TV

FlashForward Trailer
I'd vaguely heard of this before, but didn't realise it was being pitched as such a Big Thing until now. It certainly looks mystery-packed and promising, and one can only hope it lives up to the hype, but the real question is: will the main story be solved in one season a la Heroes, or far too many, a la Lost? Only time (or, y'know, a decent creator interview) will tell.
(Incidentally, it's just been announced that in the UK it will air on Five and its associate channels.)

Mock the Week
7x03 (23/7/09 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Taking the Flak
1x01 Bigfooting
A strong start for this African-set war-based news sitcom, which seems to have been buried in the schedules for no good reason. That said, perhaps trimming this hour-long opener down to the regular length of 30 minutes might've kept the joke-rate higher. Nonetheless, a lot of promise, so fingers crossed it can deliver.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Poem of the Week: A Clubman's Ozymandias

by Kit Wright

Back when Watchmen hit cinemas I posted two vaguelly related poems about Ozymandias, the famous one by Percy Bysshe Shelley and a lesser-known one by his friend Horace Smith.

Well, next Monday sees Watchmen released on DVD and Blu-ray here in the UK (some lucky pre-ordering people will already have their copies), plus it was out earlier this week in the US, so here's an even-more-tenuously linked poem: Kit Wright's take on the Shelley poem.

So this chap tells this other chap
Some damned clap-trap
About how somewhere on the old map
He's seen these de-bagged legs, and to cap
It all, not a scrap
On top of them, bugger all on tap
But the desert sands and similar pap --
Just a bloody great gap --

This was first published in 1989 in Wright's collection Short Afternoons. It's currently available in Hoping It Might Be So: Poems 1974-2000, a collection of all Wright’s work for adults in that period, published by Faber Finds.