Lopez Blogs

Shameless, Season 5 Premiere: Dazpants adores Shameless. Worships at it’s feet. Won’t here a bad word said about it. And sometimes he is right (see above for brilliant season 4 finale where the cast mime along to Take That’s Never Forget). But last night’s opening episode was all a bit maudlin. Frank thinks he is going to die. There is nary a whiff of the Maguires. Lip becomes Phil and ruins his own lovelife. Monica remains a selfish bitch. And Carl finds God and gets his end away. Wahey. I notice the episode was directed by the guy who plays Frank which is possibly why there was so much rubbishy Frank stuff in it. Will watch episode 2 tonight as I hear that is a big improvement…

Dr. Who, The Voyage Of The Damned: It’s Christmas in England. Which now has come to mean that there will be an X Factor winner at number one (boo you tuneless jamrag Leon) and a Dr Who Christmas special dominating the ratings. To be honest, the previous two festive forays were a bit hit and miss, but the Spaceship Titanic idea was a real winner, as were the peripheral characters who were pretty much all really likeable. While the plot was a bit of a mishmash of Titanic and the Poseidon Adventure, I liked it best of the 3 Christmas specials airing to date. Kylie was quite lovely in it, and I would have much preferred her as the new companion to the annoying Catherine Tate. Now my Dr Who history isn’t as up as other peoples so I nipped over to a forum to see what they were saying about the Christmas special. Oh. My. Days. People are WAY too into this stuff. From Is Jesus Christ really Dr Who to The XMas Fiasco (people didn’t like it) it was way to scary for me to contemplate reading… Roll on season four!

Robin Hood, Season Two Finale: Ooo Robin is still buff. And now he has taken his crew to the holy land to save the life of King Richard. The first half of the double episode was typical “how are they going to get out of this” sort of thing with a nice romantic coupling happening. The second half was much more sombre with betrayal, death sentences, tests of faith and loyalty and a rather tear jerking ending resulting in the death of a main character and the fracturing of the group. Thank god it’s been announced that it WILL be back for a 3rd year later in 2008. Woo hoo (though rest in peace 4400 - another Dazpants beloved show that has been axed!)

THE NEW YEAR PREVIEWS

(or what to watch/download bittorrents of while the US writers are on strike):

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The Palace ~ Now that trash tv addictions Bad Girls and Footballers Wives have gone to the great dvd boxsets in the sky, it’s time for another trashy show to take their places. The Palace is a drama series about a fictional Royal Family coping with the unexpected death of their king and the succession of his 24 year old playboy son. What with royal lust and gay courtiers, it could be an up to date version of The Tudors. Why it hasn’t been done before is beyond me…

Echo Beach/Moving Wallpaper ~ Two shows for the price of one! A good looking cast, oc-esque surfy scenes and Jason Donovan and Martine “where the fuck is my fucking coat” McCutcheon returning to prime time soapland! Really what more could a boy ask for? Echo Beach is the 12 part soap, while Moving Wallpaper is the tongue in cheek behind the scenes faux-umentary look at the making of the soap that takes the piss out of the stars real lives. Sounds aces.

Honest ~ Dazpanteloons is still mourning the end of At Home With The Braithwaites so he is well chuffed that Amanda Redman is heading up a dysfunctional family dramedy about a crime family’s efforts to go straight…

Rock Rivals ~ Now that the brilliantly rubbish season of the X Factor is over with, ITV is filling the gap (ooer) with this show, a drama about a married couple who are rival judges on an X-Factor style show. More about the backstage stuff than the talent up front, I am intruiged enough to think about wanting to tune in…

Mistresses ~ All of the above are ITV shows, so I thought I would stray and see what the beeb are up to. Not much then. Dr Who isn’t on til March, and in the meantime there are dramas like this one - four friends who all have four very different relationships that are all extremely complicated. The show promises not to glamourise the role of the mistress but to look at it from a different angle and show the effects on all involved. Which sounds a bit boring to be honest! Give me the trash of ITV!!

Other noteworthy shows: The return of American Idol; Thomas “friend of Simon Curtis” Dekker in The Sarah Connor Chronicles; the return of Kyle XY; Season two of Benidorm; Dancing on Ice…