Boxcutters » channel 10

Ep 290: American Horror Story

Josh Kinal — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:38:54 +0000

American Horror Story was created by the people who brought us Glee but there’s no singing and dancing, just murder, insanity and old-fashioned haunting. Is it as good as everybody thinks? Is it as bad as everybody thinks?

Also, Josh spent some time in New York and discovered just how intrusive television can be in daily life.

Courteney Hocking is our co-host for this one and Brett uses his best reading voice for news and letters.

Notes

Errata

There’s a point, during “If You Watch One Thing”, in which we discuss the new series of Absolutely Fabulous and talk about it like that’s the one that’s on Wednesday nights on ABC1. It’s not. Those are repeats.

The new 20th anniversary episodes of Absolutely Fabulous will air on ABC1 in February.

One Thing

The Thick of It Season 3 – 9pm Wednesday, ABC1
Nigella’s Kitchen – 8pm Tuesday, ABC1
Movie: Coffee and Cigarettes – 11:05pm Wednesday, SBS One/SBS HD

SXSW Funding

Ep 279: Chas Licciardello

Josh Kinal — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 05:00:59 +0000

The Chaser has a new show called The Hamster Wheel. Josh spoke to Chas Licciardello about causing offence and becoming more mature. The interview is tasteful but may contain references to jokes about incest.

We preview some shows in the new US Fall season, go through some Letters to Boxcutters and give you all the News you want.

Notes

One Thing

The Bazura Project – 9:00pm Thu 29 Sep, ABC2
Later with Jools Holland – 1:00am(ish) Mon-Fri, ABC2
United States of Tara, Series 3 – 9:30pm Tue 27 Sep, ABC1

Shekilda

Find out more about the Australian Women’s Crime Writers’ Convention and go along to learn more about women in the craft.

Adding Ads to Shows

You can find out more about the technology Channel 7 has licensed and see all the ways they plan to possibly ruin every single memory you have and your very understanding of reality. Remember, technology is never evil, only the people who use it can be evil.

Ep 276: cloudstreet

Josh Kinal — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:17:18 +0000

Is cloudstreet the best television drama creation to come out of Australia or is it just another example of our reliance on nostalgia and bush magic to avoid truly reflecting our culture?

It’s quite possible that we answer that question in this week’s episode and there’s only one way to find out.

Also, John went to ACMI to (s)talk David & Margaret. He made a recording of his (s)talking and shares it with us.

There’s more about How We Watch and an absolutely great bit of Trotters.

Notes

One Thing

The Brady Bunch, “Kelly’s Kids” – 5:30pm Wed, 24 Aug 2011, Eleven
Insight, “Tampa” – 7:30pm Tue, 23 Aug 2011, SBS ONE (repeated on SBS TWO on Friday)

Can’t Stop The Serenity

The Melbourne Browncoats host their annual charity event this Saturday. They promise “heaps of prizes to give away”” plus see Serenity and Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog on the big screen! Tix are $18 online or $20 at the door.

For more info, see the facebook page or the Melbourne Browncoats wesbite.

Ep 275: Suits

Josh Kinal — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 07:39:13 +0000

We take a look at the US series Suits which begins airing on Seven this week.

Also, we take the opportunity, with the chatty Dave Lawson as our cohost, to talk about our television watching habits and the effects our friends have on us.

If you want to subscribe to 3RRR and be in the running for all those great prizes, give them a call on +61 3 9388 1027.

Notes

If You Watch One Thing

Judith Lucy’s Spiritual Journey – 9:30pm 17 Aug, on ABC1
The Thick of It – 10pm Thursday 18 Aug, ABC2
Wallander: The Joker – 11:30pm Sunday 21 Aug, SBS2

Audience Participation

How do you watch TV?

We want to hear from you about your television watching habits. Do you watch alone or with friends? Do you have more than one television set? Do you watch on your computer? Do you read email or make macramé belts while viewing?

Please send us an email via the form (or to “hooray” at this domain) and let us know.

Things We Forgot To Mention

The Young Talent Time judge we think Dave was referring to was Evie Hayes or maybe someone else entirely different about whom we could find no record.

News Items

Bert and Ernie will not get married to each other because they are puppets.
Good News Week might become Good News World and nobody cares.
Ten’s ill-conceived The Renovators is going to cost it heaps of bucks.
Young Talent Time might be coming back.
Shaun Micallef might leave Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation and Amanda Keller might be in charge.

Twitter

We mentioned our Twitter handles last night on the show but in case you missed them:

Josh is @sealfur
Brett is @bbox
Courteney is @courteneyh
Toby is @toby_halligan
Dave is @davewlawson
John is shouting random comments out of his window onto the street
Glenn is @nightwatchman.
Nelly is @MsNellyThomas

Ep 259: The Chicago Code

Josh Kinal — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:02:06 +0000

You want in-depth and slightly waffly discussions about what makes good television? You have come to the right place. Dave Lawson joins us as regular co-host, a role he will share with John and Courteney from now on.

We review the new show from Shaun Ryan, the creator of the Shield, The Chicago Code.

If you want more there’s some Pork, some Crap TV, some dumb anecdotes that should never have gone to air and a bunch of other stuff that is probably not work mentioning like breathing and stuff.

Breathe with this:

Also, we mentioned a few excellent radio shows on Radio National.

We think you should check out:

Future Tense – A show all about the roads we’re making towards a better, or at least more interesting future.
This American Life – This is the excellent USA radio show that we’ve been telling you to listen to for years.
The Lonely Hearts Club – Dave Lawson thinks it’s good and so does Tony Martin. That should be good enough for you. Listen to it

Twitter feeds for:

UPDATE: 10 March

Oh hi there. I found some news items we wanted to mention in the show but didn’t because we got so engrossed in that conversation that seemed to go on forever (but an interesting forever):

Automatic profanity checker to be used in US network television (from Variety)

Actually, it turns out that was the only one. Enjoy.

UPDATE: 16 March

Chris Kennett, one of the former writers on The Bounce tells me on Twitter that Ray Matsen was not a writer on the show. Sorry for the error.

Boxcutters Episode 259 by Boxcutters is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Ep 258: Bob’s Burgers, British Shows Down Under

Josh Kinal — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:49:20 +0000

Sometimes we just need to say what needs to be said. That’s exactly what we do this week. We pull no punches and we reveal all our opinions.

Which opinions? Well, we tell you exactly what we think of Bob’s Burgers, the new animated series that airs on Eleven in Australia.

Not enough? We also try to place the blame for the end of Ben Elton: Live from Planet Earth. We use that as a segue into discussing the trend of British shows coming to Australia (if 35 years can be considered a trend).

News, Pork, Trotters, a bit of Crap TV, we have it all in this episode. Oh yeah, and Letters too.

Please send us your comments and queries.

You can read a summary of the Boxcutters Live in the Studio event on the ACMI blog. There’s a lovely little video on there too.

You can buy tickets for Toby Halligan’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival show. You can also read his funny words at Diary Leaks.

Boxcutters Episode 258 by Boxcutters is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Ep 253: Oprah is in Australia

Josh Kinal — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 01:35:08 +0000

Okay. Really, all anybody has been talking about for the last two weeks, it seems, is how Oprah is in Australia and Julian Assange is not.

While we can’t bring you any information about Assange, you can bet that Nelly and Brett both have opinions, information and a whole world of words to say about that Oprah lady.

If you’re sick of hearing about Oprah‘s tour to Australia then we’ve got some other news and an I Don’t Buy It for you.

Come on a journey with us. We promise there’ll be fun and games and arguments and sighing.

This week’s question: Do you have anything to say to us? Let us know by email.

Also, if you’re wondering where we are on Facebook and Twitter, just click on those words back there.
A follow-up to last week’s German tv documentary news comes from Variety this week:

With broadcasters paying less and demanding more rights, it’s all the more necessary to secure film subsidy financing. But commissioning editors, needing product they can show immediately, are getting less involved in theatrical docs.

One commissioning editor acknowledges the dilemma, saying, “When you take the programs that are made for TV, you just get typical TV product. And that’s not what we want.”

Regional film subsidy funds like Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg remain supportive of theatrical docs, both in production and distribution, but competition for screens and a decline of programming strands makes the endgame difficult.

But industryites believe the fact that docs get screen time and are taken seriously, regardless of mass appeal, makes the fight worthwhile.

Whether AG Dokumentarfilm can shout loudly enough to change the situation remains to be seen.

Ep 233: Hawke, TAC Ads, Kit Kats

Josh Kinal — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:33:00 +0000

John is back from Japan and he’s brought us some weird flavoured Kit Kats. You can hear us eat them. Also TV happens.

Get yourself more of Declan Fay at the Sweet Plumb podcast.

Why not send us an email to agree with Brett or Josh about the anti-syphoning laws.

You can also SMS us on 0458 288 837 (0458 CUTTER).

Become a fan of Boxcutters on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Ep 218: Dan Ilic, Dave Bloustien

brett — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:50:59 +0000

This week we talk to Dan Ilic about the ads he created for the VicRoads road-safety campaign. You probably would have seen them referred to because of their controversy.

Also, Dave Bloustien discusses writing for Good News Week and the Glass House.

Maybe after listening to the episode you want to:

Watch Dan Ilic interview Stephen Conroy, Minister for Communications;
Find out exactly what “promulgation” means; or
Watch the hilarious Onion anti-smoking advertisements.

In the news we talk about Network 10′s proposed entertainment channel. Save yourself some time by reading the article we get all our information from.

Send us your promulgation by email or on the SMS us your Logie nominations on 0458 288 837 (0458 CUTTER).

Twitter users: Follow us!
Josh is @sealfur
Brett is @bbox
and Boxcutters as a whole is @boxcutterscast

Ep 214: Craig McLachlan Part II

Josh Kinal — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:34:48 +0000

As you will no doubt remember, the first time we had Craig McLachlan in the studio we were all so impressed, charmed and generally gooey about the experience that we had to invite him back to:

Finish examining his career thus far; and
See if multiple exposure to his delightful personality returned us to our jaded and cynical usual selves.

Join us for an episode of Boxcutters no hipster should miss.

Send us all your winter olympiad thoughts by sending us email or send us an SMS on 0458 288 837 (0458 CUTTER). And don’t forget to invite all your Facebook friends to become Boxcutters fans.

The DOA Wife?

brett — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:37:32 +0000

Longtime Boxcutters listeners will know that I have never been one to watch much live TV. When we started doing this show, I had three video recorders hooked up that I would variously record on or try to work through the previously recorded shows while juggling the physical tape space on multiple VHS tapes. I still have episodes of Jake in Progress and Caroline in the City I’m sure I’ll get to one day… Anyway, I digress… The reason I was a power user level time shifted viewer from way back was so as to have a ready reserve of quality viewing available at a time convenient to me, rather than the time and day convenient to the networks, and to waste less of my life waiting for the show to come back after the ads. With more than 25 years of experience, I’m a veritable guru when it comes to readying the zapping finger over the remote buttons at the first sign of going to a break and getting the right count to come back to normal speed.

So it takes something really special for an advertising campaign to start to piss me off consistently. Congratulations channel 10… You’ve done it.

I’ve not read anything about The Good Wife, I’ve not paid particular attention to the teasers given in the ads, I’ve not looked for the small print on the billboards around town. I know that Julianna Margulies – the nurse from ER that was going out with George Clooney – has straightened her hair and is playing the titular character and Chris Noth – Big from Sex and the City - plays some sort of political public figure character who has been shamed by some sort of shenanigans. Not once have I bothered sitting through the entire “Sneak Peek” without turning the channel off or hitting the 30 second skip button twice. And yet I’m confident enough to call this one of the major flops of 2010. A bigger disappointment than FlashForward or even Commander in Chief.

There are sure to be parallels with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojovic, caught out trying to sell a Democrat held seat last year, and Hilary Clinton standing by Bill through the Lewinsky saga, probably peppered with inappropriate campaign-trail type press conferences on the front lawn of the family house or on the steps of a courthouse, proving the passionate attention given our hero by the entire nation. The magnitude of girl-power is likely to be off the scale as Margulies triumphs almost impossibly in the career that had only been simmering while she kept the home fires burning in support of her previously legitimate, successful husband. I don’t, however, see the skeptical audience turning off their sense of disbelief for more than a couple of weeks.

This show seems likely to be a fusion of a couple of recent genres we’ve seen: the latest hopeful to try to capture the loyal Sex and the City bloc, who like their women sassy and crave someone they can really relate to in a weekly drama; and the genius working in a professional capacity story – think House, Shark, Leverage, The Mentalist, Eleventh Hour - undertaking and conquering tasks that nobody else anywhere could possibly accomplish. I’m not sure it’s a fusion that can work. US TV has been desperate to get another SatC up for 3 or 4 years now – Women’s Murder Club, Cashmere Mafia, The Starter Wife - but they just don’t take and there seems to be a lack of ensemble in The Good Wife. The genius professional always tends to be a little odd, which is lateral, spontaneous and occasionally fun from a guy working with a team of minions or a federal handler but very quickly shouts ‘Bunny Boiler’ in a woman.

I could be completely wrong on all of this but the saturation promotion that 10 has been giving this show over an extended period has my Boxie senses tingling. We’ll have to wait and see.

Ep 203: Craig McLachlan (really!)

Josh Kinal — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:01:59 +0000

This week we speak at length to Craig McLachlan. He tells us all about Neighbours, the record industry, the wilderness and Alan Dale.

He’s a wonderful guest. Listen to it.

Ep 195: Tom Elliott, Flash Forward, The Lost Room

brett — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:10:14 +0000

We have a week full of broken rules of time and finance with:

Tom Elliott ~~inventing the flux capacitor~~ giving us some rational explanations for the asset writedowns and massive profit downgrade at 7 and how hard 9 and 10′s parent companies are doing it;

a preview of Flash Forward, coming to our screens on the 7 network after the ultimate conclusion of Lost; and

The Lost Room from the SciFi Channel in Things You May Have Missed.

Pick up your very own copy of The Lost Room on DVD from Amazon.

RSS feed

iTunes

or listen to 195 in your browser

MasterChef Cooks Its Results

Josh Kinal — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:54:55 +0000

The following, in a different form, was used as a rant on John Richard’s excellent The Outland Institute radio show. In case you missed it, which you shouldn’t have because it’s an excellent show, as I previously stated.

This week’s television controversy surrounds MasterChef. We’ve been sold a bill of goods. We’ve invited into our homes a Poh-faced liar.

From the very beginning Poh has been shown favouritism by the judges. How many other people had the opportunity to go home after failing the audition and return to cook another dish?*

Poh not only failed once, but twice. Poh was eliminated from the competition and then, with no reason given, allowed to return along with some other, seemingly randomly selected contestants. No one else in the MasterChef competition has been given as easy a ride as Poh and that is outrageously unfair.

It’s true that Julie also received some leeway with the rules of individual challenges. Out of the last three challenges in this week’s finalist series, Julie failed to finish her dish all three times: twice serving raw food and once just failing to plate up all the elements of her dish in the allotted time.

Many times in the last 18 hours people have told me via twitter and sometimes even to my face that Julie only ended in the final two because they want to publish her cookbook.

The night before, after Justine lost, Matt Moran went to her house and offered her a job. We all felt wonderful because it worked out well for Justine.

Couldn’t the same thing have happened to Julie? If Julie had lost the competition last night but her pitch for a cookbook so overwhelmed Donna Hay that she offered her a publishing deal on the spot, we would feel joy and heart-warming tingles because Julie was well on her way to success.

There was no sensational coda for Chris last night.

And so it comes down to the internal logic of the show. Like any good story the characters need to live by the rules of the story’s universe. Despite the real-person/contest nature of the show, it’s still telling a story. In last night’s episode the rules were laid out in the beginning: make a dish that would look good on the cover of a cookbook.

When it came down to judging, though, the aesthetics of the dish were largely irrelevant. Suddenly it came down to the flavour. The judges said that Chris’s dish didn’t taste good.

Somewhere along the lines they changed the rules without telling the contestants or, more importantly, the audience.

A good TV show has turned into a farce.

* In a moment of subtextual racism the judges sent Poh home to gather the ingredients to create a Malaysian dish. The implication that she was unable to create modern Australian cuisine because of her ethnicity should have been seen as a slap in the face with regard to her skill as a cook. Instead the judges somehow made it seem like they were encouraging her. Would they expect a Cajun to only make craw-fish gumbo? Would a Jew only be rewarded by making gefilte fish and matzo ball soup?

It’s unfair to everybody that she was given a second chance AND told what to make. It’s unfair to her that they did not judge her ability on the merits of her first dish. It’s unfair to an entire race of people that we should expect them to only be good at cooking one type of cuisine.

Ep 179: Freeview, Revisiting Old Television, Shame on Henrie Stride and Channel 10

Josh Kinal — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:27:56 +0000

Freeview have a new ad out and we don’t buy it. Also we look at why television of yore might not stand up to today’s viewers. There’s some CrapTV from Channel 10 and we (try to) tell you what to watch

Ooh look:

You can help support Boxcutters buy buying yourself something pretty from the You Don’t Buy It stores.

Also, we’ve got new t-shirts! You can buy them, wear them and have people ask you what the hell it’s supposed to mean.

Boxcutters: Now shamelessly trying to sell you crap to cover our costs.

Ep 168: Bam Boom! Entertainment, Lie to Me, Underbelly 2

Josh Kinal — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:19:13 +0000

Gillian Bartlett and Donna Lyon from Bam Boom! Entertainment join us to talk about their very unique television jobs. Also there’s a review of the new Underbelly season premier, and the new US show Lie to Me. Also we look at coverage of the Victorian bushfires in a special Raywatch.

Get it:

Ten and Foxtel

Josh Kinal — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:19:52 +0000

This news was from Tuesday (sorry for the delay and thanks to Paul Boxcutter for the heads-up).

Come September, Foxtel will be rebroadcasting Ten’s digital signal which also means they will publish the Ten EPG.

Now we just have to wait for Foxtel to open up their system to allow other pieces of software and hardware to have access and we might actually have a choice over how we watch our television.

Just imagine an openly competitive marketplace. A place where we can buy whichever PVR we want, subscribing to whichever EPG we choose (Ice TV really does have the best service out there), rather than being tied to one system. Alas, I seem to live in a dream world.

Still, I’ve now signed up for an IQ. I’ll be sure to keep the Boxcutters listeners/blog-readers posted on the ups and downs.

via The Age: Foxtel nabs Ten rights

Commercial Network Websites

Josh Kinal — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 08:19:42 +0000

While we took our one week break, and probably to keep up with their self-imposed February deadline, Channel 10 launched their new and much anticipated website. I wanted to mention this on the show this week but we ran out of time.

The short review would be “same shit, different shape” but I thought I’d take this time to look at and compare the websites of all three commercial networks.

I’m basing my comments here on the sites www.seven.com, www.nine.com.au and www.ten.com.au

Firstly, let’s talk about what you want from a network’s website. Show information? Tonight’s viewing lineup? Competition information? Annoyingly loud flash-embedded video previews of upcoming shows which start automatically and scare the shit out of you?

I don’t think it’s too much to ask to get to the front page of a TV network’s website and be able to confirm what time my favourite show is going to be on tonight. On Seven it’s some clicks and scrolls away. On the Nine website you have to think that maybe it will be in the entertainment section and then you find that you’re suddenly on the TV Week website and then you still have to click and scroll before you find what you want. Meanwhile the Ten website has the guide just one click away. This sounds good but it’s not. When you get there the guide is actually difficult to use.

This example just adds more fuel to the argument that the networks really don’t understand their audience. Both Nine and Seven have partnerships with internet companies for their websites. At least if you put seven.com into your browser you get to some Channel 7 content but Nine are just being right-royally screwed by their ninemsn partnership. If a viewer is going to a network’s website it could be for any number of reasons but surely one of them is to find out some information about the network. That might be a program guide or some information about one its shows.

Ten have got this half right with their new site but when they’re spending as much money as they are on “web presence” they should get it all right.

Network executives have got to realise that the world has changed and they can no longer force habits on their audience. There is too much choice out there to not give them what they want from the start. A little bit of market research goes a long way on the internet and TV networks have an opportunity to build some brand-loyalty but instead they just see fit to piss it up a wall.

Give me a reason to stop watching TV shows through other avenues and I’ll do it, but sitting me in front of a station promo while rubbing a cheese-grater across my face isn’t going to work. I’m just going to get pissed off.