Sky Atlantic

So…. Sky Atlantic, the most anticipated TV channel launch since Fiver (just me…?). A channel that promises to bring us telly addicts the very best in entertainment viewing from across the pond: The Sopranos FROM THE BEGINNING, Mad Men NOT FROM THE BEGINNING BUT FROM WHERE WE GOT UP TO ON BBC2, and then some new programmes that the American people are banging on about: Boardwalk Empire, Blue Bloods, something called Treme. I don’t know what that is or if it's even a word but in theory I am VERY excited.

I will make it my business to watch all the programmes on offer, but this week I’ve been busy and the three dimensional people have got in the way of me spending too much time with my favourite 2D peeps *shakes fist* (although I have found the time to catch up with Neighbours, natch, and for those who watch it: OMFG! Amezzing!) Anyway, ahem... Sky Atlantic, I've been very busy and I can’t review all of the potentially amazing programmes on offer because I haven’t watched them all. So... here’s what I have to say on the ones I do watch:

Mad Men: I’m sorry everyone, I am, but for me watching Mad Men is like eating a massive bowl of spag bol then trying to drive – it sends me to sleeeeeep! No more than 10 minutes after I whack on an episode am I out cold. It’s more effective than Nytol, and it doesn’t give me restless legs, which is a bonus actually…

Blue Bloods: Haven’t made it through a complete episode, but Tom Selleck? Quite old now, and I still would.

Boardwalk Empire: by all accounts people love it, they think it’s the best thing ever, its epic programming, its award-winning, its… boring…? Again, I’m sorry, but my enduring memory from the first episode was Steve Buscemi using the (I think under-used) expression ‘wet as a mermaid’s twat’, because I’m juvenile like that, and because he pronounced it ‘twot’ which made it funnier. The other good thing about it is that it has Henry-from-Dawson’s-Creek in it. Remember the one who went out with Jen and who’s mouth looked like a horse’s arse? His lips were pursed, pink, and ALWAYS wet. Well, in this programme he still looks about 17, and his lips are still always wet, which leads me to believe that the horse’s-arse-mouth condition is a facial quirk of the actor who plays him, and not that the script notes in Dawson’s Creek said ‘Henry is young, blonde, and has a mouth like a horse’s arse’. Glad we cleared that up. Apart from those two notable examples I did not find it memorable, and the fact that the first episode was an hour and a half was asking a lot!.That’s longer than the total viewing time of some entire British series for crying out loud! (Apart from My Family, which is either on episode 417 of series one, or has made 72 series… No one knows which, because no one cares, not even the people who make it. I think even Zoe Wannamaker is over it. I like to think that fucking weird thing she's done with her hair is a silent protest. There's no way someone would CHOOSE to wear their hair like that without an agenda)

Anyway, the bottom line is I just don’t think Boardwalk Empire is that engaging. For a start my housemate finds it so distinctly unmemorable that she has never referred to it as the same thing twice. So far we’ve had: Empire Boardwalk (easy mistake to make), Broadwalk Kingdom (again, not too far off), and my personal favourite Broadback Mountain (you can see where she got that from). To be honest, I like the sound of a programme called Broadback Mountain very much more. I would imagine that twats have no place at all in that programme, and that the mouth like a horse’s arse would come in very handy indeed... 

I know I've probably missed the point, and Boardwalk Empire is supposedly an EPIC. I mean the budget is clearly HUGE, which makes for an incredibly impressive set, fantastic art direction, and amazing costumes with stunning attention to detail. 

Blah. 

Blah. 

Blah. 

Who cares?? Think about this: Monica's apartment in Friends was clearly WAAAY out of her price range, it had a beam in the living room that disappeared after a couple of series, everyone spent all their time in a coffee house in spite having jobs to go to, and everyone always wore shoes inside the apartment the entire time! Attention to detail shmetail! I didn't care. Did you? No. We wanted Richard to want babies with Monica and when he didn't we wanted her to seek solace and ultimately find love in the arms of her best friend and neighbour Chandler. We wanted Ross and Rachel to get together, we didn't want them to split up or for him to get with Bonnie but we did want them to unrequitedly love each other in turn, have a one night stand, then a baby and then realise in the FINAL episode that they loved each other and wanted to be together f'rever! And we wanted Joey to sleep with loads of women and say stupid things. In order: they did, they did, and he did. (Phoebe was there too and I liked her for the record.)

I've digressed massively, my point is that TV doesn't have to be posh to be perfect. It just needs to be good. On that note I'm off to turn the dream that is Broadback Mountain into a televisual reality: someone get Henry-from-Dawson's-Creek on the phone.