Micallef's A Replicant

I'll get to the heart of what this blob's about in a tick, just let me explain the picture. I wanted a simple image of a meerkat, preferably with a white background. A meerkat has only the most tenuous link to the subject matter, and would therefore be mildly amusing to me... and blend nicely with the new theme. Instead, I found that and... well... um. Look, it's got absolutely nothing to do with this blob. It just made me giggle. Ok, down to business...


Shaun Micallef is the best Australian TV presenter. In fact, he’s the best presenter on Australian TV, but he’s got problems.

 I’ve just read his book, watched him on telly and spent the weekend in a bush outside his house peering in through the windows and I think he’s suffering an obsession.

 For those of you who aren’t sci-fi fans, I’ll let you in on the clues.

His book, Preincarnation, has a character or two quoting the movie Blade Runner completely out of context. In fact, he finishes the book with a pretty memorable set of lines from the film. I laughed out loud when I read it, partly through the shock of recognition, partly because it was so ludicrously misplaced and partly because it was a pretty daring way to finish a book. Emergency Contact was dead impressed at one in the morning.

On the game show he hosts, when talking about what is carried around inside the heads of Baby Boomers, he lapsed into the death monologue of Rutger Hauer’s character from Blade Runner. “Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…”

He hosts his show from a chair with “Tyrell Corp.” stencilled on the backrest. Tyrell is a fictional organisation featured in, you guessed it, Blade Runner. They manufacture bespoke human beings and trade with the catchy motto, “More human than human”.

The chair features in a scene of the movie where a cop is interviewing a suspected escaped artificial human (replicant) and places the suspect under interrogation stress. The suspect reacts very badly to this and it’s one of those scenes that is hard to forget, especially when witnessed at an impressionable age.

I enjoy Micallef’s show as much as I enjoy a meerkat with a bon-bon on its head, but it would be less tense for me if I didn't expect an angry replicant to turn up and blow Shaun through the wall because he didn‘t want to talk about his mother.I will also say this, Shaun (I know you’re a regular reader): The artificial meerkat that keeps popping up and down on your TV host desk, I think was locally manufactured. Finest quality. Superior workmanship.*

 *... and the award tonight for most oblique film reference of all time, goes to...