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Ahh, High School. Those were the halcyon days of youth, readers- I spent many a blissful school-day hiding in the library stacks to avoid homophobic bullies during lunch hour (the sci-fi/fantasy shelves were best, being darkest, and a hardcover Tolkien made a good defensive weapon if caught); trying desperately to think of the more hideous lunch-ladies in the showers after PE to deflate surrounded-by-hot-guys-in-the-locker-room erections, and wishing we’d have less still-lives of bowls of fruit and more hot male life models to paint in Art Class. Hey- wait a minute, school wasn’t that much fun at all! Ahem, well, whilst I’m reliving my childhood trauma with the school guidance counselor and trying not to Hulk out every time I smell chalk dust, let’s catch up with the new students at a school that must have been really, really good. A school that was so good, that none of the students seemed to ever leave – even when they were in their early thirties. Class, open your geography books to the page on Beverly Hills, as we try and make the grade with 90210 (Monday September 8, Ten-8:30pm). (more…)

TASTY TATIES!

The Biggest Squid on CATALYST (Thurs Sept 4, ABC- 8pm) - Geekily cute scientist Dr.Graham Phillips brings us the dissection of a Colossal Squid (Mesonchoteuthis hamiltoni) found dead by a trawler near the Antarctic in May of this year. Very little is known about Colossal Squid except that they’re bigger, faster and much more predatory than their Giant Squid rellies – they can grow from anywhere from 50 to 60 feet, and perhaps much bigger. Given the fact that squid, cuttlefish and octopi are also the smartest of the invertebrates, you just know one of these is waiting for you to take a dip at Swanbourne to get revenge for the Calamari you had for dinner last week… (more…)

I have sympathy for the (Tasmanian) Devil! The Apple Isle’s most famous celebrity aside from Sir Edmund Hillary (who was less belligerently endearing and not as inclined to devour an entire rotting wallaby at one sitting) has been getting a hard time of it of late. A virulent strain of infectious facial cancers is decimating Tassie Devil numbers and threatening the species with extinction. Tourists keep expecting them to run around in a whirlwind and be outsmarted by a sarcastic bunny. And just when they were starting to get some good press and be seen as sweet in a stomach-churning, Antipodean way (much like Russell Crowe, they’re almost cute at a safe distance) the Tasmanian Devil comes home after a long day of avoiding extinction and devouring smart-alecky talking rabbits, switches on the Sci-Fi channel – and finds it has been cast as the mutated monster du jour in a gloriously campy American horror movie! The belligerent little beasts need to find a better publicist – I mean, Britney Spears is more popular than your average Tasmanian Devil, and she eats far more rotting carrion a week than they do and makes less appealing growling noises! So whilst we’re trying to stop Taz from eating Skippy long enough to take a cute glamour shot, let’s put on some splatter-proof clothing, pitch a tent and camp it up with the gloriously gory, camper-than-Baden-Powell’s-woggle and surprisingly Gay horror movie CEMETERY GATES (Sat Aug 30, Sci-Fi Channel - 1:30pm & 10:50pm). (more…)

DOCTOR WHO (Sun Aug 3, ABC- 7:30pm)

Send in the clones! Season 4’s first two-part episode, ‘The Sontaran Stratagem’ and ‘Poison Sky’ features a couple of notable returns for both long term WHO buffs (sad geeks like yours truly, who has a Doctor Who monster for an internet screen name) and Whoey-Come-Latelys- firstly, Freema Agyeman is back for three episodes as Companion Martha Jones, last seen at the end of Season 3. UNIT- the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce- makes its first appearance in the show since 1988, and the Sontarans- angry Mr. Potato-Heads literally born for war- make their own triumphant WHO encore for the first time since 1986. Those of you who don’t know your Daleks from a dustbuster can still revel in the heady delights of the seriously hot Christian Cooke as young UNIT grunt, Sergeant Ross…

LIPSTICK JUNGLE (Sun Aug 31, Seven- 9:30pm)

This is a new series from the creator of SEX & THE CITY and features…er…three single women who are best friends and trying to balance life and love in New York City an obvious S & TC knockoff done on the cheap with less name actors- but hey, FRIDAY THE 13TH’s Jason Voorhees kept on killing sexually-active teens with interchangeable sharp objects in every movie, and yet the teens still kept coming to Crystal Lake, right?! Brooke Shields, who shall forever be a heroine to me for daring to cuss out Tom Cruise, toplines as fashion magazine editor Wendy Healy. She’s joined by 24’s Kim Raver, BOLD & THE BEAUTIFUL’s Lindsay Price. Testosterone gets a look in via the show’s breakout hunk Robert Buckley (think the love child of Julian McMahon and Scott Speedman, only without body hair), Eighties’ Romantic Comedy mainstay Andrew McCarthy, as well as cult actor Julian Sands (WARLOCK, NAKED LUNCH) who plays another of his trademarked sexually ambiguous sneering British guys (i.e. Alan Rickman asked for too much money). Shields is fun, Buckley is hot, Sands sneers every time the camera is on him and just because it’s a cheap knockoff of a superior product doesn’t mean you can’t wear it out on a few dates and then take it back to the shop! (more…)

THE BATMAN (Sat Aug 30, Nine, 8:05am, 8:40pm, 9:20pm (repeats Mondays)

You know a series is bad when it tries to come at you from three different timeslots and wear you down with sheer persistence. Trying very, very hard to be the C21st version of the Emmy –award winning Nineties’ BATMAN- THE ANIMATED SERIES, The Batman has poor animation, awful and unnecessary re-designs of classic characters (the Joker looks like a muppet, and the only question the Riddler should ask is ‘why hasn’t Marilyn Manson sued me for stealing his outfit yet?’. The scripts are weak and kid-friendly, the Batman *whines* about his lot in life, and it’s a general bat-stuffup on all levels- except the voice acting, which has attracted some serious talent (Ron Pearlman as Clayface, Robert Englund as Riddler, Gina Gershon as Catwoman). Chalk this one up as Die Failed-Ermouse…. (more…)

LIFE OF MAMMALS (Mon Aug 4, Nine- 7:30pm)

Even in repeat and with the added bane of commercials (it seems odd to have warthogs and walruses brought to us by anti-ageing wrinkle creams) this excellent series by the incomparable Natural historian Sir David Attenborough is required viewing for anyone who wants to get the full story on the rise of that Mammals, that Class of hairy milk squirting critters that includes us humans. (more…)

Ciao, Companions! In this technological day and age, cybernetic limbs enable people without hands to play volleyball; cybernetic identities allow soulless creatures like Kyle Sandilands to appear to have a personality; and cybernetic effects in movies cover up for the follies of an all too human director like M. Night Shamayalan’s latest movie ‘disaster’ movie, it’s comforting to know that there’s at least one Doctor out there who makes house calls. Unfortunately, though he will turn up at your house, he doesn’t actually hold a doctorate in Medicine and only turns up in dire planetary emergencies, meaning that if you see him at your door you’re probably seconds away from being exterminated by Daleks, deleted by Cybermen, or given an unwilling face-transplant by a Zygon. So whilst you’re checking the attic for Wirrrn we’ll go for a trip through time and space with DOCTOR WHO (Sundays, ABC - 7:30pm). (more…)

BALLS OF STEEL (Tues July 15, Nine - 9:30pm)

Alas this is not, as I thought, an intimate look down the red Y-fronts of SUPERMAN RETURNS star Brandon Routh, but instead a show in which people have malicious pranks played on them, often involving public nudity, judiciously applied arthropods or both.

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THE AMAZING RACE (Thurs July 17, Seven - 9:30pm)

This season’s pairings includes a lesbian couple, two best friend frat guys who obviously have an unrequited love thing happening, and reality TV’s first Goth couple, although they’re male and female. (more…)

BONES (Thurs July 31, Seven - 8:30pm)

When it’s not drumming up unintentional laughs by having lab-bred mealworms strip the flesh from a carcass (mealworms eat flour) or feeding a blood stain to a ‘special beetle’ (a Haemostick is much quicker and easier to carry in your pocket), BONES boasts some nice acting from Forensic Anthropologist Doctor Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), whom, when not pronouncing an obviously male pelvis female or holding an arm bone the wrong way up, has some genuine camaraderie with ex-BUFFY walking corpse-turned-corpse-investigator David Boreanaz as Agent Booth, who can’t seem to investigate a crime with his shirt on (no complaints here).