Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Hm.
Love Cruise. Dodgy, dodgy reality TV. And yet it had one of the best cast members ever, an extremely articulate lawyer who could explain his strategy to camera in interviews and then execute it. And he did it beautifully. He - and the other three who allied with him - were completely screwed over by the producers at the end when they changed the format and made it impossible for them to win, but he certainly deserved to.
Outback Jack. I said I don't like the meat market aspect of this genre of reality game show. But this one had me in hysterics, mostly because it was Americans in Australia and Oh Dear God some of the cliches were appalling. But funny and quite often enlightening to watch from the outside for a change. And of course "Jack" went to Geelong Grammar, which made it more entertaining for me still.
Press Gang. The synopsis in the TV guide really sounded... stupid. A group of kids run a newspaper. Yeah, right. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was.
Battlestar Galactica (most recent series). I wasn't sure how this would go at all, having seen the original. I thought I'd probably watch it, but given that the original was "Giant Killer Robots Chasing Us! Argh!!" I could see this being more of the same, only with better CGI. It was to a point - and then it gradually altered into something more interesting than Giant Killer Robot Escape Of The Week. Yeah it lost some of the fanboys, but I didn't care.
Last Man Standing. I really liked this, even though I only managed to catch a couple of episodes. Again, the synopsis sounded pedestrian, and it also had Greg Fleet in it which is often enough to make me think twice. But it was really good. No idea where the channel screening it moved it to, never saw the end. Pity.
It's difficult to answer this to be honest because everything recent that I've watched has been screened overseas first, sometimes years before it gets to Australia. So I'm often aware of what people think and how much it's likely to engage me. Previously - as with Press Gang - that wasn't the case. Love Cruise I'd never heard of, I just came across a late night screening and it hooked me. But now that I'm really not watching a lot of live-to-air TV that doesn't happen as often. It used to be that there'd be Australian productions I'd watch with similar lack of knowledge, but again - I'm not watching a lot of live TV recently and they tend to be over-hyped ("Australian! Must Watch! Best Thing Ever! Support local industry!! No, really, honest, it's the Best Thing Ever!!!") to the point that I won't watch them anyway, no matter how good or bad they are.
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