Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Watch this Show - Newstopia

Newstopia
SBS
10pm Wednesday

I've always liked Shaun Micallef but have only just managed to check out his current show Newstopia, blame my tardiness on the programming glut that is Wednesdays - if this were on a Thursday-Saturday on any channel I would've seen it already.

In fact the late night Saturday rerun (at like 1am or something) was when I first watched a whole episode (2 weeks ago) I watched again tonight and I can tell you it's hilarious.

The show is basically a News bulletin on acid, Micallef is the host, there are special reports, live crosses and talking heads through out (they even have a cross to the ubiquitous Commsec for finance news) and at every point the show riffs on the many bizarre cliche's of television newscasting.

Tonight's episode, which you can catch on Saturday night on SBS (UHF 28, Digital 3, Foxtel 104) or watch for free right here http://programs.sbs.com.au/newstopia/ had three, no make that four good things going for it.

Firstly the complete non sequiter of a woman with a beard and a tree branch stuck to her nose, secondly an interview with a Washington Correspondent where Micallef spent the whole length trying to pry from him Barack Obama's opinion of Australia (a common theme in American-Australian relations).

Thirdly a three way interview with both the 1968 Captain Kirk and his 1994 'Generations' version over George Takei's marraige effectively being ruled illegal by Proposition 8 and a laugh out loud interview with a stereotypical country bloke about the drought - without giving too much away watch it and watch the flies...

So watch this show dammit - I didn't until now and I'm kicking myself for having missed out on some great comedy buried away late at night on our 5th Network.

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