I LOVE YOU TWO
The subject of ‘Bliss’, a new comedy series starting on June 5, is bigamy.
You can make a comedy series about almost anything if you approach it correctly. Even bigamy. Some cults and certain religions practise polygamy — the marriage of one man (usually) to multiple spouses, and though not always legal in a particular country, it is sanctioned by the particular religious group with the consent of all involved. Bigamy, on the other hand, is the illegal marriage of someone of any sex to a spouse while they have another spouse still living who has not been divorced and, especially, remains ignorant of the new marriage.
TWO WIVES
That little info-segue was to introduce Bliss ,a new show on itv Choice, channel 123, Tuesday June 5 at 20:00. The premise perfectly fits my wee definition above: travel writer Andrew (Stephen Mangan) maintains two separate wives and families.
In one place, he has Kim (Heather Graham) and teenage daughter Christina; and in another town his wife Denise (Jo Hartley) and teenage son Kris.
These two families are completely ignorant of each other and I’m so certain that many of the laughs are going to come from Andrew’s extreme measures to keep his two families from coming into contact that I’d put money on it.
Andrew’s job as a travel writer makes it easier to keep them separate, but a secret that big can’t be kept forever.
So, is Andrew a scumbag? Well, yes he is, but he’s not a suave playboy-type of guy who thinks he’s too slick to get caught — he actually ended up in the situation because of his personal weakness and cowardice, and is so worried about the day his secret will inevitably be revealed that it’s driving him nuts.
This is sounding awfully familiar for some reason. I’m pretty sure I heard about a reallife case like this once.
A simple YouTube or Google search will reveal dozens of cases of bigamists of both sexes being exposed. I don’t know how many of them were for real, but the documentary I was looking for was about a case exactly like the one in the show Bliss, except in that instance the two families found out about each other and laid a trap for the guy.
Who knows, perhaps that will happen in Bliss at some point.
BEEFY AND CRINGEY
Perhaps you’ve noticed that M-Net is currently running an action-focused pop-up channel called Big Bang Heroes (109) until Sunday June 10, featuring some of the beefiest bodybuilders and cringiest karate men in a variety of action classics.
There are some obvious ones, such as the Die Hard pentalogy starting today at 11:50, and Terminator 2 on Saturday June 9 at 20:00 — but I’m going to see if I can find something a bit more niche to recommend for arbitrary reasons.
Let’s see ... Ah, here’s one, Street Fighter, Friday at 18:15. Is this video-game adaptation good? Hell no! At best it’s hilariously bad with Jean-Claude van Damme in the lead role — but it had Raul Julia in one of his last roles as villain M. Bison.
What a way to go out, huh? But, he did provide the booming line “Of course!”, now an internet meme.
ARNIE DELIVERS A LINE
My other eccentric pick is The Running Man, Saturday June 9 at 13:05, a cult classic sci-fi actioner starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a wrongfully accused man sentenced to appear in a bloodthirsty game show where criminals are chased by costumed, armed hunters.
If the criminals survive to the end of the course they win a huge prize and a complete pardon, no matter what crime they’ve committed. The audience bets on which of the hunters will violently kill the runner. It’s complete B-grade bollocks and good fun.
For some reason Arnie uses the line “I’ll be back” and it comes across as so meta it almost breaks the fourth wall — and there’s a scene where an old granny changes her bet to Arnie, citing “that boy’s one mean mother#$&@!*”.