I've got something even better -- it's "Footballers Wive$" on BBC America. Setting the theme of the show, the intro shows a glittering disco ball that turns into a silver stylized soccer ball. It is a great show all about the lives and loves of UK sports stars and their significant others. It is clear that Footballers is more aggressively geared at women, with gorgeous, sensitive and athletic men as the stars and celebrity look-alike women in the leads. It's not just the (male) nudity that distinguishes the show. Mostly backsides, but a recent episode showed quite a bit more of the team's youngest player (17) as he escaped from a poolside tryst with his married teammate's wife. At first I admit I was shocked at the locker room shower scenes. The US is completely puritanical about male nudity. We almost never see it and when seen, it is highly controversial. Not so rare for our friends across the Atlantic, it would seem.
Ever wish you were Posh Spice? (I haven't but, nevertheless here's your chance to fantasize, ladies.)
BTW, there is almost no soccer/football played during the show. Really, you see the characters playing football at the minimum that its audience, which must be mostly female, will tolerate. There are a lot of working class accents (not too thick, thank goodness),fake fingernails and fancy sports cars.
The storylines are so crazy, they are almost believeable. One character Jason had a brief torrid affair with his teammate's (and best friend's) mother. The union produces a little boy, Paddy. The mom gives the child to her son and his Posh Spice wife named Chardonnay to raise as theirs with her as nanny, but has second thoughts. The father, married to an evil, glamourous, bisexual coke addict (read Tanya's "blog" here!), finds out and wants to be involved. But he backs away when he finds out Paddy is an intersex baby whose sex is yet undeterminable!
It is one of the worst/best soap operas I've ever seen. This show must be hugely popular in the UK. (Tara, here's a shoutout -- any info you'd like to share? No spoilers please!) If you're sick of the relentless Desperate Housewives hype stateside, here's an alternative that will shock and amuse you everytime with its creativity, humor, surprising insight into human nature and pointlessness.
Right now, in a dark world, I prefer my television entertainment to be ridiculous, fantastical and over-the-top. Or highly educational. I am getting a lot of good history and science shows from my TiVo setting pulling in anything with the word "ancient" in the title or description...
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