(no subject)

It’s not the first ad campaign that has tried to stimulate the audience’s interest by encouraging them to intervene in its storyline, but it’s certainly the most lacklustre. It’s apparently five years since Kris Marshall (him off My Family) and Esther Hall (her off Spooks and Waking the Dead, it says here) started making ads showing how BT products could be seamlessly integrated into the chaos of contemporary family life. He had moved in with her and her kids, the storyline went, and whatever challenges and obstacles this domestic situation might produce, at least they would all be able to rely on the phone and internet connectivity of a BT Home Hub.

This campaign rumbled on for about three years, troubling no-one particularly, and then Marshall, in real life, was hit by a car. At first there were fears that he had been seriously injured, but he made a full recovery. After that, though, something went very weird. The ads continued to be made but, as far as I can remember, at no point after Marshall's physical recovery did he and Hall appear on screen at the same time. The storyline took a new turn: his character had to move a long way away due to work and their long-distance relationship got a bit awkward for a while, but they were determined to make it work (in their separately filmed sequences). Eventually she asked his character (on the phone) to marry her, and around that time it became clear that the writers were trying to inject a note of suspense—would he say yes? Would he turn her down? Would the Home Hub keep disconnecting because the data limit had been exceeded? Was anyone actually invested in this thing?

By now, I was hooked. What was really going on with this situation? It seemed clear that Marshall’s real-life accident had had some kind of impact on his fictional character’s life. What would be the twist? Were the ads subsequent to the collision all just “Adam’s” dying thoughts about his newly adopted family? The episode where “Jane” appeared to tell people she was getting married didn’t even mention “Adam’s” name; was this a cruel flash-forward to her rebuilding her life after his untimely death and marrying someone else? Was some kind of alternate reality involved? Where, basically, was M Night Shymalan?

Now BT is apparently offering us the chance to decide this couple’s future. Rather than going the full Web 2.0, though, the makers are staying firmly in the 90s and offering us only two options to choose between, so we don’t have carte blanche to write in with something like “They can’t get married—he’s clearly her son”. If neither of the storylines on offer involves, at a minimum, “Adam” falling into a parallel dimension in 2008 and struggling ever since to find his way back, I will officially lose interest.

---

EDIT FEB 2011: BT's latest transmissions from inside Kris Marshall's head don't bode well:

(no subject)

A father and son have been arrested and charged with conspiring to threaten a U.S. official after they allegedly sent a letter to Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) threatening to kill him over his vote for the health care bill.

In the most explicit threat from the letter, the author threatens to “paint the Mackinaw Bridge with the blood of you and your family members... Maybe you will be the main character of a story that parents tell their children as they cross the bridge decades from know [sic]. The red paint of Bart Stupak!”

Investigators say that Russell Hesch, who Stupak’s office said has been one of the congressman’s most vocal critics over the years, typed the threatening letter to Stupak. Hesch, who lives in Michigan, then allegedly emailed it to his son, David, in Denver. According to the criminal complaint, Hesch admitted to writing the letter and told investigators he sent the letter to his son so it couldn't be traced back to him.

From the complaint: "Russell Hesch told agents of the FBI that his biggest mistakes were writing the letter, emailing it to his son David in Colorado, and asking David to mail the letter." [TPM]

These do indeed, in retrospect, appear to be his main mistakes here.

This doesn’t really belong in the “rubbish defence” category since the guy doesn’t seem to be offering much of a defence, but it’s really not worth setting up a whole other category of “rubbish at criminality generally”.