Keep Out Of Sight

Whoa! Back again - enjoying the rigours of my third eleven-hour day in a row and looking forwards to a day off. Work is a joy, my colleagues are gems and my customers are the very salt of the earth I walk on.

But I have only one thing on my mind. And this thing has caused me to break down, rub my rubbery face and sigh deeply. I sighed the deep weary sigh of the man who has cause to sigh often, but has never sighed a sigh like this.

And the reason, the cause, the catalyst behind this sigh-age? Two words:

KAREN SISCO

KS is a new tv show showing on itv late on Monday nights. The scheduling of this televisual turd tells its own story. Some ITV programmer has seen a precis of this show, bought it, thinking "Hey, this could do real well against Waking The Dead, or CSI. It has it all, sexy lead, Elmore Leonard-influenced stories, Robert Forster in a lead role, funky music (the theme's by the Isley Brothers, no less), jump-cut editing, and a pedigree of no small calibre in the absolutely fantastic Clooney-Lopez vehicle Out Of Sight. I'll take an entire series of this little gem!"

Then said programmer takes a look at the pilot episode. I figure he did this at home. I figure his name is Tristan, he's been out of a media course at some London Uni for about two years, he's just starting to settle into the job his Daddy pulled strings for him to get. His career has been characterised by the sort of quietude that accompanies the effort of saying the right thing at the right time, not risking error and keeping his in-tray clear. He turns up on time, stays late in the evening. His apartment in one of London's less salubrious yet faintly trendy districts is lined with Ikea shelving units and books he's bought in the 3 for 2 offers at Waterstone's Piccadilly. He has a Jamie Oliver cookbook in the kitchen. He owns a robodog. His bedsheets were purchased at Habitat. He buys drinks for media-women in wine bars, and suffers from premature ejaculation; invariably this is followed by a silent rage that causes women to tacitly withdraw from his apartment, picking up their socks and knickers as they near the front door.

He pops the dvd into his player, hits the play button on his remote. Takes a sip from the Tesco Metro own brand chardonnay he's bought himself to celebrate his first dynamite acquisition. After all, ITV have trusted him with the money; he has spent a small fortune on this baby. Fire it up, let's see what all the fuss at the negotiation was all about.

Within minutes Tristan is contemplating physical suicide, knowing that his career has already thrown itself into the Thames. He starts to shake. The big black guy from Predator is overacting, like Yaphet Kotto on crystal meth. Robert Forster looks like he's about to piss himself laughing with every gruffly loving paternal cliche he's forced to deliver. And the woman playing Karen Sisco, an actress named Carla Gugino ... well, let's just say she's no J-Lo. In fact she's no P-Diddy. She has the strange look of a three-month old baby tasting beetroot for the first time. Tristan is slighlty appeased by, but more ashamed for poor Patrick Dempsey. He's not a bad actor in his own right, but he's trying to fill the formidable size elevens of the infinitely more talented bank-robbing loverman, George Clooney. It's a task a foolhardy few would attempt, and at which none would succeed.

Tristan feels a sharp pain in his 24 year old chest. He's not felt like this before. His hands begin to shake. His left arm spasms, knocking over the chardonnay. The liquid spreads rapidly over the pale laminate flooring. Tristan breaks into a cold sweat.

It's over. How can he bury this? What can he do? What if, God forbid, someone actually sees Karen Sisco?

Then a solution presents itself - he'll commission another series of something starring Martin Clunes or someone, maybe even Robson Greene - stick Karen Sisco on at one in the morning, where only idiots and insomniac drunks will see it.

Face facts, Tristan. Karen Sisco is, in a four word review, a piece of shit.

Sigh...