Telecholia

I'm putting in ten-hour days on this novel, so I like nothing more than to go into a mindless coma in front of the tele after dinner (or, even, during dinner.) I'm not sure if digital TV is messing with my brainwaves or not, but ever since I suscribed to it I could swear there's less to watch, rather than more. How could this be? Last night was a case in point - after the mandatory hour and a half of wrist-slashing news (SBS, ABC, The 7:30 Report) and a few little chuckles over Curb Your Enthusiasm (funny enough, but I'm mourning the program it replaced, the divinely whimsical Arrested Development) I spent an hour flipping through channel after channel, passing over movies I'd seen before or never wish to see, repeats, repeats, repeats of comedies I watched as a child and from which I've moved on, Andrea Bocelli, Greta van Susteren, South Park episodes I've already seen twice, The Simpsons, people cooking things, Eastenders, people building things, Coronation Street, excreable promos for unfunny stand-up comedians, people blowing up things, Blow Out, America's Next Top Something... well, fellow Foxtel viewers, you get the picture. As I was flipping through the networks I realised I have never watched Channel Ten in my life. And now I shall never watch Channel Nine again, given what they have done to The Sopranos (midnight on Mondays from now on, I believe, if we're lucky, and my damn video doesn't work.) But tonight! The one little glimmer of genius in this swamp of blah makes its final appearance on the ABC (bless it) at 10:05 pm and even if I have to sit through the plodding Midsomer Murders to see it I will prevail. (Actually, it's so easy to sleep through MM that I shall set the alarm.) Sensitive Skin, starring Joanna Lumley and Denis Lawson as a 60-ish couple who are struggling to hold on to their youth, is positively brilliant, and has invented a new genre all of its own, melanchomedy. The bitterest sweet, it is not uproariously funny but it's wry and charming - and just when you're relaxing, in the ABC way, thinking how pleasant and doesn't Joanna Lumley look great for 61? the odd, devastating Pinteresque moment lobs in. It's the last episode but I guess we'll be able to get it on DVD very soon - which is what I shall be doing with series six of The Sopranos.