ANYONE not wearing two MILLION sunblock is going to have a really FUCKING BAD DAY!!!

I present: T1.

I know Terminator is on TV now. I've watched it and it rubbed my brain up the right way a couple of times, but I just don't have the patience for the non-Cameronesque filming and the Ahnold-less dialogue. Lena Heady does a good job, the cutie chick robot needs more jokes and the thing that made all the Terminators from the movies good was their personalities. Please don't bother hitting the comments page to make ironic little quips about the lack of engaging renaissance-style wit possessed by action heroes in general because it ain't what they say, it's how they say it, when, where and with how many weapons. The Terminators I've seen in the TV show are just big tough guys who got chosen because that's what they looked like. They needed to be chosen for their resemblance to what an artificially intelligent computer defence system has gleaned to be appropriately human-like in both looks and behaviour. See how complicated and dorky TV shows need to be nowadays to actually be worth anything? I'm re-reading Chris Turner's excellent book Planet Simpson (which I have discussed before) and taking note of the interesting things he has to say about the effect that The Simpsons has had on television comedy and comedy in general. He talks about the Freeze Frame Fun gags, wherein the writers would decorate the backgrounds of each scene with hilarious jokes, ads, graffiti and other writings that actually move past too fast for the casual viewer to take in. Due to the (now not) endlessly repeated nature of The Simpsons in syndication, we now all take care to read all the signs in the background of Simpsons shows precisely because they are funny. Family Guy has inherited (stolen) this trait and any other comedy movie or TV show worth watching makes the entire world it depicts funny, not just the dialogue going on between two actors (Naked Gun, The Incredibles, The Iron Giant, 40 Year Old Virgin, Drawn Together). This has resulted in a decline in the effect that previously hilarious shows have upon me, the obsessively observant viewer. Last night I watch Bedazzled, the original 1970s version. It was still funny, but only a bit funny. Something funny would happen and the laughter would stop almost as it began because it was only funny on one level. Pigeon shits on toff's hat. Funny. Dudley Moore fooled into being a nun. Funny. But that was all, because since comedy began to become a real art, the question is no longer 'Why is that funny?', but 'Why else is that funny?'

Sorry to come off all snooty and boring, but recently my church has been dismantled. It is no longer possible to watch The Simpsons on free-to-air television. Every day now at 6pm when I've finish working I ... nothing. I sit forlornly in my bean bag and stare at the wall.

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GTH - Points go to River for her public conversion and to a personal hero of mine, Adam Y, for the best suggestion I've heard in years.