I don’t know about anyone else but when I heard ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘ won best film I thought Paris Hilton had done another porno.

Yes, this weeks TV was initially dominated by the Oscars, with a new format and fronted by someone other than a generic shtick disher.

Hugh Jackman…

Our very own Wolverine was surprisingly good in his role of compere, showing a diversity of talent in unfamiliar surroundings.  It was also nice to see Catherine Zeta Jones accompanying Benjamin Button to the show.  Can’t see any signs of his regeneration towards his youth yet though.

It was ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘ that was the big winner of the evening, winning 8 Oscars in total.

I was particularly worried at one point; seeing all those children from India on stage in front of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt; I bet they tried to take home 3 or 4 of the poor kids.  As soon as they heard ‘Mum buy‘ Angelina probably said ‘look Brad, they’re practically asking me to‘.

The Oscars for me don’t seem to represent public opinion with its awards.  They almost seem to punish movies that do well at the domestic box office, and certainly sci fi movies as a rule, however well acted and directed.  The voters seem suspicious of any movie that makes too much money. A blockbuster like ‘The Dark Knight‘ or ‘Titanic‘ sometimes breaks through, but in general; movies that earn $100-$200 million are under-represented.

If we look at the box office earnings of the Best Film winner this year we see that ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘ brought in $98,354,395 at the box office, yet ‘Iron Man‘ brought in $318,412,101 and ‘The Dark Knight‘ a massive $533,184,219.

Even ‘Hellboy II’ made a decent $75,986,503, as opposed to other nominees ‘Milk‘ - $28,120,218, ‘Frost/Nixon‘ - $17,386,586.

I’m not saying that box-office intake is a measure of a films’ quality by any means or we’d have ‘WALL-E‘ up there for best picture; I just feel that sometimes its kitsch to throw in an Indie film and say ‘ahh yes, we’re this cultured‘. I also think they pay too much attention to movies released in the last month of the year, which are obviously done so to be Oscar contenders.  It makes Oscar night feel more like a promotion for these movies than a celebration of the movies we all enjoyed over the last year.

Anyway, back to legitimate TV and the British franchise of ‘Law and Order‘ made its debut in the UK this week, and raked in a decent 6.4 million viewers on the 9pm Monday night slot on ITV.

With the traffic nearly always being the other way across the Atlantic with US TV customizing Brit hits like ‘The Office‘ and ‘Life on Mars‘, ‘Law & Order: UK‘ bucks an historic trend.

Written by Chris Chibnall who has ‘Life on Mars‘, and ‘Torchwood‘ credits on his resume, it seems encouraging.  They also have a decent cast with Feema Ageyman of ‘Doctor Who‘ fam,e and Jamie Bamber of ‘Battlestar Galactica‘ – if you ignore the casting of Bradley Walsh in a co-lead role (actually he wasn’t as bad as I’d thought he’d be).

Set against the backdrop of London’s King’s Cross area, the U.K. version uses scripts from the U.S. that have been adapted for the British legal and investigative systems.

They’ve imported all the trademarks of the 19-year-old US series – the opening ‘these are their stories‘ voiceover, the same music at scene changeovers, the fast paced story lines – but they’ve done the Britishisms well also. I was kinda worried they’d do a stereotypical Guy Ritchie style ‘you slaaaaag‘ style crossover, but they’ve actually stayed pretty close to the show character-wise as well, which will be refreshing for those who are already fans of the show.

Chibnall himself stated that he watched 150 episodes of the show before starting on the UK version, and he’s obviously taken a lot on board.  In fact, show creator Dick Wolf has stated the London version was strong enough to be used by NBC in America on Saturday nights.

ITV1′s Law & Order: UK started Monday 23 February and runs for a 13-part series

In other news, a forthcoming episode of The Simpsons will be broadcast in the UK and Ireland before it is transmitted in the US.  The move is unprecedented in the 20-year history of Fox.

The new episode titled ‘In The Name Of the Grandfather’, will see Homer try to honor Grampa Simpson’s dream of a final beer in a pub in the village of Dunkilderry.  The pair eventually end up buying the pub off Tom O’Flanagan, whose voice has been provided by Irish actor Colm Meaney. The special episode will be screened on St Patrick’s Day on Sky1.  However, expect the ratings to be pretty low in Ireland for the occasion as most of the population will be face down in a gutter by midday on St Patrick’s Day, either through consuming drink or from staring at someone’s drink.

In other Simpson’s news, creator Matt Groening has revealed that Fox put an end to the on-screen sparring between his show and Family Guy.  Groening told the New York Post that there was a rivalry between The Simpsons and its animated cohorts, saying that “There’s some gentle spoofing of each other, although Fox has told both The Simpsons and Family Guy to knock it off.  You didn’t have Bonanza making Gunsmoke jokes“.

Now all we need is for Fox to get hold of Microsoft and Apple and bang their heads together.

On that note I’d like to apologize to a friend of mine I had arrested on suspicion of downloading inappropriate material recently.

I now realize what a PDF File is…

Finally, we go from the glitz and glamour of the Oscar red carpet to ‘Doctor Who‘ where filming on the upcoming specials continued this week - in a quarry.  After a week in the unusual surroundings of Dubai, the producers returned to Wales using a quarry in Taffs Well, just north of the capital, Cardiff.  Spotted on set was the TARDIS and a multi-terrain loader engulfed by flames.  How anyone realized they were filming ‘Doctor Who‘ as opposed to any normal night in South Wales where a vehicle is usually in flames in a quarry, I’ve yet to find out.

Sayonara Punks

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