavily in this blog, unless anyone is particularly keen on a review of vegetation of the Cretaceous era, and if you are then a) you are a very strange person(and God love you for it) and b) Wikipedia was invented for you my friend!
They say that if the scale of life on Earth was a year then we would only have come into existence a few minutes before the ball drops for the New Year. But then that would have been one hell of a New Years party! A whole year of survival of the fittest, giant scary looking things, tiny microscopic things and harsh weather conditions that would have really put the terrifying winter of '09 into perspective. Then in a new year party so wild it would make Hollywood cower in shame... BANG!: Marmite, America's Next Top Model, Wake Boarding, Pancakes, the smell of petrol, Duran Duran, Guitar hero,Brad Pit's face, Wayne Rooney's face (the Lord giveeth..), The Eiffel tower, Elton John's wigs, Harry potter and most importantly ...Youtube!

Yes if you really want to see a full cross section of life that is defiantly the place to go- It's probably how it sucks you in and will defiantly feature heavily in this blog! We live at a really odd time in that respect. Not only can you find out about any way of life from around the globe (you don't have to tell a blogger that!), but more often than not they will find you first! If you payed even a little attention to all the adverts, invites and information you get over the Internet or TV or in magazines, then you'll find that you are unintentionally finding out things about peoples lives all over the place that just 50 years ago would be unthinkable. If you want to know the specifics of someones life and their exact mood (or even if you really don't) Facebook will tell you.
So life for humans at our New Year party may suck at times, it may be full of Catch 22s you just don't see coming, kicks to the guts and, well, lets face it I think we all know that aging would work much better in reverse, no matter what Benjamin Button tries to tell us. Howeaver, basically there is a lot of it out there to explore and enjoy, or if not then to review, analyse and pick apart...and God bless our life and times that you can start your own blog to do just that!

Ali xo