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The Sleepover Club - 100% Fun, Fashion & Friendship
Roadshow Entertainment/Roadshow Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 167 mins . PG . PAL

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Ah, a lovely Tuesday morning at the gym. Yep, set the treadmill up to speed. Get into the swing and watch the five televisions placed generously above, showing three of the channels. But wait, don’t lose your footing Marty – it’s an ad for McLeod’s Daughters! Not only was the concept of reviewing Series 1 of McLeod’s Daughters emotionally upsetting, and socially embarrassing, this guy thought that it was a hybrid combination of The Sleepover Club camping out at Drover's Run – yep, Basia A’Hern (Lyndz in TSoC) has joined the cast. Admittedly, and sadly, McLeod’s Daughters is actually a step up from The Sleepover Club. Who ever thought that could happen?

OK, but honestly, all due credit goes to Basia A'Hern - she is the most sincere and believable of The Sleepover Club, so good on her and all the best for what is shaping up to be a brilliant career.

So what is The Sleepover Club? Well, if you haven’t guessed, it's a club. Yep, and its members have sleepovers. Oh did I mention it's a club? Well they’re made up of Lyndz, who is always at war with her twin brother Michael, Fliss, a prissy bimbo in the making, Kenny, a sportiva if there ever was one, Frankie, an anal control freak and newcomer Rosie who has a few introverted secrets. Sound’s like any school group, right?

Honestly, this series is quite a bit of fun, and is aimed at the young ladies out there, something I’m not really familiar with. Realistically everything is just so simplistic that it makes this saccharine coated world seem too cardboardy. You never know, maybe it’s just the conditioning of the doom-and-gloom mood set by many films speaking here. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it would just be nice if it occasionally came true.

Shot on the Gold Coast, this series looks great on screen with beautiful Australian beaches and bushland – a great advert for overseas markets. Now be warned ye little children, the following synopses do contain some plot spoilers, so if you want to enjoy the series first time round, just skip down to the Video component of the review.

Episode 1: Perfect Match
Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. No, that’s not right (After thought: scarily, it is). But the SoC are here to play matchmaker with their teacher and the sports teacher a.k.a. Mr. Biceps. Hmm mmm. But, things don’t quite go according to plan. You cannot fool the heart for whom you fall in love with. Now, the bitch in Frankie is seen in this first episode where we see her jealous nature when Rosie starts at their school and outshows her in a creative writing task. Now, here it is that we meet the M&Ms… Matthew, Marco and Michael – three guys always out to give the SoC girls a hard time and make their lives as difficult as possible.

Episode 2: Scary Movie
Someone is afraid of scary movies. But who could it be? The prospect of watching a scary movie causes the boys to come up with another evil plan and try to scare the bejesus out of the Sleepover Club. It’s Lyndz and Michael’s birthday (they’re twins, remember), and both of them want a sleepover at their house. But one gets inside and one gets outside. Ooh, so when the guys get forced to stay outside away from the television they need to make their own entertainment. The weird bit here is who the heck watches a scary movie when it’s still light anyway? Hmm, girls...

Episode 3: Beach Hut
The dreaded beach hut is about to close – so it’s a rock concert to the rescue with Lyndz’s older rock-band brother who strangely disappears into thin air after this episode. Fliss’s obsession with Ryan Scott grows when he smiles at her in a sandwich board... well smiles at the pretty bimbo behind her at least. Oooh, and Rosie has the hots for Lyndz’s brother Tom too… a creepy British guy who looks oddly familiar, but still a little obscure.

Episode 4: Fearlotto
Everyone has a fear. It just so happens that this week’s themed sleepover sees the girls playing Fearlotto, where one of them will be forced to face their greatest fear. But who is afraid of blood? And who is afraid of heights? Now what about bats? But this game teaches all of the girls to face their own fears whether they want to or not.

Episode 5: The Great Debate
Are men the stronger sex? I don’t know. But Frankie is taken away from the SoC and put with the M&Ms, traded for Matthew who is with the girls. So Matthew now needs to argue that men are the weaker sex and Frankie must argue that men are the stronger sex – something both of them strongly disagree with. So the debate is on indeed...

Episode 6: Happy Birthday Rosie
It’s Rosie’s birthday and family spirit is disheartening, especially on her birthday. Lyndz is in financial spin, again, after suggesting they get a really cool present for Rosie. She didn’t mean buy one though. So she doesn’t pay back her brother and things get a little bit illegal involving in one of the SoC’s being held for shoplifting after a bit of M&M snatching. No, scrub that, thieving. Dum dum dummm...

Episode 7: Starring
Fliss’ mum’s boyfriend likes video cameras and wants to video tape one of the SoC’s sleepovers. Yeah, that sounds a bit kinky to me too. Anyway, that goes disastrously, but then at night the girls have some fun with the camera. And they’re only 12 and this is PG so get that thought out of your head. Anyway, the M&Ms are on the prowl and get their hands on the video tape. But Lyndz has some collateral – a video tape of Michael in a rather embarrassing costume involving singing, dancing, makeup and a dress. Yeah, real kinky this episode...

  Video
  Audio
  Extras
Contract

The video, presented in a full-frame aspect, is obviously lacking anamorphic enhancement but on the whole looks pretty good. After all, it’s aimed at the teenage girl audience and what do they care? Colours, like the cover art, are lusciously saturated, dripping richly with life, vibrancy and joy. It’s enough to make you want to gag. The biggest issue is with some of the dark sequences which suffer from poor shadow definition and a rather thick wash of grain and noise. Apart from this, it looks great – broadcast quality video with a neat, bright look. The subtitles, presented in English for the Hearing Impaired, are rather accurate, tested with thanks to a housemate’s rather noisy cooking habits. The layer change is placed neatly in the middle of Fearlotto and is obvious but not too distracting.

The sole Dolby Digital 2.0 English track is sufficient for the purposes of the show, with pretty decent synch and a healthy bass line. Dialogue is audible throughout in a variety of quasi Aussie-British accents. The scary thing is that some are British, some are Australian and others are just slightly confused. Regardless, whatever the hell they are, they are easily understandable and feature simplistic, amusing and polite dialogue.

Huh? Extras? Where? The only thing here is a set of five brief character descriptions - nothing really too special. And, uh that’s about it. The slightly animated 4:3 menus don’t really count for much, right?

This series is great for the growing girls, or grown male DVD reviewers who got into this when someone’s (older) brother got into afternoon TV. *sigh* But the thing is, you may find yourself laughing; not with the characters, but at the characters. It’s funny in a silly kind of way, but still amusing too. Gee, that’s sad isn’t it?


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  •   And I quote...
    "Ah The Sleepover Club. Everyone had one of these when they were growing up. Right?... Right?"
    - Martin Friedel
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Sony DVP-NS530
    • TV:
          Sharp SX76NF8 76cm Widescreen
    • Receiver:
          Sony HT-SL5
    • Speakers:
          Sony SS-MSP2
    • Centre Speaker:
          Sony SS-CNP2
    • Surrounds:
          Sony SS-MSP2
    • Subwoofer:
          Sony SA-WMSP3
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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