An Afternoon of Australian PBS
Today’s guest post was written by Gillian Polack. Gillian also writes about Food History over at www.foodpast.com.
Today I’m watching RollerCoaster. It’s an hour (more or less) or programming for children on Australia’s public broadcasting station. The host is Elliot, who makes silly faces and bad jokes in about equal ratio. He has just told us that Tuesdays are All New. He also has a home page, which I’m exploring while I’m watching my hour of kids’ TV (hey, I’m multitalented!).
The first show is “The Amazing Extraordinary Friends.? This is a superhero story for intelligent pre-teens. It’s tongue-in-cheek (and so are some of the costumes). Captain X’s sidekick has a home made termite costume and is distinctly my age.
What’s it about? Ben (Captain X) is trying to unite the world’s remaining superheroes and someone is trying to steal the insignia that gives his power. My favourite moment is when a girl is chased by a villain and threatens “I’ll ring the police.? Villain gives her a phone and intimates he is in league with the police. She throws the phone at him hard enough to hurt. “Ladies don’t throw phones,? he calls after her.
Don’t ask me about the fight scenes. I started watching them, then started typing during them instead. They’re safe-looking and pretty and unreal.
I love the sense of humour in this NZ show. It’s fast-paced. It pays nice tributes to superhero tales. It’s a good start to the hour. You can find more about it here.
Elliot’s reading out his mail, along with suitable sound effects. He can be a little snarky about some of the mail and he consigns it to interesting categories for filing. I want his filing system.
Next up is “Roman Mysteries?. It seems to be a BBC adaptation of a series of books by Caroline Lawrence.
It’s very nice-looking, though I do wonder why the Roman girl is so fair and the ex-slave has the lovely Mediterranean skin. It has applied certain modern stereotypes to the casting (or the books have) and they make the historian in me uncomfortable. OK, an older woman is now making chicken soup for a sick man. I bet that family is Jewish and they’re applying another modern stereotype. Yep, they are.
Despite this, it looks like a good series to watch. Children’s TV is a good place for adaptations from books – you get several episodes to work things out and you get to know the characters over time.
Elliot’s just introducing the Zimmer Twins. The Zimmer Twins today is the Story of a Scary EVIL Cat that Hides in the Dark. It lasted thirty seconds. If I describe it any further then you’ll be reading longer than I was watching.
The last program is the BBC’s The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers. This is a perennial in Australia in this kind of timeslot and I usually see at least part of it when I turn on the TV to watch Timeteam. I love it. It’s madcap nonsense of the best variety. I can’t type during it. I think I’m finishing up here while Elliot is talking, before they come on. I need to spend some quality time with Xan, Adi and Enk.
Drabbit, watching kids’ TV could get addictive.
Leave a Reply