www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrDxe9gK8Gk

photo credit: Scott M

“I asked myself if I was normal or an idiot. I would try to concentrate but I felt anxiety, frustration, boredom. When I graduated from high school in 1980 I was functionally illiterate,” he said.

via Scientology fixed my dyslexia, says Tom Cruise | Movies | News.com.au.

Found this gem on the news site. Cruise claims that Scientology cured his dyslexia. That may well be the case but there are plenty of other non-Scientology methods for treating dyslexia and WEE suspect Ron L Hubbard may have relied on these.

WEE were more drawn to the opening sentence of the quotation. Perhaps Tom Cruise should be asking himself this question still. His continued and scarily enthusiastic support for the bizarre Scientology cult would place him firmly in the latter grouping.

Cor blimey. Did anyone get a load of 4 Ingredients on the Lifestyle Channel, which premiered on 11 September 2008. What a stinker!

Everything about this program was awful. From the sub-amateur production values to some of the most appalling food offered up as dinner party fare that WEE have ever seen. My god! It was simply and utterly dreadful. WEE were left quite speechless.

The program is based on the number 4 – if you hadn’t worked that out. And it is as though the producers have gone out of their way to make the program as tacky as possible.

From the cheesy, ugly tips on table decoration or dinner party organisation to the literally cheesy recipes, this program sets a new low in lifestyle programming.

Put simply, the ‘cooks’ on this program prove that you simply cannot make a decent dish out of 4 ingredients. Not unless you are interested in the worst of processed food and what must be an astronomically high salt and fat content.

WEE hope to god that we are never invited to a dinner party based on the 4 ingredients philosophy, let alone with the dull, drab and lifeless personalities that make up the presenters and their guests. It’s all so ordinary and aspires to nothing – perhaps only an early grave?

We were treated to tips on how to present stuffed mushrooms (with cheese), some puff pastry things (with cheese), some perfectly dreadful lamb cutlets with pesto (and cheese) all topped off with one of the most disgusting caramel tarts ever offered as dinner party cuisine. Yuk!  I suspect the dinner guests at that party probably had to spend some serious time in the gym after eating that rubbish (if they weren’t hospitalised).

Words can’t really describe how truly appalling this production is. WEE don’t know what is happening at the Lifestyle channel but somehow, somewhere along the line, someone lost some quality control. 4 Ingredients is WEE suspect, the outcome of some poor marketing decision to try and leverage an audience for the cookbook published with the same name, which, bafflingly is Australia’s number one selling cookbook!

We can only hope that all those Australians cooking this rubbish will die early deaths from clogged arteries or obesity and this sorry episode in national cuisine will be forgotten forever! The hosts of this program should certainly not be allowed anywhere near a kitchen – they have turned the kitchen into a weapon of mass destruction.

Shame on Lifestyle Channel for letting such rubbish get through their production department.

Andrew O’Keefe of Weekend Sunrise must surely be one of the worst presenters on television. WEE had the unfortunate experience of listening to him blather on this morning during a live telecast of the pope being flown around over Sydney in a Helicopter.

A more banal commentary you could not have found.

This man, and the giggling female presenters that surround him are a disgrace. Now, don’t take this in the wrong way, WEE is no fan of the pope or the catholic religion, but WEE do believe television presenters covering such things should at least conduct themselves with some dignity, and with some sensitivity to people among their viewers that may be of the catholic faith.

The effort of O’Keefe and his band of moronic air heads this morning was a sad reflection on the state of television in this country. The visit of the pope is a reasonably interesting and newsworthy event – but were WEE offered any real information about his visit or the ceremony? No, just banalities and commentary that revealed the ignorance and indifference of the hosts to the visit. Maybe they don’t like the pope. Maybe they were pissed that they were having to present his visit. Who knows? But there was no reason to inflict us with their boredom.

The executives at Seven should take note of the talentless presenters they have on the weekend version of this mundane program – although WEE suspect they probably don’t tune in themselves and probably wouldn’t have a clue what goes on!

WEE have very much been enjoying the election episodes of the West Wing over the last few weeks. WEE have to admit that after the beginning of the second season WEE lost a little bit of interest in the West Wing.

Part of it was to do with the plot and part of it was to do with the fact that the Nine Network kept you up to almost midnight to get a fix of West Wing. WEE are pleased that the series has moved across to the ABC and that you can watch the series ad free and over two episodes per evening. That is all very civilised.

Even better, WEE are finding the episodes surrounding the presidential election most interesting and compelling. The series really does feel back to form and next week’s bombshell of Leo dying should be one not to miss. [more]

The cast is performing well, despite the sad loss of John Spencer (Leo McGarry), whose character makes a posthumous exit (WEE think) next week.

WEE wait in anticipation of the outcome of the ‘presidential election’ and suspect that Santo will win, although perhaps the writers would enjoy the challenge of writing a republican white house? Although we suspect they wouldn’t be able to top the antics of the actual current incumbent!

Yes, WEE know we could get on the web and find out what happens but WEE like suspense, so no comments on the outcome of the election please!

So, if you haven’t had a look at the West Wing for a while, have a look again next week.

Well the story of the building of the longest water pipeline in the world was thankfully Gerard Henderson free this week. In fact there were no obvious blunders on the ‘balance’ front. This only makes last week episode even worse, because it is really obvious why Henderson was there. Because the story involved a Labor Premier.

The state of executives at the ABC is to be condemned, as they are clearly afraid of criticism from Howard and his ilk that they have compromised editorial independence and so now ruin programs with this inane solution to ‘balance’ to protect them from the next barrage of Coalition criticism.

WEE stand by our view that it really is a sad state of affairs and reflects poorly on the ABC and their Australian documentary programming. Perhaps the first episode is better described as “deconstructing Australia”… or at the very least, “deconstructing the ABC”.

While we share it with some rather bizarre other WEEs at least you can look us up in an on-line dictionary.

Worst Episode Ever (television series) – What does WEE stand for? Acronyms and abbreviations by the Free Online Dictionary

WEE Definition:
WEE Western Equine Encephalitis
WEE Woody’s EMAIL Essentials (email list)
WEE Worst Episode Ever (television series)

Anyone watching the ABC’s homage to the Sydney Harbour Bridge last Sunday night would have been amazed at two moments of the program. Two moments that absolutely ruined the narrative and drive of the documentary. And it was clearly obvious that both of these moments had to do with Mark Scott’s ridiculous editorial policy about ‘balance’ or whatever right-wing commentators are calling it these days.

All of a sudden, directly after a comment by PJ Keating on Jack Lang, the NSW Premier at the time of the Bridge’s construction, there was Gerard Henderson of the Sydney Institute reminding us that some people didn’t like Jack Lang. What the hell was he doing on our screens? What the hell did he contribute to the story? It was pretty clear from many of the other historical clips and interviews that Jack Lang wasn’t universally loved.

WEE’ll tell you what he was doing there.

It’s this crap they call ‘editorial balance’. So kowtowed and scared is the ABC of the Coalition at the moment, they have to have a token ‘right-wing’ face in a documentary to demonstrate ‘balance’.

What a crock, and what a distasteful insert into an otherwise admirable documentary. “Oh no”, thought the gutless executives at the ABC, “they want to interview PJ Keating for the Harbour Bridge documentary. Shit, we better ask them to interview Henderson… for balance.”

That’s it. That’s the level of sophistication and independence that the ABC has after 10 years of being brow beaten by the paranoid army of Coalition foot soldiers (the former Senator Santo Santoro being among those who have led the charge – never had any trouble remembering the detail of ABC bias, by the way).

It’s a ridiculous look and will taint ABC documentaries if it continues. It was so obvious and blatant and sadly, is in the film forever. If this is what is has come to then they ABC can just forget making documentaries altogether. They will not be useful as interesting films, just reminders of the propaganda of the government of the day.

Let’s hope that we see the back of the Coalition at the next election and that a new government tries at least to restore some independence, good taste and common sense to the executives at the ABC. Oh, and a bit of funding wouldn’t hurt too.

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Not bad at all…

US producer Ben Silverman, who adapted The Office into an American sitcom, has his sights set on Fountain Lakes’ foxy ladies, Kath and Kim. Kath and Kim’s executive producer, Rick McKenna, says he has been in discussion with Silverman since March last year. In a feature in The New York Times, Silverman has described Kath and Kim as “Roseanne meets Ab Fab”.

Yeah, that’ll work…

Not.

But WEE hope the girls make a motza out of it.