aussie tv heads up

Seems like SBS is pretty consistently playing queer movies after Oz on Monday nights. For instance, last week was an absolutely delightful John Hurt (and a surprisingly entertaining Jason Priestly) in Love and Death on Long Island. Tonight at 11 is Summer Storm, a German coming-of-age film that looks interesting.

Meanwhile, Oz has over the last few months been rushing headlong into what I like to call the crack years. When I first started watching Oz I was so blown away by the subject matter I didn't realise how inherently soap opera it was in structure, but from the third season on it becomes increasingly obvious and bizarre. This is probably soap opera 101, but the way I see it, soap operas begin with characters and a closed or limited location. The fun of the soap is watching the characters interact, and to do that you need plot; perhaps because of the limited location or the sheer number of episodes needed to be put out the plot moves incredibly quickly, and because it movies so quickly, it becomes increasingly outlandish. While a lot of the shows I watch have soapy elements (SV anyone?) Oz is the most overtly soapy one I can stomach, probably because it's so (often unintentionally) hilariously done, and then manages to have moments of actual real, powerful poignancy. And of course there's the perv factor.