Blood Sex Sugar Magic

Sugar Rush Episode 1x01 - "Pilot" (well, actually, this show doesn't have official titles for each episode. For some reason we don't seem to be so big on that on this side of the pond, so I'll be making them up myself. Why not?)

Episode grade: B

((There would be an lj-cut here if I was on lj. You probably can do this on Blogger too, but right now I don't know how, I'll figure something out later.))

So, none of that 'teaser' nonsense, just straight in with the opening credits. Which are very pastel-y. And Blondie-y.

And, opening scene; it's the British Tatu (they have the right hair colours and everything!), making out on a waltzer. But, alas, it was only a fantasy. Back to reality; here's Kim, our main character, lying in bed. She voiceovers (which she'll be doing a whole lot) the first line in the show, which is pretty much a statement of intent; "It's the 21st Century - a 15 year old using a toothbrush to masturbate over her best friend shouldn't be that big a deal." Olivia Hallinan is completely believable as a 15 year old throughout, too, by the way. Anyway, she's interrupted in her bad dental practices by her father, Nathan, entering to bring an unspecified hot drink (but they're British, so let's assume it's tea), humourously misdirect by telling Kim "you'll go blind" and DRAMATICALLY PAUSING before turning on a lamp, and give a sweet smile as he leaves. Which all serves to inform us that he's somewhat clueless, but genuinely trying to be a good father. I mean, there's more stuff later to better establish that, but there is a lot to get through in 20 minutes, so they do a fair bit of character establishment by shorthand. Most of them work pretty well. Also, posters in the background tell us that Kim likes Radiohead and Placebo, but is not such a fan of war. These things are vitally important, of course.

Brighton-tage! Kim helpfully voiceovers us into a flashback with some exposition; the family moved to Brighton a week ago to, according to Nathan, "escape the filth and excesses of London and spend more time together as a family". And here's the rest of said family; mother Stella, who is applying makeup in the wing mirror and totally swears in front of her children, sure signs of a bad mother, and younger son Matt (I really can't figure out how old he's supposed to be, so we'll just go with 'pre-pubescant' until further notice), who wears an astronaut costume including a large goldfish bowl over his head, because he is Odd. Hooray for run-on sentences.

Kim voiceovers us some more Instant Character Establishment; Nathan is "half man, half pinny". Stella tells her kids to call her that because she doesn't like to be reminded of her parental duties. Matt is a freak. Their neighbours, Dave and David are gay and indistinguishable from each other. That'll be rife with wacky comedic opportunities, I'm sure. Nathan incomptently tries to put up a door, Stella eyerolls that they'll be getting a professional in to do it.

Cut to Kim at a bar, drooling over the other girl from the waltzer at the beginning, who is officially introduced now as, of course, Sugar. Her real name's Maria Sweet, but I will totally forget that by the end of this episode. Anyway, Sugar will, apparently, "do anything, say anything, have anything... with a dick." Because Sugar is not gay and Kim does not want to be.

Another flashback, this time to Kim and Sugar's first meeting; Sugar shoplifts a bunch of stuff and dumps it in Kim's bag while a security guard gives an apathetic "Hey" and eventually decides that since Kim hasn't moved, it probably wouldn't be too much effort to drag her into the shop to return the stolen goods. Premise now established, voiceover Kim can finally shut up for five minutes.

Kim and Sugar hanging out by the sea. Further humourous misdirection, Sugar tells Kim that if they're going to hang out, she should "make it less obvious. DRAMATIC PAUSE. You're such a fucking virgin!" before unbuttoning her shirt a little. Five minutes was overestimating a lot; we're back to the voiceover already. Kim is indeed a virgin so how, she ponders, does she know she's gay? Answers on a postcard, please.

Kim walks down the street past a group of neanderthals and shares a hilariously intellectual conversation with one of them, which I'll transcribe:

Kim: "Hi!"
Thug: "Nice tits."
Kim: "DIE."
Thug "Dyke!"

That's a completely accurate picture of the youth of today, I can tell you.

And now we're in a school bathroom. I know it's called Sugar Rush and all, but guys, you're allowed to have scenes that last more than five seconds. Sugar is changing out of her school uniform, Kim is drooling. Again. Kim tells Sugar that she wants to have sex, then hastily adds "with a man", in case Sugar got the right end of the stick. Kim voicovers about how difficult it is to find a man that doesn't repulse her, which segues us into a meeting with the handyman, Dale, who is shirtlessly tooling around. Kim (and Stella, and one of the Gay Daves) appear to need a change of knickers at the sight of him. Kim heads upstairs to call Sugar and tell her she's found a target for sexcapades, and Sugar invites her over to her place to give her some pointers.

Sugar's room. "Paradise", according to Kim, which, fine. There's pink shit strewn about everywhere. Sugar wants Kim to get nekkid. Because she needs to change, "unless [Dale] is the schoolgirl type, in which case you want to steer well clear". Kim wants Sugar to get nekkid. But doesn't verbally express this desire. Second rule of Fight Club; "You need to get wasted." So, there's some drinking, smoking, and dancing, and Sugar tells Kim to try her moves on her. (first her = Kim. second = Sugar. Damn pronouns). Kim is all 'i couldn't possibly comprehend such a suggestion', and apparently being drunk makes her better at hiding her attraction. Which is odd. Oh wait, there it goes. Sugar remains oblivious.

After leaving Paradise and being totally unable to not fall over wearing heels, Kim is starting to think the idea of seducing Dale is not such a great one. This doubt is not alleviated when she comes home to find Dale hammering at Stella's back door. And... Commercials. Adverts. Or, y'know, there would be if I was actually watching this on TV, anyway.

Back from that break (I may have had no commercials, but I did take a break from writing. Not that you care, I'm sure.), Kim's running down the street away from Stella, but given the heels she's still wearing, she's not making a great job of it. So, Stella catches up, and Kim is all crying and asking "how could you?" and Olivia Hallinan does a damn fine job of carrying this show, really. And Stella just shrugs and says "nobody's perfect", because she is shit. Kim runs again, and this time gets away despite heels, on account of Stella just stands there.

Scullery of Adultery. Nathan is humourously misdirecting again. "I hate to say it DRAMATIC PAUSE but he's done a good job." Kim looks miserable, and Stella has the grace to at least look a little guilty. Then Nathan says innuendo after innuendo, and it's all rather ridiculous. "He got into all the nooks and crannies."? The guy put up a door. NOBODY WOULD SAY THAT. Kim agrees with me, and flees upstairs. Nathan is concerned, Stella is concerned that his concern will make Kim talk concerning Stella's extra-curricular activites. Yes that last one was a stretch. Matt is unable to eat his toad in the hole, because he's still wearing the goldfish bowl.

Halfway up the stairs, Kim is about to call Sugar when the doorbell rings. "Unfortunately," Kim tells us, "it was Tom." So remember the introducing characters by shorthand thing earlier, when I said most of them work pretty well? Yeah, this is why the 'most of them' is there. Tom is the son of the Gay Daves, and apparently, Kim's "brand new stalker". See, my problem with this is that, unlike Kim's family and Sugar, there's really no need to make his role immediately clear, and it would make for much more interesting viewing if they'd gradually made it clear over a few episodes instead of telling us straight off, he's a stalker, and then using him as a repetitive butt-monkey. Anyway, Tom asks Kim if it's a bad time.

Inexplicably, Tom is now in Kim's bedroom. Morrissey is playing. Kim looks miserable, again, because she's 15. And also, she saw her mum shagging the decorator. Tom tells her her Che Guevarra poster is cool. And then babbles and stutters and babbles and does some weird breathing shit because he's so totally uncool and weird, and doesn't Kim's life suck having this guy stalking her and somehow forcing her to invite him into her room? Man. Eventually he shuts up, and kisees Kim who continues to be completely unresponsive to anything. Kim, this is probably about the time you should give up on "maybe if I ignore him, he'll go away." Tom shouts "I'm not queer!" and runs to the bathroom, tripping over stuff on the way. See, he has gay dads, so he's insecure about his sexuality. That's as much character development as he needs for 8 episodes, right? He does some more butt-monkey crap in there, but I can't be bothered with it.

Kim just leaves him to it, and heads out to get a Sugar fix. Sugar is not a great shoulder to cry on, Her advice to Kim: "look on the bright side; at least your mum's got good taste, you said he was fit." But, on the bright side, breasts. Then Sugar has a better idea to cheer Kim up; donkey riding. She takes Kim over to a couple of generic chavs. One is Daz; Sugar's boyfriend and "the worst DJ in Brighton. Which, when you consider how many DJs there are in this town is something of an achievement." The other is The Donkey. KimVo (Kim Voiceover, obviously): "Ok, so... he could have had a funny laugh." Quite. Sugar and Daz make out some.

Back at home, Nathan is still worried about Kim, which he expresses by using the word 'strange' far too much. Also, "she's always loved toad in the hole." For some reason the 'toad in the hole' joke is way funnier this time. Actually, I think the innuendo of it still isn't funny, it's just the ridiculousness of that as proof that something's wrong. Stella is dismissive, because Kim's a teenager, so this kind of thing is to be expected. It's a fair point.

KimVo is feeling chatty again. The Donkey is not doing a great job of distracting her from the pain of her mother's adultery, and now also the pain of having to watch Sugar making out with a tool. He is, apparently, not a great conversationalist. "Evidently the blood destined for his brain had been diverted to greedier organs." Bwah! He goes to get Kim a drink, and Sugar and Daz spread out to occupy his vacated seat. Kim looks miserable for a while (she does that a lot, I know, but somehow it never gets boring), then goes to the bathroom to cry a little to a Sugary montage. A few seconds that are somehow actually half an hour later, Sugar has realised something's wrong, comes to find her and climbs into the stall. Kim asks if she shouldn't be with Daz, but "he talks too much". They share some vodka in silence for a while, then Sugar casually says "my dad used to shag around" and something that for the life of me I can't understand, then gets out a pen and draws the outline of one of hers and one of Kim's feet on the wall, and it's a really sweet moment and now Kim's infatuation is actually somewhat understandable. She rests her head on Kim's shoulder, Kim leans in for a kiss, but of course that won't actually happen in the first episode. Sugar tells her, re: losing virginity, "if it's any consolation, I've always been too pissed to remember."

Kim gets a taxi home. Nathan is wearing an apron and doing ironing. Matt is asleep, still wearing his goldfish bowl. Stella is on the phone and giggling. Kim goes to her room. Nathan brings her dinner. He doesn't know what to say but it doesn't matter. They hug. It continues to be sweet. Nathan then does have something to say; "There's not toad, it's just hole. I thought you might be off the meat." OK, this time, it is the innuendo that's funny. And that's all.