Tuesday 15 March 2011

Too Cool To Care?

It seems to me that a lot of the time it is cooler to dislike something than to like it, to be bored by something than to show an interest, to love something rather than hate it. I've never really understood that, why disinterest and disdain are so desirable. It's not something new, actively choosing and embracing a negative outlook on most aspects of life seems to be a uniting thread throughout the generations. You only have to look at sketches like the '4 Yorkshire men' or listen to the majority of conversations in any pub, regardless of the participants to see that it is considered much more respectable to adopt a quite miserable view of the world. "You miserable bugger" is more often a term of endearment than a stinging criticism.

There are few things that annoy me more than someone reacting with sneering disdain for someone's passion or enthusiasm about a subject. It depresses me a bit that i have probably done it myself a few times, but i do make a conscious effort not to think like that, not to be dismissive of someone else's interests, even if they don't match up with my own.

It's for that reason that at least so far as music, films and tv etc are concerned, i'm going to try and use this blog to praise things rather than criticise. If you want angry, sarcastic criticism of stuff, look elsewhere, there's plenty of corners of the Internet and TV schedules devoted to exactly that.

On that note, here's a brief review of two TV shows out there that i've really enjoyed for the past couple of months. Sadly they both finished this week, which is a shame, but they were two shows i tuned into every week.

First up is Being Human on BBC 3. It's a show that's hard to sell with description, much like the E4 show Misfits. The story of a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf trying to find a place in society and just as the title suggests be human. It's an idea that could very easily be utterly crap, yet the writing has remained sharp enough throughout that it became excellent. Darkly comedic, genuinely powerful in places and engaging it has run for 3 seasons so far and each has been as good as the last. It's looked at social prejudice, loss, friendship, betrayal, grief and murder, all without ever spooning on the message heavy-handedly. I'd definitely recommend people start from the very beginning and watch through.

Second is another BBC show, Outcasts. Now this wasn't anything hugely special, it was always a little bit too average throughout to truly become a favourite show. However after the first series it was an enjoyable sci-fi about the last members of humanity trying to start afresh on a planet called Carpathia after the Earth has become uninhabitable. It has some really good ideas (the relationship between humans and clones, the concept that what is 'super-natural' on one planet, may simply be natural on another) but never quite manages to pull them off. The acting is decent without any real stand out performances.

I've deliberately kept this blog a bit more light hearted than last night's post about the situation in the Ivory Coast. I want to keep writing about those kind of issues, but i don't want this blog to become solely devoted to highlighting political situations that i wish i could change.

As usual i will end this blog with a song that i've listened to twice already today, a song i'm really loving right now off of the recently released 4th album by Elbow. I've not actually bought the album yet, i'm having to wait until my scholarship comes through for that and several other albums, but i heard this song a while ago and it's definitely wetted me appetite for the full album. The song's called "Lippy Kids" and i hope you enjoy it.

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