I never saw kid's TV favourite Chocky first time around. Though I remember it being on, I was far too busy being 18 to take any notice.
So when the chance came to see it, I thought I'd give it a go.
If you're unfamiliar with Chocky, it's about a boy who's possessed - sort of - by an alien creature scouting the earth for it's natural resources or something. Anyway, he acts strangely, parents get worried, but it all seems to be real and not the early signs of schizophrenia. The end. John Wyndham wrote it.
It was quite watchable, not for the very thin, very stretched out story, but more for the 1984ishness of it. Kids would never sit still for this today. It's what we would now call painfully slow in the way that kids TV was back then, but what is now known as the story gently unfolding, like Mad Men without the acting.
The acting is shocking from the main boy. No wonder he was never heard of again. The horrid little sister Polly is pain in the arse but quite funny for all that. James Hazledine and Carol Drinkwater shine as the middle class parents trying to keep it together, but toward the end Carol just can't help losing it and spends the last few episodes hysterical, trapped in her pastel green kitchen, surrounded by wheatsheaf print toasters and kettles. No wonder she hits the wine.
That said, it was quite entertaining, and I'm now on the look out for Chocky's Challenge and Chocky's Children, but I do hope they're a little more fast-moving and hta tsomething actually happens.
Other DVD sets I've really enjoyed recently include Big Love, series 3 and we've just started Roseanne, series 1. Talk about stilted. I used to think this was very funny indeed, but she's a TERRIBLE actress and it hasn't yet found its groove. I'm sticking with it hoping it will.
And on Cocktail's advice I watched the excellent Bronco Bullfrog, a black and white Mod classic from 1969.
