HOT WEDGES!
HORNE AND CORDEN (Thurs Sept 2, ABC2- 9pm)
Fairly amusing little sketch comedy series with Matthew Horne (THE CATHERINE TATE SHOW) and James Corden (last seen sharing a flat with the titular Time Lord of DOCTOR WHO) in which the geekily cute Horne and the corpulent Corden present a variety of skits and sketches which tend to be only moderately funny (at best), but which are almost always highly homoerotic (the sketch about the gay BBC correspondent covering the Gulf War has to be seen to be believed) and involve either Horne and/or Corden getting fully naked so many times that if you tune in halfway through you’d be forgiven for thinking it was some sort of variety show set at a Gay Nudist Resort…
THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (Tues Sept 7, SBS- 10pm)
Oscar-winning documentary about the closest thing the gay community has had so far to a Dr. Martin Luther King. Covers the brilliant gay activist’s early life, his determination to bring equality to San Francisco’s gay community, and his assassination at the hands of City Supervisor Dan White. Required viewing, preferably back-to-back with Gus Van Sant’s MILK (and preferably whilst in bed with MILK co-star James Franco; hey, a guy can dream, right?!)
EMBARASSING BODIES (Wed Sept 22, Nine- 10:30pm)
You can tell this ‘medical documentary’ program is more about titillation than turbinectomies by the fact that a] far more male patients are featured than female and b] the injuries and/or diseases featured invariably centre around the sexual, giving the camera an excuse to get lots of shots of hot naked men (albeit with parasitic candiru catfish hanging from their gonads). Still, if you’re looking for a late night program that flashes flesh, this is quicker than bunging on your old VHS tapes of BIG BROTHER UNCUT….
STALE CHIPS
THE SIMPSONS Wed Sept 22, Ten- 7:30pm)
Textbook example of a show that has gone on long past the point when it could have retired with fond memories. It saddens me that the once funniest show on TV is now a pale, flat, unfunny mess. Even worse, it’s been on for 24 years now- some younger viewers may never even realise that it was once at the top of its game. D’Oh!
CUSTOMS (Fri Sept 24, Nine- 7:30pm)
Stupid and offensive show that looks at the ‘ongoing battle Australian customs faces with Border Security’. Yes, it’s another ‘Bash the Boat People’ program. Hunky presenter Damian Walsh- Howling is much better than this. He doesn’t even have the decency to present the show naked!
JUICY JACKETS!
Gary: Tank Commander (Thurs Sept 23, ABC2- 9:30pm)
Those of you sick of the relentlessly hetero antics of that cylinder-shaped tease Thomas the Tank Engine can finally have your phallic mechanic and eat it too with the high camp hilarity of this comedic series from BBC Scotland. Set in Edinburgh, the show follows the adventures of Gary McClintoch (series creator Greg McHugh), a corporal in the fictional Scottish 104th Tank Regiment in the British Army. Gary is so metrosexual he makes David Beckham look like Mel Gibson; for example, Gary is overjoyed when his regiment is deployed to Iraq, because it gives him a chance to work on his tan ‘without any of that Oompah-Loompah stuff in the tubes’. Gary is not Telling, but plenty of people are Asking- one of the recurring jokes of the series is that the campy-corporal keeps getting caught in extremely homoerotic circumstances (in a tent with sexy identical twin ‘privates’- yes, they make that joke, so I don’t have to!), dropping the soap in the male showers, and riding a tank the wrong way (you don’t want to know), but he always has a completely innocent and strangely believable explanation (much like your average Republican senator). Very funny stuff, and creator/star McHugh is cute enough to forgive the more obvious, single-entendre gags. Be warned, if you don’t know any Scottish people, you will need subtitles- the Edinburgh accent is thicker than the throbbing cannon astride Gary’s tank…
