Television Review: Llost

Now that popular American cop drama Law and Order has an English spin-off, it seems that the time has come for more UK versions of US shows. Plans are already underway for CSI: Bromsgrove and Las Vegas: Blackpool Edition; producers hope that they will fare better than Jodrell Bank – Above and Beyond, which was cancelled after one episode in the 1990s.

The BBC’s most eagerly awaited new American inspiration is Llost. Based on a popular US show, Llost opens with a man waking up to find that he has been a victim in an airplane crash, and that he is stranded on a small island off the coast of Wales.

While the island is no more than a rock in the middle of the sea, barely a square mile in area, there is more to it than meets the eye. For example, in the first episode our intrepid hero espies a clan of mysterious creatures. What could they be, with their oddly shaped multicoloured faces and weird ways of walking? Upon closer inspection we discover that they are puffins.

A puffin, for those who have never seen one before.

Another feature of this island of the damned is a strange large black cloud that looms over it for much of the series, adding to a sense of dread and foreboding. Our hero agonises over the meaning and intentions of the mysterious entity for some time, and the mystery is not solved until episode seven when it is revealed that the cloud is full of rain.

Throughout the show we are treated to flashbacks of the man’s life, when we see all sorts of coincidental things related to Wales and islands. In one flashback, he buys a CD by Tom Jones. In another, we see him consider a Hawaiian holiday. The only exception to this trend is episode nine, which contains flashbacks from one of the puffins. To be honest, this is one of the weaker episodes.

I won’t reveal all of the secrets to the show here, but suffice to say that for each question that is answered, many more are asked. Like, what is all that brown foamy stuff that washes up on the rocks each day? Does the island exist outside the normal laws of time or does it just feel like that because the days are so boring? And, is it possible to eat rocks?

Llost is certainly a show with promise. Whether it will match the success of the American original remains to be seen, but the episodes I have seen are full of ennui, despair and existential suffering: just what the UK television audience expects from its drama series. Indeed, an episode of Llost is nearly as depressing as a half-hour of Coronation Street or Eastenders.

Llost, every Tuesday at teatime. For more information on Wales and Welsh Islands, please visit the Welsh Tourism Hut, or see their website at www.walesisnotasdepressingasyouthink.com. If you interested in puffins, or would like to adopt or befriend a puffin, the police would like to hear from you.

Last Night’s Television

Amid the much publicized drop in the show’s ratings, Coronation Street (ITV 8:00) had its first guest director last night, and early indications show that millions tuned in to see what David Lynch would do with the program. I think it’s safe to say that nobody was expecting to see Ken Barlow (William Roache) give birth to a giant, wheezing ball of living glue on Sally Webster’s living room floor, or Tyrone (Alan Halsall) get strangled by Fiz’s own guts in the Rover’s Return. The long-term ramifications don’t just extend to the characters, either. The Underworld Knickers Factory morphed into a grotesquely hellish dungeon-style location, which show insiders suggest may turn out to be the inside of a giant undulating cockroach.
While Lynch’s changes to Coronation Street have managed to grab new viewers, it remains to be seen whether this experiment will keep them. And what the future guest directors (Takeshi Miike, Alan Smithee and Bono being three of those announced) will do with Lynch’s new characters, especially Graham, the telepathic hermaphrodite, I don’t know.

Over on BBC2, The Secret Life of Clowns (9:30) was terrifyingly gripping. While much is known about the public persona of such famous clowns as Bozo, Binko and Pennywise, not a lot is known about the private lives of the less well-known ones. The program makers should be commended for their unflinching look into this seedy and frightening world of orgies, self-mutilation and sin. Watching Quentin, a part-time clown in Epping, travel straight from a child’s birthday party to an underground clown-fetish club was astonishing. Even more impressive was his flawless transition from creating cute balloon animals for the children to doing horrid, horrid things with his balloons, all for the pleasure of the perverts watching in the club. Next week’s show proves to be a real mind-bleach necessity.

Channel Five’s live coverage of the World Ker-Plunk Championships (2:00) would have been terrible, if not for the wonderful commentary by Erwin Frume. The four-time UK Ker-Plunk champion has such enthusiasm for the sport that the way he calls each play makes every dropped marble seem like a grenade down a pipe of kittens. The competitors themselves are far too serious for their own good, and more characters like Norway’s Brian “Strep Throat” Gunderssen would really help to put the sport on the World stage.