THE TRUTH IS OUT…UM…OVER THERE!

Well, if there’s one thing that the recent new X FILES MOVIE, ‘I WANT TO BELIEVE’ taught us, (aside from the fact that gay marriage turns queer men into psychotic vivisectionists, Gillian Anderson is more frightening when angry than a Polar Bear sow and that series creator Chris Carter must never be allowed near a word processor ever again), is that there’s still more government conspiracies and scientific anomalies flying around than there are alien anal probes going on over at Roswell, Nevada (but enough about the Republican headquarters, I’m sure it happens at the alien crash site too), and so Hollywood is continuing to crank out various paranormal bodies to deal with them. One such paranormal body I sure wouldn’t mind investigating belongs to Joshua Jackson, who has grown up, moved away from his pal Dawson and his creek, and now finds himself up a certain river without a paddle. So let’s grab the boogeyman out from under the bed and put him under the microscope instead, as we scientifically catalogue the supernatural shenanigans of FRINGE (Wednesdays, Nine- 8:30pm).

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FRINGE is a new sci-fi/thriller/crime series from the pen of JJ Abrahms, who is responsible for dropping a lot of hot castaways, character actors and confused Polar bears together on an island in LOST and whom also unleashed a gigantic amphibious monster and numerous cases of cinematic motion sickness with his hand-held horror flick CLOVERFIELD.

Joshua Jackson, an actor who will undoubtedly be forced to wear the moniker ‘Pacey’ in neon letters over his head for the rest of his life, toplines FRINGE as Peter Bishop, a genius with an IQ of 190 who mysteriously remains a college dropout. As the show opens, Peter’s father, Walter Bishop (John Noble), is in a mental asylum. He is a former FBI Agent who used to specialize in ‘fringe science’ – no, he’s not training to be a hair-stylist with some kind of degree in mullet technology. Fringe science refers to the ‘lunatic fringe’- scientific phenomena that most mainstream academics shake their head and go ‘tut-tut’ at; telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, invisibility and so on. Walter investigated cases involving paranormal events and fringe-science, kind of like an… F-FILES (hey, that sounds like a good idea for a cult series!) until the search for paranormal events started forming an ominous conspiracy of dark interest groups and powers known as The Pattern, and Walter went what is scientifically known as ‘bug-ass loopy’.

Peter is trying his best to live a normal life, free of The Pattern, when weird events start happening again – a baby is born and dies of old age within ten minutes. Strange creatures begin appearing in forests and parks. Hollywood starts giving gay roles in mainstream movies to gay actors instead of ‘brave’ straight ones. It seems that, like the hideous clothes Cher wears to the Oscars each year, The Pattern refuses to be silenced. FBI Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) is keen to pick up where her old boss Walter left off (only, you know, without the psychotic break) and so contacts him- only he tends to remain lucid only in his son’ Peter’s presence. Cue the formation of a new supernatural crime-fighting team, composed of the FBI Agent, the whack-job and the college dropout! Each week Peter, Walter and Olivia travel the world trying to make sense of The Pattern and the various paranormal events and entities it unleashes, whilst gradually revealing that the source of the Pattern may be Massive Dynamic , a shadowy research company that sounds like a heavy metal band. You know they’re evil, because all the employees like to stand in the shadows and look grumpy a lot. Will Scowls-A-Lot Man take the place of X File’s Cigarette-Smoking Man as the pre-eminent TV villain of our time? Only our three heroes know for sure…

Check out this Pattern!

TASTY TATIES!

THE VIEW (Fri Nov 21, Nine- Midday)

Chat show in which a panel of six celebrity women (note to Ten- panel contains actual celebrities!) have a round-the-table discussion on various issues affecting women in the modern era. Barbara Walters, an esteemed American journalist, and Whoopi Goldberg bring the sense and sanity to the proceedings, whereas the loopy stupidity mostly comes from the mouth of Religious Rong Wingnut Sherri Sheppard (who once argued that Christianity predated Ancient Rome and Judaism and that dinosaurs were ‘a trick’)

STALE CHIPS!

KENNY’S WORLD (Wed Nov 26- Ten, 8pm)

-Worthless spinoff of the terrible (and of course, very successful) Aussie film about a guy who installs Portaloos for a living. In this series, Kenny shows that They’re Not Like Us! By travelling the world and showing us the weird toilets/toilet habits of his victim country du jour. Hey- I made it through this whole review without making a pun on how ‘crappy’ the show is an- aww, sh*t…

HEROES (Thurs Nov 27, Seven- 8:30pm)

Alas, this once great sci-fi show about super-powered suburbanites is rapidly falling victim to Single Season Suckless Syndrome (like SMALLVILLE, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, THE OC and 90210) in which a kickass, fantastic first season is followed by increasingly terrible subsequent ones. It’s even started to take the SLIDERS approach of ripping off a different Sci-Fi/Horror movie every week, with a recent scene involving Mohinder shirtless, raving and (literally) climbing the walls that appears as if it was taken near verbatim from David Cronenberg’s masterwork THE FLY- his lawyers should definitely bring out the Baygon. Plus the continued lack/de-gaying of queer characters is a sore point. I mean sure, Peter and Sylar are still hot but oh, how the mighty have fallen!

HOT POTATOES!

GHOST SQUAD (Sat Nov 29, ABC- 10pm)

No it’s not a program about Halloween that’s airing a bit late and ending up with only a couple of pieces of fruit and some damn Muesli bars in the Trick or Treat bag. Ghost Squad is an entertaining police drama from the UK about an elite squadron of coppers who are working on cases so secret that no-one knows of the unit’s existence. No, they’re not investigating Little Green Men, but rather Bent Boys in Blue- the Ghost Squad is an internal affairs unit looking to investigate and quietly bust crooked members of their own police force. The fugly guy everyone seems to think is hot from the new ROBIN HOOD is in it, but you grrrls are the winners in the sex appeal stakes this time, as the series is carried by the intense yet pretty Irish actress Elaine Cassidy (FINGERSMITH) as the lead ‘Ghost’, Detective Amy Harris.. Unfortunately, there’s news of a pending American remake- get in quick and love this show before the Yanks rip all the subtlety out of it.

SPUDS IN SPACE!

IRON CHEF (Sat Nov 29, SBS- 8:30pm)

All new episodes of the cult TV show that is equal parts Game show, Cooking show and insane sports program, as each week, two real-life master chefs are invited by the Master-of-Ceremonies (who wears a cape that Liberace would have thought too gauche) to compete for the title of Iron Chef inside his hollow volcano fortress. The two chefs must vie for the title by whipping up the most tasty and inventive dish they can from a bunch of ingredients provided by the show- including a secret ingredient that they must use which is only given to them by the MOC at the last minute. Their efforts are presided over by ringside…er, stoveside… commentators who actually call the proceedings like insane versions of Dennis Cometti (‘Oh my God! He’s run out of vanilla bean pod!’). Mad, fun and with actual recipes you can download at the end, this may be the best ever cooking show presented from inside a volcano.

Gavin Pitts