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    Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

    Last night, I watched a very good episode of Between The Lines on Alibi. I've seen the series before, some time ago, and it builds to a very finale.

    So- same time next week? Oh no. It's not on. Just to rub it in, they're showing Thief Takers instead. Week after? It is indeed on- but it's an episode that was on a couple of weeks ago.

    Are these channels just about flogging DVD boxsets, do you think? I thought appointment television was what it was all about.

    #2
    Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

    Those channels are designed to draw people in with a type of programme, rather than specific episodes of a specific programme - you're supposed to think, "I fancy some detective drama. Therefore I will switch to Alibi, which shows nothing but detective dramas." They assume (correctly in your case) that you've seen them all before and (incorrectly in your case) that therefore you won't be that fussed if they stop showing Between The Lines mid-series and replace it with Thief Takers. Alibi themselves have probably shown that series of Between the Lines many times.

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      #3
      Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

      I thought I'd done another duck thread here, so only just seen your reply. That makes a fair bit of sense.

      Next question, why is Murder She Wrote always on?

      Comment


        #4
        Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

        Because it's out of copyright?

        Comment


          #5
          Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

          Next question, why is Murder She Wrote always on?

          Filler fodder, pure and simple. The perfect daytime air-occupier.

          All that shit on and they can't even spare an hour or so for Columbo.

          Comment


            #6
            Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

            I expect you could write a rather good parody of Murder She Wrote.

            Comment


              #7
              Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

              Actually, I did a short parody of Mrs. Marple on the Cook'd and Bombed site many years ago where she was called out of retirement to solve a murder, only she was around 98 years of age, gripped by dementia and the cops had to stand around while she mumbled something about strawberries and kept pissing on the carpet.

              Comment


                #8
                Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

                I expect you could write a rather good parody of Murder She Wrote.

                I accept the challenge!

                Death Sentence, Syntax and Punctuation.

                'I do?' said Jessica Fletcher, dumbstruck.

                'Hadn't you noticed?' asked Sheriff Amos Tupper, arms folded. 'You mean to tell me that in the years we've known each other you hadn't noticed the count?'

                'How many deaths?' she asked, fearful of the answer.

                'Five hundred.' he replied. 'possibly another fifty unaccounted for when you went on holiday abroad.'

                'Oh, my.' she mumbled. She lay her hand gently on her chest. 'I don't know what to say.'

                'And you can add another two to that number.' he said.

                'Another?' she gasped.

                'Yeah.' nodded the lawman. 'You see Filmore and Grey over there, who I assigned to keep you under house arrest?'

                She turned to see the two police officers standing in the corner of her study. Both stocky men of tough appearance, she could see, with growing unease, that their eyes were filled with tears and their scornful, aggressive stares were aimed squarely at her.

                'Filmore's cousin was murdered last night, and Grey's brother was shot in a library.' he revealed.

                'Oh, good lord!' she gasped. 'I'm so sorry, please what can I - '

                'Well,' said Amos, 'there's nothing we can do, Jessica. By the way, do you know Claudio Fenezzi?'

                'Oh, that would be the manager of Fenezzi's!' she remarked. 'I love his linguini. Best in town! As soon as I get out of here, I'm going there to eat all the linguini I can get my hands on! He's such an artist, his bolognese is - '

                'He's banned you.'

                'What? Why?' she yelled.

                'The last week, you visited his restaurant and had some linguini.' Amos recounted with a tired manner. 'He can report that since you left, almost two thirds of his customers' relatives got murdered in mysterious circumstances. And the chef's ex-wife was shot on a beach near here. Sorry, Jessica, but he ain't having you back. You'll have to eat linguini somewhere else. Or make your own.'

                'Do I really...' mumbled Jessica, her heart becoming heavier with each reality-crushing second. 'Do I really have...?'

                'I talked to the guys at a university near here.' said Amos. 'They've calculated that if you're allowed to mingle with society for the next ten years, the mortality rate in every county, city or village that you visit will rise by 50%. It only came to light a week ago when Sam, our new officer, sat at his desk and figured it all out. "Hey," he said, "do you guys know that wherever Mrs. Fletcher goes someone dies in strange circumstances?" I don't mind admitting that it made us all a bit uneasy back there. Penny dropped pretty hard. At least two guys in the force have resigned and moved out of town. Shops have closed down due to you visiting them, with fellow customers there at the time of your appearance lose relatives or family members to circumstances of homicide soon after. The local shopping mart has had to change employment rules so they can take on tramps and vagrants who've no immediate family or friends that can get bumped off so easily.'

                Amos reached over and placed a hand on Jessica's shoulder. The authoress's face was an ashen mask of despair and not even the lawman's humane and affectionate conduct could lighten such burden.

                'I suppose you'll have Alcatraz opened so I can spend my last remaining years there.' she said. 'Lord knows, Amos, it's the least anyone could do.'

                'The guys who'll keep guard will soon have their relatives knocked off.' said Amos, quietly. 'The cook who'll feed you will be missing a cousin within a week through being stabbed. The guy who'll deliver reading or recreational material for you will see his sister in a body bag by the end of the day. If a trawler passes by, the captain will probably have one less crew member on reaching shore after the poor schmuck gets whacked and tipped overboard.'

                'You'll shoot me - '

                'Oh, come on!' sighed Amos, eyes rolling upward. 'Your appearance creates the circumstances for murder, but you're not culpable for the act itself. It's not you who's doing the murders. Why put a death sentence on you when you're not a murderer? I don't know the answer, Jessica, but I can only put forward one theory..'

                'Which is?' she asked.

                'Your mom got humped by Rod Serling.' he replied.

                'Amos!' wailed Jessica, offended. 'What a terrible thing to say! Take that back!'

                'Jessica,' said Amos, shifting his weary bulk in the armchair, 'terrible things happen wherever you go. What I say doesn't matter. Okay. Okay. House arrest is lifted. Go wherever you want to. Eat wherever you want to. Visit your friends. But I'm issuing instructions for everybody across town to exercise full vigilance while out of the home or in it. Even around family and friends. Yes, Jessica, you can even come around my house for coffee. My better half misses your company.'

                'I'm very touched by that, Amos. You're a good man.' remarked Jessica. 'Oh, by the way, your brother..does Maury still visit?'

                'He would,' said Amos, 'if he wasn't found wrapped in burlap in the boot of a car with two bullets in him.'

                'Ooh!' squealed Jessica, her hand over her mouth, eyes wide with horror.

                'I'm not having a good time at the moment, Jessica,' said the lawman, reaching for his hat, 'and I'd say I'm not alone.'

                ________________________________________

                The dinner party was a blur. Jessica, as if in a trance, nibbled absent-mindedly on a smoked salmon snack and ignored those who spoke to her or to others. It had now been three months, and she still had her little black book in which she noted down the latest mortality created by her presence. Her sevententh, Mr. Crawley, the village park attendant, had been found skewed by his own litter spike only hours after talking to her. She uncovered his murderer - an aggrieved ex-wife - only hours after.

                It had gotten so worse that such accumulated dreadfulness had yielded an even stranger side effect.

                'Ready?' she asked.

                Filmore and Grey, the officers who had endured loss while conducting Jessica Fletcher's house arrest, had now patched up any differences and accepted Tupper's order to accompany the authoress wherever she went so as to seize any opportunity afforded by her unworldy influence. They nodded.

                There was an anguished scream and a woman, her dress flecked with blood, sped into the great living room, where guests, stunned and horrified, flinched at the sight of her hysterical appearance.

                'My husband!' she cried, her face sodden with tears. 'He's - '

                'Dead.' said Jessica, flatly, still nibbling on her salmon. 'Yes, I know. He was stabbed with a kitchen knife by your daughter's husband who's name is not Flurheim as it was when he married her, but Burpinsky, son of Bert Burpinsky, who killed himself when your husband reneged on a promise to partially finance his new business, leaving him with debts, a successful suicide bid and a son bent on revenge, which involved marrying your daughter so he could get near to her father and do the deed. He's over there by the apple pie stand.'

                'You -'

                The young man was stopped in mid-leap by the two burly police officers, who piled upon the angry, hateful, flailing murderer and wrenched his arms painfully behind his back, swiftly applying the cuffs to his wrists. Jessica checked the book again and found that he was the seventh murderer she'd uncovered today. She'd lost count again. She'd also broken her own records by solving crimes in double-quick time, sometimes just by standing there. She could stand in a room for five seconds and have eight electric-chair candidates all picked and ready in a matter of moments.

                'How...how did...you..?' gibbered the blood-specked woman.

                'Deductive logic, eliminate the impossible and whatever improbable remains, blahdy-blahdy-blah..' mumbled Jessica, remote and cynical, her mind still centered on the snack she ate. 'Any scotch? I want to get shit-faced tonight.'

                ________________________________________

                Another month passed and that made two hundred more bodies, another few entries in the second of her little black books. Dusk was coming, but there was enough daylight left to see people flying into bushes or hiding behind cars at the very sight of her. Life was tough, that was obvious enough, but the book sales were actually of such health as to bring her an agreeably substantial income. She'd left fiction and embraced fact, the chronicling of the slew of deaths and the crimes solved by her very presence alone afforded her a relatively comfortable lifestyle, all Krug and linguini (it was a good arrangement with her publisher - she eschewed fearful Fed-Ex personnel by dropping off manuscripts on the side of distant roads, where the publishing house representative would arrive an hour later to pick it up).

                But, apart from Amos (whose wife was found poisoned - it was her next door neighbour - two weeks ago) and her two loyal police colleagues (three uncles, two close friends and a barman claimed by malicious circumstances since the last time she saw them), it was the loneliest existence imaginable.

                'Hey, Jessica Fletcher! Hey, you!'

                She looked around. Where did that voice come from?

                'Hey, you! Deathbroad! Over here!'

                She saw him. A smiling, waving man standing in the doorway of a large shop, beckoning her. Just then, a clutch of name-tag wearing, blue-uniformed staff fled from out of the store behind him and ran up the street with the speed of athletes.

                'Ah, you cowardly asses!' he shouted. 'No overtime for you bozos! Hey, Mrs. Fletcher! Ontray Voo!'

                Warily, she walked towards the shop, a tawdry place named Vince's Food Kingdom, and, to her surprise, was immediately hugged and kissed by the slim, irascible owner of the establishment. Wasting no time, he ushered the stunned woman inside.

                'You the writer?' he asked, pointing at her.

                'Y..yes,' she said, 'but, who are...don't you know who I am?'

                'Do I? Do I?' he cackled. 'You ever been goosed before?'

                'No, I don't believe I have been - aaaaah!' she yelped as the chuckling store-owner clutched her behind with gusto. She became further vexed as he unhesitatingly wrapped his arms tightly around her.

                'You ever seen The King and I?' he asked, excitedly. 'Tell you what. I'll be Yul Brynner, you be Deborah Kerr. No! Scratch that! You be Yul Brynner, I'll be Deborah Kerr!'

                She was reeling with shock as the man, with a zealous sense of abandon, swung her around the aisles of the store in an impromptu and turbulent waltz, hauling her astounded form across the building, loudly (and badly) singing 'Shall We Dance?' at the top of his voice.

                'I hate my brother-in-law!' he cried. 'I hate my family! I hate my brother-in-law's family! My friends stink! My wife's having an affair with one of the most repulsive louses I've ever met and seen! I don't mind her having an affair, Mrs. Fletcher, but she could've chosen someone who didn't have the appeal of a john that ain't been flushed for a month'

                'Please, Mr - '

                'Bernardi!' He cried. 'Vince Bernardi! Call me Vince!'

                'Please, Mr. Bernardi!' she yelled, worriedly. 'I love musicals, but I'm not in the mood for - '

                Suddenly, he stopped and raised his hand to his ear, a beaming smile across his face.

                'Do you hear that?' he said.

                'Hear? Hear what?' she enquired.

                'That.'

                The both of them waited for two minutes, he as happy as a lottery winner, she as perplexed as it was possible to be

                A phone, attached to the wall, rang behind the main counter. At the sound of it, the owner whooped and ran towards the desk, leaping over it with flawless, perfectly-timed physical grace. He picked up the phone and answered it, his glinting eyes fixed firmly on the aghast authoress.

                'Yeah.' he said. 'Vince Bernardi. Yes...oh, no. No. Omigod...when...when was this? Today? Oh, no. No. I can't believe it. That's terrible. Is she alright? Is she okay? They found him...in bed? With a knife in his chest? Oh, that's...that's horrible...no...I never knew she was having an affair. Oh, no...oh, no...I...never knew...oh, they have? Him? That's just...I don't know what to say...yes, I'll co-operate. I'll be right here. Thank you. Yes, I'm fine. Thank you.'

                He put the phone back on the hook and sniggered, folding his arms and demonstrating the kind of satisfied, personal air usually found in the outrageously fortunate.

                'His name was Harry Shulman.' he said. 'the late, departed unflushed toilet. And you know who they found running away from the murder scene, covered in blood? My brother-in-law, the louse. I didn't even know about this until now, but, I can tell you this, Mrs. Fletcher. Our little waltz was the best thing I've done all year. I can go outta business right now and be as happy as a guy who gets proposed by a hundred strippers at the same time. There's a guy in Minnesota who hustled me out of five hundred dollars in a poker game last week - whaddya say, Mrs. Fletcher? Wanna do the foxtrot?'

                Jessica turned and ran towards the swing doors, flustered and disgusted, dismissing the boorish hails of the insanely-delighted shopkeeper.

                'You kill my enemies just by dancin' with me, Mrs. Fletcher!' he cried. 'You're like the Mafia but with a better sense of rhythm! Come back anytime you like! 90% discount off everything!'

                She kept on running, but also kept his words deeply in mind. There was something in his lurid conduct that he said that she couldn't wholly ignore and, to her amazement, found illuminating and perhaps ultimately useful.

                ________________________________________

                Dudley Fayne, book critic of the Princetown Gazette, sighed as he shoved the book aside and prepared to make his notes. His wife, Marcy, entered with a newly-requested pot of black coffee, wrinkling her nose slightly at the acrid cigar smoke that wafted its pungent odour across the room.

                'Another waste of trees, Marcy.' he huffed.

                'Oh, I like Jessica Fletcher very much.' his wife countered, protesting. 'Her writing's very accessible and quite enjoyable'.

                'She's the essence of puerility, my dear. I've never liked her and said so. She doesn't like me, but I'm doing her a favour, dissuading her from writing to take up other means of creativity, like rambling, singing, or not touching a pen.' he grumbled. 'Her latest opus distils such puerility by the barrel-load.'

                'Well, I liked it.' she said firmly in defiance of his lofty opinion, placing the coffee tray on the desk.

                'Marcy, dear,' tutted Dudley, 'I love you, but they could put a top hat on a mouse, stick it in a toy car and you'd find it a revelation and an entertainment.'

                'Now you're being nasty.' she said, haughtily.

                'Honesty is sometimes mistaken for that.' he retorted.

                The doorbell rang downstairs and the couple then looked at each other in a state of mild confusion.

                'I wasn't expecting anybody.' he said. 'Were you?'

                'No.' she said, equally mystified. 'I specifically told everyone you'd be working today. I'll go see who it is.'

                He sat there, listening closely as his wife descended the stairs, strode across the hall, and opened the front door. There was a slight gasp of surprise, followed by a scuffle and a heavy series of thumps as feet far more noisier and heavier than his wife's thundered up the stairs towards the study.

                'Dudley! How wonderful to meet you!' cried Jessica Fletcher as she sprang flamboyantly into the study. 'How's tricks, old boy?'

                'How...' he stammered, shocked at the noisy immediacy and unexpectedness of her entrance. '..what...did..'

                'Just in the neighbourhood!' she announced. 'Thought I'd come in and pay a visit - lovely wife! Wonderful study you have! Is that white oak shelving? Oh, well, must dash! Bye!'

                With the same strange brio and animated behaviour, Jessica fled out of the study, her footsteps twice as quick descending the staircase as they were ascending them. Marcy, non-plussed and struck by the authoress's aberrant behaviour, returned to her amazed husband.

                'What the hell was that?' she drawled.

                'I don't know.' Dudley replied, still attempting to come to terms with this brief, bizarre moment of extraordinary strangeness. 'She comes in, babbles, then goes away again.'

                'Dudley,' said Marcy, reluctantly, 'do you think...?'

                'Think? Think what?'

                'This angel of death stuff.' she murmured. 'Do you think she...'

                'Stop. Stop right there!' he spoke firmly, finger pointed and outstretched. 'That's just moronic hearsay conjured up by her idiot PR people! Don't believe a word of it, Marcy. Not one word.'

                'Uh..okay.'

                She left the study, her husband still seated upright, sure in his steadfast refusal of such fantastical drivel and his face a mask of steely, unflinching certainty.

                ________________________________________

                The chair was jammed up against the door, the windows secured, every entrance and exit seemingly accounted for. The newspaper, carrying headlines describing the story of the death of Dudley Fayne, the well-known book critic, who, along with his wife, was shot by a publisher agitated beyond reason by the poor sales of his cheap pulp-adventure novels brought about by Fayne's continually sniping reviews, lay nearby on a coffee table.

                This was the paper nervously eyed by Hugh Ambersham, another book publisher who negotiated a hefty cut from Jessica Fletcher's stunningly-popular early novels, thereby leaving unfairly meagre profit for his enraged ex-client. An ex-client who e-mailed him that morning, declaring that she'd pay a friendly visit sometime that day. She had no grudges, and was in every position to let those sleeping dogs remain peacefully slumbering, so why not brighten up the morning by popping in for a cup of coffee and a warm, amiable, bridge-building chat?

                He gripped the broom as he would the sharpest spear.

                'I'd like to say,' he said, as loudly as he could, 'that I find Jessica Fletcher one of the most nicest, accomplished and talented authoresses that this country has ever produced!'

                His wife, Joanie, cowered behind the sofa, her anguished, fretful eyes darting about the room, looking for any sign of shadow or movement that didn't involve her husband.

                'Joanie...JOANIE!' hissed Hugh, leaning forward to catch her attention. 'Come on..'

                'What?' whimpered Joanie.

                'Say something! Damnit!' he urged, eyes fierce.

                'Er...' Joanie gathered herself and began to speak.

                'I like Jessica Fletcher!' she yelped. 'She's a lovely woman with a great..great..'

                'Sense of humour.' muttered Hugh.

                'Sense of humour!' she cried. 'And I'm sure that if she was a chef, she'd..she'd be an excellent chef, with a marvellous line in..pastries!

                'Don't overdo it, honey.'

                'If you hadn't damn well scammed her out of the money she deserved,' wailed the nervous female angrily, 'I wouldn't be hiding behind this goddamned sofa fearing for my life!'

                'It was a perfectly legitimate business arrangement!' he shot back. 'She agreed to - '

                Both screamed as a huge saloon with bumpers as thick as tree trunks crashed through the double-windows of the house, sending shards of glass flying everywhere throughout the room. Hugh lay on his back, dizzy and unsettled by the violence of the vehicle's charge as it hit and smashed the frames of brittle glass with a powerful impact.

                For a moment there was nothing to hear except the snivelling of Joanie and the patter of dust and small scraps of wood and plaster as they landed upon the floor. Then the door of the vehicle opened, and a familiar-looking woman, looking excessively happy and enthusiastic, emerged from the car and stood proudly in the middle of the room.

                'And now I'd like to sing The White Cliffs of Dover!' she announced. With that, she launched into a version of that famous song with a vocally-sonorous quality usually associated with a cat being held over a roaring fire. Once completed, she bowed to an imaginary audience and waved avidly, swinging her arms.

                'And now I must depart! 'Bye Hugh!'

                The woman climbed into the saloon and steered its vast metallic hulk out of the living room and across the lush, wide front gardens of the Ambersham's luxurious home, its driver now gloriously destroying more legendary songs with her screeching falsetto as she drove it through a recently-painted fence.

                ________________________________________

                The families of Hugh and Joanie Ambersham, stabbed to death by an psychotically-embittered old business partner, refused the wreathe Jessica sent them.

                Sitting there, listening to the battering winds pummelling against the metallic walls, she wallowed in recall, knowing that a scheming old buzzard resided beneath Amos Tupper's friendly, comforting exterior, and he applied his ability for ruthless planning against his old friend, Jessica Fletcher.

                It was an innocent invitation that did it for her. Care for a cup of coffee and a talk about old times, Jessica? Don't mind if I do, Amos. Hello there, Amos, are you getting along okay without your dear wife? Oh, that's good to hear. Wait, what's that noise. OW! A dart...but, Amos, I trusted you! Then the sound of Amos calling the SWAT team before the numbness of enforced sleep.

                Now here she was, living in a specially-built bungalow situated in the middle of the North Pole, her horizons the unfeeling glaciers and the trenchant carpet of snow that seemed to stretch on forever, pillars of ice forming unearthly spiky sculptural trunks that shot up around her makeshift abode.

                She could not entirely feel that she was cut off from civilisation. Satellites still beamed strong signals enough for her to enjoy the pursuit of watching television. Helicopter crews were satisfyingly regular in their delivery of all papers, magazines and writing material. She had her laptop, and still communicated with the still-convivial Amos, even though his betrayal remained a hard thing to stomach (even if the crafty nature of her capture quietly impressed her). And relations with the publishing houses were cordial enough for them to insist that she carried on with her work. Whatever her unseemly reputation, her books still carried enormous cachet among a willing and sizeable readership.

                And she had enough Krug and linguini to last her a year. The helicopter crews sometimes could not cope with huge stocks of those particularly sense-invigorating goods.

                Life wasn't the best out there in those unforgiving wastes, but as long as the little luxuries were always in abundance, it was far from disheartening.

                She heard a low, ground-shaking rumble and immediately reached for her heavy winter coat while downing another glass of Krug. Once wrapped up, Jessica opened the door and stepped out into wailing wind and spraying snow, closing the entrance behind her. The Krug supplied enough dazed courage for her to trudge through the great blocks of hard ice and tunnels of snow until she came to open ground. There, at the foot of a great cloud-white wall, a polar bear lay dead, a huge block of snow-pattered ice settling on its head.

                She looked up and noticed the heads of several penguins peeking over the ledge, a deep furrow in the snow before them where, perhaps, a block of ice had once lain before falling off.

                Or pushed off?

                The penguins looked at her for a second, as if they could read her mind through that enquiring gaze. And, as if it also enquired too much for them, they left, shambling off into storm.

                Jessica sighed with misery. It wasn't enough that her existence lit the blue touchpaper of human homicidal impulse. Now the animal kingdom wanted in. Perhaps she could branch out into nature writing and meld that genre with that of crime. A new hybrid - the zooicide novel.

                The lure of further glasses of Krug called to her from inside the bungalow and she wearily made her way back through the slicing blankets of snow.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

                  Gee, thanks! I'll read it properly and let you know what I think.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

                    Angel of Death indeed. It's like when E10 turns up to write something on your football team, except more deadly.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Why are satellite channels so mixed up?

                      Penguins? At the North Pole?

                      Comment

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