The most amazing thing about the world cup is that it somehow manages to make advertising even worse than normal. There seem to be 2 types of adverts at the moment.
The first are the ones that have tried hard(although you probably wouldn’t notice the effort from the product) to make what they are selling seem relevent to the football. The rest can’t be bothered to think too hard about it and just go ahead and stick a football in at some point, e.g. the British Gas advert.
The logic of it all doesn’t make sense to me. Anyone who is going to be drawn to an advert just because they’ve included an object which will no doubt be a main feature of every broadcast for the world cup period, will probably not be able to find their way out of the house in order to make the purchase.

"ermmmmmm, nice pass"

The adverts are over …the program starts and I’m hit with the most irritating sound ever, football commentary.
Footballers have very little to offer the world, and most of that “little” is taken up with playing football, so why anyone thought it was a good idea to give retired footballers a job trying to entertain people for an hour and a half just by speaking is beyond me. But atleast they do their research, otherwise there would be no ridiculous facts, like “This is the first time someone from England has scored in the first 18 minutes of a match whilst shooting East, in an evening game, for 20 years!”, The teams they refer to will have changed constantly within the timeframes and so the facts are irrelevant.
I think they should start giving out more interesting facts, like how many pencils they can fit in Guy Mowbry’s mouth before he stops talking rubbish.
It makes me miss the ridiculously bad commentary from football computer games.

If the commentary is a gripe then the editing is a full blown emergency. The editor seems to confuse his job to show the viewer what is happening on the field, with showing a close up of everybody in the stadium. Sometimes it’s a random person, but on occasion it will be a person of “interest”, this means the commentators are then obliged to say something about this person, and as I may have pointed out, they barely master the skill of talking, improvising is slightly out of their league. Plus, if the football is not interesting enough to show at that point, the person in the shot is usually bored too, so we end up with a close up of someone with a bored expression on their face, now THAT’s entertainment.

"Oh wow! did you see that? No you didn't cos you're looking at our dumb arses"

My biggest frustration is that I just want to see what’s happening in the game, that is the drama I tuned into see. I can put up with the cut-aways when the ball has just gone out of play, but cutting back to football that has already restarted, really bugs me. The same with the angles from the side line while the ball is in play, it obstructs the view of the game, just save it for the replays wont you?
The final moan is the new Super Duper Slow Motion shots, again, brilliant for replays, but I can’t help but feel sorry for the players as I’m sure they didn’t sign any releases that allows the broadcasters to show them in such ridiculous convulsions.

The benefits of the TV production of football now is that it shows how quickly the decisions of offside, ball over goal line, and probably even some fouls can be reviewed. This should help bring football and FIFA into the 21st century, I mean even cricket has techno-help with its decisions and they are so old and traditional they still break for tea.

Okay so considering this is normally a TV Drama blog, lets review the drama of the world cup:
So it started off well, the plot lines were easy to decipher and the goal for the characters was clear and so it was easy to get into. The action of the first few episodes was reasonably withdrawn, with quite low scoring matches, but the drama was rife with plenty of twists (such as Switzerland taking down the soon-to-be victors Spain) which made it interesting. I was dissapointed that the character that I liked initially (England) turned out to be not quite as good as I thought, and turned into a bit of a self-obsessed loseWeight Exerciser.
The action picked up later into the first round, with some brilliant goals, but there was really too many plot lines going on that it was hard to stay fully interested. The series was plagued from terrible over-acting from start to finish, and although critics regularly brought up this point the producers seemed to take no action.
The series did not over-excite, not because of the lack of good characters, Ghana were fan-magnets and almost survived the full series, but it was simply not exceptional, its something we’ve all seen before. However, the ending was not predictable and kept people guessing up until the close of the show, and although the finale failed to produce the exciting final farewell the series was looking for the outcome was reasonable, and would not make fans unhappy.
I would have to say the star of the show, which will be remembered by all who watched was the Vuvuzela, it was the only real thing through out the world cup which really blew me away…

The list includes some that are bit part people that may only be on screen a few times each episode, or seconds a season as my number 1 and 9, but they make an impression. Most are not the main charecters in the shows they appear in, with Jimmy Mcnulty being the only one you could argue was the star of the show.

Showing the types of show I like most are from comedy shows, with 2 outsiders from The Wire on the list because in any list about TV shows you need to include the best show that has ever been on TV.

Most people will not understand the number 1 but I do not care, to me he is the best thing on TV and he should have been given the spin-off.

So again down to the list

1 Ollie Williams – Family Guy

2 Barney Stinson – How I Met Your Mother

3 George Costanza – Seinfeld

4 Omar Little – The Wire

5 Kramer – Seinfeld

6 Stewie Griffen – Family Guy

7 Jimmy McNulty – The Wire

8 Jeff Murdoch – Coupling

9 Dr Nick Riviera – The Simpsons

10 Niles Crane – Frasier

But fear not TV Flux readers because the ultimate list is now here. The one you have all been waiting for, well at least Steve and Nic.
As all good lists should have there were a set of rules written up by the list authorisation group, basically the people in the office. The rules were simple – No one that was in either previous list and they must have been on an American TV show.

So down to the list, as if anyone is actually reading this stuff and has not automatically scrolled down to the pictures.

1. Christina Hendricks – Joan – Mad Men

2. Mila Kunis – Jackie – That 70′s Show

3. Leighton Meester – Blair – Gossip Girl

4. Elisha Cuthbert – Kim – 24

5. Michelle Trachtenberg – Dawn – Buffy

6. Hayden Panettiere – Claire – Heroes

7. Katherine Heigl – Izzie – Grey’s Anatomy

8. Nina Dobrev – Elena – The Vampire Diaries

9.Rachel Bilson – Summer – The O.C.

10. Minka Kelly – Lyla – Friday Night Lights

Topics include: Chuck, Lost, 24, Bones, Dexter, Eureka, Starfury T2 Convention, Yvonne Strahovski, Adam Baldwin, Mark Sheppard and more…

Also, screw ups and rock band.

Well what can I say about the finale, it was pretty epic. The best moments, in my opinion, were when Chuck had given up and then Ellie, Awesome and Morgan came to save the day (although I thought it would have been better if they hadn’t used the missile and instead just like rammed the truck, but then again I’m just nitpicking) and the final fight scene between Shaw and Chuck, I thought that was done particularly well. The episode also had some pretty gut wrenching stuff, I was damn shocked by how quickly Chuck’s dad was killed, it sort of came out of the blue. There were, as always, some real powerful emotion generated from the Chuck and Sarah relationship, but I’m glad it took a backseat to the real spy action in the finale.

Gut wrenching stuff.

I think the writers did really well in actually creating an enemy, Shaw, in Chuck who I absolutely despised. Before it has always been an anonymous enemy that was trying to kill Chuck, that while bad, wasn’t exactly pulling on my anger emotions, but with Shaw, he really pushed my buttons. So well played the writers, they must have been laughing during the times when people were pissed off about Shaw and Sarah being together and they were totally right about keeping the faith. Also I think some credit should be given to the actor, in these final episodes he really played it well, during the subtle digs and really clever drawn out plans, he just oozed contempt.

Shaw was right, the fight was incredible.

I loved the ending, but was quite surprised that it wasn’t a huge twist, like at the end of season 2. Instead I think they have set up a really interesting development for the Chuck character and for the show itself. I am slightly disappointed that someone else in Chuck’s life is some sort of spy but I can totally see why they had to do that: to force Chuck back into the spy life. Lets face it the show is pretty cheesy, so they pretty much had to do it, but thats one of the reasons why I love the show.

I can already see the roadmap for season 4 and it contains some really amazing stops along the the way. I think Chuck’s going to carry on his father’s legacy on his own and keep all his rogue spy work a secret from Sarah. We’ll see some separate spy missions for Sarah and Chuck (most likely fighting the same evil organisation), which is a dynamic we really haven’t seen before. This is going to cause some tension in their relationship, which let’s face it is the only way for their relationship to show any sort of progression. About mid-season they are going to unknowingly go on the same mission where there will be a shocking revelation when Chuck tells Sarah all about his secret spying. But they will complete the mission and a whole lot of truth’s are going to have to come out, again contributing to the tension, maybe even a possible break up. I also think there’s a real possibility of Jill coming back and helping Chuck out, after all, both of them are now in it for themselves and are still playing the spy game. I can just imagine Sarah finding this out and it causing mayhem for Chuck’s relationship but then Jill saving her life, now that would some epic irony and an in my opinion an amazing development.

In summary, I can’t freaking wait for Season 4, hmmmm maybe writing this article wasn’t such a good idea, I feel the depression starting to set in.

Am I disappointed we didn’t find out more? Yes. Its hard not to feel a little cheated. There are so many loose ends! I was hoping they would do more flash backs to previous episodes and go some way to explaining them. It looked like they might go that route a few episodes ago when it showed them finding the womans remains and bag with the stones. Anyways…

I guess a mystery is only fun and exciting when it remains a mystery. Right?

It seems to me that title sequences are a little out of vogue at the moment what with shows like Lost, The Mentalist and V going with the minimum they can get away with. However, there are still some great ones to be found. Here are my top picks.

#1 True Blood

One of my favourite shows with a suitably awesome title sequence to match

#2 Dexter

How does a serial killer start his day?

#3 Six Feet Under

Ok, this one’s been off the air for a while now. I still love it though! Second Alan Ball show on this list. Coincidence? I think not.

#4 The IT Crowd

Epicness depicted in 8 bit. Love the error at the end, perfect finish

#5 Doctor Who

Whats not to love?

#6 The Big Bang Theory

Simple, effective, Awesomely catchy tune. I just can’t help but sing along to this one

#7 Fringe

Short but cool. Perfectly compliments the show

Note : List has been updated as Tom had made some editorial changes that I was not happy about, have now made it 100% my list again.

1. Bucky O’Hare

2. Mad Men

3. The Wire

4. Pinky and the Brain

5. Animaniacs

6. Flight Of The Conchords

7. Inspector Gadget

8. True Blood

9. Fresh Prince of Bel Air

10. Eureka

Ok so time for the usual questions: which ones did you like and which ones got on your nerves? Who’s your early favourite to win? Although to be honest whilst watching I was more wondering which ones (if any) were virgins, which ones are most likely to get it on in the house (and whether it would affect their performance) and whether it was ok to think that a couple of the girls were semi-fit, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wondering these things. Some of the girls looked and acted about 20, whereas some of the boys looked like their balls haven’t dropped yet and had voices squeakier than Pikachu.