Life

In case you're not watching it, you really must catch up with the David Attenborough-narrated nature show Life on BBC1 @ 9pm on Mondays (catch up on BBC iPlayer if you've missed any).


The footage is truly amazing, and it's brilliant the way they weave stories around the stuff they get. The most recent episode focused on insects, and the way they are so highly adapted for their own ecological niche is fascinating - insects that squirt acid! It's just like in Alien. Except, not quite so much Ripley.


It's great to see licence-fee money spent wisely on something like this, worth every penny.


Anyway another show I recommend on a Monday @ 8.30pm on BBC2 is Miranda, a sitcom from Miranda Hart who you will recognise from loads of other comedy shows. The unique twist on this show is that she breaks 'the fourth wall' and talks directly to the audience at certain points, with random asides and observations. It works much better than the little segments that were in the Jessica Stevenson/Hynds vehicle 'According to Bex'. There's plenty of laughs and she has an amazing knack for physical comedy. I think it's a fun, fresh and quirky show and have really been enjoying it. Give that woman a Bafta now!


And that's what I've mostly been watching this week.

True Blood

So if anyone hasn't seen True Blood yet, here it is in a nutshell: vampires have gone public, some people like them some don't, a town called Bon Temps in Louisiana is a Very Bad Place to live if you value your life but great if you're into cheap booze, sex and fried foods.

It is one of the best things on TV at the moment, adapted from the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris, by Alan Ball, the guy behind Six Feet Under (which I've never ever seen but I'm assured by many, including the bf, that it is Good TV). Mainly centres around a love affair between a telepathic human waitress (Sookie Stackhouse, played with plenty of punch and fizz by an excellent Anna Paquin) and a vampire, Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer). However, they aren't the only characters, it's very much an ensemble kind of show.

It's funny, clever, sharp, sexy, scary, supernatural, emotional - basically everything that I like in a TV show. I also like how vampirism is used as an allegory for race/homosexuality/other minority group, and how they add more supernatural elements to it as it goes on (shapeshifters, werewolves and maenads so far).

I'm currently up to speed with US audiences too, and there's just the last episode of Season 2 to go now, which I believe should be airing on Sunday night. Looks set to be a belter!

The casting is spot on, in the main. Favourite characters are Lafayette and Tara - they both rock and I think the acting from both is brilliant and very multi-layered. One minute Tara is like a whirlwind of rage, the next delivering heart-breaking vulnerability. Lafayette is just a bad-ass, which for a cross-dressing short-order cook is no mean feat.

If you haven't watched it, you better start from the beginning - I think the DVD box set of Season 1 is out in the UK soon, so pre-order now!