THAT WAS THE BOX – March & April 2015 | TV Reviews

Hello! It’s nice to be back after my holiday (well my editor’s actually), so I thought I would bring you up to speed on what has tickled my telly funny bone over the past few weeks.
 

First of all, I have to say my new favourite programme is ‘Poldark‘. What is there not to love? Brooding, handsome hero; beautiful, feisty heroine; gorgeous Cornish countryside. The only advice I would give, is do not watch ‘Poldark‘ just before you go to bed, you will wake up thinking in a Cornish accent! I can see where the programme might not appeal to men, it is after all, a glorified soap opera set in the 18th century, but I can see why my mum’s generation went so mad for the 1970s version. Ross Poldark is the ideal man – handsome, kind, tough when needed, and (at the moment) faithful to his beloved Demelza – even though he still hankers somewhat after his dippy first love Elizabeth. Although one has to pity poor Lizzie, married to Francis, who is a spoilt brat who would rather gamble their money away or squander it on the woman who seems to be the only prostitute in the whole of Cornwall!
 

Demelza is the real star of the show though. We accompany her on her journey from raggedy urchin, to kitchen maid, to lady of the house – torn between being the wife Ross deserves and ‘keeping it real’ with Jud and Prudie, the servants with whom she used to work. There can’t be many women out there who are rooting for Ross to return to Elizabeth, when he has the wonderful Demelza waiting for him at home. What I also like about ‘Poldark‘ is that they have not dumbed down the language to appeal to the masses. Not once have I watched it and thought ‘surely no one would have said that back then’. I am currently reading the books and it has stuck quite faithfully to it, in both dialogue and storyline and that is to be admired these days, when everything is marketed towards the lowest common denominator, and judging by the fact that it is smashing the ratings every week, it would seem TV bosses often under-estimate the public when considering what they would like to watch.

 

Another show I feel deserves a special mention is ‘Nurse‘, the BBC2 comedy/drama about a psychiatric nurse and her many patients, most of whom are played by Paul Whitehouse. On first viewing, it felt like little more than a glorified Aviva advert, but I stuck with it for the four weeks and found it to be a moving, often quite depressing piece of television that stayed with me. There was little in the way of laughs, and for me, it proved that given the right script, Whitehouse could easily switch to dramatic acting. With each characters, every time there might be the opportunity to laugh at them, a moment of pathos would come along, which would have you reaching for the tissues. Even Morris, the elderly man who pesters both Nurse Liz and his neighbour, while she is trying to have her treatment, is funny on the surface, but quickly scratch this and you will see he is a lonely old man looking for company.
 

I would be very surprised if ‘Nurse‘ does not come away with a few BAFTAs and possibly some comedy awards, although somehow that accolade doesn’t seem fitting.

 

One show I did enjoy last week was ‘Louis Theroux: Transgendered Kids‘. As normal with Theroux, he concentrated on a subject that was a little left of centre, but thought-provoking all the same. He met a group of children and young people in California who are in various stages of treatment to cure their gender dysphoria. As someone who considers themselves pretty liberal, I came to the programme with an open mind, but I soon started questioning my own beliefs and morals, which I guess was what Theroux was hoping to do rather than make some sort of freak show.
 

We met Camille a six-year-old boy/girl who was like every male, gay character from an American sitcom squeezed into the body of a small child. Her real name is Sebastian and until last year, he was a little boy. Now she has decided to become a girl and is being allowed to dress as a girl and behave like a girl and adopt a girl’s name by her parents. Thankfully, no drugs or invasive treatment is being used on Camille yet, because I’m not sure Camille is even old enough to know what it feels like to be a boy or a girl. In comparison with Nikki, a slightly older girl who was transitioning with the aid of hormone drugs, Camille just came across like a very camp male. Everything Nikki was describing – the mood swings, the insecurity, the feeling sad for no reason. All sounded very much like being a female. Camille seemed to think that prancing around her bedroom pretending to be Lady Gaga made her a girl. Thankfully, her parents are liberal enough to go along with what he/she wants, but I sincerely hope they don’t go down the medical route until Camille is old enough to make a rational decision.
 

For me the most interesting case study was Chrystal/Cole. The young boy was at best androgynous, at worst, a female trapped within a male body but feeling forced to conform to male stereotypes to please his father who did not believe in children being born in the wrong body. When with his more open-minded mother, Cole transformed into Chrystal, a little girl, but with dad, he went back to being Cole. I did find it interesting that Chrystal had her own den under her bunk bed, with all her things gathered in there so she could hide, which I found very male in behaviour. Most men like to escape to the pub/garden shed/toilet to have some ‘me’ time and the fact that Chrystal did this, seemed to me that maybe his/her father had a point and at the heart of it, he was a boy. But whatever puberty brings, I hope Cole makes up his own mind based on what he wants rather than feeling he has to do it to please his parents.
 

I wish Louis Theroux would make more programmes, instead of batches of three or four every few year (a bit like ‘Sherlock‘!) because as documentary makers go, he still has a unique approach that seems to work and gets his subjects to confess things they would normally keep hidden and he’s not afraid to touch upon taboo subjects. It’s refreshing not to be bombarded with boring stories of benefits cheats and foreign toyboy love rats.

 

I’m afraid ‘TOWIE‘’s days may be numbered. This series started so well, and it seemed with Vaz’s problems with his sexuality, and Arg’s battle with his own personal demons, that we were moving away from the constant focus on relationships. However, within a matter of weeks, Jake and Chloe L were brought into the show, and suddenly every episode focused around whether they were going to get back together. We know little of these characters and care even less about their relationship. Then we go to the other extreme with Arg and Lydia and can’t help but feel cynical and that their relationship has been resurrected for the sake of the programme. ‘TOWIE‘ has always felt fake, but it was hard to see where the joins were; but now it is so glaringly obvious that it’s set up, that it’s becoming boring and predictable. Every girl is going to cry when she has an argument; when they first wake up of a morning with their boyfriend, they have a face full of perfect make up, and no one finds it weird that Lydia is dressed like an extra from a 1987 episode of ‘Dynasty‘, to paint Easter Eggs with her mum and Georgia.
 

I don’t see what other storylines they can come up with in the next series. They’re missing a character, like Joey Essex, who, while suffers relationship problems, is also amusing because he is stupid. Or even Gemma when she was trying out every diet/body fad, spiritual healing that was going. Now she’s become little more than a sounding board, whilst inexplicably wearing a scarf around her chin during every episode.
 

‘TOWIE‘ has had a good five-year run and created stars out of people with very little talent, but I think the time has come to call it a day – ‘X Factor‘ and Take That please take note.
 

As for me. It may have escaped your notice but we are in the middle of a General Election campaign, so good programmes are a bit thin on the ground at the moment. My upcoming reviews may focus on the obscure, but variety is the spice of life as they say.