Screen Time ABC, Season 1, Episode 1: #ABCScreenTime

Today is the day, the very first episode of Screen Time. Chris Taylor, the host is looking excited. Excited and nervous. Excited, nervous, and desperate. You better like this show or ABC will axe even more stuff. No pressure. 

He tells us that we’re here to discuss movies, and television AND Youtube AND streaming and some other stuff. This isn’t just the reboot of At the Movies with the divine Margaret Pomeranz and scrumptious David Stratton, it’s At the Movies on steroids. More panelists, more mediums, more sexual chemistry. More more. But Chris is not just bringing intense personal magnetism, NO, he’s also bringing the smarts. So much so that he’s proving it by  flashing up a whole heap of numbers on the screen. Nothing says smart and sexy like data. If those graphics don’t justify why he gets to have this show nothing will.

Small housekeeping matter: I’m dyslexic, if you hate dyslexia and feel people with dyslexia should be mocked, go away.

Chris is introducing his panel of experts. There’s Sami Shah, Sophie Black, Zan Rowe, and Benjamin Law. Those of you who follow my recaps of The Book Club ABC will know I refer to him as BLaw. BLaw of the bare ankles…. What the deuce! He’s wearing red socks. I’m so confused. I updated his Wikipedia page to include his signature bare ankles and now he’s wearing socks. I’m scared. Hold me. No, not like that. Maybe he’s trying to draw the #sockwatch crowd over from The Book Club ABC? Now that they’ve been mercilessly axed.

But enough mourning, let’s engage with this new show. Chris tells us that they’ll be discussing Blade Runner 2049, which is a nice touch, a movie that’s new but already released so that we, the audience, have a chance to have an opinion too. It’s not a soon to be released with critics talking at us like so many other movie shows. Chris assures us that Ryan Gosling gives his most emotionally dead performance yet and that it was really long. Sounds fantastic. Let’s throw to Sami for his opinion…

… and he loved it. Sami says that he loved this movie despite this movie. He says that Jarrod Leto overacts more than ever, every women is crying and it fails the Bechdel Test, BUT it was cinematographically beautiful. He’s not sure why they seemed to insert a different movie into the middle of it and why so many bad acting choices were made but he loved it and everyone can shut up because it was pretty. Really, really pretty.

Sophie says that it was masterful and that it will stay with you for life. For life! And not just because of the kidney damage you’ll get from holding your bladder because it was sooooo long.

Zan is a bit more meh. It was pretty but hadn’t advanced enough. And all the mysteries were solved insultingly quickly. I hate it when story tellers insult their audience!

BLaw found it really current with the ecology issues and the cinematography stunning and said it made him feel like he’d smoked a giant bong…. overseas in a country where that is legal I’m sure. Put down your arrest warrants. He does mention that it is a bit whitewashed… or completely whitewashed.

Sami says that as a younger nerd he would have enjoyed Blade Runner 411 even more but now he knows that women are people too so that kind of spoiled it a bit. He credits the doco Born Sexy Yesterday, the Bechdel Test, and learning about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope with helping him develop in this area.

Chris says Harrison Ford was a better actor than Ryan Gosling. BLaw adds that Ryan Gosling is not hot. Finally, the important issues are being discussed.

The panel ponder that Blade Runner 2.0 hasn’t been the best in the earnings. Sami blames Trump and that people are stupid. Sophie says they need to appreciate the slowburn. Like a chilli sub?

And with that quiet pondering, the discussion on Blade Runner 90210 is over. Time for something new.

OMG it is glorious. I don’t quite know what is happening or why, and frankly I don’t care. All I know is that the greatest thing that you see this year is on television right now. It’s Sophie Monk inserted into the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice. They have superimposed Sophie Monks’ head over Elizabeth Bennett’s and are using her responses from The Bachelorette instead. Get on iView right now because my description cannot do this justice. It is spectacular. Please do this every week. Can they introduce a Logie for best segment? I need to go have a lie down. But I can’t because the show hasn’t ended yet.

Broad City. Yes, they’re now discussing that quiet little runaway. They’re showing clips and there is nudity and drug use. Oh my. Zan loves it and wants to be BFFs with the main characters.
BLaw says that it is filthy and tawdry. If you know BLaw then you know that means that he loves it. He also randomly reveals that he works in his undies. Hopefully there will be a follow-up episode on this very important matter.
Sophie loves that it is depicting women delighting in each other. Sammy loves that this show is finally giving women what they really want, a female Beavis and Butthead. It’s like Sami looked into my very soul and said, ‘I see you.’
Sophie also likes that it is very much Abbi and Ilana’s New York and not Woody Allen’s or Seinfeld’s New York. Chris ponders on how New York is killing it at diversity and feminism copared to LA. Totes, not like Allen or Seinfeld would be guilty of anything like Weinstein….
They’re showing another clip from the show, it involves pegging and now the panelists are saying pegging. Just start throwing Logies at this show now. The ABC are now across pegging.

They now have to compare the show Girls to Broad City because they’ve both got ladeez and therefore must be compared. Panelists have the revelation that not all things about the womenz are the same. That the shows and characters can be different. Unlike real life where we only fit into one of five personality types: Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, Charlotte, or dull extra. I’m the dull extra. OMG, that’s such a Miranda thing to say.
Now they’re rating the five weirdest sex scenes. You can imagine the conversations amongst producers to get this segment in.
Exec 1: Viewers love those top five things, maybe we should do a top five relevant to the episode.

Soon to be fired exec: Yes! Finally! Let’s do top five female lead ensembles. Sex in the City, Golden Girls, Xena, Girls, Broad City, Big Little Lies, The Handmaid’s Tale, Orange is the New Black, Pulling, Insecure, Daria. I’ve got so much to share with you guys. Picking just five is going to be hard. Or maybe top five sci fi shows…

Exec the third: You know what else people love?

Soon to be fired exec: Feminism?

Exec the third: Sex! Let’s do top five sex scenes.

Exec 1: Best idea ever.

So the top 5 were:

5. Howard the Duck

4. Avatar

3. The Room

2. Return of Swamp Thing

1. Showgirls in the pool. Oh yay, a movie full of abuse and rape is sexually comical.

Next the panelists get to recommend something to watch.

Sami: The Expanse

BLaw: Ali’s Wedding

Zar: Terrace House

Sophie: Tiny Kitchen

And that’s it. See you next week for more awesome talking about movies and stuff…. But not before a quick confession. I was in the audience so this is more of a director’s cut recap, has some things in it that hit the editing room floor. But the Sophie Monk / Pride and Prejudice mashable is definitely in there. Get on iView and watch it now. It will make your week!

Catch up on episodes on iView

Find Screen Time here

Find Chris here

Find BLaw here

Find Sophie here

Find Sami here

Find Zan here

Learn about the Bechdel Test here

Read about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope here

Watch Born Sexy Yesterday here

Find out about me here

Chloe Prime: Alien Space Vet

Chapter One: The Night Before the Day After

BANG!

Chloe Prime poked her head out above her blankets and eyed her wardrobe suspiciously. Had it just made a noise? She watched and waited for a few minutes. Nothing. Perhaps it had all just been in her imagination. A flight of fancy? She nestled back under her covers.

BANG!

Chloe quickly pulled her covers down again and glared at her wardrobe. Honestly, this was just getting ridiculous. She had to get a goodnight sleep for her first day at her new school tomorrow. This just would not do.

BANG!

Chloe vaulted out of bed and stood in front of her wardrobe in a fighting stance. Her hair reared out from her head in crazy curls, ready for action. Her legs were encased in a metallic exoskeleton, which made her look every bit like a miniature cyborg, with medusa hair, at the ready. If there was a monster in that wardrobe she was going to have at it.

‘I came here for a bedtime story and to kick butt,’ ten year old Chloe challenged her empty cupboard, ‘and I already finished my story.’

Whoosh!

Kent Prime came running into his daughter’s room closely followed by her mother. Chloe turned to see her father staring at her in shock.

‘Monsters, Dad,’ Chloe quickly informed her father. ‘In the cupboard. I’ve got them pinned.’

Kent Prime attempted to move further into Chloe’s room.

‘Get back!’ Chloe yelled. ‘It’s too dangerous! Save Mum.’

Chloe’s father laughed and closed the gap between them, scooping up his daughter.

‘There are no monsters here Little Miss Lady.’

‘Are you nervous about school tomorrow?’ Chloe’s mother asked.

‘What?’ Chloe snorted in surprise. ‘I’m excited about school. I just happen to have a rather serious monster problem to deal with.’

‘I’ll deal with any monsters,’ Chloe’s father said. ‘You just go to bed. Besides you know that they’re more scared of you than you are of them.’

‘But Dad, what if there are ghosts, or fairies… or I heard that sometimes little time travelling pirates come breaking down your…’ Chloe began.

‘No buts, no brownies, no bandits! You need your rest if you’re going to be on the school shuttle on time tomorrow morning,’ Kent Prime tutted his daughter. ‘Besides you know all our wardrobes are double coated with Kevlarized Graphene. Nothing is getting through.’

‘But what about bears? You know… sort of hiding in the cupboard rather than coming through it?’ Chloe was grasping at straws by this stage. She knew she would never win this argument, and she was getting quite tired anyway. Her mother kissed her goodnight.

‘Don’t you worry about any bears, Sweetie,’ Mum said, as she walked out of the room. ‘I’m sure you can just talk your way out of trouble without fighting.’

Chloe shrugged doubtfully but cuddled up to her teddy Sinbad and began dozing off with images of swashbuckling bears, whispering to fairy ghosts, in her head.

TAP TAP TAP

At this point Chloe leapt out of her bed and flung her cupboard open.

SQUEAK!

‘You! What are you doing in there? You know you’re not supposed to come inside.’

Squeak squeak squeak?

‘Oh alright. I’ll see if I can sneak into the kitchen and find you something but then you really must go outside.’

Squeak.

‘Yes, I know mice don’t really love cheese.’

Squeak squeak?

‘No you can’t come. Mum will freak if she sees a mouse in the kitchen.’