Monday, June 13, 2005

Step Back In Time

I really enjoyed watching the first episode of Outback House last night. The series is another in the 'House' series, where they re-create the living environment, trials and tribulations of a given time and place, and then after a period of training in the history and life-skills of the period a family and/or helpers and domestic staff are left to live out the lifestyle as accurately as possible. In this case it is Australia in 1861 and a family of 5 are the 'owners' of the outback sheep station, with shepherds, station hands, domestic staff, governess etc totalling 16 in all.

I think they made one or two poor choices in the first episode, which I guess is an important part of the point of the series, seeing how well modern people cope with the important decisions required by their circumstances. Mixing the pregnant ewes and the lambs with the rest of the sheep was a poor idea, with the result that they couldn't then move the sheep across country without losing many of the lambs and risking the ewes. Poor Dan the young shepherd was left behind without company, food or water, to try and control the huge mass of sheep while everyone else took off for the homestead. I don't blame him for breaking down in tears of frustration and wanting to resign as shepherd. I think Dan is going to be one of my favourite cast members, and not just because in his 'cast biography' he is open about being gay. (Ok, maybe just a little bit.)


"Outback House", Dan the Shepherd.

I've watched all the other 'house' series previous to this and enjoyed them all pretty much, especially the Edwardian House (known as Manor House in the US), the Frontier House and the 1940' House, although I was less excited by the Regency House Party (which at one point was destined to be the last of the franchise).

Lest I be accused of not being shallow, I have to give a shout out to the casting director of The Edwardian House. The male staff were all extremely cute; young Tristan the Groom and Kenny the 'Hallboy', and the two Footmen Charlie and Rob. Yowza.


"The Edwardian House" staff. Rob & Charlie left, Tristan & Kenny right.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

No worries, at no point did I not consider you shallow.

The Other Andrew said...

Whew! Glad we cleared that up...

The worst thing about this post was how much of a Chicken Hawk I felt like when posting about how cute Kenny & Tristan are. I mean they are 18, I'm old enough to be their father fer Chrissakes... [shudder]

Hella cute though, in a twinkalicious kind of way.

Anonymous said...

Feeling a little Chicken Hawkish huh about all those cute little twinkies? Hmmmm .... twink..ies...

Jeeze, try being out with your 15 year old daughter and you both visibly go "whoar" when a cutie late-teen blonded twinkie boy comes within "check him out!" distance. *sigh*

The Kid already pays me out about it. My oldest b/f thus far has been 30, thats not to bad is it, for a near fo .... four .... fo ... youngish professional guy?

I shudder to think about the day when The Kid brings a new boyfriend home some years hence and I think, "hmmmm, he's cute", and then realise I just lusted after my daughters boyfriend. Oh God, thats soooooo Jerry Springer.

"My father just told me he loves my boyfriend, and I'm here to tell him to back off bitch, he's mine!"

Bodhi :-)
Sydney, Australia

The Other Andrew said...

You are a one-man Jerry Springer episode just waiting to happen. (In so many ways!)_ Let's see if Ashley continues to wear her "I Love My Gay Dad' badge if(/when) that happens. :-)

Maybe it's my high falutin' Maurice/Alec Scudder fantasies from too much E.M. Forster, but you have to admit the 'hallboy' Kenny and the groom Tristan are very cute. I normally go for older guys though, I'm definately not a twink chaser by any stretch of the imagination.

Anonymous said...

er... thanks for the kind words.
;-)
Hope you're still enjoying the show.
Your blog entries are hilariously funny.