Cult TV Blog

Next for Loch Ness (Monster) week comes this episode of Leap in the Dark about strange phenomena in an old lodge on the banks of Loch Ness. This is the show responsible for the brackets around the word 'monster' because the titular monster doesn't feature in it although you could say that other sorts of monsters do! I wrote an introduction to this series when I was going through orphaned shows (which you can find here ) so without further ado can go straight into the episode, which has rather been biting at me to do here. It's about a couple who take up pig farming in an old lodge at Fort Augustus near Loch Ness. They hire help and soon after their arrival strange things start happening. This episode is introduced by no less than the great Colin Wilson, doyen of all sorts of weird stuff at the time. He was something of a polymath and may be best known for his role in the angry young men school of literature, with his work The Outsider. He wrote extensively on occult and...

Next on Loch Ness (Monster) Week we have this Simpsons show. I think it would be true to say that the reviews are mixed and as far as I can see the consensus is that where it's good it's really good but it is only good in parts and the other bits are problematic. I have read that this was inspired by the Simpsons writing team who wanted a whole episode about Mr Burns. The problem immediately arises that a fairly peripheral character has been moved to a position of importance which screws up the whole internal consistency of the show. It also screws up the character of Monty Burns, although I'm a bit ambivalent about that. The whole point of Mr Burns is that he isn't popular, doesn't want to be popular, is a monster, and is a representation of Corporate America. I suppose it is true that when current billionaires aren't flying to space, not buying Twitter and not riding fairground rides on their own, they may have the insight to reflect on where their wealth has ...

It's Loch Ness (Monster) Week! The monster is in brackets because I have a show in mind which doesn't mention the monster but is just set near the loch. Look, I don't make the rules. Alright, perhaps I do. I have been watching The Goodies quite a lot but not blogging about it. I think it is one of those shows which are difficult to write about, and certainly I think this is reflected in what the internet has to say about this show. Most of the reviews tend to gravitate very quickly to describing the show, and as you know that's not really what I'm aiming for here. The other thing the internet tends to focus on with The Goodies is the way much of the humour hasn't aged very well, and there's a limit to how often you can say that a show wouldn't be made today, without beginning to wonder why you're writing about, or even watching, it. It's really difficult to write a blog post about a show which stands on its own, doesn't really have too much o...