The Doctor Blake Mysteries: A new game!

Don't get me wrong, I love the show. The recreation of 1960. The Ballarat locales. The warm characters. But occasionally my mind wanders and I play the "How many lampshades can I spot?" game. You will score big time in Lucien's lounge. I spotted 5 in one shot last night.

Rules are simple:

• Table lamps, standard lamps, desk lamps are all fair game.
• You can not reuse lamps used in the same camera shot.
• Mirror shots don't count.
• Lamps must be on (which they usually are, even though it's broad daylight outside).

You can see why the art director/set decorator uses so much indirect lighting like lamps and such. They do add to the period ambience. Compare with "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries".  Both great Melbourne-produced shows.

Images Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Oooo, cut it out .....The glut of forensic pathology based TV shows

Channel surf any night of the week.... I'm pretty sure you are going to come up with a corpse on a slab sooner or later. Grand guignol television is tres popular. We obviously can't get enough of scalpels being inserted into dead flesh. From "Hannibal" to "Da Vinci's Demons", from 1880's "Ripper Street" to 1940's "Murder on the Homefront", the gorier the better. Even the Australians have combined historical drama with gore: the excellent "Doctor Blake Mysteries". A particularly nasty crushed body featured in the latest "Whitechapel".
The Brits do graphic, as well as gritty. "Silent Witness" has been laying them in aisles morgue since 1996. That's a lot of autopsies.
As Kenny Everett would lisp, "All in the best possible taste!".