Higher Ground

Hello my wonderful telly people. Ok, so it's Christmas and there are a bunch of shows I have lined up to be reviewed but today I want to introduce you all to the literally astounding Canadian hard-hitting drama that is Higher Ground.

I feel I would be doing you all a disservice if I just didn't review this show because let me tell you all something Canada seriously know how to pile on the hurt. The basic premise of Higher Ground is that troubled youths are sent to a sort of vocational boarding school in order to help them overcome their problems and figure out what is actually going on in their lives. The boarding school is called Mount Horizon. Yeah, like they literally went all out on the metaphors for overcoming your strives and troubles to become a better person when they picked that name. The headmaster, if you can call him that, Peter, is a trendy-ish, late thirties, early forties hunk of a man destined to help these children overcome their difficulties and his own pretty messed up love life and pain killer addiction - because it really wouldn't be a successful drama if he wasn't as fucked up as the rest of them. He wants to be everyone's best buddy but in my opinion kind of fails, he's like the typical dad who wears jeans from Animal in an attempt to 'bond' with the youngsters.

Scott is one of the main characters, brought to Horizon by his struggling dad after he got hooked on drugs, stopped playing American football (rugby for us English people) and his school performance suffered. He's your typical troubled teen, or is he? We are introduced to Scott's dark mind early on in episode one where he has flashbacks of his stepmother who is around about the same age as him, coming into his room.... Yeah. Deep stuff. As the series progresses, Scott develops a relationship with equally as messed up camp mate Shelby who we eventually learn was abused by her mum's boyfriend, alongside resident goth Daisy who was emotionally abused by her father and neglected by her mother, see a pattern here people? I'm not saying that we should make light of abuse, it's a serious issue that needs telly as a platform to inform people of the facts and help those suffering but it seems that many shows use it as a surefire way of making the storylines more 'gritty'. Many of these characters are two dimensional - defined purely by their suffering. They literally just exist on the show, waiting for an opportunity to have a flash back or some triggering experience which causes them to bare their souls to each other, allowing super headmaster Peter to swoop in and come to the rescue. This isn't how it is in real life people! You don't just tell someone and magically it's over, the recovery isn't finished and you don't just never think of it again.

Basically, what I am saying about this show is that the characters lack so much depth. Just making them suffer through horrific experiences does not make a profound, complex character that can be developed and written into many different storylines. Too often characters are labeled victims and that's all the ever are, it's not original anymore. When I said at the beginning of this post that the programme is astounding, I mean that in the sense that it's astounding how much hurt they can shove into one show. The level of acting is not great  but I don't blame the actors themselves because many of them have potential, no I blame the writers and directors that believe the way to creating a successful TV show is by making everyone in it a victim of life.

I also cannot ignore the cringey music that is used, firstly at the beginning and also to spit up the scenes within the programme. It's sort of like hip-hoppy, grungy beats with electric guitar and some R&B rapper just going 'yeah, yeah baby, yeah'. Oh and the worst is the actual title sequence to episode one which is like tribal sounds and animals mixed in with a lame generic hip-hop beat. It accompanies a sweaty Peter as he climbs up the rock, probably as a symbol of overcoming your strives with hard work and at the end you will reach to top and be able to look over the Horizon - these people just need to stop with the cheesy symbolism!

I literally have nothing else to say about this programme. I stumbled upon it whilst searching the internet and am kind of glad I did if only to tell you how terrible I think it is. But I don't know, some of you might like it so go and watch it on YouTube if you feel inclined to.

The Audience

Yesterday evening I settled down to watch I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here where the hilariously wonderfully Alfonso Ribeiro (aka Carlton Banks from the hit 90's sitcom Fresh Prince Of Bel Air) and the powerful yet endearing gold Olympic medalist, Rebecca Adlington were voted out in a mildly shocking double eviction. When this finished I was caught in that horrible period of unrest where I'm not tired enough to fall asleep but I don't want to put on a show that requires any levels of intellect for me to understand. So instead I watched a programme called The Audience the premise of which is basically a group of 30 strangers spend a week following around one individual with a life changing decision they for some reason can't solve by conventional means.

This week focused on 42 year old Jane Mason who suffers from a degenerative condition that effects her skeletal muscles in the head, neck and arms which makes them stiff and unable to move. Her dilemma was whether she should adopt a child. Many obstacles presented themselves, including the physical limitations of her disability and how this would effect her ability to take care of a child, her reasons for waiting so long and also in my opinion ,whether or not this need for a child just stems from being an aunt or if it is actually genuinely something she feels she could undertake. You know what they say, it's alright when you can give the child back when they're crying or you're tired. The most striking thing about Jane from the onset is her fiery personality, which seems to be quite defensive when discussing her condition. She berated one man for using the word 'disabled' and was quite focused on how much she would love the child rather than directly answering weather she felt she would be able to cope the the physical and mental demands. Now I understand this need to put up barriers to shield from questions we find difficult to answer but she chose to come on this show and knew it would be like this, having strangers grilling every aspect of her life in order to give their verdict based on the facts so part of me was a bit annoyed by her evasive attitude.

To be honest, I think the whole premise of the show is totally just trying to be profound but actually ends up being almost comical with a mob of 30 randoms just following this one lady into her tiny flat.  I don't feel like Louise the photographer and Gary the fashion designer are really going to shed any more light on Jane's dilemma, in fact during their little individual interviews throughout the programme, many of the audience felt baffled at what to do. I feel like it is a good idea in theory but I wouldn't like all the conflicting ideas and playing 21 questions with a bunch of strangers. I didn't make it all the way through the programme because I felt frustrated with the way they seemed to be spinning in circles and just asking questions a group of close friends could ask in private and reach the same conclusions. I do hope Jane got the answers she needed but the programme failed to live up my expectations of a life affirming, inspiring experience, in fact it was just annoying. I defiantly do not want an audience with The Audience.

5/10.