Since the end of a five series love-affair with Golden Globe winning Alias I was left feeling empty and hankering for some high-octane drama action. When along crept David S. Goyer’s Flash Forward. I’m not saying it’s anywhere near as well-crafted, thrilling or tension-inducing as Alias, but it’s filling a convenient hour-long, jasmine tea fuelled Monday evening.

Only three episodes in and I’m hooked, albeit reluctantly. I can’t quite get my head around the ease with which the characters have accepted the dramatic turn of events which shapes the series; this makes it difficult to feel any connection with the characters as the whole situation appears contrived and poorly acted. So long as you can suspend your disbelief for an entire hour [and perhaps 10 minutes after] you should get on fine.

One t.v. series convention which I am fond of is the question-asking and cliff-hanger ending. Flash Forward does a good job of hooking the audience using this mechanic and instills quite pertinent plot questions in the viewer right at the very end of each episode. My inquisitive nature can’t help but feel drawn to the next episode.

A part of me hates myself for liking this series for all its glaringly obvious flaws—not to mention the absurd international crow statistics database which was used last week to track exactly how many crows die at any given time in the year. I guess that’s a new career right there for computer scientist bird enthusiasts!

Based on all of the characters’ pretty dismal glance into their futures, I know the series is likely to climax in misery and disaster. But it’s like watching a fat person run across the road whilst a juggernaut is turning into that road, knowing there will be an untimely end of bloody chunks; mesmerizing nonetheless.

So aside from the ‘C’ class acting, slow moving plot, contrived databases used for dramatic licence, and a generally poorly contructed script—it is quite visually pleasing, the colours and the lighting are good.

There, I thought I’d try and end on a bit of a positive comment! Through all the faults and criticisms I will continue to watch, as, let’s face it I’ve got nothing better to do on a Monday evening.

This happens every year.  1 January comes around and I am supposed to set goals, feel empowered and cathartic that yet another successful and prosperous year has passed.

Rien. Nada. Niente. Nichts.

I must point out that I am the only person who has placed these expectations upon myself, through what I can only partly blame on perceived peer-pressure but mostly on achieving a sense of ‘being’ and ‘self-worth’.

I think the key to success this year is pacing myself.  I rush about trying to fit everything in and dreaming up plans as if it’s my last week on earth and I never get a chance to savour things and make the most of moments and more importantly—people.  I know this is opposing the pop philosophy, live each day as if it is your last, but for me that is too overwhelming and can surely lead to disappointment.

I also might try that ‘helping out others’ thing.  Apparently it makes you feel good and you get plenty of kudos from that God fellow.  I wonder if helping out others has to be a positive act or whether it can be by omission.  I could just stop tripping up children in the street and cease filling bicycle baskets with silly string.

I’m not entirely certain why the marketing behind Mr. Muscle felt that such a revolution was called for.  Are people who didn’t already purchase this cleaning brand suddenly going to go out and buy it just because Mr. Muscle is wearing a hot rippling body suit? Perhaps.  What’s next, toilet roll with wild coyotes on instead of adorable puppies?

I think I’ll just stick to the supermarket own brand thanks.

The result of my first google search for ‘Oxford drama group’ resulted in my almost getting involved in a septuagenarian sanctimonious preacher group.  Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but almost true in that they performed short sketches for church services and produced other dramatic pieces which included a subtle Christian message.  I did for a brief moment, encounter a series of fleeting thoughts which involved a number of cruel and devious ways I could fuck with them by posing as a devout Christian.  I’m not sure if it was my morality or my timidity which halted such bold actions.  I like to think it was neither and that God infiltrated my mind for that split second.

Anyway, I have since become a ‘member’ of Oxford University Dramatic Society.  I always think to myself that to become a ‘member’ of a group or society, you should have to undergo some arduous and complex process which involved cracking a code or perhaps embarassing yourself along the way.  But no, to become a member of OUDS, all I had to do was e-mail someone with good enough reasons why I wanted to become a member.  I later received an e-mail to inform me that my membership request had been ‘accepted’.  In retrospect I think my pledge for membership was a little too tame and being a dramatic society and all, I think I could have afforded to be more imaginative and flamboyant with my reasons for joining.  Perhaps I will apply under a new guise just for fun, just to see what I could get away with.  Any interesting suggestions would be greatly received.

So my first endeavour as an OUDS member is to audition for a part in Dracula next Friday.  I’m not really nervous just yet, I think it will be a breeze, but I expect I will be bricking it on the day.  I don’t have to prepare anything for the audition, I just get given a piece to do there and then.  I’m not sure I feel so good about just performing off the cuff like that, my acting skilz are pretty rusty.  But I guess everyone will be in the same proverbial boat.

I might have to re-read/watch Dracula in the meantime to get a feel for some of the characters and their traits.

I was toying with the idea of designing my own page through WordPress, but the buggers charge you to use your own CSS, so I figured I may as well just go all out and pay for my own site.

So for the moment, I’m just using this to get rid of a backlog of things I wanted to talk about until I get organised enough to publish visceralpanda.co.uk

I think that’s enough of my obligatory welcome note.  I will be sure to post later (don’t hold me to that, I’m obscenely lazy at best) on some mundane topic which particularly interests me.