Televisial sins

[tinyjo]

So, Alex is out for the evening and once again I'm indulging myself in Discovery Realtime. I find myself thinking that I must be able to work out some way that I could share evenings like this with my Mum - Skype, perhaps? Anyway, for your reading and superior-feeling pleasure (and possibly bemusement for non UK peeps), my favourite TV shows...

Location, Location, Location/Relocation, Relocation: I love watching people come to terms with the compromises between where they want to live and what kind of house they want. I just find it very revealing. And I love Kirsty Alsop. She's great at what she does, she's forceful and not afraid to express herself honestly to a client and despite not being a classic shape, she looks great.

Tales from River Cottage: For some reason, I looked down on this for a long time - all that back to the country shit. I've lived in the country and it's a pain in the backside a lot of the time actually. But I happened to catch it one evening and Hugh Fernley Whittingstall (I know! What a name!) is just really sweet. Something about his idealism about smallholding and storytelling style is charming, in the end.

Charmed: This is my equivalent of soap-opera. Pretty girls!

Dinnerladies: I love the writing of this. I don't laugh out loud a huge amount but it's so lovely and it chokes me up a surprising number of times, actually.

What not to Wear: I know the trenchant honesty is their trademark and probably overplayed, but I like it. I think they've got good judgment and I think they've got good hearts. I just watched Trinny undressing herself in the mirror room to prove to a participant that she wasn't ugly actually and had great fundamentals. "Look at my bum!" she said. "Who's cheeks are closer to the floor?". "Yours!" Susanna replied.

Sex in the City: If you follow the stories through, they're complex and realistic and I feel like they're women I recognise. Somewhere it rings true for me. I still miss my Samantha/Miranda cross flatmate Becks, who I lived with while I'm in London and yearn for those friendships where you can plumb the breadths and the depths together.

What are your TV sins?

Comments

[fba.livejournal.com]

OK - I hate WNTW (am bloke and don't care about clothes) and am indifferent to Charmed (but Thomas loves it), but everything else on your list is on our 'regular' watches. We'll even watch the LLL repeats on whatever digital channel they are on...

I quite like Phil - he is so obviously gay and Kirsty is his fag hag!

[badasstronaut.livejournal.com]

I have a (not so) secret impulsive inclination to watch Antiques Roadshow if I happen to catch it on.

Also, pretty much anything on CBeebies, and The Hoobs on Channel 4.

I realise this makes me look confused about whether I'm 3 or 93. Oh well.

I do also like Trinny&Minny, and was very impressed to see their bum antics this evening. Again, I just happened to catch a bit of that programme.

Re: what are your tv sins ?

[andyluke.livejournal.com]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/andyluke/53988.html
I wrote too much.

[smallbeasts.livejournal.com]

Grand Designs: that's why we're living on a building site instead of just moving to a larger house like normal people.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Grand Designs isn't a guilty pleasure - it teaches you serious stuff about architecture and materials and that. Did you see the tree bloke's tiny baby?!! Aaaw!

[smallbeasts.livejournal.com]

The main lesson we took from Grand Designs was to DIY as little as possible. We left the planning application to the architect, and the builder is also the project manager.

The tree bloke reminded me of a bower bird, building a complex nest from natural materials in order to attract a mate.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

WNTW - for all the reasons you said (although I do have some political objections to their philosophy in so far as it presumes that "sexy-ish" is the only way of looking that would make you happy - an acquaintance of mine has a very well-defined multi-coloured tie-dyed baggy hippy look (with a crew cut) that works very well for her, and roots her firmly (and happily) in her old skool Brixton lifestyle and it was suggested to her that she got WNTW'd - what a horrible idea! That said, all the women they actually take on are, pretty much by definition, unhappy with their lives and keen to redo their look to that end. I'd love to see them take on two lesbian women, if you know what I mean, the politics would be fascinating.)
SATC became great once they got some actual female writers on board and ran out of one-joke plots about sexual quirks (it was fun before that, just not great).