Just when I was bored with TV...

comes along Moving Wallpaper.

Surfing mindlessly through dull Friday night TV, while most bachelors are out boozing it up on the town, I came across UKTV and a show called "Moving Wallpaper". I don't venture on to UKTV all that often as my viewing habits usually have my box stuck on Discovery, Nat Geo or Fox 8 and that's as far as I venture on Foxtel (yeah, money well spent).

As for a comedy show I thought it was average. But, I was glued to it. Forgive me a little here if you already know about this show, apparently it's a year or two old: It is a comedy series, similar to the Australian "Frontline" show, about the behind the scenes world of television. It centres on the production of a soap called "Echo Beach". It deals with the office bitchiness, the egos of bosses, the writters coming up with the story lines and to a lesser extent the stars of the soap. As I said, it was pretty average and I don't think I was laughing a hell of a lot, but it was the fact that following each episode of Moving Wallpaper was an episode of its soap "Echo Beach".

Echo Beach was a very typical soap. It's not satire, or at least I couldn't tell if it was or not, it was like watching an episode of "Home and Away". It was pure soap.

The good thing about this concept was the way the soap contained objects from the previous episode of Moving Wallpaper. Comments in moving wallpaper like "How are we going to make her have doubts?.. I know, let her find something in her husband's pocket." Then in Echo Beach the character picks up her husband's jacket and an earring falls out of the pocket. In Wallpaper the producer has a stuffed panda that he hates and kicks around his office, then in Echo Beach the panda, looking a lot worse for wear, ends up as a prop as one of the character's toys.

This, to me, is original television and a great concept. Sure the actual programs individually are not original TV in themselves or really that great, but it's the combination of them that make this interesting. Let's face it, it's the first time I've actually wanted to watch a soap in many many years.