"...it was twenty years ago today..."

On Februray 24th, in a small town in the American North West, a body washed up on the banks of a river. Wrapped in plastic. That was the body of Laura Palmer, and this was the start of what was probably the best TV show ever, Twin Peaks.

A brief blog post like this cannot convey the true brilliance of the show, but it was truly stunning. It looked great, it felt great, and it sounded great. 

The UK release of a box set containing all 30 episodes is due soon. Buy it. Watch it. Cherish it. Though, if you can't wait it's already available from the US.

Oh, but don't watch the film before the TV show... though set before the TV show, it was made after it ended and this is how its meant to be seen.

"...blogging in the name of..."

Ah, I guess how this blog is perceived is entirely my own fault... an offhand comment elsewhere has made me realise that there must be a perception that this blog is dedicated to TV programmes. This is, by no means, the intention. The title of the blog;

Digression

should be a clue. It's meant to be about diverse, various, subjects. About whatever I feel like writing about at the time. It just so happens that at the moment, I seem to be writing mainly about TV. And in particular, Lost. This is mainly because I love and adore Lost more than any other TV programme at the moment. And, and the moment, we are 5 episodes in to the 17 episode run of season 5. So, there'll be plenty more Lost blog posts over the coming weeks... it'll die off a bit in the gap between seasons. 

In many ways, this blog is meant to be a 21st century version of my fanzine. When I wrote things for that it was about my main interests at the time. Had I started a fanzine in January 2009, rather than 2008 chances are it would have been called 108 and had loads of articles on Lost in it. Rather than, say, Kenickie... 

So, although it appears this blog is mainly about TV this is not the intention. There will be more digressions as time passes. Really. 

Talking of fanzines, I did have an idea late last year about the old fanzine I used to do that lasted for 24 issues between 1998-2000. You see, I did have this plan to upload them all to my website, but this kind of got stalled at #3. There were all sorts of hassles with the OCR on the scanner, and even now you can still see blatant typos on there.

So I came up with the idea of reprinting the lot of them.

All of them.

But all 24 issues in just one volume. 

The idea was to do this via lulu.com, the self publishing site. I'd set a nice low price that covered the costs of producing each issue and bosh... but it wasn't to be just a straight reprint of the 24 issues. I'd also include the one mini-Munch produced, as well as all the flyers. And maybe even reproductions of the actual Munch Questionnaires as filled out by various bands (they all had on the back page one request - draw a picture of anything you want - that never made it to the zine itself). There would also have been an article about how the zine came to be, and reminiscneces and so on, and introductions to each issue. And I was going to canvass as many Munchers as possible to get their contributions. Oh, and I'd have persuaded Timmy 2Hedz to have written something for  it as well...

...however, the page count of the thing, and the eventual cost to get copies printed seemed too high to me. Maybe I'll have another look one day to see if it's viable. It's something I'd like to do, though. The thought that all 24 issues of Munch would be available to anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time... it's exciting. 

Every now and then, I'll pick out an issue of Munch and have  a flick through it and think "ah, I did good there". I know it sounds egotistical, but those 24 zines (well, 23; #24 is, really, a bit rubbish) are something I'll always be proud of. They're not perfect. Some of the stuff in them is a bit dodgy. But with all of them I kept on trying to do something different each issue; to keep it fresh and new, and not get in to the trap of every issue, essentially, having the same template. Ah, I still maintain that if you took Deadline #12, and The Zine #1 and mashed them together you'd have the perfect zine. 

"...I can hardly wait, baby, I can hardly wait..."

Pixies fans amongst you will get what the quote refers to... well, as long as you're a Lost fan as well. So, five episodes in and this latest one, This Place is Death, is starting to pull things together. Although it did pull things apart a bit. 

With all of the Oceanic Six bar Hurley together at the end of episode 4 it appeared that all would be plain sailing... but both Kate and Sayid made sharp exits, and it was only Ben's quick tongue that saved him from a bullet in the head. Ben continues to be my favourite character in the show. He conveys a world of emotion with a single sentence. The moment where he pulls the van over and practically screams at Jack and Sun "What I'm doing is helping you; and if you had any idea what I've had to do to to keep you safe, to keep your friends safe, you'd never stop thanking me." and it's a testament to Michael Emerson's acting skills that it all sounds so convincing. His performances really do steal the show so very often.

So, instead of getting all of the Oceanic 6 together, by the end there's just the two with ; Jack and Sun. Although, conveniently, as they arrive to meet Eloise Hawking (Daniel's mum) they happen to bump in to Desmond who is also there to find her... It really does make you wonder how they'll get Kate & Aaron, Sayid & Hurley together to go back to the island. And will they need Frank Lapidus as well...? I guess we'll find out next week...

Locke's plight is intriguing. In order to bring the Oceanic 6 back to the island, he has to die. It is very interesting to note that in Season 1 he said that Boone was "the sacrifice the island demanded". Was he wrong then. Is Locke the sacrifice the island demands...? 

The most frustrating aspect to this episode, however, was the minimal amount of time we spent with Danielle's party. I was hoping we'd get to see much more of them, how the sickness manifested itself and what drove Danielle to kill them all. However, Smokey's attack was very interesting. Smokey appeared to be emanating from the ruins of what looked like a Temple (is this the same Temple Richard has taken the Others to...?). The hieroglyphics appeared to match those on the door underneath Ben's house; from where he was able to summon Smokey to attack Keamy et al. But most intriguing was how all of Danielle's party went down the hole got "the sickness", but Danielle was unaffected. A connection, perchance? I do hope we see more of young Danielle in future...

And, oh, so many other things that I could mention... I've not really touched on the well, Charlotte's death, the convenience of some of the time changes, that the company name on the van - Canton Rainier - is an anagram... oh, so many things.

Also, they've swapped the next two episodes around, which suggests that the episode that was due next, but is now #7 - The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham - must be pretty self contained, telling only of Locke's adventures off island... 

...and I bet when his corpse is brought back to the island, he'll come back to life. Which, I'm sure, is also what happened to Jack's dad. Which means, Jack's dad has been on the island before... 

"...I've always been with you, Jack..."

Okay. So, in the last episode of Lost, when Kate said:

"I've always been with you, Jack."

how many of you mentally added;

"...well, apart from when I was shagging Sawyer..."

: )

(And, yes, I blatantly nicked this from elsewhere...!)

"...I've been here less than two weeks..."

Okay, so in the latest episode of Lost, "The Little Prince" (look away now if you've not seen it...) Daniel says that the nosebleeds etc that people are experience are related to the length of time they've spent on the island. The longer you've been there, the sooner you'll suffer. So... Daniel (on island a fortnight), Locke (4 months), Sawyer (ditto) have not experienced any nosebleeed. Juliet's(3 years) only just started to get them, as has Miles. Charlotte's suffered the most. 

Now, we can thus deduce from this that as Miles started to get the nosebleeds at about the same time as Juliet, he must have been on the island for about the same time as her; 3 years in total. But as he says, he's only been on the island a fortnight... or has he...? Now, there is a theory we have already seen Miles on the island this season, played by a different actor... have a think about it, see what you can come up with, and I'll tell you when I think we already saw Miles later at the end of this post.

But Charlotte... ah, so when was she on the island before? She, too, has apparently only been on the island a fortnight, yet she suffers worse than Juliet who's been there about three years. So, when was she there before, and why was she there? Was she Dharma? Is she someone significant? We shall see.

Elsewhere, off-island, we see the Oceanic 6 et al getting ever closer to returning to the island (in episode 6, anyone...). Ben being the one behind the lawyers at Kate's house did surprise me. I'd had that one pegged as Sun's doing... but what about the people with the trank guns...? Are they Ben's, too? Or are they Widmore's? 

I was very glad to see Jin alive at the end, and even more pleased to see that at long last we're going to see Danielle's back story. This has been promised as coming soon in Seasons 3 and 4, and finally here it is. The "surprise" reveal that the lady was Danielle wasn't a massive surprise - everyone's hopping through time and we see a group of French people wash up on the island? Kinda obvious... even listing them as "Frenchwoman" and "Frenchman" 1-5 in the cast lists posted on the web didn't really preserve the surprise. Better to have put them as "Woman" and "Man" 1-5, I reckon... Still, this lack of surprise doesn't make the huge sense of anticipation for the next episode dissipate at all. It'll be interesting to see what the sickness her party experienced was, and whether or not it's the same time-displacement sickness as experience by Minkowski and Desmond in Season 4. I'm possibly looking forward to next week's even more than the intriguingly titled episde 7; The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.

Anyhow, to conclude this post I return to the Miles theory as mentioned above; we saw Miles before in the opening scene of Season 4. Miles is Pierre Chang's (aka Marvin Candle etc) son. He's the baby at the start of the season, who presumably lived there for the first few years of his life. Hence being affected by the nosebleeds etc sooner than Locke & Sawyer...

"...theorising that one could time travel..."

Somehow Lost has turned in to Quantum Leap. Sort of. Only instead of just one person leaping through time, it's half the cast. And there's no Al. Presumably he's still too busy being evil in Battlestar Galactica.

Talking of which... (and I apologise for any Sky viewers reading this in case I give away spoilers; really I don't know what day it's on there, so if you've not seen S4 Ep 13, stop reading now and only come back for the bit at the end which is about Lost theories. That's safe as Sky viewers are enjoying episode I'm writing about as I type, and who's sad enough to read the internet whilst watching new episodes of TV shows. Well... as some loony forums attest, quite a few people. There are entire threads on some written by people who are giving their "OMG!!!", "SQUEEEEEEEEE" and "ROLF" opinions as things are happening. Losers.)

Anyhow... Battlestar Galactica's latest episode was an absolute belter. Rebellion. Insurrection. Mutiny. And with, erm, Felix Gaeta in charge... it was a real hum dinger of an episode, with each twist and turn bringing ever more unexpected happenings. Who would have thought that Gaeta could amass such a large amount of people to launch a successful (well, successful at this stage) mutiny without a single word of it getting back to The Powers That Be. Impressive. There's one thing that BSG does really well, and that's putting its characters in to dark and dire situations. This goes right back to the mini-series where virtually everyone is killed, followed by 33 (which I maintain is one of the very best single episodes of anything) where the Cylons relentlessly pursue the fleet with only a 33 minute window between each new attack. That one episode, actually, is BSG in miniature, summing up the bleak nature of the show, yet ending with a hint of optimism. The bleakness continued with the New Caprica arc at the start of season 3; with most of humanity under Cylon subjugation you got the impression, for a while, that this was it and that there was no way out. And I'm getting that feeling again. Only now, as the show enters its final run - just seven episodes to go, remember - all bets are off, no-one's safe. Though having said that, anyone who thinks Adama and Tigh are dead at the end of this episode has rocks in their head. Adama makes the finale, that's fer sure...

Also heading to its end is Lost, although rather than just 7 episodes to go, Lost has 31 more. The third episode saw several things slot in to place, and the great thing was that they weren't shoehorned in, and weren't over egged. For example we now know why Richard Alpert was at Locke's birth; because Locke told him where and when he was to be born. The bomb, which was to be buried in concrete is clearly the thing that was buried in concrete in the Swan in Season 2... oh, and as ever it opens up the possibility of theories...

1 - that Ellie chick who Daniel thought looked familiar...? 'Course she looked familiar, Danny-boy, she's your mother. Ellie = Eloise, and it's odds on that Eloise Hawking is Daniel's mum.

2 - "Do not mistake coincidence for fate," said Eko back in Season 2, but Eloise and Charles Widmore on the island together...? Could Charles be Daniel's daddy...? Who knows...

But my favourite is this one:

3 - Penny's dad and her son are the same person... think about it. Penny gives birth to Charlie who grows up a bit and ends up travelling back in time to the island in the 50s where he prefers to be known as Charles. Think about it. It works. It'd make Desmond Charles Widmore's dad. However, it does mean Charles would have to shag his own grannie to create Penny. But would he know he's doing this...? 

Ooh. I do love Lost

"...cook/cock..."

Okay, in my previous post referring to the first episode of this third season of Skins, I opined the opinion that in my opinion the character of Cook is, not to put to fine a point on it, a cunt.

The second episode was the Cook episode, and the plot - well, I say plot - revolved around his birthday shenanigans. So, with this episode we got to know Cook a little better and to evaluate whether the initial impression that he is a cunt was, in fact, an accurate representation of his character. I must say, I was wrong.

I underestimated his level of cuntiness.

He is an extremely massive cunt. He is the Crown Prince of Cunts. 

But, despite being an extremely massive cunt, he is immensely watchable; you're kind of wondering what he's going to do next, and to what depths of cuntiness he will descend to. It's kind of spellbinding in this respect. It takes something to have a character who's such an extremely massive cunt and yet still make him compelling viewing. It worked with Tony in Season 1, and it's worked here again.

I found myself warming a little more to JJ this time, and have realised he's more of a twat than a cunt. 

And the thing about the Good Twin being the lesbian rather than Naomi was rammed home this episode with a single line between the two when Naomi said "Why does your sister think I'm gay?" Subtle... nah. 

But, two episodes in, I think they've managed to pull of this cast renewal perfectly. I was initially really doubtful it would work, but it has refreshed the show somewhat. This is, of course, not to denigrate the original cast, but every story has to have its time, and the two seasons we had with the orginal cast were - odd episode here and there aside - wonderful. I'm going to enjoy the two years we'll have with this gang...

...doesn't mean, however, I don't miss Cassie immensely...

"...random shoes..."

Ooh, it's been far too long between posts, so here's a sort of catch up on things. Admittedly mostly TV things, but...

Skins Season 3

It was a somewhat bold move to replace virtually the entire cast for season 3 - no Tony, Sid, Michelle... No Cassie. etc - with essentially just Effy being retained (though Pandora, a one episode character from Season 2 is now elevated to a cast regular). The overall feel of the episode was somewhat like each year's new Season of Grange Hill; only with much more of a turnover than that show. So, if we take the Grange Hill analogy a little further, we have said goodbye to Tucker Jenkins (Tony) and friends, now we say hello to Zammo McGuire (Cook) and friends...

Initial impressions of the new characters are mixed. Within minutes of the show starting I'd already decided that Cook is a cunt. Mind you, I spent the whole of Season 1 thinking Tony was a cunt, so plus ca change... The opening sequence of Freddie skateboarding down Park Street in Bristol (about half the external scenes in any given episode of Skins are shot in this area) set the tone perfectly, and was suitably over the top. Initially I thought he was a cunt, too, but mellowed to him as the episod went on. As soon as I saw JJ I though, fuck me, he's a cunt. And that didn't change. Though, he does show potential as the UK's answer to Jack Nance. 

And, ooh. Twins in their smalls. Marvellous. And get this, one of them's a good twin and one's an evil twin... now in what school based drama on CBBC did we see that before...? And only Skins could get away with knowingly calling a character Naomi Campbel, who is apparently a "rug muncher" who tried to get it on with the good twin. But, clearly, given her fact about herself she gave in class, "people tell lies about me", it's obvious that it's not her who's the lesbian it's the good twin. 

Um. Are there other new characters...? Obviously we still have Effy and Pandora, but they're old favourites. Ardal O'Hanlan's teacher who doesn't want to be a teacher was a masterstroke; he was playing totally against type and it took me a few minutes to actually realise it was him. Just great. 

As a season opener, set the task of introducing the new cast it was a pretty damn fine episode. It clearly wasn't as great as the show's peak (Season 1's Cassie episode), but it was good enough. Now let's see if they can keep it up.

Hustle Season 5

Within about, ooh, 30 seconds of the season starting it became obvious why Season 4 of the show suffered so badly. It needs Adrian Lester. From the moment he gave his first knowing look to camer you knew this was Hustle back on form. That Jamie Murray and Marc Warren aren't in it, and thus far Robert Vaughn's appearances are little more than cameos (he was even completely absent from episode 2) does not seem to matter in the slightest; Lester holds the show together. The show's plots continue to be ludicrous and over the top and entirely unrealistic, but that's part of the show's charm. The way how threads interlink can be marvellous; most notably in the third episode where you think you know everything that's gone on, but then suddenly there's another couple of twists to come. And it's just so entirely satisfying.

Lost Season 5

Two episodes in, and it remains the best show on the box. I love the way how the show keeps changing and renewing itself. Every Season has its own flavour and tone, and it is this constant change that helps keep the show fresh. These opening episodes don't let up; they constantly move things along. It's hard to see at this stage, for example, how Ben and Jack will get the rest of the Oceanic Six back to the island, or even if they are able to find the island as either the island, its inhabitants, or both, have become unstuck in time and are bouncing to and fro. The mysteries of this season are somewhat tantalising, and it will be interesting to see how they unfurl...

In other news:

• In Poland they have Cherry flavour Jaffa Cakes. Well, they're not actually Jaffa Cakes, but they're exactly the same type of cake. 
• It was very sad to hear the news of the death of Tony Hart; again via the medium of a FaceBook friend status update...
• Garry Bushell has a book out of his opinions. I understand the manuscript was written in green crayon.
• Tender Trap are doing a gig for the first time in a couple of years. Yay!