Press Gang: Interface (AKA The One With the Computer)

Ok, let’s do this. If we race through the next few we might actually get to the good stuff before Christmas. The next ep. is a two parter and I’m not sure whether to do it as one super-jumbo recap of depressing Very-Special-Episodeness, or two. Thoughts? Opinions? Expressions of giving a shit?

Back to this episode: we open on a hand-drawn – by someone who has way too much time on their hands - sign that reads ‘bills’, hanging off a box. Someone is throwing things into it. Bills, I would presume. But who knows with this wacky show?

Now, the camera pans across a pair of shoes and some funky PG tunes start up. And another box – this one labeled ‘final demands’ in equally too-much-time text gets a few things dropped into it. And then we go up, and there’s Colin … going through the mail. In his awesome Kandinsky shirt.

Meanwhile Fraz is sleeping. Tiddler gives Lynda some mail, and Lynda tells her she’s female. Har.

read the rest

She also gives Spike a pink and perfumed letter from one ‘Lovely Giselle’ and Lynda claims not to be jealous. She’s probably never heard of the supermodel of the same name. Sigh.

Colin’s showing Spike a photocopy of a page from a newspaper – there’s an ad on it for a writing competition: The Roxborough award – first prize: a computer and printer. Just what the Junior Gazette needs, he says. Spike seems to be having trouble mustering up even a little bit of interest – and who can blame him. He’s only there for the Lynda-teasing.

Cut to two weeks later, and a shot of Fraz sleeping again, with his feet up on the desk and crossed over, and a little pile of mail wedged between his shoes.

Lynda grabs the mail, talking absently to sleeping Fraz. Colin comes over and he’s all excited – as excited as anyone gets in this episode – that Sarah is on the shortlist for the competition. Colin is backing up her entry with a letter about how Sarah is from a broken home with alcoholic parents etc. etc. which doesn’t particularly thrill Lynda. I’m kinda surprised, given the kind of crap she’s usually pulling to get her way. Maybe she’s still thinking about Spike and his terrible family situation and thinking that it’s not so cool to make the fun like that, who knows?

Either way, Colin agrees not to send the letter, but makes it clear that if they don’t win the computer, it’s on Lynda’s head.

And can someone now explain to me why if Sarah wins a creative writing contest, the prize goes to the Junior Gazette? It’s not like it’s a competition for youth newspapers, as far as I can tell.

You know what I hate about DVDs? No rewind button. Or, maybe that’s what I hate about playing DVDs on a PS2. Who knows. Either way I just missed something obviously important and I’ve got to start the whole episode again. Boo!

Ok, where were we? Now it’s three weeks later, and Fraz is awake but he’s lost the mail. Tiddler has tucked it into the back of his high-waisted pants and we get this cute little scene where Lynda is telling him they’re ‘behind him’ and he’s turning around in circles looking Frazzy.

A commotion at the other end of the newsroom gets their attention. OMG! It’s a computer. A big fancy one with TWO 5 1/4” floppy drives. Lynda congratulates Sarah and asks whether there was a handing-over ceremony or something. Sarah says that’s next month some time. So … maybe then she’ll get to take HER prize home? I’m still totally stuck on why the computer is automatically the property of the Junior Gazette. Stupid show.

*hugs show*

Oh. As it turns out … Sarah didn’t win. Colin did. For his stirring piece ‘The Early Years of Sarah Jackson’ – which he sent in after all, and which they assumed was fiction (because, as Lynda points out, it was).

Now, ok. I could get Sarah being so spineless that she just hands a valuable and big prize like that over to her after-school club, but someone please tell me that Colin would not have this thing straight up onto the 1991 equivalent of Ebay for a quick buck?

Lynda’s bored of this already – and walks off with Kenny talking newspaper stuff, until she gets to her Operations Board and sees the photocopied newspaper page about the competition again. I’m confused as to why a competition for individuals is on the Junior Gazette Board, but whatevs. It’s that kinds of episode I guess.

She thinks there was something a bit too easy about the whole thing. And I tend to agree with her. It’s four minutes into the show, we haven’t got a title yet and the only piece of plot that’s come up so far – aside from Fraz’s high-pants – has just resolved itself. No wonder she’s confused. What are they all going to do for the next seventeen minutes?

Lynda’s letting it go. I’m not, because as she walks off with Kenny to the darkroom some mysterious computery music starts playing and the camera fades to a close-up of the computer screen and the title of the episode finally comes up in bright breen computery writing.

Dum Dum DUM!!!

The next scene has everyone gathered around the computer with Lynda on the phone to Danny, sitting at another computer with the school admin assistant. She asks if he’s ready. He’s ready. To ... touch the keyboard.

Suddenly the words ‘MESSAGE BEING RECEIVED type themselves – letter by letter, because this is TV - on Colins Lynda’s sreen. And everyone woots.

Wow. I guess this kind of cyber-communication was a big deal in 1991.

At the other end of the newsroom Sarah is bitching that it’s all a bit strange: that Roxborough are an office supplies company that have nothing to do with creative writing, and that if it’s just for publicity they’re doing a pretty piss-poor job, given that there hasn’t been any. Methinks she’s just bitter she didn’t win.

On the screen (blue background, green type – like ALL TV computers of this era), some more words are typing themselves. Something about a computer dating agency. Lynda looks less than amused, but when the typey writing asks her name, she responds with ‘YES’ – and even I know that back in the day Y would have been sufficient. I could triple her productivity with that little nugget, but I won’t.

Now the typey writing tells her that her perfect match is … S P I K E T H O M S O N. Everyone laughs. I laugh. In the room with Danny the school admin assistant has morphed into Spike and he laughs. Lynda just gives the computer an evil look and mutters ‘Spike!’ with intent.

Now it’s suddenly later and it’s dark because Lynda turns out all the lights before she gets ready to leave, instead of on her way out the door like a normal person. Luckily she had the awesome blue glow of the computer monitor to help her see the armholes of her jacket. Kenny is talking to her about … something. Sorry. I tune out sometimes and, you know, no rewind button … and has to get into the little pool of blue glow to put his jacket on too.

They decide to leave the computer on, in case someone sends them a message. And I can’t even be bothered figuring out if that’s remotely realistic or not, given when I turn my computer off the messages are waiting for me when I turn it back on, but I’m in 2007 and not 1991.

As they go to leave Kenny asks if Lynda if she ever gets sick of this place. And she says no. Big surprise. Because she has absolutely no life.

Now there’s some tinking computer message and across the COMPTLETELY BLANK screen some words start to type themselves … a TV review. Interestingly, words typing themselves on a screen sound just like a dot matrix printer at work.

I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt here and use the fact that in the next screen Lynda is holding a print-out of the words to convince myself that that’s because the printer was printing out the words at the same time as they were typing themselves on screen.

But only because I really do like this show.

So, yeah. Kenny and Lynda are pouring over this anonymous TV review that – spookily – Lynda was saying she wanted. She says it’s good, but too short. Kenny’s just marveling at the anonymousness of it, but Lynda is convinced that it’s just someone on the news team who’s forgotten to put their name on it. Fair ‘nuff too. She tells Kenny to find out who it was and get them to double the length.

Sarah has gone off on her own to investigate this whole thing some more and, I’m assuming, to pummel the guy who said that Colin was a better writer than she was. She’s in some boofy blonde guy’s office and he’s got the framed Roxborough Award on his wall and is giving her a speil about how office supplies are just about words.

Yeah. Right. Because only word-related officed need office supplies.

Sarah looks unconvinced and asks about publicity, which makes apparently is his cue to get antsy and show her out. She leaves her backpack on the chair and as she barges back in to get it she catches the boofy blonde taking the certificate down. Oops.

She goes back to Lynda and says she’s sure the award was just up there for her benefit. Yes, Sarah, because it’s all about you. Maybe he was taking it down because he realised that it made no sense for him to have Colin’s certificate up on his wall? Did you think of that???

Lynda kinda brushes her to ask if she wrote the TV review, which she didn’t. And that means that someone on the news team has gone anonymous … which means a group meeting and Lynda telling them all off and demanding a name and a doubling of the length of the review.

Off in the distance, Spike is staring at the computer when more words start typing themselves. He calls Lynda over and she gets there just in time to see the expanded TV review write itself on her screen.

Well, that eliminates the news team, donnit? I’d say she owes them an apology for accusing them prematurely, but I know this is Lynda we’re talking about. There’s some debate whether they run it or not and if they do, who they say wrote it, which – really – who cares? Does it need a byline? Nothing in Mx ever has a byline.

Of course, instead of doing what I would do and just running the thing without a byline they make a whole big thing of it being by the ‘Mystery Writer’. Which Lynda explains to Kerr is an ‘if you haven’t got it, flaunt it’ approach. They both agree that the whole thing is rather … mysterious.

As she walks out of Kerr’s office Chrissie asks her if it’s all a gimmick to sell papers, which makes Lynda all furious and indignant, and so of course we cut to Colin standing in the schoolyard spruiking the whole Mystery Writer thing and Lynda standing in the background looking miserable and I wonder … if she didn’t want this to happen, why she devoted half the freaking front page and probably a good chunk of the inside to ‘Who is the Mystery Writer?’ teasers.

Back at the newsroom, it seems everyone from the local batty widow to the local orange-haired goth with black blusher to Mozart is claiming to be the Mystery Writer. Lynda is not amused and goes outside to sulk, where Colin finds her.

He’s swapped his Kandinsky shirt for Kandinsky shorts and mismatched converse and it’s so not a good look, but he’s found the mystery writer, who is in a ninja suit – complete with hood - wanting to get paid.

Lynda pulls the hood off to reveal Fraz, and then goes back to sulking.

And then sulking in front of the computer – because blue glow is so flattering for her complexion. She starts to natter away miserably to the computer about how horrible this whole situation is and wah wah wah and the computer responds with a typed ‘Hello’ so she types Hello and the computer asks her name and she types it and asks its name and then the message ends. So much mystery I could explode … sigh.

So of course Lynda goes off the talk to Kerr and he says that this person obviously wants to be found and that there must be clues and that it wouldn’t fit the pattern for there not to be clues. Right. Thanks BD Wong. Can you pass a message onto the SVU writers for me? Tell them that Olivia’s brother was the worst idea ever and their show sucks now. Thx.

KerrD Wong tries to shoo her out of his office but she’s all ‘you’re the only person I can talk to’ and I lose patience. Lynda’s a simpering little emo shithead in this episode and I’m over it. Can she really not stand to not know one little piece of information without going off and cutting herself because she feels so freaking lonely? Gah!!!!!

So, of course, this leads to a breakthrough as she realizes that not everyone is completely caught up in this great mystery and goes and pays Spike a visit, who is talking to the TV when she walking into his bedroom and stands silently behind him as he hands back his dirty underwear to be washed, thinking it’s his dad. She finally says something and he gets all shy and nervous and hides it with stupidly cute lines like ‘fancy meeting you here … and I do’ which make the last fifteen minutes of Emo Lynda and KerrD Wong almost worthwhile.

Lynda wants to talk about the Mystery writer. Spike challenges to a game of trivial pursuit and they’re hanging out on his bed and actually having a conversation and it’s awesome and sweet and cool and would only be made better if they stopped talking occasionally to pash on. Or it was Strip Trivial Pursuit.

And of course this little chat with Spike leads to enhanced clue-searching ability and – under the blue glow of the monitor on Lynda’s desk, which is so intense it turns everything near it blue even when all the lights are on and the room is bright white – manage to find an address hidden cryptically in the original competition advert photocopy. Wow. Spike really does have that awesome an effect on people.

And they go to the house and there’s freaky music playing and Spike offers to come in with her but she doesn’t want him to and he wishes her luck and leaves – sadly without any kissing. As she approaches the house the door opens and – OMG!!! – it’s the guy from the Office Supplies company!! And he invites her in.

Don’t go Lynda! It’s a trap! He collects newspaper editors to torture them!

Except not. He shows her into a random bedroom and then leaves. In the room is a computer and a funny headset. She’s all puzzled when suddenly … the door starts to open …. It’s the office supplies guy! With a knife and some rope!

No, not really. …. It’s just a chubby guy in a wheelchair.

They cut the whole bit where he explains to her what the fuck is going on and gets straight to the bit where he needs them to have a computer to communicate and is paralysed from the neck down (which …. and I may be completely wrong here …. Seems to the layprson to make the fact that he keeps moving his left shoulder kinda remarkable). He likes being the mystery writer and doesn’t want anyone knowing who he is and then he kicks her out as we see on his screen ‘I am Billy Homer and I am a tetraplegic’. Deeep.

She leaves and talks to the Office Supplies guy while she helps him him dry dishes. And of course she tells him he’s doing it wrong and he tells her she’s just like she was described, which is when she figures out that the two of them must have had inside help to pull all this off and tries to guess who it was.

Office Supplied guy leads the conversation away from that and toward various members of the news team and gets Lynda saying that Spike is all right and quite sweet as Spike walks up behind them. Aw. Cute and … I guess he’s the insider then.

That seems to piss Lynda off enough to go and tell Billy that she’s not into the mystery writer thing and that he’s either on the team properly or not at all and that he has to come to the meeting at the newsroom tomorrow or no deal, which I think is a bit harsh – given it’s not exactly like he can just jump on his pushy and ride over the the newsroom with no notice or anything - but when she leaves the room his dad is all thumbs up. So …. Ok.

So cut to the meeting and Lynda is waiting and asks Spike if he thinks he’ll come (because Spike has apparently known Billy a long time) and Spike doesn’t know. She goes to start the meeting when Spike interrupts by opening the door and the Office Supplies guy and Billy come in and as Billy wheels into the room Spike starts clapping with such force it kinda scares me - But it’s ok because everyone joins in and stands up and is all impressed and even Lynda half-smiles and it’s your classic ‘triumph over adversity’ moment and let’s all give them a big fat ‘aw’ … AWWWWWWWW!!

And that’s it. Roll credits. Kenny is making fun of Lynda for the visiting Spike and playing Trivial Pursuit thing. I realize we never found out who won that game and choose to believe it was Spike and that very fact has made Lynda fall completely in love with him. /fanwank.

Grade: D for most of it because the rhythm and pace were just off and Emo Lynda is annoying. B+ for the Spike-Lynda moment.