Smallville

So, I'm watching the first episode of the new season of Smallville, as we all know that I love rubbish and someone just reminded me that Smallville is reliably low quality TV with many pretty people. But as I haven't seen it for years, since long before Lois was added, there are all of these new characters who are rather a shock to the system. But mainly I am wondering about Lois: um, is she always this shrill and rather horrid? It might work better if she didn't also seem to have been dropped on her head often as a child. There appears little for her be smug about in the brains department.

ETA: Also! I am lazy, so can someone tell me what Chloe's job is these days?

21 Jump Street

The public library had a real treat for me today: 3 random discs of 21 Jump Street, better known as the show Johnny Depp would probably rather forget he ever took part in. My god, it is awesomely delightful and dreadful with as fine a crop of mullets as you would ever want to see anywhere. I am thrilled that the discs started with a 'Just Say No' to drugs episode* which intersects with people having trauma over Challenger exploding.

ETA: So much badly acted teen manpain (or would that be teenpain? boypain?). SO AWESOMELY AWFUL.

ETA 2: I am filled with delight over the really dreadful theme song (with necessary montage of Our Heroes) and all round appalling acting. An added bonus is reading comments on IMDB which insist that this is a truly great show.

ETA 3: Each episode is written with all the subtlety of a neon sign. I bet these are the people behind the new Knightrider.

ETA 4: So cutting edge is this show there has been a lesbian scene. Well, an attempted lesbian scene. Done with the delicate touch of a person smashing things with bricks.

*In which turning your family in for drug use is said to be your civic duty.

(no subject)

So, I've been looking through a film festival line-up. So far my browsing has shown me:

1. 27* coming of age stories, most of which appear to end in tragedy

2. 12 films where middle-aged people have a gathering of some sort and discuss something about adultery/crime/whathaveyou that turns out very badly

3. 19 films that 'eschew sentimentality' presumably so they can also 'present unflinching gazes' at something or other

4. Approx. 75 personal or film journeys. I do not know what separates the two as presumably as this is a film festival they are all filmed.

5. 4 "ineffably transcendent experimental" works.


* All numbers may be exaggerated for rhetorical effect.

Sometimes you wonder if they even watched the show

From IMDB, I present a comment on 21 Jump Street:

"This was definitely a quality show. This show was a far cry from what the Fox network eventually became. Many of the scripts dealt with what young people go through on a day to day basis and used a cop show to show it. Issues like date rape, drugs, teen suicide, school violence and incest were all covered in the first two years of this show. When Jump Street premiered, it was the shot heard round the world due to the fact that it was the very first show to air on the Fox network, which at the time was only being broadcast on Sunday nights and it ushered in a whole new era in television. Also, Johnny Depp wasn't the only good thing about this show."

...'ushered in a whole new era in television' indeed. And, I am sorry, but Johnny Depp is manifestly about the only good thing on the show. Tragically almost all the episodes on this set are Deppless, except for the horrific one set in the future where they recall great moments in their past. Including a startling amount of clips of girlfriends being shot. (Most, but not all, belong to Depp's character.)

THIS SHOW IS SO DREADFUL THAT IT MAKES THAT NEW KNIGHTRIDER NOT SEEM LIKE THE DEPTH OF COMPLETE AND UTTER CRAPITUDE THAT IT IS.