Emmerdale Teaser
There’s a downside to living in the countryside, as poor TJ discovers when he’s rushed to hospital with E. coli. Is the cabbage fertilizer to blame? Or Jo’s cheese, perhaps? And more to the point, will the kid pull through? Later that day Environmental Health investigates Butler’s Farm to pinpoint the source. Will the viral outbreak put the future of the farm in jeopardy?
Meanwhile, after Lexi informs the Kings that De Souzas have hired a hotshot PR company, Matthew decides to follow suit and fires Jasmine from her book balancing job. Jasmine is furious to find she’s been replaced and wastes no time in telling Matthew exactly what she thinks about him. Will the Kings’ latest attempt to challenge De Souza pay off?
Gray is shocked when an old friend, Richard, turns up explaining that he’s Perdy’s divorce lawyer. Warning Gray that it would be best to settle things out of court, Richard gives him Perdy’s address. Gray is horrified to find Perdy living in a shabby bedsit. Perdy begs Gray not to deprive her of the chance to be a mother. Gray is torn but pledges his support for Katie and leaves.
Back in the village, Katie asks Gray where he’s been and his answers are less than satisfactory. Will Katie find out about Gray’s clandestine meetings? Is Gray about to lose both his partner and his unborn child?
Belle and Eli start to sell organic manure - but does her new business stink? Always willing to go the extra mile for success, Eli decides to steal horse manure from Home Farm so they can flog a more prestigious product. It will be interesting to see whether the posh poo will in fact be priceless…
Meanwhile, Laurel and Ashley argue over Ashley’s insistence on knowing Arthur’s parentage. After arriving back with no news from the hospital, Ashley is interrupted by a desperate Hilary who informs him that Mel and Greg are planning to move to Spain permanently. Will Ashley take steps to ensure Arthur stays put? And will the results of the tests eventually cause heartbreak and pain all round?
EastEnders Teaser
Everyone in soapworld seems to be going a little crazy at the moment. In the case of Sean Slater, make that a lot crazy. The situation involving Sean and Gus has been grim for a while but now Sean is overstepping the mark. It all started when Sean slept with the object of Gus’s affection, Keisha, after convincing her that Gus was a womaniser. The fact that Sean was Gus’s lodger and never paid the rent made it all the worse. Ever since then, the two have been taking pot shots at each other. However this week Sean is on a mission and has Gus in his sights. And when Stacey uses Gus’s keys to open up his flat, she makes a truly shocking discovery… Sean is holding Gus hostage! Later, despite having managed to get rid of Sean (for now), Gus feels trapped in Walford - and who can blame him after what he’s been through. When his girlfriend turns up it looks like he’s found a way to escape.
Elsewhere, having done the dirty deed, Jack and Roxy can barely look at each other. They are both ashamed and can’t face Ronnie finding out the truth. Roxy especially is consumed with guilt and afraid that Ronnie will see through her lies. This situation is going to get very nasty, very soon. Especially when, in the near future, Roxy discovers that she’s pregnant! Ian gets a call to see a girl in a run-down block of flats - could it be Lucy? Lucy disappeared after she threw a wild party and trashed the house. When Ian came home he was furious. During a heated row Lucy slapped him, and he slapped her back. Ian remains consumed with guilt.
Meanwhile it’s Jane’s birthday, but Christian has gone and Lucy is still missing so she doesn’t feel like celebrating. Ben has a secret new hobby supported by Peggy, but it’s not one he wants his dad to find out about. And Steven has been hiding a big secret from his family - although nothing is very big as far as Steven is concerned - as Stacey will testify.
The Rise and Rise of Shameless
While Shameless has enjoyed a cult following for some time now, recent press coverage has seen the profile of this gritty Manchester-based drama hit new heights. Tonight’s show sees an earth tremor hit the North West area with terrible consequences.
In the after shock of the quake Monica goes into labour unexpectedly but refuses to have the baby until Frank is present. Unbeknownst to Monica, Frank was knocked off his bar stool during the tremor and is currently in a coma – where he is enjoying a period of success in the “other world”.
Interestingly, Shameless is actually based on the childhood experiences of the show’s creator, Paul Abbott. Originally aired in January 2004 the show was given a late night slot because of the language and some of the more adult content of the show. Expected by many to be only a filler ahead of an array of new shows planned back in 2004, Shameless soon caught the attention of the UK public and the press.
The show has gone from strength to strength over the last couple of years and is now a mainstay of the Channel 4 schedule. As if to confirm the grass roots of the show, series five of Shameless was filmed using a specially designed 66,000 sq ft set built in Wythenshawe, Manchester – a place which has its fair share of Shameless-like areas!
The show is turning into something of a hot-bed of acting talent with Jody Latham recently featuring heavily in the ITV show The Fixer.
While the likes of EastEnders and Coronation Street continue to grab the headlines for their “reality”, nothing can quite match the unapologetic realism which Shameless offers. Funny, hard hitting and a BAFTA winner to boot - what more can you ask for?
Cameron Diaz’s Father Dies
Cameron Diaz’s father passed away yesterday morning at the age of 58.
Reports are that Diaz was fine and healthy until he came down with a flu that turned into pneumonia. His sudden death has come as a shock to everyone who knew him, including his family.
At the time of his death Cameron Diaz was on location shooting her latest movie My Sister’s Keeper, an adaptation of the novel by Jodi Picoult, also starring Alex Baldwin and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine).
Emilio Diaz did a guest star turn in the hit film There’s Something About Mary in which he played opposite his daughter as the character ‘Jailbird’.
Cameron Diaz’s rep has not made any comment so far on her father’s sudden death, however shooting on her film came to an immediate halt when she received the news.
Hitler’s War
The increasingly popular History Channel shows “Hitler’s War” today, a programme which offers an interesting perspective on World War II from a German angle. The show takes us back in time to when the War began, leading us right through to the mystery of what happened to Hitler and the whereabouts of his remains.
Eyewitness accounts, real footage from the days of the War and comments from those who saw battle all add to the reality of the show. While the German leader was hero worshipped in many parts of Germany as he took on the might of the West, it is interesting to see what propaganda and news they were being fed as the German army began to run out of steam. A depressed economy, no food and no money saw many Germans struggling to make ends meet as Hitler battled the might of the foreign forces.
The August 1944 uprising in Paris had a major impact upon the war and, slowly but surely, the German Army was dismantled. Allied troops pushed them further and further back towards their homeland before occupying German as millions of prisoners and captives were released – although it was too late for many.
It is easy to forget the hardship and ill-treatment which soldiers on both sides endured in World War II, and many will be fascinated to learn how the War actually started. World War II is said to have resulted in the direct death of 60 million people, mostly civilians, and is widely believed to be the most costly conflict of all time. The end of World War II saw a number of treaties and agreements signed to try and ensure that no other war of its size would ever be fought again. In many ways the War was a turning point in history, but the cost to human life was astronomical.
Battlestar Galactica Premieres Tonight
By McGee Noble
This fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica (Sky One, tonight, 9pm) makes some of us quiver with anticipation and others shrug and say ‘so?’ To those latter people: Scat. Get. Go on, get outta here. Go watch Hollyoaks.
To the former, gather in, gather in, and I’ll tell you a little about what’s in store for you.
The fleet is on the run and Starbuck has returned claiming that she’s found the mythical Earth. We’ve got Cylons aplenty and humans who have found they are not as human as they thought. There’s fights in space, love, loyalty and betrayal. All the stuff that makes Battlestar Galactica so very watchable.
When this show first began in 2005 it was amid a storm of protest from fans of the original show, with particular damnation heaped on the decision to cast Starbuck as a woman. Dirk Benedick, who played the orginal Starbuck commented at the time “What a sad fate to happen to Starbuck. I don’t know why they’ve done this; it’s kind of mystifying.” In fact several actors from the original series who were supposed to guest star in the re-make pulled out in disgust over the changes, however showrunner Ronald Moore stood strong with his vision.
And a good thing he did too.
The new Battlestar Galactica took the old fluffy, family friendly teddy bear of an original and jumped all over it with one booted foot, roughed it up in the mud a little, re-stuffed it with ball bearings and gunpowder and then sat back and watched it explode into television goodness.
In 2001 when Ron Moore came on board to bring the new show to life, it was amidst the world changing events of 9/11 and the profound questions of terror, morality and war that this brought into our social consciousness became central questions of the series. Gone was the fantasatical campness of Star Trek (for those in the know, Ron Moore was a writer and executive producer on Star Trek: The Next Generation and also Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Moore wanted to bring a real war to a science fiction world. As he said before the mini series aired “I don’t want to do Star Trek and Star Wars all over again. There’s a certain style of filmmaking associated with those shows, which is a very romantic, glossy approach to science fiction, with big, lush, orchestral scores, etc… We’re going to try to make it, for want of a better word, more real, a real place, down and dirty, with a sort of ‘You are there’ feel to it. It’s going to be - and this is a bad phrase - a ‘down to Earth’ sort of place.”
Co-producer David Eick supported this “there have been two aesthetic touchstones primarily for this pilot: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Black Hawk Down, both of which are very rooted in reality and both of which still manage to be gripping, suspenseful and exciting.” The handheld camera motion, particularly in space, which was so clearly inspired by Black Hawk Down does exactly what the creators hoped and gives instant grit to the battles.
There is an epic darkness to Battlestar’s premise, because it is essentially about the end of humanity, not just literally but also culturally, metaphysically and theologically. The growing religious fervour of the Cylons (which as you will see in tonight’s episode is becoming an important theme) is one of the things that forces the question of what makes the humans ‘human’, not to mention the discovery by several important characters that they are in fact Cylons. On the one hand the humans in the show have lost much of their humanity in the form of civilisation and culture, while on the other; the Cylons are becoming more human both in civilisation and emotion.
Tonight’s episode begins what will be the final story arc for this series, and for fans of the show this is both a disappointment and a relief. To know the answers to the questions posed in the first episode will be immensely satisfying, but we will surely miss what has been one of the most interesting and well written science fiction shows in many a year. Let’s see if this last season lives up to the promise of the first three.
Ashlee Simpson Denies Pregnancy
Hollywood poplet Ashlee Simpson has set gossip rolling with her recently announced engagement to rocker Pete Wentz. A bassist for the band Fall Out Boy, Wentz and Simpson have been dating since late 2006 and this week rumours abound that Simpson is pregnant.
While Ashlee has stayed silent about these rumours, Wentz has sent an email to MTV denying them. “There is a witch hunt for people to be pregnant whenever they get engaged in Hollywood,”
“This is all news to me. I can’t wait for the story about how I’m really in a gay relationship and this is all just a cover … I mean really, this is crazy … I mean we’re engaged, that’s true, and happy about it.”
The couple announced their engagement last week on social networking site FriendsorEnemies.com. In their message they said “we wanted our fans to be the first to know, because you guys are the best…Thank you for all of your support and well wishes – it means the world to us. We consider this to be a very private matter, but we wanted you to hear it straight from us.”
Ashlee’s dad has said that he feels “blessed” to have Wentz as part of their family.
Anna Friel Talks About Pushing Daisies
Ladies and Gentleman, could all the ex soap stars that have become successful U.S TV stars please stand up? Oooooh. Ahem. Michelle Ryan please sit down (aaaawwkward!). All Hail Anna Friel.
She’s crossed the ocean and charmed her way into the hearts and TV sets of U.S audiences in ITV1’s hit show Pushing Daisies about a young man, Ned, with the unusual gift of bring the dead back to life. But like all such gifts, it has a few snags.
Here’s what our Anna has to say about it all…
“We all knew it was something special when we first got involved with the project but we didn’t realise other people would recognise it so quickly. It’s inventive and something very special on TV that people haven’t seen before.”
But it’s not been easy trying to explain the concept of this unique show to her home country.
“The most difficult thing is explaining the show to people, particularly in England. They say, “I’m sorry? What is it you’re doing in America? It sounds kind of weird.”
“It’s one of those shows that you really, really do have to watch. I just describe it as a modern romantic fairy tale.”
Pushing Daisies (ITV1, Saturdays, 9:05pm) is hard to describe because it breaks so many television traditions. Its vibrant colours and cheerily morbid outlook is breathtakingly refreshing and it has the critics raving.
“I knew from reading the script that it was going to be wonderful, but I didn’t realise how wonderful. We have to wear sunglasses on set sometimes because it’s so bright. It gives the show that story book illustration feel or a forties-style romantic comedy.
“I think the true sense of romance in this series is particularly special and goes back to all those 30s or 40s movies where all you’re waiting for is one kiss at the end, I think people love that. And I also think it makes them laugh.”
The Kiss is the big snag in Ned’s gift. Once he has brought Chuck (Anna Friel) back to life, he can never touch her again.
“We actually did try going for a week with no touching at all on set,” Anna says. “We didn’t do too well. We’re both - particularly me - incredibly tactile. By day three I was dead three times.”
Anna had a surprising influence for the character of Chuck: “I base the character on my daughter Gracie,” she says. “She’s experiencing life for the first time. She has a wonderment and sense of excitement. But to maintain happiness and a spirit and energy like this for seventeen hours a day, five days a week - has been far more testing than I could ever imagine.”
Pushing Daisies premiered on Saturday on ITV1 (read our review here) but if you missed the debut of Anna’s new show you can catch it tonight on ITV2 at 9pm or download it from ITV’s catch up service
Pushing Daisies Is Best Watch on TV Today
By McGee Noble
Death is a funny thing. We are quite rightly fascinated by this weird, I mean WEIRD thing in which one day, even though it seems impossible, all this will not be…well, this. Most of the time it’s easy not to think about it, I mean we have coffee, avoiding the smelly guy on the bus, making sure you meet your targets at work, stopping at Tesco’s, cooking dinner, sleeping. Most of the time death hides in a little corner of our brain, while we get on with the whole stinky business of living.
Not so for Bryan Fuller. You probably haven’t heard of him, and I would like to fix that. So, introductions: Bryan Fuller: these are onthebox readers; readers, this is Bryan Fuller. Who? You say… Fuller is a TV death junkie, whose fascination with how life is shaped by death led to the creation of cult comedy Dead Like Me in which young slacker Georgina’s (George) life is brutally cut short by a flying toilet seat from space. Somewhat unfairly, life for George is replaced by an afterlife which is uncannily similar to the mundane, office job leading, aimless existence she had before death, only now she’s a grim reaper. It’s a show about grief and comedy, and its unique perspective seems to tap into a sense of wonder and strangeness, as well as melancholy that death brings. Great show obviously canned after 2 seasons.
However Bryan Fuller has not let us down, but returned with a more audience friendly and now proper hit show Pushing Daisies (Saturday, ITV1, 9.05pm) Again, death shapes the story. Ned is a pie maker, a sweet loner who runs ‘The Pie Hole’. What makes him such a loner is that he has the power to bring the dead back to life. Unfortunately, if they live longer than a minute, this comes with the consequence of someone else nearby dying in the resurrected person’s place. This is a big help to private detective Emerson Cod, who uses Ned to wake murder victims for one minute so he can find out who killed them and collect the bounty. All is dandy until Ned brings back to life his childhood sweetheart Chuck (our very own Anna Friel, read her interview here). Hopelessly in love and yet unable to touch, so begins one of the most wonderful romances on TV for years.
There’s a good whack of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with the charming surrealism of Amelie, and yet this isn’t a squeakingly sugary fantasy. It’s more like an inquisitive existential mystery hidden in a fairy tale. Inventive, imaginative and yet strangely real, it breaks all the rules and does it with grace. Fuller doesn’t hammer home the death and grief and yet its there, slipped in to the background, pulling the fantastical down to earth.
It’s taken the U.S. by storm, which surprised just about everyone in the universe. Critics love it, men want to shower it with presents and women want to have its babies. And Bryan Fuller is probably sitting back chuckling, because while the rest of the time its easy not to think about it, he’s made us all pull death out of the little cupboards in our brains and look it in the face for a while. And for a moment Fuller makes it look right back. Then we can laugh at it, turn the telly off and go back to our normal, stinky business, knowing that there’s coffee, public transport and work to keep us occupied in the meantime. And Fuller’s work is done.
So, if you missed the first episode on Saturday night, then go out of your way to catch a repeat on ITV2 at 9pm tonight and make friends with our man Fuller. He’s got some interesting stuff to say.
Read what Anna Friel has to say about it here.
Evening Racing
While the UK is well known as one of the leading horse racing countries of the world, it pales into insignificance when compared to the massive US market which covers dozens of states, time zones and offers hours and hours of live racing each and every day!
Tonight’s Evening Racing takes into account live coverage from both the US and Fairyhouse (Ireland) in what promises to be another night of thrills and spills on the track. This program offers an in depth look at the latest betting, the latest form and news and reviews from the tracks around the US. While many UK gamblers will be aware of this, the US “pooled” betting system offers the chance to bet on a horse showing on the day, placed and winning, ensuring that there is great depth in the money which flows through the industry.
The majority of US horses racing is run on the “dirt” but there are a number of ever green grass circuits appearing throughout the country. The racing styles in the US are very much different to the UK as are the layout of the tracks, with tighter bends which make it more difficult to stay in contention unless you are perfectly placed on the bend.
The US jockeys also seem to employ a “slip stream” style system with the majority happy to “hook up” with the leading horse and then whip past them as they turn the final bend. This adds to the thrills and spills of what can be a very exciting night on the box, and if you are lucky you might even win yourself a few dollars!
Gambling on US racing is available on a wide range of UK based gambling sites and the time difference seems to make no difference to the quality of services provided. US racing makes UK racing seem like a walk in the park at times!
