Frances Grant: Monsters all over the box

As the Lord of the Rings movies start coming on the telly, parallels with other TV creations jump out. While the grand scenery might not translate to the smaller format so well, the star of the show is a monster just made for television.

The conflicted Gollum with his absurd pretensions of power and craven need for attention is the whole BBC documentary series Dangerous Passions' range of subjects — jealousy, anger, desire — in one small CGI character.

That series purports to be a study of fundamental human emotions but it is mostly voyeurism at people behaving badly. Wedding rings and the violation of what they stand for make more monsters than the One Ring ever could.

But back to Gollum, why do the self-deluded little guys from the boring 'burbs — or your standard issue hole in the ground — always steal the show? Middle-earth has its Gollum, The Office has David Brent.

In The Office Specials the once bumptious Brent was so down on his luck, that while the comedy has always been painful to watch, this two-part wrap was bordering on the suicidal. Embarrassment levels and the fear of self-recognition went so deep you felt you were risking Prozac prescriptions for months afterwards.

Although his capacity for self-delusion is nigh indestructible, Brent without his powerbase as boss is as pathetic a creation as Gollum without his Precious.

Some fans feel Ricky Gervais sold out on one of telly's finest, most terrifying comedies by allowing the glint of a happy ending.

But Brent could not be left alone, at the office Christmas do, utterly deflated. That an attractive, intelligent woman seemed to like him and actually laughed at his jokes might seem unlikely, but it was absolutely necessary to wrap up the show.

The point of The Office was that prats rule the Earth and the karmic fallout we want to believe must surely come their way never does. We could not be left with an utterly defeated, deflated Brent who might be in danger of gaining some self-knowledge. That would not be right. Brent must always remain monstrous.

It seems to be the season for monsters on the telly, with the creation of an impressive new indigenous horror, Sione's Samoan mum-from-hell in TV3's bro'Town.

Using religion and a well-aimed Jandal to whip her son into shape, she's the kind of loud mum you really don't want to have to take to your school's safe-sex workshop. Hopping off with the ladies to spend church funds down at the pokies, she's a searing creation no Pakeha comedian would dare to try on.

Bro'Town sports a, well, black humour seldom achieved in local comedy, revelling fearlessly in racial stereotypes. The South African bro seems to have strayed from the police riot squad, and Jeff the Maori's family home is direct from Once Were Warriors.

Happily, there's balance. Comedian Pio Terei is doing his best for multicultural understanding in TV One's Some of My Best Friends Are ... — a stroll through the many cultures or minority groups that make up our society.

As you'd expect from the genial Terei, this is race relations lite, but it's funny and charming — typical Terei question to the Indian community, for example: "What's with the brothers and the head-sway thing?"

When he headed off to a Buddhist temple, we learned it was "a short yak ride from downtown Auckland". Watching Terei talking about the renunciation of worldly desires with a calm Buddhist nun comes as a bit of soothing relief on a Saturday night.

We can only take so much of the monstrous, the thwarted, the twisted and those in the grip of the dangerous passions.