Spoiled for choice this spring

BEING spoiled for choice has its downsides. This week proved that when, for the first time in I’d say years, I struggled to get to watch all the TV I wanted to.

A lot of my time is spent trawling through the channels in the hope of finding something remotely interesting. I do sometimes risk a serious case of repetitive strain injury as I flick through the seemingly endless channels and their variations.
There are new series of some great shows and plenty of new shows to sink my teeth in to and, surprisingly, none of these new additions have pale skinned good-looking types sinking their pearly whites in.
There are of course plenty of good-looking people and while I watched Bedlam on Monday night, Sky Living’s new British drama, I couldn’t help but hum that Marilyn Manson song “You know The Beautiful people…the beautiful people…la la laaaa”. Why you might ask? Well, leaving all the shocks, leaps and jumps this new ghostly affair has to offer aside, the characters are dictionary definitions of beautiful people. However, everyone knows since Drew Barrymore got the chop in the opening sequence of Scream all those years ago that no beautiful person is really safe in horror films and the more beautiful they are, the more likely it is they have some dark secret. This maybe only a hypothesis but it has rung true many times before. Hence the menacing tones of Marilyn ringing in my ears.
Getting back to the beautiful people on our screens, let’s just say that for most of the first episode, the delectable Theo James did not seem to have need of a shirt and the equally delicious Charlotte Salt strutted, flicked and pouted her way across the screen. Don’t get me wrong, this was not a bad thing nor did it detract from the drama in anyway. In fact, the only truly worrying thing was that two characters took full baths in one day during the show. Haven’t they heard that water conservation is the done thing these days? There are other more environmentally friendly ways of relaxing and as it proved for one character, safer ways it would seem when there is a ghost on the loose.
As Sky Living’s first foray into original UK drama, Bedlam is a bold move for a channel more intent on appealing to young women with its line-up including the likes of Cougar Town, Grey’s Anatomy and America’s Next Top Model.
Bedlam is not exactly a million miles away from these shows; the ghostly figures do share more in common with the waif-like figures on America’s Next Top Model than they do Grey’s Anatomy but the wails and moans of Meredith Grey turn the stomach just as much.
The drama centres around an old mental asylum that was closed because the director of the asylum was found to be abusing patients. The son of the doctor responslible has converted the flats and installed his daughter and some of her friends in the high-end loft apartments. Mol is recently returned from travelling and Brian, a computer geek, complete with black-rimmed glasses played by Will Young make up her flat mates. Kate is struggling to sell the apartments and on her birthday, her father gives her a ring that the builders found in the walls during the restoration process. The gift sparks a number of spooky events that culminate in the near-drowning of Kate by one of the ghostly former inmates.
Of course Kate’s misfit cousin Jed is on hand to save the day, freshly discharged from a mental institution with a gift for seeing ghosts and calming voice to set them free. As events unfold, it’s clear he will have his hands full at Bedlam luxury flats.
The show is slick, sexy and in parts, quite scary. It reels the viewer in slowly and allows the secrets of the building to be unlocked. It is thoroughly enjoyable, witty and jumpy. The apartments are beautiful and despite some funny aspects like the fact the crazy cousin seems to be getting text messages from the great beyond warning him to save Kate, it all comes together quite nicely. Definitely worth a look but perhaps have a pillow close at hand if suddendly appearing ghosts are not your thing. Check it out Monday nights on Living at 10pm.
The BBC took a giant leap into the science fiction world on Monday night with Outcasts, which is written by the same man who gave us Spooks. Set in the year 2040, a group of pioneering humans have been living on a distant planet for the past 10 years, following some as yet unknown trouble back home. There is no reluctance to shoot first ask questions later nor is there any dumbing down of the fast-paced lingo. Gritty and entertaining, it is not quite a competitor in the global space science fiction category. Stargate or Battlestar Gallactica it most definitely is not, although Jamie Bamber of the latter fame does make an appearance in the pilot, only to meet a sticky end.
The cast are good with a host of reliable and familiar faces on show. Our own Liam Cunningham is among them and while it is nice to see the clever use of talent by Kudos, the production company, it is clear the budget is far smaller and we may well see some of these fine actors jerking, rocking and jolting across the screen aka Star Trek The Next Generation because of the tight purse strings. I am not giving up on it though and if the BBC can do it, what’s stopping Ireland. Maybe it’s time we too joined the Space Race.
Tune in Monday nights at 9pm on BBC One.