Last night’s telly – Wednesday 23rd January
I watched the last series of Torchwood with a gaggle of female friends and we’d squeal over the gorey bits and coo and gossip over the sexy bits. Alas my harem of tv watchers aren’t with me for this series but I’m sure we’d be doubly pleased at what the new series has dished up so far. Yes it is silly and yes, John Barrowman’s constant melodramatic posturing is off-putting but that doesn’t stop Torchwood being a great sci-fi romp. BBC Wales obviously know what me and my friends are looking for because they’ve upped the gore and the sex factor. Last night was like an explosion in a tomato ketchup factory – with limbs spurting blood and savage stabbings all over the shop. And as for the sex – each member of the Torchwood team can barely pass a pen to another member without lingering looks of suppressed sexual desire. I don’t care that it’s silly, nor that it has glaring continuity errors. It’s a bit of fun –just a bit of sexy melodrama, plus a few aliens.
But the best thing on last night was Wonderland: The Man Who Eats Badgers and other strange tales. It was a brilliant documentary set around some of the men who live in the wilderness of Bodmin Moor. The main focus was on Arthur, who collects roadkill and eats it. Instead of mocking the man and tearing apart his slightly sinister hobby, the documentary was strangely understanding and far more compelling as a result. The most interesting character was arguably Arthur’s wife (for whom the moniker ‘long-suffering’ was created), who did not appear in the film but was a silent presence throughout. She’s vegetarian and doesn’t really approve of Arthur’s hobby but because of the nuisance prank phone callers it has brought to them rather than the macabre activity itself. A brilliantly comic moment came from when her car came into shot and then quickly reversed out again – whilst Arthur chops wood in the fore of the picture with a childlike vigour.
