Things to ponder this Christmas - no.4

Hounded by an insubordinate employee, attacked in their own home and living in constant fear.

So how come we don't hear them threatening to emigrate?

Don't forget about American Horror Story on M-Net Series on Fridays at 22h30.

Breaking In - Pilot

If you are too lazy to watch a whole episode of Chuck, then Breaking In is for you.  Comedy action adventure meets The Office, crammed into 20 minutes.  It's slightly jarring to find a high concept show like Breaking In in such a short time slot, but it works.

Diminutive con man Cameron (Bret Harrison) is recruited against his will by the all knowing Oz (a delightfully hammy Christian Slater) to be the newest member of Contra Security. Contra is hired by top end clients to test their security very literally by staging break ins and reporting back.  A clever premise, it allows the team to be crooks and good guys all at the same time. 

If the work isn't dangerous enough, Cameron has to survive the attentions of his gifted and eccentric colleagues:  love interest and safe cracker Melanie (Odette Annable), sci-fi fan boy and prankster Cash (Alphonso McAuley) and super competitive and manipulative Josh (Trevor Moore).  The show abounds with geeky pop-culture references, from Han Solo outfits to Captain Kirk's chair, and is squarely aimed at the young adult male market.

Breaking In airs on M-Net on Fridays at 19h00.

Watch out for a guest appearance by Alyssa Milano in the next episode.

The Lying Game - Pilot

"How does it feel to be Sutton?"

Very loosely based on a series of books by the same name, The Lying Game is rich teen drama with a twist.  Identical twin sisters, Emma (Alexandra Chando)  and Sutton (yes, also Chando, but this time with hair and make-up) are abandoned and separated at birth.  Sutton hits the jackpot and is adopted by a rich family.  Emma bums out and ends up in foster care.  When her seriously skanky foster brother frames her for theft, she goes on the run and twin Sutton (who she apparently discovered just before the pilot) comes to the rescue.  Sutton proposes that Emma takes her place for a few days whilst she goes and looks for their biological mother.  Emma puts on  Sutton's expensive cloths, her hair and make-up transforms magically, and she becomes Sutton.

Playing Sutton turns out much tougher than Emma expected, mostly because she discovers that Sutton is a nasty  ungrateful piece of work, and Emma is not.  Sutton's friends and family are pleasantly surprised by the apparent change in attitude. Emma also starts realising that there is a lot more to Sutton than she could have imagined when strange things start to happen.  Uh oh, could someone be lying? Didn't see that coming, did you?  

It's all about 25 year old Chando  pretending to be a down-and-out teen, who is pretending to be a teen who drives a convertible BMW and hangs out by the pool in designer outfits. You could say it's poorly acted, but honestly, compared to hit teen shows like The OC this is probably Emmy material, so it doesn't really matter, does it?  Probably not the next hit teen drama, but an interesting and fun twist to the genre. 

The Lying Game airs on M-Net on Fridays at 20h30. 

More Monday night Vuzu than Friday night M-Net, this show might struggle to find its audience.

Miss South Africa Teen 2011

Are awkward wooden teenage girls in skimpy dresses your thing?

According to www.misssa.co.za :

"18 year old Celeste Khumalo from Sandton, Johannesburg was crowned Miss South Africa Teen on Saturday 10 December at the Sun City Superbowl, to the audience delight. (sic)

Celeste who recently completed matric is a well-liked young lady with an approachable demeanour, fresh face and has big dreams. Her ambition is to pursue a BA Degree in Corporate Communications and one day become a media Mogul.

This young lady enjoys hobbies like reading, dancing and socialising which keep her fit and busy."

Honestly, could they be funnier if they tried?



Miss  SA Teen 2011 aired on Vuzu on Thursday 15 December 2011 at 19h30

Come Dine With Me SA: Celebrity Edition

Only the brave or the stupid will cook and entertain with the Come Dine With Me cameras over their shoulders and fortunately for us, it is usually the latter.  Add some attention starved SA celebrities to the mix and it promises to be a kitchen disaster of epic proportions.  Sadly, it's not.

This particular format of Come Dine With Me follows four contestants, each hosting their own dinner party that is attended and scored by their competitors.  A tightrope act at the best of times, contestants have to manage making three exceptional courses and keeping their guests entertained, whilst maintaining enough likability to win the votes of their direct competitors.  Given differences in personal taste, rivalries and alcohol fuelled conflict, the outcome is sometimes quite random and unexpected.

Contestants are usually shamelessly selected based on their incompatibility and subjected to horrific social torture and personal humiliation for our viewing delight. Not least of which is the scathing trade mark running commentary of narrator Dave Lamb. Hilariously funny and often almost too painful to watch, Come Dine With Me is a reality television masterpiece.  Come Dine With Me SA has been particularly successful, proving once and for all that South Africans are not too dull and polite to make for good reality television.


Those are the real South Africans though, because despite all the press, this celebrity episode is a big let down.  The celebs in question are pretty ladies Shashi Naidoo and Ashley Hayden, and sports presenter Neil Andrews, who is dwarfed by the final contestant, made for radio Sam Cowen. Neil proves that not all celebrities know one another, even if they feel obliged to pretend that they do.

Sashi is sweet and likable and totally unfazed by Neil, acting like a complete idiot, spewing a slew of lame jokes that only celebrities can fake a laugh at.  She dishes up Asian inspired store bought food that is served up stylishly and she entertains effortlessly. Her mean chocolate mouse pushes her into an early lead.

Ashley plans an outrageously pretentious Italian menu, but proves to be quite the cook. She churns out chocolate cakes, frozen mousse, stuffed home made pasta rolls and an assortment of anti pasti and presents a faultless evening.

Neil brings up the rear with a menu that not even Shashi’s dog is interested in.  In true South African style, he makes a dessert with condensed milk. He roasts two chickens and serves a cold liquidised mess for a starter that Shashi struggles to keep down.  The best compliment the ladies can muster is that his food is nutritious, although his dessert surprises in the end.

Sam cheats shamelessly, marks Ashley’s stunning meal down and awards top marks to Neil’s amateurish slop.  When it’s her turn, she serves up a beige menu of homey chicken meat balls, pork fillet with nuts and some more condensed milk laden desserts. If only she spent as much time planning a proper menu as she clearly did plotting to bring down her competition...

Ultimately justice prevails: boring cook and cheat Sam comes a well deserved last, actually trumped by boorish Neil, who is in third place, ironically because Sam herself boosted his score. That's karma for you. Absolute sweetheart Shashi comes second and Ashley takes a deserving win.

Certainly the dullest episode of Come Dine With Me SA so far and a disappointing end to a brilliant season.  The celebrities mostly avoided the alcohol and expertly kept the bright side up.  Definitely not worth all the fuss, although it does make one wonder what on earth is up with us South Africans and the condensed milk.

Come Dine With Me SA concluded on Wednesday 14 December 2011 on BBC Entertainment at 21h00.

One Tree Hill - Season 8 Episode 1

OMG, it's a new season of OTH!! No, not Over The Hill, it's One Tree Hill. Named after the fictitious town where this pretty people drama plays out or the singular tree hardcore fans will probably eventually find themselves dangling from. You decide.

Pretty people have seldom had it this hard and for so long. Basically a die hard teen drama that had to adapt to ageing main characters, OTH is full of tragedy, love triangles and personal disasters, with a bit of cutesy family values on the side.  Last season ended on a cliffhanger.  Brooke got engaged and depressive Haley revealed that she is pregnant.  On the lighter side, Clay and Quinn were shot by Katie and left for dead.

In the season premiere, melodramatically entitled "Asleep at Heaven's Gate", Clay (Robert Buckley) awakes to find that the attempt on their lives was all a dream.  He is shirtless on a beach with Quinn.  (This is the season premiere after all and Robert Buckley without a shirt is normally like Miracle Grow for ratings. He looks a bit pale and flat this time around though.)  Once the shirtless contractual obligation is fulfilled, we realise that Clay was actually just dreaming that he had dreamt (keep up, people!) and he goes back to lying in the apartment with Quinn, dying from his bullet wound. Remarkably, by the end of the episode they have still not been discovered. Hang in there guys, better luck next week.

Haley seems to have finally overcome her depression and is adjusting to her pregnancy. The doctor says she's fine, but they have to run further tests (cue ominous music.)  The pregnancy and some poor parenting from Haley and Nathan prompts young Jamie to Google "lady rabbit sex". (If you haven't yet searched for this yourself, you can click here. Bizarrely, this search  actually leads to a One Tree Hill website. No wonder that little kid is so confused.)

In some more season premiere gratuity Brooke and Julian celebrate their engagement gratuitously.  But in true OTH style, the happiness is short lived, because Brooke gets arrested for accounting fraud and her business, Clothes Over Bros (yes, seriously) gets shut down. Believe it or not, Clay and Quinn are STILL lying dying whilst all of this is happening!

Setting up the love triangle for the season, Chase actually gets out from behind the bar and starts dating movie star Alex, but his ex, moody mannish Mia, decides she wants him back.

It's a perfect mix of vintage OTH: hardly a shirt in sight, random gratuity, some cutesy kid scenes and a whole new set of personal disasters and love triangles to overcome, all to the background of a suitably trendy soundtrack.  Real fans will appreciate the return of the opening titles and original theme song "I Don't Want To Be".  The rest of us will probably shake our heads in disbelief.

One Tree Hill airs on Vuzu on Tuesdays at 20h30.

What Nigella has in store for us

Okay, so maybe she is not the Antichrist, but she is definitely one of the Seven Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Or one of their horses at the very least.

It is Nigella Lawson, of course, faux chef and seductress extraordinaire. Although - and she would quickly tell you - she is much too pretentious to consider herself an actual chef.  She does after all handle a knife like a disturbed five year old, is too lazy to measure out ingredients or even peel an onion. In fact her only cheffy aspiration is her somewhat laughable claim of having asbestos hands.  In her role as culinary Delilah she is much more accomplished.  She might not seem capable of mixing more than three ingredients together over heat, but she certainly knows how to turn up that heat with skin tight dresses and seductive murmurs.  See, she can't just tell us that she is pouring that goopy batter into a baking tin. She has to huskily declare that she decants the luscious silky mix slowly onto the waiting baking tin, while she eagerly sucks some off a manicured nail, clearly more  intent on concocting suggestive puns than actual edible food. 

A charade from beginning to end, she serves up lazy, insipid  and frequently rancid looking creations to an eager (or perhaps nervous?) mix of politically correct "friends" like she is unveiling monumental culinary revelations, and with such condescension, you would think she is feeding little children or the family dog.  The crowning achievement of each episode is a bizarrely re-enacted midnight feast  where she traipses around a darkened kitchen (set) with red back lighting - reminiscent of a certain district in Amsterdam - her ample bosom barely contained in her night gown.

This festive season Nigella is all over our screens again, dishing up bulging Christmas treats oozing with sticky sauces.  Watch her in Nigella Kitchen on Wednesday, 14 December 2011 at 20h25 on BCC Lifestyle serving up her self titled slut's spaghetti, or on  Sunday 18 December 2011 at 18h00 in Nigella's Christmas Kitchen where she promises to show us how to whip a pavlova into mountainous peaks.

Nigella is married to multi millionaire Charles Saatchi.  He reportedly refuses to eat any of her food and survives on a diet of cereal and boiled eggs, which she is not allowed to touch.

South Park

Preachy social commentary has never been so delightfully offensive.  Ever since Madonna donned her cone bra and stirred up a religious froth with her music video for "Like A Virgin", the sensitivity of the general public has been in steady decline to the point where the violent and obscene have become, if not common place, at least tolerable.  Even so, the 16th season of South Park still manages to push the envelope of what is acceptable to be beamed to your small screen.

Frequently misunderstood as being offensive purely for the sake of being offensive, as its core South Park has always been surprisingly preachy, delivering a message of tolerance and moderation.  Aimed exclusively at adults, the events are usually viewed through the eyes of four foul mouthed and very self aware eight year olds.  Whilst the stories are patently outrageous - featuring religious figures as super heroes or jolly singing feces - the adults are without fail ignorant and narrow minded and it is usually left to the young boys and their friends to save the day and deliver a very relevant little lesson in the process.

Whilst Comedy Central did broadcast the 15th season of South Park on Sunday nights, they have now switched back to season 13, instead of continuing with season 16 which is currently being broadcast in America.  South Park Season 13 currently airs on Comedy Central on Sundays at 21h45.  Earlier seasons are broadcast late night on a daily basis.



FAN FACT:  Watch out for those aliens! Ever since Cartman got abducted and probed by aliens in the pilot episode 16 years ago, an alien observer has been hidden in every single episode.  In fact, there is even one hidden on this page!

Things to ponder this Christmas - no.3

It's the time of the year for culinary excess.  So when those patronising celebrity chefs start flogging their family members instead of recipes, you have to wonder if they are starting to run out of ideas.

(Seriously though, would anybody actually eat anything that lisping menace has spat over?)


Jamie's Family Christmas airs on BBC Lifestyle on Sundays at 19h00

X Factor USA - Top 5 Results

Beauty may be skin deep, but Nicole Scherzinger has shown us that ugly is to the bone. After tonight's show, even the doubters have to admit that she is pretty awful. Public enemy number 1 in fact. She is after all the reason poor Rachel Crow was sent home in tears in tonight's shock elimination.

A quick recap for those that missed the show. After guest appearances from Lenny Krawitz and Mary J Blige, Marcus Canty and Rachel Crow were left in the bottom two.  Both chose old favourites as their save me songs:  Marcus with "I'm Going Down" and Rachel with "I'd Rather Go Blind".  LA Reid voted for his own, perennial bottom dweller Marcus.  Simon and Paula voted for Rachel. And rightly so. She may have had one bad song the the night before, but has consistently been streets ahead of the smooth moving but vocally insipid Marcus Canty and completely outsang him in the sing off.  Woe be unto me Nicole was tearful from the get go.  Claiming that she could not decide and would rather let the public votes count, she chickened out and voted for Marcus, sending the judges' vote into deadlock. Steve called for the results of the public vote and revealed that Rachel was to go home.  Poor Rachel sat down in shock and started bawling like a thirteen year old, calling for her mommy.  Nicole started bawling even louder and running around the stage like it was her own elimination.  Which, let's face it, it probably was. After the show, she was apparently also booed off the stage and proceeded to lock herself in her dressing room.

Initially the glitzy replacement for the too heavily accented Cheryl Cole, Nicole Scherzinger very quickly showed us that underneath that thin veneer of gorgeous was a whole lot of nasty.  Petty, insecure and downright bitchy, she did not translate onto the small screen at all.  Her blatantly insincere attempts at pretending to have heart made it even worse.  Stories about her charges claiming complete creative absence from her side abounded. Which is of course the same inactivity that resulted in the elimination of the young sweetheart of the show, Rachel Crow.

 

Yes, Rachel would mostly likely not have won, but having her go home at the hands of Scherzinger is just almost too good to be true.  Personally, I'm all for gathering mobs and burning Scherzinger memorabilia.  I'll eat my remote if that phony self centred horror is back next season.