Category: General TV

General chat – Friday, July 15

Well, there’s not been much happening on the reality TV front lately, apart from MasterChef. Have you all been huddled indoors like me, trying to ward off the Antarctic weather hitting Australia at the moment?
What else are you watching? I had a mini Mindy Project marathon the other day and watched a bit of Have You Been Paying Attention? for a laugh. And I’ve just started getting into Restaurant Impossible, which is a bit like that Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares show except the chef is not a tool, no one says the F word and the people are usually misguided rather than being lunatics.



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The Briefcase sounds awful

Channel 9’s new show, The Briefcase, starts Monday week (June 20).
Honestly, it sounds like car crash TV, and not in a guilt pleasure Kiss Bang Love kind of way.
SMH writer Michael Lallo sums it up here



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Try Anna’s Mess

If anyone’s reading this in Sydney, pop along to the Shangri-La if you want to taste Anna’s white Death Star from the MasterChef elimination challenge.

From their website: Available for sale from our pop-up on the ground floor, Lobby Lounge from 8 a.m. on Tuesday, 7 June until 11 July 2016.
Anna’s Mess in a Jar, $8.50, takeaway
Small Anna’s Mess, $11.50, take-home box
Large Anna’s Mess, $39.50, (serves four) take-home box
A Sweet addition to your delightful High Tea experience, $4 per person
Opening Hours:
7:00am – 11:00pm, Monday to Friday
8:00am – 12:00am, Saturday
8:00am – 10:00pm, Sunday



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General chat – May 16

What else is everyone watching? It was freezing and drizzly here today, so I had a The 100 marathon.
It started as an angsty teen show that irked me with bad acting, but it has really grown on me, but then I’m a sucker for a dystopian future. Plus it has Desmond from Lost in it, so, you know … Desmond rules. There’s also Lt Gaeta from Battlestar Galactica and Preston Burke from Grey’s Anatomy (yeah, the one who got fired for allegedly being homophobic and now he’s on a show that features numerous gay relationships).


Like Game of Thrones they’re not afraid to kill off major characters and there’s a bunch of Aussies in the cast.
We let our four-year-old watch some of ET last night (skipping the scariest scenes) and he loved it. Some of the effects look clunky but it’s still watchable.



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Logies winners

Full story on the Logies here news.com.au story, but first a thumbs up to comedian and Logie presenter Kitty Flanagan for these oh so wise comments about reality cooking show:
“I just want to let the kids know that if you want to be a chef, you can go to a place called TAFE,” she began. “It’s pretty easy to get in. I keep seeing all these people on MasterChef, My Kitchen Rules. ‘Cooking has always been my dream’.
“I wish someone told them about TAFE. Obviously TAFE is a little bit different. You will learn to cook with ingredients and utensils rather than ‘cooking with your heart’. You will also learn to put food on the plate rather than ‘putting yourself on the plate’. And just one last thing to those My Kitchen Rules (contestants), if one more of you says you’re going to ‘smash it out of the park’, I’m going to smash you out of the park.”
Some reality show wins:
Best Reality Program
The Block (really? It beat MKR, MasterChef, I’m a Celeb and The Bachelor. Why do these people love Scott Cam so much?)
Best New Talent
Adam Dovile, Better Homes & Gardens (that’s chippie Adam who won House Rules in 2014 with girlfriend Lisa)


Best Factual Program
Gogglebox (yay for them but what the heck is factual programming? It was up against the two Bondis (Vet and Rescue), Who Do You Think You Are? and Australian Story. Why are Gogglebox and Australian Story in the same category?)



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Eurovision is almost here

SBS is awash with Eurovision programming this week, with Julia Zemiro and Sam Pang again leading us through the confounding awfulness that is the competition.
Last year Guy Sebastian was our representative, since we’re not part of Europe, and this year it’s Dani Im from X Factor. I didn’t watch her season but I believe she’s rather good.


The esteemed Lee Lee Chin gets to read the votes again.
If you are mad keen you can get up at 5am Wednesday to watch the semi finals begin. Otherwise, the final coverage starts at 5am Sunday and goes for three-and-a-half hours. It’s then repeated at the more agreeable timeslot of 7.30pm, or you can be like me and just watch the highlights on the news.
Any Eurovision fans out there? Zhee – is it a big deal over there?



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Mums on TV

Since it’s Mother’s Day, I thought I’d list the mums from the TV shows I’ve been watching lately.
* Frankie from The Middle – probably the most realistic mum on TV.
* Beverley from The Goldbergs – the biggest smother mother in the world with the fashion sense of Kath Day Knight.


* Michonne from The Walking Dead – she lost her own child and is now pretty much Carl’s mum, which is just as well because his birth mum, Lori, totally deserved to die in the zombie apocalypse.
* Which leads us to Carol from the same show. Sure, she misplaced her zombie kid in a barn for a whole season but since then she’s been kick ass. Just hope you don’ ever hear her say “Look at the flowers” to you.
* Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones – the Mother of Dragons isn’t very good at keeping her unruly kids in line, though.
* And, of course, Cersei, who streamlined Christmas gift giving by ensuring her kids could combine presents for their dad and uncle into one.
* Better get an Aussie mum in there, so let’s say Rose from Please Like Me. Sure, it was odd at first seeing the old Pippa from Home and Away as Josh Thomas’s mentally ill mother, but it’s a great show. The episode where they went camping together was brilliant.

Which mums are in the shows you are watching?



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