I have been off work for two days so have been sitting down, eating, growing a beard and catching up on telly shit. Today’s new show is ‘Prison Break’ which premiered in America the other night and has been bought by (Channel) Five to be shown over here in January. Basic plot: Man’s brother is allegedly framed for a big crime and gets put on death row, man decides to get himself put into the very same high security jail as brother so he can break him out, which he can somehow do because he pretends to be diabetic, had a hand in the design of the prison and has tattooed loads of blueprinty things (which I can’t actually understand) onto his body. It’s very silly, fast, action-packed and wants to be ’24′ but it is like ‘Oz’ without the bum rapes meets ‘Prisoner: Cell Block H’ mixed with all the other contemporary American dramas that don’t require much concentration. I watched the first two episodes and didn’t really like it. It’s not awful or anything but just not enough of my kind of thing to invest an hour every week for. But then I tend to need a bit more quirkiness, surreal weirdness, dark sarcasm or heavy psychological shit to keep watching new things. The show did great in America , with over 18 million viewers giving Fox Network better ratings than they had hoped for. I shall carry on with my ‘Six Feet Under’ marathon, which turned into ‘Dead Like Me’ for a bit today and alarmed me.

It’s another mean and moody ensemble cast photo opportunity!

What is not on my Christmas list? Why, it’s the ‘Hollyoaks Hunks’ calendar of course!

… although it is rather splendidly tacky. I wonder if my bookshop will have the majority of the stock we’re given of it left over until it’s only 49p in January, like last year?

I can’t decide whether to give ‘Nip/Tuck’ another go. I tried liking the first series but found it annoying with no characters who I could care about. I hear that season two is better and after reading previews of season three on the Jared Blog Page I am tempted…

The new uniforms for carrying out plastic surgery seemed a bit severe.

Actor, sci-fi convention regular and 1980′s scary teacher-playing icon Michael Sheard has died. You know him, right? He played Mr Bronson in ‘Grange Hill’ and was in ‘Doctor Who’ a few times including the sublime ‘Pyramids Of Mars’ (the one where the mummies chase people really slowly but always manage to catch them) , as well as ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ , ‘Indiana Jones’ (one of the many times he played Hitler) and loads of other stuff. He was 65.

American studio-bound sitcom. Phone rings. Character 1 picks it up. Pauses. “You don’t say!” Pauses. “You don’t say!” Pauses. “You don’t say!” Puts down phone. Character 2: “Who was that?” Character 1: “They didn’t say!”

This is the lame joke that Lucas and Walliams used in ‘Mash and Peas’ in all of their spoof American sitcoms, where every show had basically the same set and the same complete over-usage of canned laughter. I thought it was a good idea until I saw the channel ABC1 today (available on Freeview) which consists of endless programmes just like this but for real. Shockingly poor! I assume the laughter is fake unless some serious drug usage is going on in American sitcom TV studios.

Today on ABC1: Empty Nest, Unhappily Ever After, Ellen, Hope & Faith, Rodney, The Geena Davis Show, Home Improvement, 8 Simple Rules…
And Scrubs. Which is the one funny thing they have.

Gwen Stwefani has been talking to ‘Grazia’ Magazine. I am sure they had to edit huge chunks of ‘like’s and ‘yeah’s and ‘you know’s out of the piece as the poor woman can barely get a whole sentence out without one of those expressions. She has the dialogue range of a footballer. And the figure. She said she wanted to become a mother: “It hasn’t happened and that’s something that isn’t under my control. I would like it to happen, of course I would, but I have an amazing husband and career so I’m not complaining.” Is it because she is a man? And I am glad she realises how lucky she is to have a singing career when she can’t hold a tune or sing for toffee, whatever that means. I shall include any sweet item in the list of things Gwen cannot sing for, just to be accurate. And maybe most savoury things too. Silly witch.

“La la laaa laeeeeeiiiiuuuughhh la la laaaaaaiiiii…”

Will they never learn? Give chav wasters a big sum of lottery winning cash (well it is a stupidity tax) and they blow it on rubbish. This time it’s a female lottery winning loser who has caught the tabloids’ eye and as usual she is moaning about how it has caused nothing but misery. If you don’t want to spend a million pounds on tattoos, gold chains, a stupid bass-powered chavmobile, getting baby Rubella’s ears pierced with diamond studs and some nasty dogs (this is not fact, just what I would imagine the money would be used for) then I would happily take it off your hands to pay of my mortgage, have a nice holiday and give some to charity. I would still have the world’s cheapest wedding but that’s another tale for another time…

‘Lotto Trout’ Wendy blew her million pounds in a year on drugs, gambling, champagne and male hookers. Well, you’d have to pay any sane man to go down there. She was quoted by The Sun as saying “The money was a curse.” I wonder if that rat-faced lout from yesterday’s blog is available for a quick fling with her? They seem perfect for each other.

God I love Chavscum.co.uk so so much! Even though it is a totally obvious gag anyway:

Hmm… Bit of Little Britain gossip in The Independent today… Apparently Geoff Posner (don’t even go there, girlfriend!) the producer wants an ‘additional writing’ credit as he contributed some ideas throughout the series but Matt and David aren’t exactly pleased by this. We shall see what happens when it is broadcast at some point soon on BBC1 before Christmas.

The Little Britain fans were oh so enthusiastic in the queue to go see their favourite comedy being made. The smiles soon turned upside down when Mr Posner came on to tell a few jokes before the main event…

Here’s the article in question, from the Pandora column…
The creators of Little Britain have suffered a sense of humour failure in their dealings with the producer of the third series, Geoff Posner. Matt Lucas and David Walliams have been credited as writers of both series one and two of their hit television comedy show, but now find that Posner wants to share the writing credit. “It’s not that Geoff Posner is belittling their work, but he wants an ‘additional writing’ credit at the end of the series” I am told. “Likewise, it’s not as though David and Matt don’t recognise the contribution that Geoff makes as producer, but they aren’t happy that he should also be credited for writing the material.” The stand-off continues. However, a BBC spokesman was keen to play down differences when Pandora called yesterday. ” I haven’t heard about this, so I can only say that it is a matter between David and Matt and Geoff,” I am told.

‘Lost’ is doing great on Channel 4 which makes me all smug and happy as I am a total Lost-Nerd. For smug fuckers like me it’s not long until the return of the most stressful show on the Bit-Torrents (apart from 24) as season 2 starts in September, which is pretty damn soon. There is an amazing website I have discoverd but if you look at the spoilersy bits you’ll regret it. Some nice downloadable screensavers and wallpapers which are safe to peek at though…

Did someone say new characters? Did they? I can’t say nuffink about nuffink!

Those hobbits are keeping busy. Elijah Wood is in that dreadful football hooligan film with Nathan from Queer As Folk and some bad bad accents while Sean Astin has just been cast in ’24′ but not as a hobbit. Meanwhile thingy bloke from ‘Hetty Wainthrop’ is still in ‘Lost’ and denying those romance rumours with a certain other castmember…