A Bit of a Caper
Being a super-hero is tough in these post-modern times. Not long ago, you could wear your brightly coloured undies on the outside or wear nothing except green skin and purple jorts whilst stopping criminals and nobody would bat an eyelid, except maybe Batman. Now we live in a time when people will focus more on the nipples on the bat suit than the crime fighting at hand. If only there was a way to return to simpler times of costumed daring and good doing, without all the Freudian subtext, but wait there is, so whip out the day-glow spandex and flex heroically for justice as we try on The Cape (Fridays, 7Mate- 8:30pm)
THE CAPE sets out to simply tell a superhero story. There is no in depth analysis of the character by himself or others and no existential angst. There’s something nicely old-school about the approach. The show does have some shortcomings, mostly in the acting and screenplay departments. Alan Moore’s WATCHMEN proved that a film about costumed heroes can still have brilliantly written dialogue, but the dialogue here is not exactly going to win the creators any awards.
Still if you want superheroes thumping villains, this show has them in spades. In fact, in one episode a villain tries to thump our hero with actual spades. Continuing Hollywood’s recent habit of condemning Australia’s gene pool by poaching our prettier male actors, Australian actor David Lyons (Sea Patrol, ER) headlines The Cape as Officer Vince Faraday. Vince is an honest Californian policeman who gets in all manner of trouble after his new Police Chief is gunned down by a costumed super-villain with an alternate personality that boasts a serious case of psychosis… and a costume theme that even the Riddler would find questionable.
Dubbed Chess, the villain is obsessed with the game, to the point of thinking the whole world is his literal chessboard, throwing Chess-related quips like ‘Knighty-Knight’ into his banter. Chess wields a very big gun, which he uses to immediately blow the living snot out of anything that moves in Faraday’s precinct. Faraday gets a job with a private security firm, headed by eccentric multi-millionaire Peter Fleming… who actually turns out to be Chess (awkward!)
Before he can call the cops on Chess, or ‘Checkmate’ him, if you will, Chess makes a King’s Gambit (crap, now I’m doing it!) and blows away the police chief whilst framing Faraday for the crime, with the help of Faraday’s own partner, the duplicitous but pretty Marty Voigt (Dorian Missick). With everyone in California thinking he’s a maniacal (and badly dressed) supervillian and his wife and child thinking he’s dead in the explosion that Chess devises, Faraday does the obvious thing… and runs away to join the circus.
He wakes up and finds himself the new attraction at The Carnival of Crime, a group of circus performers turned bank robbers lead by Ringmaster Max Mellini. Mellini is played by awesome character actor Keith David who was clearly several sheets to the wind or in need of some cash to pay a parking fine when he took this part. Despite being a criminal and a carnie, Mellini has a strong sense of right and wrong and teaches Faraday to become a costumed superhero known as The Cape, named so due to the extremely long cape on his costume (seriously, the thing’s like a kilometre long, like he made it out of one of the spare circus tents). Taught by Mellini and aided by investigative reporter and blogger Orwell (Summer Glau, fresh from being the Terminatrix a lot of lesbians wanted to travel through time with in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). The Cape must protect his city from being Kinged by Chess (sorry) and also from a bunch of other minor villains who are only a slight costume variation away from a huge copyright infringement lawsuit from the BATMAN people.
Campy villains, cute guys and girls and a hell of a lot of latex. It’s super-hero pawn! (sorry again!)
WICKED WEDGES!
WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (Sat May 7, ABC2-8:30pm)
Brilliant, 1957 version of Agatha Christie’s Whodunit with a cast and crew that reads like a Pride Float- director Billy Wilder also helmed the camp classic SOME LIKE IT HOT; Male lead Tyrone Power was gay (this was his final completed film); female lead Marlene Dietrich was both bisexual and a lesbian icon; and co-stars Charles Laughton (Gay) and Elsa Lancaster (the titular character from Gay director James Whale’s BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN) were involved in a marriage of convenience to mask Laughton’s homosexuality. All this and a great film too!
YOUNG ADAM (Sat May 7, SBS- 10pm)
Intriguing little thriller about a missing woman involving the awesome Tilda Swinton and Ewan MacGregor and McGregor’s oft seen on film penis.
BIG BANG THEORY (Tues May 10, NINE- 7:30PM)
The geeks still reign supreme in this surprisingly funny and Gay friendly sitcom- I suspect the Gay friendly nature of the script is at least in part due lead actor Jim Parsons being gay in real life and we can always hope that co-star Johnny Galecki is too, although that may just be wishful thinking!
ANGRY BOYS (Wed May 11, ABC- 9pm)
New 12-part series, from Chris Lilley the creator of We Can Be Heroes and Summer Heights High. I seem to be in a minority as I find his shows racist and homophobic to the extreme- European performers in Blackface and Yellowface was gauche enough in 1930’s America- let alone Australia in the 21st century.
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (Thurs May 12, SEVEN- 9:3OPM)
More like desperate writers; this once good (first season) series is now in its 7th season, and is becoming ever more soapie-like and surreal in its plotlines to attract flagging viewers. Sure it’s camper than a caravan park at Xmas- but Gay man cannot liveth on Camp alone….
STALE CHIPS!
GARDENING AUSTRALIA (Sat May 14, ABC-6:30pm)
This plants and gardening how-to show would be inoffensive and horticulturally interesting (if a little bland) were it not for one thing- Presenter Stephen Ryan. If there was an awards ceremony for “Most Condescending TV Show Host†he would be Meryl friggin’ Streep. Every single time he talks to camera, he uses a voice reminiscent of someone talking to a kitten which has just been naughty whilst being given a lobotomy in a retirement village. I defy you to tune in for 5 minutes and not be offended that the television is treating you like an amoeba. Stephen dear, vegetables are the *subject* of your show, not your audience…
FAMILY GUY (Wed May 18, 7Mate- 8:30pm)
This once great and subversive animated comedy has listened to its own hype once too often and become very jaded. In addition, like many comedies before it, it confuses being gross with being funny. Gross humour CAN be funny- but grossness for its own sake is not.
SPUDS IN SPACE!
DOCTOR WHO (Sat May 7, ABC-7:30pm)
He’s back and it’s about time! The wonderfully insane and really quite cute Matt Smith returns as the eleventh incarnation of the time-travelling, baddie-fighting time Lord in series 6 (or, if you count from the classic series on, Series 37) of the longest running sci-fi series that doesn’t have the words ‘Star†and “Trek†in the title. Series 6 looks to have some interesting developments… developing. For the first time since the new series began, the daleks will not appear this year- everyone’s favourite xenophobic pepperpots are getting a well-deserved break from all the shouting and exterminating. In addition, both bisexual playboy Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and future companion of the Doctor, River Song (Alex Kingston) are returning this year- in River Song’s case, we’ll finally find out who exactly she really is- my money’s either on former companion (and Time-Lady) Romana, last seen played by Lalla Ward in 1981; or the Rani, a cold and evil renegade Time-Lady scientist who views all other life as just collections of chemicals for her own use (much like Cher!) last seen played by Kate O’Meara in 1997’s TIME AND THE RANI. In terms of monsters, with the Daleks hanging up their plungers this year, it looks like we’ll be getting another visit from the Cybermen and the classic monsters that appear to be getting a bedazzling this year are the Ice Warriors- Sinister, intelligent Martian reptiles with a fondness for sub-zero temperatures and kick-ass leather outfits.
Gavin Pitts
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