But lest you think that Tallafornia is the absolute worst thing
that could possibly happen to Irish television; your horror might be tempered
by the fact that if you flick on to TV3 a few minutes early, like I did in my
absolute haste to ensure I didn’t miss a single minute, you’ll end up catching the
end of Take Me Out, which makes T’fornia seems at least 5% less horrendous than
it actually is.
Awfulness of the opening credits as measured on the Voice of Ireland Theme Song Scale: 4.5/5. Lots of pastel colours float around as the names of the assorted meatheads and fanny pads living together for our viewing pleasure float on-screen. Clearly a member of the production crew remembered the concept of in medias res from his media course at UCD, as we join the Gonnorrheans while they get suited and booted for a night out at Ireland’s premier hotspot for research into the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, Tamango’s. Kelly (one of the dark-haired girls... and no, I can’t tell them apart) explains that her initial impression of David (described on the TV3 website as, and I paste directly, “the life and sole of the party".... clearly you didn’t get very far in that media course, did you) is that he was a D4 rugby meathead, but she was pleased to discover he wasn’t. The other Gonorrheans speculate as to whether or not Kelly will be able to restrain herself around David’s massive man muscles, or will she give in to the smell of raw testosterone and stale boxer shorts and cheat on her boyfriend?
Once they've finished setting up that storyline (hint: she totally will cheat) Nikita puts on a pair of knacker-tights while the rest of the shitheads gather around the cooker, seemingly amazed by the fact that you can put food into a large white appliance and then eat it.
Future murderer Cormac arrives with some “tunage”. “Shake
your hips like a bag of chips” remarks Natalie (it’s pronounced Nah-ah-lee) in
what is just the first of many, many asides from her in relation to the topic of
food and the eating of food. Also, what the fuck does shake your hips like a
bag of chips actually mean? It fails as a visual metaphor because quite simply,
a human body in music-fuelled locomotion does not resemble a bag of chips as
she suggests. And wouldn’t a bag that vibrates madly utterly fail as a viable
means of containing the deliciousness of the chips? Is Natalie one of those
people who thinks that rhyming something automatically makes it funny? Or is she
some sort of subversive literary genius, lampooning the general public’s
inability to appreciate any form of poetic expression that doesn’t involve a
rhyming scheme? We’ll never know, because just as Natalie is about to share her
thoughts on the future of prose in the era of the Kindle and e-publishing, Moves
Like Jagger comes on and the arse-slapping begins. Prematurely balding Jay the stripper informs us that he has never stripped at
Tamango’s. Is Jay an actual stripper in that people pay him to remove his
clothes? Or is he a stripper in that he gets drunk, takes his clothes off and
rages around the dancefloor hoping that his abs will distract from his thinning
hairline?
Oh sweet Jesus. Natalie and Nikita decide to bust some moves
in the cage. “People were throwing money down our thongs!” Natalie beams as my eyeballs vomit blood. At
this point I’d like to remind anyone reading this that in the first episode,
Natalie informed us that she wants to be a teacher. Yes, a teacher. I think I was on to
something when I speculated that she’s some sort of subversive genius. This
entire show is just one big exercise in ironic post-participation as far as she’s
concerned. Natalie and Nikita declare the cage their new local, as we endure
further footage of them gyrating about with flakes of disease falling out of
their thongs.
Kelly informs us that the big drama is going to be the “love
triangle” between Cormac, Phil and Nikita, because the producers told her to say that. Well, it’s really more of a love hexagon
between Cormac, Phil, Nikita and their respective reflections. And when we say
love we mean random-drunken-shifting. Like the kind that’s going on between
Nikita and Phil on-screen. Cormac informs us that “I’m a red-blooded testosterone
fuelled male. I saw red” before judging Phil to be “a fucking shit-stirrer. He
stirs shit!” Cormac has a wide and varied vocabulary, and loves the Sunday
Times crossword. I am greatly amused by the fact that Cormac the Beefmonkey
blasts Phil as a shit-stirrer two minutes after David gleefully skipped over to
him, malice in his eyes, and said “OH EM GEE, NIKITA IS SHIFTING PHIL!” and then showed him several
photographs of the incident, some recorded footage, before telling him that Phil said
his Ma had a cock. THE REAL SHIT STIRRER IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK,
STEROIDMONKEY! “He’s Got To Accept The Consequences“ bellows Steroidmonkey, as
he confirms that he could “mooch twenty birds” if he chose to do so. Um. Okay?
It’s the morning after the night before, and after
disinfecting their genitals, the Tallafornians are off to Prematurely Balding
Jay’s Mammy’s house for a fry-up. Natalie informs us that she’s mad for the
sausage. I never would’ve guessed. The girls ask Mammy Jay how she feels about
him being a stripper. Mammy Jay says she loves watching him bounce around on-stage
with his meat and two-veg barely constrained by a tight sparkling red G-String
as he rubs olive oil into his nipples. The meatheads are impressed that Jay
gets on with his family, probably because the rest of them have all been
disowned for being such massive fucking disgraces.
And then they’re off to go abseiling and rock-climbing,
except in the Health & Safety obsessed climate of modern Ireland, this
involves putting each of them in a harness and watching as they clamber down a
small boulder that’s about 10 feet high. It’s as riveting as it sounds.
The boys decide to have a quiet night in with the Wii while
the girls head out to bond at “The Playhouse”. Nikita says she’s looking
forward to getting to know the girls better as she feels like their mammy but
hasn’t really bonded with them. So like a mammy with post-natal depression,
then? The boys bellow testosterone-fuelled warcries at one another as they play
about on the Wii. That’s the Wii, the
cute little white rectangle regularly advertised by the likes of Julie Walters
and Carol Vorderman that’s the videogame equivalent of a nice cup of tea and a
sit-down. Hardcore, boys.
Cormac isn’t joining in though. He actually has a job. He’s
a taxi-driver, so he’s off to scour the roads of County Dublin for a victim to
take his ‘roid rage out on.
Over to The Playhouse where the girls have decided to show
what independent women they are by spending all night talking about the boys
before going out to find some additional inebriated members of the fairer sex
to sacrifice to the meatheads. Way to represent, gals. Fortunately, because you wouldn’t go near these three women with a remote-controlled barge pole from the safety of a sterile environment, the only people
they find to bring home with them are Natalie’s cousin, Natalie's best mate and her other
best mate WHO IS A GAY. Thanks for telling us, Natalie. We never would have
guessed.
The next excruciating ten minutes of this horrible show
involve a horrendous gay playing up to every gay stereotype imaginable (No
beers for queers? Check. Jokes about lube? Check. Jokes about hands where
everyone can see them? Check.) getting completely bladdered and generally being
a total mess. There are lots of mentions of Brian Dowling, because Brian
Dowling is the only frame of reference the boys have for a gay man, and this
gobshite is so taken by the idea that he’s going to be on television that he
just completely plays up to the role of caustic, vulgar, mincing, predatory
homosexual. In short: take the queen out back and shoot it before our peers
decide to rescind the Civil Partnership Act based entirely on this creature’s
behaviour. By the end of it all, the Tallafornians themselves actually seem
like models of quiet decorum in comparison.
Next week! The girls get vajazzled! I presume it’s a one
hour special as a result. Also: I try to learn how to tell Nikita and Kelly apart.
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