Natalie is Idol, Idol is Done.

Natalie won. I lost the bet. Yeah yeah yeah, I know. I was an idiot to predict Matt Corby to win, but I honestly have a hard time tossing up if the Australian public are feeling smart or stupid at the current time. They were smart this time... but there will be other times. For me, the intellect of the public fluctuates in even, but unpredictable intervals. It's the ultimate 50/50 stake. It keeps things interesting.

Ever since the Casey Donovan Crash in 04, we've seen some none-to-awful results from Idol. Natalie was my favourite for a while, so it's not that I hated the result. I just hated the leadup. I mean, the entire leadup. As in, the whole season.

The season did have a few memorable characters (Marty 'Martjaya' Simpson being my pick for best contestant ever), but is there really anyone you want to see try and break into the industry? God, I hope not. The 2008 season of Idol can be interesting if it reignites stolen flames from some past semi-finalists that had potential, but I think we can all agree the bottom of the barrel has well and truly been scraped, and we the audience have the splinters to show for it.

This ends my EXPERT coverage of Australian Idol: Season 5, and I can breathe a big sigh of upheaval and rebirth. I thought the day would never come, and even when it did, I thought I'd miss it's place in my routine. This is definitely not the case; much like the death of an old, pungent relative that always hung around making things terrible at the family Christmas lunch, the passing of an Idol season is bittersweet but mostly oh so treacly sweet.

A couple of small tidbits before I officially pull the Idol plug:

• Ben Mackenzie was/is a drag queen. I know this for a fact.
• Dicko gives good comments, has bad opinions.
• Martjaya deserved to win.
• Marcia is a fuck.
  
• Montagia, Ancient Greek Goddess of Montage Clips is most pleased with Channel Ten's offerings to her.
• Did anyone notice Matt Corby had really appalling clothes?
• Days left until someone assassinates Jacob Butler: 203.
• Carl Risely looks like Darren Stevens from Bewitched.
• Daniel Mifsud could make a coat out of his body hair.
• Martjaya could make a matching scarf out of his eyebrows.
• Tarasai was so fake she wasn't even black.
• Breanna Carpenter and Matt Corby would have the most fucked up children ever born, complete with placenta-coloured stockings and man-skirt.
• Vote Martjaya. I don't care where, just vote Martjaya.

Previously on Neighbours: Nov 19 - Nov 23, 2007.

It's always a monumental occasion when a character is effected by something that is impossible to resolve. It's like when the writers decide to step over the point of no return. It's brave, addictive television. So it was this week on Neighbs. Susan got MS. Yes, that's right, MS. An incurable, very apparent disease. Not since Paul lost his leg has something so permanent shaken Ramsey St. Terminal illnesses are common on the show, but they usually go into remission once all the drama has dried up. Like who remembers Boyd's brain tumour? or Steph's two cancers? They came and went like hay fever.
I am really looking forward to Jackie Woodburn's upcoming performances during her disease. She went a bit spastic this week, so I hope that subsides. I am going to predict a few years from now, she will succumb to the illness. And that'll be a sad day, indeed. But I'll deal with that when it comes.

Right now, here's the Neighbours recap:

Monday: Pool scenes are so damn frequent nowadays. Zeke shirtless equals kill me. The resident bully is on prowl. Why are ugly, pale bullies so menacing? Rachel slams into a pedophile / future love interest. It gets her hormones going. Susan burns her hands badly on a casserole dish. Those damned casseroles... maybe this was Miranda's evil scheme all along. She is given ridiculous looking bandages and sent home. Jessica is still a whore, and Ringo is still a putz. For someone who has been training non-stop for six weeks now, Ringo doesn't seem to have put on any muscle at all. Lame.

Tuesday: Libby is revealed to be a tightass when she gives Ben a GameBoy from the 80s. Meanwhile, Micky randomly plays with a Robosapien in the general store. The two boys meet in a totally shit scene. Casserole Hands... I mean... Susan goes blind and freaks the fuck out in a carpark. I like Jackie Woodburn, but she really overdid it here. Ringo starts to repair his life... Elle fights to set the evil farmer's story right... It wasn't a great episode, okay?

Wednesday: Casserole Hands overacts like never before when put into an MRI for a whole nine seconds. I wish she went mute instead of blind. Zeke is a bitch again. Marco is a gay prostitute, or so I suspect. Bridget is a fickle little child, and I hate those overalls she wears oh so much. Riley looks like he has AIDS.

Thursday: Susan is diagnosed with MS. It's waahmbulance time. Kirsten is readying a custody battle for Mickey, but Ned has a few sighs to expel about it. Janae needs to leave before her characters can be defecated on even more. Mopey Josh, the guy in the wheelchair, snobs Bridgit because she gives up her physio. They whine a little more, and she decides to go return. Ugliness ensues.

Friday: The official plot outline describes Mopey Josh as "hunky Josh". That just disturbs me. Declan gets jealous of Mopey Josh, especially since he doesn't get any adjective before his name. Valda gambles to get money, while Rachel meets with Angus the Pedophile again. Hormones race once more. Ohhhh, I see where this is heading.

Darren arrives next week, ya'll, so stay tuned for all the goss' to seep forth. As always, see you next week.

LABORIOUS - Who won the election watch?

Mmmm. Election. You can taste it in the air. Like when you walk past a fast food shop. It's warm musk is a presence, one which either entices or repulses depending on if you enjoy fast food, or indeed politics. Yet around election time, I think there is only one thing people are really looking forward to, and that's the election tally marathon that ensues the event. From the graphics, to the hosts, to the bickering panellists, the election coverage has long been extremely entertaining weekend viewing, considering it's a show about politics that goes for five hours.

This year, every channel threw their hat into the ring, each offering different aspects that would appeal to different people with different values. ABC appealed to the people who wanted a predictable night, and that is what they are good at. Nine appealed to the people that respect the election and like to see it supported in a serious and moral way. SBS came into it so late that their coverage just seemed to be useless, as did Ten's. Sky News' coverage probably would have been pretty good, had I had bothered to check it out. And Seven, well.... they treated the election like it was an episode of Let Loose Live.

ABC
Host: Kerry O'brien.

As retarded as Kerry O'brien looks, you have to love him. He's slower and easier to talk over than the likes of Ray Martin and Andrew O'Keefe, but at the same time, I'd rather listen to him overall. He is drenched in veteran sensibility, and is definately the best persona around to manage a panel consisting of big names like Julia Gillard and Nick Minchin. Speaking of them, while they were the most recognisable and important of the guest panellists, they were also quite proper and boring. Compared to the Jerry Springer antics of Seven's show, the aura around the ABC's coverage was "Ah yes, my grandfather would be having a ball with this."
Kerry got a little discombobulated by The Chaser as they pulled some stunts in the background, and there were technical faults, but the clean, glossy presentation and the nice, Star Trek-like set made ABC real standouts last night.

Nine
Host: Ray Martin

In my opinion, Nine won the election coverage battle. They didn't have the best graphics (ABC) or the best talking heads (Seven. Just kidding. ABC) but it wasn't below average in those departments either. Nine went for a simple look, a desk with a frame of spaced out, colourful icons and graphs. It was inoffensive and actually enjoyable. Nine employed a slight 'whoosh' noise whenever a graph would animate or change which I greatly appreciated. And, let's just get this out of the way, I heart the shredder. For some reason, I just loved it.
Laurie Oaks came and went for some reason, and even though I respect him a lot, I didn't miss him. Anyway, Ray had his legion of Channel Nine journos out in the thick of it to cut to instead, something which I thought was going to be really tacky, but was always fulfilling. At the end of every segue, I expected Ray to cut to Ben Dark or Bert Newton or Trevor Marmalade. Oh wait, they DID cut to him. And oh my god, his jokes were awful. Let's not go there.
To make up for that, they had this Liberal representative on the panel who was absolutely devastated that his party had lost, and was noticeably losing it and going nuts with denial. It was great TV.

Seven
Hosts: Mel and Kochie.

Oh jesus. Oh jesus christ. What... the HELL? Seven should just be ashamed. ASHAMED. For fuck's sake, in a word, Seven's coverage was: horrific. The boxing gloves graphics? The... the fucking cartoons running across the screen? Kochie himself is the worst fucking host on TV, so it was doomed from the start. But then they have to go and secure Andrew O'Keefe as a co-host. In some terrible club room set? And what about their graphics!? Done away with was the sleek ABC presentation, and the subtle 'whoosh' sounds of Nine. No! Big, red and tacky was the criteria for Seven, just like their innocuous logo. And the woosh sounds were so loud and frequent I felt like I was inside a fucking wind chamber. And that WOMAN! Christ, that Liberal representative that was in full defense mode at every opportunity. She spurted out salesman-like sound bites at every opportunity, she was like a typical The Apprentice contestant. The Seven coverage was toxic. I suffered from irritated eyes, nose, throat. I even think I went impotent for the night. And that was just from watching 15 minutes of it. Never again, Seven. Your light-hearted approach can go hang itself like the godless bastard it is.

Ten

Didn't bother watching this staggered response to the actual verdict. I did catch a bit of Empire Strikes Back though. It was the part where Luke meets Yoda in the swamp. I was confused, because Yoda is supposed to be 400 years old and he's all weak and puny, but just twenty years beforehand he's jumping all over the place fighting Sith Lords. Is 380 considered young, but 400 considered near death? Next time you redo the series, George, mend that plot-hole!

Verdict

At the end of the night, I had settled on Nine. Although I regularly turned to ABC. I very rarely checked Seven, and I didn't even bother with Sky, Ten and SBS. The ratings are a different story entirely, with ABC coming out as number one, Seven in second and Nine third. Ten actually beat Nine with their Star Wars counter-programming, which is a damn shame. I guess this just proves the deadly power of Koch. And the deadlier power of the idiot public.

Ten Renew Neighbours and Idol, Announce Other Shit.

Channel Ten is a bastard. It is 99% septic TV. But perhaps by freak accident, within its putrid primordial soup of programming, lightning penetrated through the scum and catalyzed a minuscule array of things I'd actually watch. Like Neighbours. And Idol.
Not so surprisingly, Channel Ten has announced in a freshly revealed press release that Neighbours and Idol have survived another year and will return for a new season in 2008.

This is good news for me and Channel Ten. I fall into Ten's target demographic; that is for being subjected to Domino's Pizza commercials and really tiresome Futurama gag-based ads. I'm secured to endure them through next year; that's their objective complete. As for me, I get a year's worth of Neighbours recaps and Idol coverage. Win win.

Also renewed were every show you hated on Channel Ten this year. Except the Wedge. That was deemed too heinous even for them.

Renewed:

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, Bondi Rescue, Neighbours, Australian Idol, Big Brother, Thank God You're Here, The Biggest Loser, AFL, Rove, Saving Babies, Friday Night Download, House, NCIS, Medium, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Numb3rs, Californication, Life, Cane, Supernatural, The Simpsons, Futurama, Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search For The Next Doll, and America's Next Top Model.

Announced:

So You Think You Can Dance Australia, Saving Kids, Kenny's World Toilet Tour, Women's Murder Club, Rules of Engagement, Back to You, Burn Notice.

Actual Letters From Foxtel Magazine: November 2007

I've been a reader of the Foxtel Magazine's mailbag section for years now, mainly because of how bizarre, humorous, frightening and awkward all of them actually are.

But never in my long reading career have I ever come across something so devestatingly confusing, so hypnotically irrelevant and unprovoked... so abstract and totally freaked... as this letter from Janice Kidson-McDonald:

"Problems in the world are mainly caused by men. Maybe if us women dominated politics things might be better - that's why I especially enjoy Oprah."

And that's the whole letter...

Congratulations Janice, not only have you managed to claim you are ideal for a role in POLITICS by making POLITICALLY INCORRECT statements, but you've also claimed the title of DiH-D's Letter of Month. Thanks, and keep sending out those letters. That's why I especially enjoy ridiculing you.

Survivor returns to Nine.

They took their sweet ass time in doing so, but Channel Nine have finally set Survivor: China onto their summer schedule. Despite being pretty much completed in the US, the season has been firmly nestled in my Top 5 wanted TV shows.

The timeslot of 7:30pm Saturday night is both a good and bad compromise. The good aspect is that more people will get to see it. The bad is that most people still won't, as Saturday night is a graveyard. And being run in the Summer period, its more like a graveyard within a graveyard.

No matter though, Survivor is one of those rare shows that has lasted 13 seasons and never jumped the shark once. Sure there have been lacking seasons (Thailand), but that was the fault of the contestants, not the showrunners. I personally think last season was the best ever, so here's hoping for even bigger and better Summer viewing, and you can be sure that Survivor will be covered extensively each week here on DiH-D.

Survivor: China - 7:30pm Saturday, December 8th. Channel Nine.

Predict Idol: Week 11

Oh my! Was I the only one truly captivated by Matt Corby tonight??? And by captivated, I refer to an experience similar to being held captive in an unfurnished cell with no windows and left to go utterly and incoherently insane.

Excuse my language, but for fuck's sake, it was awful. It was drearier than a John Cusack movie. It was fuckin' worse than that time Marty Simpson sang that Police song. It was fuckin' worse than Mark's orgasm over the Phantom of the Opera song. It would be fuckin' worse than if Bobby Flynn ever posed for a Cosmo centrefold. It was THAT fuckin' bad.
Okay, it wasn't THAT bad. I mean, it wasn't Marty Simpson bad. But it WAS Daniel Mifsud bad. And that's still pretty fuckin' bad.

The single itself is abysmal, so it was doomed from the start. But the least Matt could do was arrange it even slightly so that it had something interesting to permeate into it. What was his approach? Hopefully the audience would fall asleep so they'd miss Natalie's performance, thus sabotaging her chances? A flawed scheme, to be sure. But it sure would explain a lot. Natalie's was better, but not by much.

As usual, Matt's song choices all sounded exactly like all the other things he has sung, and Natalie's, while not always good, really showcased her versatility.
Matt pulled out the whole 'self-confidence crisis knocked me around for a while' trick, and it seemed to really convince everyone. I mean, a guy who wears a shirt-dress in front of millions of people doesn't just come to us free of crippling mental issues. You'd be insane to expect otherwise.

Who I think will win: Matt Corby. Who I want to win: Natalie.