| Top Gear, Pushing Daisies, and Wonderfalls
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Yes, the rumors are true. My fancy has been smitten by another bit of celluloid. Bits, actually....
Doug and I were absolutely enthralled by Pushing Daisies last spring. The nine episode season was brutally cut off by the writers strike, but will come out on DVD in September '08. Buy it, rent it, beg it, borrow it, steal it, but DO see it. Be sure to have a big glass of milk, a nice bit of pie, and your favorite squeeze at your side for this wierdly romantic, color saturated (and then some!), off kilter comedy. You'll be as hooked as we were.
I would try to explain the plot, but it's just too gloriously weird.
We're crossing our fingers it will really be back on the air this fall, and won't have lost any of its zing during the hiatus.
While searching for the Pushing Daisies DVD on Amazon, links there referred us to another series involving a lot of the same cast and crew, called Wonderfalls. This is another vinegary-sweet story that aired on FOX, and was cancelled after the fourth show aired. The Wonderfalls DVD set includes nine episodes, too, though, and is well worth seeking out.
And finally, my new, absolute crush is the British TV series Top Gear. Airing on BBCAmerica (and with tons of snippets available on Youtube), Top Gear is, well, a car show. Lots of squealing wheels, Ferraris and other exotica (I would kill for the chance to drive the Bugatti Veyron), interspersed with insouciant (and often biting) humor, celebrity interviews, mysterious masked drivers, and weekly "challenges". Challenges range from racing acrost London at rush hour via Tube/car/speedboat/bicycle, driving acrost the spine of Africa in beaters bought on a 1,500 pound budget at the very outposts of civilization, and racing a Veyron against a light airplane from the South of France to deliver a truffle in time for dinner in London.
If, as presenter Richard Hammond says, "It's just like a bunch of blokes talking cars at the local pub", well, I want to go to that pub.
Against all my better instincts, I adore this show, and everyone in the house knows that Monday evening is MY night for the bigscreen TV. To channel surf or yack during Top Gear is to tangle with a woman enraged. This is serious, hardcore, TV addiction. Even the re-re-reruns still make me laugh. Who'd've ever thought a car show would be drop-everything-set-aside-a-night-a-week great entertainment?
Just a heads up, the cinematography on this show is just absolutely outstanding. I truly believe their cameramen could easily switch over to the big screen. The segment with the Mercedes and the BMW estate wagons racing on the airstrip at night, during the fire drill, was gorgeous, and I don't care what the guys said about "Too Late for TV", the filmwork on the African challenge was fantastic, even moreso considering what must have been horrible conditions to work in.
Me, who has said really nasty awful stuff about NASCAR fans and that ilk, has put in for a pair of the free tickets to a Top Gear taping, and will drop everything if and when the email ever comes. Please, please, please guys, don't retire, have any more flaming crashes, or be eaten by a honeybadger before I get my turn, OK? XXX000!!!
A car show. *shakes head in disbelief* I'm addicted to a car show? Well, I have the Stig key chain, and now, a subscription to the magazine, so yeah, I guess I qualify. Time for detox? No thanks.
BTW, Clarkson and May are great writers, too, both having started as columnists. I would, in fact, have to put Clarkson up there with my favorite authors, which should sound disrespectful, seeing as they include Tolkien, Forster, and Sayers. I know it's "just" car reviews, but the man does have a way with a phrase, a deliciously naughty little boy sense of humor, and (being in the midst of reading Clarkson on Cars, a collection of columns from about twenty years ago), an astonishingly prescient sense of politics and other things to come. Wonder if he does stock market predictions, too? Hmmmm..... Anyway, I highly recommend any of his books. |
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May, 2008