It’s just that I’m tired of being compared.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have indulged in something truly satisfying. I have laughed, I have cried, I have wanted to throttle, and I have wanted to console. Mostly I have been ashamed.

I have been watching a 90’s teen television show.

I have been watching Popular!

Brain child of Ryan Murphy, God of all things Glee, Popular! is a show set in high school about two girls from opposite social spheres whose parents get engaged. Chaos ensues as social barriers come tumbling, and crashing, down around them and force they, and their friends, to discover what it really takes to be popular.

It is a total guilty pleasure show; it’s ridiculous, stupid and downright absurd at practically every moment but it’s also hugely entertaining. The characters are brilliant, with just the right amount of randomness to make them believable, and every word of the script is golden.

The problem with many teen dramas is that they’re just too polished. The characters are too beautiful, too smart, too one dimensional to really make you believe in them. In Popular! each character displays such a myriad of emotions and characteristics that you start to think of them as real. People, especially teenagers, are confusing, unreliable, hypocritical, and change their mind as often as the wind, so why should teen characters not portray that? I love the fact that this show, in the same vein as Glee, also shows the funny side of everything. It takes the piss out of itself at every turn and never once apologises for it. An episode in Season Two, for example, sees the chemistry teacher, Ms Glass, write and direct a production in which the students play sexually transmitted diseases and perform to primary school children. Now that would (probably) never happen in a regular high school, but in Popular! it's completely normal.

It’s a shame that the show was cancelled after only two seasons. It ended on a massive cliff-hanger (life or death type cliff-hanger) and, apparently, the show’s producers had no idea the show would be cancelled. Even so, it’s still worth watching. If you enjoy shows like One Tree Hill, The O.C., and, of course, Glee, then it’s definitely worth seeing if you can get hold of Popular!

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction.

I haven't watched a lot of films these past couple of weeks, apart from dredging up some oldies-but-goodies, including Se7en and A Little Princess (always makes me cry!). I did go to see Dear John, another adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel. Starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, it didn't get anywhere near measuring up to The Notebook and hopefully wasn't foreshadowing his next film The Last Song, with Miley Cyrus. People have been going crazy for the Avatar release (I saw it in the cinemas) but I'm going to wait till November...when they release it again, and in 3D. Might as well wait to be honest. Also, we've had Alvin 2 and Glee on DVD, and Sherlock Holmes comes out in the next couple of weeks. So it's been a bit slow.

But TV. Ahhh TV. A friend at work has got me hooked on Modern Family. I am in love with every character, they are all brilliantly written and very funny in their own little ways. Yet another sitcom from America but one that does deserve its place in the schedules.

I've also been keeping up with the new Doctor Who. Obviously a controversial subject at the moment with any DW fan but I'm still not convinced by Matt Smith. I think the new look Doctor Who is aimed too much at children, probably because of the success of the Sarah Jane Adventures. I was so looking forward to the Weeping Angel episodes as well but found myself distinctly not scared, which was disappointing. The Angels should be terrifying, even more so than any other Doctor Who monster. and it's a shame that they weren't.

Five Daughters, also on the BBC, was a three part drama about the deaths of five women in Ipswich in 2008. I unfortunately didn't pay a lot of attention when the incidents actually happened (considering I live in Essex, I probably should have) but maybe because of this, I found the drama extremely interesting and harrowing. I thought each girls personal struggle with drugs and prostitution was portrayed very sensitively and the actresses involved, including Jamie Winstone, did an amazing job.

As always, I'm keeping up with the American shows, including Glee and Fringe. Glee is as entertaining as its always been and Fringe is keeping me hooked on the edge of my seat every episode. The last episode, Brown Betty, was a bit of a strange one, with musical interludes in a show that really doesn't need them.

That's all Folks! Until next time.