channel hop
Be prepared for some macabre scenes in Riddles of the Dead - Modern Frankenstein (National Geographic Channel at midnight on Wednesday). If dead bodies are not your thing, be warned: this is graphic TV. On the flip side, this fascinating documentary is worth watching - if you have a strong stomach and no qualms about what can happen to a cadaver once it is in the hands of an anatomist such as controversial German Gunther von Hagens.
Critics call von Hagens the 'Walt Disney of death' and it's easy to see why. The producers do him no favours, portraying him as a man possessed and casting him in shadow as he goes about his daily business, much of it undertaken in the depths of his gloomy basement laboratory, surrounded by bottles of preserved organs and body parts.
At his research facility in Dalian, China, he lifts dripping bodies out of deep vats of formaldehyde, pores over their attributes with the sharp eye of a talent scout looking for tomorrow's supermodel, and skins, flays and cuts bodies with gay abandon (you'll never look at a delicatessen's meat slicer in the same way again). The fedora he never takes off (apparently he even sleeps in it) doesn't help either, making him look like a flesh-toned Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Von Hagens first came to the world's attention in 1977, when he pioneered and patented an amazing procedure that is capable of perfectly preserving the human body, the results of which are far superior to the watery effects achieved using embalming fluid. For decades, he has perfected his plastination technique, a process whereby the water and fat in bodies and organs are replaced by plastic. He spends up to a year on one body alone, from the actual preservation to deciding how the body will pose once it is ready for public display.
That's right: public display. You see, von Hagens is not your run-of-the-mill anatomist. He turns his bodies into 'works of art' for his travelling exhibition, Body Worlds, to educate the public, along the way enraging the purists of his profession. But whether it's art, science or freak show - we'll let you decide which - von Hagens has, without doubt, made a name for himself.
From dealing with death, we head to Married to the Kellys (Star World on Monday at 8pm), a new show to hit our screens this week. The storyline is perfect for yet another cliched American sitcom: New York-native boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married then she wants to move home to be near her folks.
She gets her way, of course. Her parents live in the midwest; Kansas to be exact. Life is a bit slower here and, if the show is anything to go by, the locals repeat everything - repeatedly.
Breckin Meyer (Kate & Leopold) stars as Tom Wagner, the fish out of water, and Kiele Sanchez (That Was Then) is Susan, his homesick wife. The support cast reads like a who's who of sitcomville. Nancy Lenehan (Ally McBeal, Malcolm in the Middle) plays Susan's mother, Sam Anderson (Ally McBeal, Dallas) is her father and Emily Rutherfurd (Will and Grace, The Ellen Show) is her big sister. Derek Waters (Spin City) is the socially awkward brother, Lewis, and Josh Braaten (Less Than Perfect) is Chris, the favourite son-in-law. Creator Tom Hertz (Spin City) apparently based the series on his life, which leads us to wonder if badly timed canned laughter was a special memory for him - maybe that happens when you move to the midwest.
