That’s admen for you - no one lives authentically. Everybody lies, especially to themselves. Advertising is a lie, an industry peopled by liars lying. The impeccable swank of Don Draper papers over an emotionally butchered young man living in mortal fear of the truth. He’s not Don Draper - he’s Richard Whitman. Born a bastard from his abusive father’s fling with a whore; stealing a dead man’s identity like Principal Skinner in The Simpsons; secrets and lies are all Don Draper has ever known.
But surely good old boy Freddy Rumsen is still trundling along OK? WRONG, assholes. Freddy’s drinking finally brings him down when he pisses his pants right before an important meeting. He gets shitcanned and Peggy gets promoted as a result. Poor Peggy finds this tough to take - Freddy was the first guy to ever believe in her. In Mad Men even joyous events leave a bitter aftertaste.
So pity Draper’s wife, beautiful doomed Betty. You know Betty ain’t right when she persistently flirts with Glen Bishop, the mad 10 year-old boy who wants to fuck her. “I hate you!” he shouts when she finally calls his errant mother to the house. “I know” says Betty sadly. You can’t be surprised, girl. 10 years old and he’s already learning the harsh lesson of mixed messages from women. Of course, if that was the 10-year-old Aerial Telly he would have hit that in no time, knowing how to read women practically from birth. Motherfucker, you don’t want to know the women Aerial Telly made sex offenders out of. 1
Mad Men remains beautiful to look at and not just because of recently crowned TV Pie of the Year Christina Hendricks. From the gorgeous opening sequence with the silhouetted ad exec hurtling 9/11 jumper style to his doom past the images of early 60s Americana through to the double-breasted suits, fedoras and pleated skirts, it’s a show designed with a rare aesthetic sensibility and an obsessive attention to detail.
Mad Men is about the gap between surface and reality. It’s a parable about what happens when lying becomes your life. Everyone is losing control just when they need to be in control most. Happiness is a myth, contentment is a lie and the American dream has an underside as cruel and disturbing as any Japanese arthouse horror flick. This is the Mad Men moral. You eat shit all your life and then you die alone. So fuck you.
The verdict on Mad Men Season 2: New and improved.
Marks out of 10: 8
1 Something sounds off about this sentence but it’s true so fuck you.
Prison Break Season 2 premiere
“What’s got 16 legs, 15 hands and keeps looking over its shoulder?”
We counted down the days like children awaiting Christmas. When it came, the return began with cadaverous FBI agent Alexander Mahone (William Fichtner) at a press conference quoting from the on-the-run journal of John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln’s killer. It took the authorities 12 days to find the assassin, Mahone tells the assembled hacks, and in that time he writes of how the criminal’s neuroses are “magnified by flight”. Mahone sees parallels between Booth and the Fox River escapees. “In 140 years the escaped man has not changed”. He must be starting to whiff a bit by now?
Oh Prison Break; how do I love thee? Lots and lots, that’s how. Unconditionally, eternally, irrationally. This show is so fucking good. Having successfully executed the world’s most complicated escape plan Michael Schofield, his meathead brother Lincoln “I never did them things” Burrows and six other convicted scrotes are running around like a swarm of blue-arsed flies avoiding the pack of pissed off screws on their trail.
In the tradition of The Fugitive, the Feds’ man Mahone tries to get inside Michael’s head to sniff out his quarry. There are obvious parallels between the two men. Like Michael, Mahone is a sensitive cultured boy driven by an obsessive attention to detail and a consuming need to fix things. Maybe he has low latent inhibition as well? It wouldn’t surprise me. Intriguingly, we see him popping pills from a compartment inside his pen in this episode. We like our pill-popping TV characters here at Aerial Telly and can only speculate on their significance. Is he dying, addicted, taking an E? Because we need an acid house revival like we need our toes chopped off with pruning shears.
Mahone quickly figures that Michael’s tattoo is the key to unravelling the labyrinthine plan. And as Michael and the boys head towards the cemetery for a change of clothes hidden in a grave, Mahone is figuring out their whereabouts by decoding some writing from Michael’s tattoo. It’s a close shave for the boys as Mahone gives chase only to watch them blend into the civilian morass of Cuntcake, Illinois. He looks mad vexed that they got away but you know this shit’s not over.
In civvy street Veronidurrr, the world’s dumbest real-estate lawyer, uncovers NOT DEAD Terence Steadman locked up in a country house. She gets herself killed by phoning the police and being intercepted by Bigger Boys who figure she’s more trouble than she’s worth - a conclusion many of us reached by the end of the pilot in season one.
Meanwhile, TV’s favourite baby rapist T-Bag was cut loose by the gang in the season one finale when they cut loose his hand with an axe. Having stolen an icebox from some campers to keep his hand cool T-Bag decides it’s time to get reattached to his errant digits. So naturally he goes to an Indian veterinary surgeon with his proposal. The Indian vet (played by Apu from The Simpsons) is understandably reluctant what with him not having a fucking clue how to do it and all but T-Bag assures him of a sorry end if he does not make with the impromptu surgery. If only he had the presence of mind to challenge him to a game of stone, paper, scissors. At least T-Bag now knows what the sound of one hand clapping sounds like.
Lovely, lovely Dr Sarah Tancredi is recovering from her overdose to face the music over the possibility that she may have just maybe left the Infirmary door open on purpose for the escape posse in the vain hope of getting some Tattooed Low Latent Inhibition Man Cock from Michael in return. Being a recovering addict, she’s no stranger to poor choices in men. She needs a man like Aerial Telly to give her the kind of pelvis rattling wookie walloping that heroin simply can’t match. She knows my number.
It’s a terrific starter for ten from Prison Break and we expected no less. It set up the series premise perfectly - the battle of wits between Michael and Mahone, the continuing political conspiracy and the battle to get Westmoreland’s buried loot. There will be more intricately weaved plot contrivances, innovative twists, jaw drop shocks and more of Michael’s signature yampy plans in store. It will thrill and appal us in equal measure. Very few shows justify our love with such ball-breaking consistency.
The verdict on Prison Break Season 2 premiere: Tramps like this - baby, they were born to run
Marks out of 10: 9
Spartacus: Blood and Sand Season 1 finale “Kill Them All”
“Kill them all”. Thus spake Spartacunt, husband, gladiator, Thracian legend. He’s really got no time for Romans, having been shafted by them his entire life and the final straw was finding out that his wife was murdered on the orders of that rat fuck Batiatus. Now it’s payback time. A season’s worth of blood, betrayal and lust on Spartacus: Blood and Sand came to the boil in a meticulously organised script executed with the boldness and flair we’ve come to expect from this show. Hack-and-slash melodrama it may be but showrunner Steven S. DeKnight is Buffyverse alumni. He knows how to tell a story.
For the slave rebellion Spartacunt proposes to go ahead, multiple pieces need to fall into place and the motivations are brilliantly worked out. Why would gladiators risk their lives for a doomed rebellion? Under the new patronage of Gaius Claudius Glaber the ludus is a frenzied hive of Roman ass whippings - brutality reigns as never before. Even doomed rebellion is preferable to this.
Lucretia finding out about Crixus slipping his Gallic schlong to Naevia now means she desires Crixus’s end at the hands of Spartacunt in their death match. The two fruits discuss the proposed rebellion before the bout and Crixus is agin it but they nonetheless swear to honour pledges to each other upon the showdown’s completion: Spartacunt victorious will see Naevia located and Crixus victorious will kill Battyarsetits. N
ow we have a fight.
Intrigue yet piles on intrigue as crunch time approaches. That clever cocksucker Ashur poisons Crixus’s meal before the fight to weaken him. Spartacunt reveals this to Crixus mid battle and the stubborn Gaul finally realises that his only way out of slavery is in his own strong arm to deliver. Guy coding Spartacunt with his eyes and a tap on the shield, Crixus is all “behold, your springboard!” and Spartacunt, like the crazy bastard he is, runs, rises and vaults all way on to the balcony to skewer the head of a smug Roman fuck on his arrival. It’s a neat way to travel and a glorious way to commence battle.
Although, calling it a battle might dignify the Roman efforts too much. The slaves put a hurting on their masters that shakes Rome itself. Battle? This is a fucking rout. Roman soldier limbs lie scattered like chicken wings at a barbecue as their nobility run screaming. Pukecreature gets kebabed by Crixus, aborting their baby in the process. “I would rather see it dead than suckle at your breast”. She looks at him all “You mean you’re breaking up with me?” before waddling off, her mortal wound trailing corn syrup, piss and raspberry juice after her, to go find Battyarsetits to give him one final piece of grief before she leaves this world. Tough break, Pukes.
Meanwhile, that little shit Numerius gets his from Varro’s widow Aurelia who stabs the 16-year-old dweeb to a lifeless bloody pulp for sealing her husband’s fate. When the confrontation between Spartacunt and Battyarsetits arrives it is a short affair with Batty’s defence for killing his wife a less than convincing one. “I gave you the means to accept your fate!” To which Sparts responds “And now you are destroyed by it” before slashing Batty’s throat as a dying Pukecreature looks on.
Oh and that little slut Ilithyia survives the slaughter by jamming the doors behind her as she escapes, condemning her fellow Romans to certain death. Proper little madam, that one.
You might wonder where Doctore is in all of this. The brother sides with the slaves once he hears from Crixus the full extent of Battyarsetits’s treachery. It a lot to take in but it’s only a one-hour show so after a full 10 seconds of soul-searching he hits the ground running and is quickly pummelling Ashur in swordplay. The crafty Syrian cheats death by hiding under some Roman corpses in the courtyard. Count on his re-emergence next season.
The rebellion succeeds. The house of Battyarsetits falls. The Roman soldiers are served Julienne style over cinnamon rice. The adjoining villa looks like it’s been attacked by a giant food processor. They have indeed killed them all. The brothers are free, free at last. So now what?
That’s for season two to decide (clue: mountain retreat then marching on Rome) but for now let’s give props to a terrific show that got better with each episode. Lurid to a fault, preposterous throughout and amped to its eyeballs it slowly began to mould its obvious influences into something unique. The show is a lot smarter than it looks. It takes considerable skill to pick up the number of loose threads it left dangling going into this finale and tie them all up without sacrificing credibility, character or story yet they do it brilliantly.
Starz showed their faith in a show by commissioning a second season before the first even premiered. Production was delayed as the (excellent) actor playing Spartacus, Andy Whitfield, underwent treatment for cancer. Aerial Telly wishes him a speedy recovery and grants the show his blessing and endorsement. How can it now fail?
The verdict on Spartacus: Blood and Sand Season 1 finale “Kill Them All”: Thrilling end to an impressive season.
Marks out of 10: 8
True Blood Season 2 finale
Michelle Forbes is a beast. Does anyone play villains with such relish? Would anyone dare? She’s been fortunate to get roles as well written as stone hearted war criminal Admiral Cain in Battlestar Galactica and now brings her pagan intensity to batshit crazy Maenad MaryAnn Forrester in True Blood but they were lucky to get her too. The statuesque Texan doesn’t just have something of the night about her. She is the night, the barren winter, handmaid of the Moon. Abandon all hope as ye enter her. She says that she cannot see MaryAnn Forrester as a villain and this is why she’s made True Blood’s second season such a blast.
And fun is what this girl is all about because the Maenad? Something of a party animal. She has Bon Temps literally under her spell with her wild bacchanalian orgies - violence, sodomy, tree fucking, just a few of the vices practised. But don’t just dismiss MaryAnn as some kind of gangbang scenester. Hell, no. She is fixing to bring forth god.
Which god? Why, the GOD WHO COMES. Dionysus to me and you. He and MaryAnn are to be wed and she’s going to offer the human sacrifice of the slightly more than human Sam Merlotte, bartender and shape shifter.
Naturally, we can’t have that so Bill hatches a terrific plan to deliver Sam into the clutches of MaryAnn: let Sam get captured and stabbed, have Sookie create a distraction, feed Sam his blood for a lightning fast recovery, get Sookie chased by MaryAnn, have Sam shapeshift into a celestial looking bull to fool MaryAnn and into thinking her horned god (a.k.a. the GOD WHO COMES) has come among them, take advantage of her excited state by having Sammy the Bull (no, not that one) gore the living shit out of her, impaling her heart and killing her to death
OK, I don’t really know where to begin on the logical, practical and timeline holes in this particular plan but I know my finishing point will be she’s SUPPOSED TO BE FUCKING IMMORTAL. If that was all it took why didn’t you knife her in the tits 12 episodes ago?
While you were at it you could have skewered Jason Stackhouse who continues to be one of TVs most slappable characters. Jason spent much of season two rising through the ranks of the Fellowship of the Sun, the vampophobe God botherers. Jason was treated like a brother by Fellowship head Rev. Steve Newlin and repaid his mentor’s trust and loyalty by getting into his wife’s panties when the first opportunity arose. Thanks, brother!
You can’t really blame Jason (and I like blaming him for everything). It’s not like Sarah Newlin took much persuading and it is very hard to turn down fresh pumpum when it’s placed on such a pretty platter. So fuck Rev Steve just like you fucked his wife, Jase. After all, he was planning to burn Godric alive in that weird ceremony. Godric ended up on a rooftop immolating himself for kicks at sunrise making Eric cry tears of pure blood. It was all quite moving.
That’s melodrama for you - hysteria, romance, heightened reality - making an art of the daft. In that tradition True Blood have turned in an artful, thrilling second season. It’s fitting that most of it revolves around sex because True Blood has always been filth - the filthiest filth currently muddying up our screens. But it’s well written filth so you just can’t resist. Some gibberish, it is so serious.1
The verdict on True Blood Season 2 finale: Oh Maenady, well you came and you gave without taking. But I sent you away.
Marks out of 10: 7.5
1 Thus spake Frank Black.
Gong intermission
Aerial Telly Awards 2010
Hey cocksmokers. It’s around that time of year where no account TV turkeys vote for Thanksgiving and surf towards the Aerial Telly velodrome for news of the annual awards. At first it’s a trickle but it quickly becomes a cascade as the television industry catches on that the only awards that ever have mattered or ever will matter are online in all their stark pitiless glory. Crippled by anxiety attacks and comfort masturbating as they look for their names, they end up either weeping with relief or screaming in horror as their careers are made and broken before their coke monged eyes. Because Aerial Telly is not some bought and sold TV critic sucking up to celebrity, drinking cocktails with feral TV scum, slurping media jizz as if life itself depended on it. Nor is Aerial Telly some public school fuck who wandered into television criticism by accident because he went to the right college at Oxford. No, Aerial Telly is a savage beast, an untamed, ungovernable monster who builds and destroys reputations like the interventionist God Nick Cave doesn’t believe in.
“Battle anybody - I don’t care who you tell” - thus spake LL Cool J
and that’s exactly what you can expect when Aerial Telly is in the place. He doesn’t do telly - he is telly; begotten not made of one being the telly. Fuck you in both eye sockets if you doubt it.
Best show: Breaking Bad, AMC
It could easily have been Boardwalk Empire, Terence Winter’s ultra-slick Prohibition-era period piece, but AMC’s Breaking Bad continued its career through Albuquerque’s drug trade in a stunning third season that saw Walt decline further into moral torpor, revealed more of the intriguingly enigmatic drug lord Gus and introduced us to the terrifying Cousins, the most menacing villains on the box. Ballsy, principled and heartbreaking, the show was as taut and daring as it’s ever been in its three season run. When it dies, let its gravestone read: the show that WENT THERE.
Worst show: FlashForward, ABC
They lost consciousness; we lost our minds. Christ knows it had stiff competition - Phone Shop, The Persuasionists, The Prisoner all drank mare’s piss, swilled, gargled and swallowed - but nothing summed up the malaise of overblown tailspinning television in 2010 like GashBoreward. In taking a promising premise into some of the most fatuous territory television has ever broached, GnashJawMerde was a pioneer of conspiracy shit-eating that blazed a trail for blows like Rubicunt and The Event. In giving another outlet for Dominic Monaghan to creep everybody the fuck out with his goblin ears, SlashBoreturd wrote another chapter in one of the most baffling success stories in Hollywood. Lacking looks, talent and charisma, his career makes Kaspar Hauser’s appearance seem explicable. Sonya Walger’s future knickers of doom couldn’t save MashWhoregurd from its massively deserved shitcanning. Hilariously poor dialogue, Blowhindturd from Heroes style navelgazing and a signature sucky performance from lead acturd Blowseph Whines assured an early bath for BashYourBird and the sense of relief around the shiny planet called Earth was palpable.
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