Channel Flip

We waited ten years for this; we'd have happily waited a couple more months while you finished it.

2009-04-12T13:54:00.006+01:00

This weekend, Dave showed three new episodes of Red Dwarf (for which this post obviously contains spoilers). I say 'new'; it actually felt a bit like a pastiche of Red Dwarf. I know the show has always had running gags and returning monsters and so forth, but the plot was just Better Than Life and Queeg pasted into Back To Reality, and even several of the characters' lines were almost completely recycled. I spotted lines paraphrased only slightly from Psirens and Out Of Time and jokes (excluding running gags) lifted wholesale from Marooned, Rimmerworld, Back To Reality, Future Echoes and Demons and Angels. It was almost like watching the US pilot of The Office, or a piece of fan-fiction. (Before you ask, yes, I did think Polymorph II: Emohawk was a bit naff.) It's pandering to fans, which is always a mistake.

I have no idea what to think about this. The first episode I didn't think was very good at all, but the second I actually rather liked (despite plot misgivings) and the third was pretty good also. My biggest criticism is that, because of the way the plot was constructed and because I went in with (I think sensibly) low expectations, by the time I realised I was watching something that was actually quite good, it was practically over. Had this special been done maybe after series six then I'd have gone in with high expectations and been thinking 'how are they going to explain this?' rather than 'oh, God, what?' (although then I'd have been slightly disappointed). The tension is diminished when I don't really expect it to resolve sensibly.

Overall, I thought it was a basically pretty good show. Not really 'Red Dwarf' as I understand it, but it can't be that without Rob Grant. That said, there are a number of things in the script that grated with me, including continuity errors, nonsense, plot holes, and worst of all, one major break with character. On top of that, the whole thing just wasn't as funny as Red Dwarf should be, and some sequences were utterly dreadful. It would have really benefited from a couple more drafts, preferably including a fresh pair of eyes to rein in some of Naylor's worst excesses, and it would have been far better off presented as one long feature — not least because I'm told ratings plunged from more than 2m to less than 1m literally overnight after part one. For the sake of a couple of writers for a couple of months, this show was crippled and came across as unfinished. Artistically, that's tragic, and I'm not sure it was even wise commercially: the ratings drop after part one must have hurt Dave, and I'm sure they'd have saved money in excised SFX follies anyway.

Hopefully if this is the lead-in to a new series then these mistakes will be learned from. If not, then it's a better swansong than Only The Good.

I don't like The Wire

2009-04-04T17:18:00.002+01:00

There. I said it. I know everyone loves it. I know I have friends who evangelise it constantly. I know people who I respect and admire love it. But no, I don't like it at all. And not only that, but loads of people told me it was great and I should watch it, and when I did, it turned out to be a soap! What's wrong with people? How do they not get that I don't like soaps? If they'd just said 'it's a soap about police and drug dealers' then I wouldn't have had to spend about eight hours figuring it out for myself.

That's not to say it's bad. Far from it — clearly the production values are very high and I have reason to believe it's terribly realistic and generally a better portrayal of drugs gangs than viewers are used to. I get all that. But there is a reason why documentaries don't last sixty hours, and that reason is that it's mind-numbingly tedious. And I get that one of the show's aims is to display the volume of bureaucracy that the police face if they want to actually get anything done, but bureaucracy isn't quite as entertaining as The Wire seems to think it is. That's why Catch-22 is not simply a detailed account of all the various rules and regulations relating to combat pilots. That book exists, presumably: I expect it's given to combat pilots for reference purposes. It's so far failed to capture the public's imagination like Catch-22, and I put it to you that's the same reason that The Wire was never big news.

The bottom line, to me, is that The Wire is not entertaining. It's terribly worthy and gritty and all of that stuff, but it's also very, very dull. Nothing at all ever happens in it. I watched the entire first series, 13 hours of television, and I think I could safely summarise every major plot development inside one minute. Compare that to Dexter, 24, The West Wing or Murder One — loads of stuff happens in those shows and they're shorter. After 45 minutes of Dexter I find myself itching to see the next episode. After 45 minutes of The Wire I find myself struggling to pay attention to the last 15.

And part of me feels that I ought to watch it anyway. Sure, it's not entertaining, but maybe I'd like to think I'm the kind of person who can appreciate its other qualities rather than just looking for instant gratification from sitcoms. But actually, no. I'm not that guy and if being that guy means watching The Wire then I'm glad I'm not, because he's a pretentious snob. Okay, so I could watch the remaining four seasons of The Wire, or, I could watch 47 hours of documentaries and learn more things on more subjects and be entertained. There's no reasonable goal I can think of that can be best achieved by watching The Wire.

The Wire belongs in some kind of a gallery where I can feel happy that it exists while otherwise entirely ignoring it. It doesn't belong on TV. It's too boring for TV. Too relentlessly, utterly boring.

You Know, We Haven't Heard from John Barrowman in a While...

2009-02-18T23:42:00.003Z

...It's because he's hosting Animals at Work (CBBC). It seems to be a show about what animals do for a living. He begins the show stating "around the world, there are millions of animals that have jobs"; well, yes, but they usually have to wait until there's one going that you're not currently doing. Coming Up, there's Einstein- "an African grey parrot with a beak-load of personality". It can also imitate 200 sounds, is able to repeat the same script six times a week and works for peanuts. A bit like Barrowman. Also coming up on the show is a dog that's searching for things and a boy smelling some socks. The latter, I have no idea why it's involved in a show about Animals at Work, but this is CBBC, and I'll just let them carry on with it.

When I was a kid, I wasn't so keen on all the wildlife documentary shows that were around on CBBC at the time. The main one was "The Really Wild Show" which never really got my attention. I wasn't the biggest animal lover; mainly because I ate quite a fair share when I was younger. Then, the kid-centric animal documentary died out- much like the animals that they were studying at the time. Hey look, I'm doing satire. It's only recently that the trend has come back... Bill Oddie hosted a variation of "Springwatch" spin-offs that aired early Saturday mornings which seemed to fair pretty well in the ratings. So, it's a logical step to go back to the old "lets look at animals in a fun way!" style of wildlife documentary. I'm just a bit uneasy when John Barrowman is holding tiny fluffy creatures and making very odd facial expressions.

Each to their own.

There Is Nothing Good About This

2009-02-16T21:08:00.002Z

Well, alright, there are a couple of good things, but they are drowned out somewhat.

The Simpsons is going HD, and that means that the opening sequence, which is two decades old and beginning to show its age as the animation in the main show evolves, needs remaking from the ground up. What it doesn't mean is that FOX had any excuse to do something like this:

The big, flat, cardboard-cutout-looking town is dismal. You're celebrating going HD, you morons -- draw something worth broadcasting in HD. The bird on the title card is pointless and detracts from the image. (And since when were there three-eyed birds in The Simpsons? Has Burns been dumping waste in the sky now?) Why are Kearney and Jimbo sawing the statue's head off when Bart already did it? Adding a belch to your theme music is rarely wise. The baby with one eyebrow thing is just change for its own sake, and the Texan oil baron doesn't need to be in the title sequence. He's only in a handful of episodes and then only for a few seconds each. See also the crazy cat lady. And why is Hans Moleman in the sewer? The whole thing makes no sense. The old sequence was a massively exaggerated version of the show, as if it was designed to introduce the programme or something. The new one is like a grotesque parody of it. Homer getting hit by the car and smashed through a door is indicative of everything that is wrong with the show these days. And how many times is a TV falling off a bracket going to be funny? It's passably funny now that at the same time the show goes HD the family get a widescreen (but still purple) TV and that it isn't secured properly, but unless you're planning on changing it again next year that's going to get old. Really old. The 'zaniness' of the new episodes is one of the worst things about them, and this is predictable zaniness. That's the worst kind. (Speaking of which, if that sign advertising Krusty's funeral service is the same every week then I'm massively unimpressed by that too.) The couch gag is dismal too, but at least that's presubably a one-off. As for the chalkboard lines... well, they're just ironic.

Of course, none of the above matters a damn because The Simpsons is shit anyway these days and even if you are dumb enough to watch it they're never going to actually show this sequence because that would take precious seconds away from the endless, tedious, repetitive scenes of Homer getting repeatedly hit with things. They actually stopped employing the cast in series 18. Since then they've made all episodes by repeating a stock reel they made of Homer getting hit by things and one of Nancy Cartwright's Scientologist robo-calls.

This is, of course, everything I expect from FOX, but presumably at one point everyone involved liked the show as it was? That said, I don't think it's possible to write more than a week of solid quality screenplay on any topic, 24 being the obvious example. And that's how much of this show there is now.

There exist six hours of Fawlty Towers. There exist eight hours of The Office. There is a day and a half of Red Dwarf (and no more). There is a full week of The Simpsons. Why? I mean, the only thing comparable to that is Star Trek, and that's not just twenty years of the same thing (or even ten years of the same thing and ten years of shit pretending to be the same thing).

Just stop it. Let it be. Make your money some other way. And everyone else, stop watching programmes that aren't any good. Learn to judge a show by its content and not by how familiar its title is.

Bah. People.

You can tell it's a hard hitting political show because it has Kieth Chegwin in it.

2009-02-14T16:52:00.005Z

Apparently, a local council rejected a planning application for a bungalow. This hit the news because the applicant was a soldier who'd lost his legs. The council have said they're willing to negotiate on it so until it's over there's really no point discussing it any further.

Unless you're a moron, anyway, in which case you should assume that the councillors who rejected the application knew the applicant was such a sympathetic character from the start and then twist their words and actions to fit whatever dystopian view of local government you happen to be harbouring. One such moron is Noel Edmonds.

Now I don't want to dismiss someone I've never met as a moron lightly, so here is a full list of things I know about Noel Edmonds:

He presents a show based purely on luck and pads it out to 45 crushingly tedious minutes by the repeated application of logical fallacies.
He believes that he is haunted by two invisible glowing melons which he naturally assumes are his dead parents.

"Conventional photography can’t pick them up, but digital cameras can. My belief is that these are something to do with some form of spiritual energy. And possibly, because I miss my parents like mad, I like to think they are them. I’ve got loads of photos of me at home with the two orbs that visit me. The two I have are about the size of melons."
Noel, 59, says he doesn't care if people think he’s a fruitcake.

DON'T LAUGH IT ISN'T FUNNY!
He believes that the universe is like a giant karmic Argos, and you can just order any fate you want and it will be delivered within two working days.
His taste in shirts.
This story.

I'm sorry, but I'm at a loss to find anything on the list which paints him as even remotely sane.

So, back to the story at hand. Edmonds has formed what could politely be called an opinion, and he has a show to shout it on. I have cleverly avoided watching it, so here is Charlie Brooker's description:

Noel's HQ - Noel's Party Headquarters, if you like - is the strangest programme on TV. A live Saturday night "shiny floor" show with conspicuous altruism at its core, it's essentially a cross between That's Life, Surprise Surprise, and some unmade episode of I'm Alan Partridge in which Alan snaps and runs into traffic with his shirt off, smashing windscreens with a cricket bat.

Ironically, Edmonds is one of very few male TV presenters who would generally look better if he did take his shirt off. Brooker went on to describe this story:

[The council were] Good. But not good enough for Noel, who wanted them there in the studio. Worse still, the council's press officer, Jim Van den Bos, told a researcher that Wealden District Council wouldn't talk to "an entertainment show".

This was the cue for an astonishing three-minute down-the-lens rant during which Noel yelled that Jim Van den Bos, and people like him, were "at the heart of everything that's wrong with this country", while the audience cheered and yelled. He went on to suggest, via the medium of bellowing, that the people of Wealden should "have their say" at the next local election - and that hopefully they'd be "advertising for a new press officer soon". All of which slightly overshadowed the bit where he read a statement from Gordon Brown supporting the construction of the bungalow. Council policy aside, what really irked Noel, it seemed, was being dismissed as an "entertainment show", even though: a) It's listed on the Sky EPG under "entertainment", b) The studio audience wear big foam gloves with "Noel's HQ" printed on them, and c) It opens with a theme tune that sounds like a pinball machine malfunctioning on a bouncy castle.

And at first I assumed that he'd counterpointed Noel's annoyance at being called an 'entertainment' show with a description of the audience's gloves because it was funny or made Edmonds look foolish or both (the latter being more likely since the section of the Venn diagram that represents 'things which make Noel Edmonds look foolish but aren't funny' basically consists of Noel Edmonds and Noel Edmonds' shirts), but then I saw the clip on YouTube...

...and it turned out that that's what the show cut to at that moment. It's like watching a less than subtle parody of a real show.

I was shocked to discover that Noel doesn't get paid. This is a man who has been paid to be on TV, and has been paid to not be on TV, and now has been not paid to be on TV. He has even not been paid to not be on TV before, and I don't see why they didn't keep doing that. But mostly the idea that he does it 'pro-bono' makes the show about fifty times scarier. It gives it a thin but terrifying veneer of legitimacy and it pretty well proves that he believes every single word he says, even if Sky don't believe them enough to include them in the repeat.

Lithium Carbonate On Standby, Sir.

2009-02-01T21:37:00.003Z

(How impressed was I when I Googled to find the name of the compound and discovered it was a genuine mood stabilising drug?)

This post contains the odd spoiler for the new Red Dwarf, except that it doesn't because it's going to be dreadful and therefore cannot be 'spoilt'.

Now, you may remember a while back I expressed my joy that the BBC had opted not to pour any more of my money into the comedy black hole that is Red Dwarf. For those of you who hate hyperlinks, I am a big fan of Red Dwarf, but I am a proper fan which means I thought series 6 was good but not great, series seven was alright, and series eight was unmitigated shite. (Alright, fine, mitigated shite. But basically still shite.) My point here is this: I have yet to see any evidence at all that Doug Naylor is capable of writing Red Dwarf well on his own. Now, he's had ten years to write a single hour of television, so one would hope that this time he's come up with something good, but all that would prove is that one hadn't seen this trailer:

I've not actually seen this trailer on TV, so it's entirely possible it's the work of an insane fan with too much time on his hands. Certainly it's not made by the producers of the new Red Dwarf episodes, but the person who alerted me to it plays Kryten, so my first instinct is to trust it. In any case, if it is official or the work of a knowledgeable fan, then we can infer the following:

Neither Norman Lovett or Hattie Hayridge is in the new Red Dwarf. As in series six, Holly does not feature.
Kochanski has been written out, or at least isn't in it any more.
The new episodes are not set on Red Dwarf. Or Starbug. Or in space. That the crew make it back to Earth in the new episodes is known. In fact, to be honest, we seem to be looking at Steptoe And Son In Space On Earth, which I'm pretty sure has been done.

Once again, I have to say, this is not Red Dwarf. I hate to bleat on about this, but Red Dwarf is about a group of people trapped on a spaceship dodging mildly silly sci-fi phenomena and nasty aliens. It is not a prison show. It is not Only Fools And Robots. If you want to make those things then you do that, but don't try to sell it to me as Red Dwarf, because that will just anger me.

Being realistic, I am going to watch the new episodes. Watching TV is very easy since we got the DVR. It's not something I'd stay home to see. But I'll watch it. And here is what I want to see, bearing in mind that filming has started so it's far too late for anyone to actually listen to me:

Clever humour. It is my experience that the best comedy combines a silly and surreal streak with a backbone of gritty realism. A program that's just nonsense all the way through is unlikely to hold my attention for long. (It can be done, but even Monty Python can't be called 'nonsense' all the way through.) I suspect from reading their solo writings that Rob Grant was in charge of the Clever and Naylor was in charge of the Silly. Both elements are needed for greatness (although Clever can work on its own). The Simpsons was very good at that for a long time. Now it just metes out Silly at random and hasn't done Clever in years. Red Dwarf is in the same boat.
Clever sci-fi. I always thought the sci-fi in Red Dwarf was excellent. It avoided the Star-Trek nonsense of having loads of humanoid and interbreedable alien races and stuck strictly to Earth-borne life-forms, and it treated ideas like Backwards Earth and White Holes with a sensible look, again with a little silliness thrown in for good measure. The last series didn't. In eight episodes it managed exactly one good sci-fi plot. That won't do.
A 'reboot' of the show starting at the end of series six. This doesn't, strictly, make any sense, but it's the best thing to do for reasons I will explain in the next list in my list filled post (which in retrospect may have been a mistake given the awful way our blog skin renders lists):

Holly and Kochanski weren't in the end of series six. Starting there is therefore the best way to elegantly exclude them both.
The time paradox bit at the start of series seven could easily be invoked again to explain the excision of the last two series from the continuity.
Series eight (and, to a lesser extent, series seven) made no sense at all. The act of admitting they were mistakes by removing them from the canon in this way would be an encouraging symbolic gesture and would allow me to approach the show as I approached Obama's victory speech rather than as I'd approach a news report about a murderer living in the next flat.
The cliffhanger at the end of series eight cannot be resolved. I cannot stress this enough: the established mechanics of the 'mirror universe' totally preclude any means of escape. One such escape was devised: it was included as an extra in the series eight DVD. Suffice to say that it to doesn't make any sense, although it does have one very good line in. And honestly, I don't want it to be resolved, because if we're only getting two new episodes I don't want the first one to consist entirely of Doug Naylor attempting to write his way out of a corner.

Bottom line: when I heard there was more Red Dwarf on the way, I was not excited. I have so far not been given any reason to get excited. I'll let you know when clips are released if my pessimism abates at all, and I've no doubt I'll blog about the episodes too. But don't expect me to be nice. As of right now, I'm very, very doubtful that I'll enjoy the new episodes.

Update: Dave's website has a photo of the cast. Rimmer has a big 'H' on his face, so they've obviously decided to go right back to basics with the classic setup (albeit minus Holly). In a sense that's encouraging: it could be a good sign that the show is returning to its roots (or at least, one of its better branches). Hell, maybe they have gone back to the end of Out Of Time. On the other hand, the attraction of Red Dwarf wasn't that Rimmer was a hologram or that Kochanski wasn't in it. If this is a continuation of the story as it was at the end of Red Dwarf VIII, then I worry that Doug Naylor has again massively missed the point of his own show.

I'm Happy, I'm Happy, Punch

2009-02-01T13:39:00.001Z

As sitcoms go, the BBC haven't been that successful in recent years. My Family is just the same plot every episode, The Life of Riley shouldn't even be mentioned and all the good sitcoms are usually put on BBC2 on a Thursday where no viewer ever ventures. But, sometimes they get their finger out and pull off something good. The Old Guys (BBC1, Saturdays) had it's first airing last night, and it was able to hold my interest for the full half hour. It wasn't full of belly laughs, but there were some interesting lines and situations. It was also written by Bain and Armstrong, the people behind the glorious Peep Show. And you could tell.

Last nights episode (simply titled Sally's Party) seemed to be a family-aimed episode of Peep Show. One of the numerous plots in last night's episode included Tom and Roy having a contest to see who can go without peeing the longest. Nearing the end of the episode, there happens to be a stray can of beer that the host of the party finds. Cue a scene where Tom and Roy try and force the beer onto one another. Fun, but almost a word-for-word copy of the scene in Peep Show where Mark and Jez try to make one another eat the leg of a barbecued dog. It's more an embarrassing situation than a full out grossfest.

Another similarity between the two include shared lines of dialogue. "Be neutral like Switzerland, not avasive like slutty Holland" occured last night (which I swear has been said by Mark at one point) and I'm pretty sure "Anyone can use words to mean things" as a comeback in an arguement has been uttered by Jez.

Comparisons aside, watching it was great. Tom and Roy played great characters, but were in full Trigger/Richard Bucket mode. I'll come to the assumption that this is a good thing, as it gave the show an air of familiarity.

All in all, The Old Guys was pretty enjoyable. The conclusion of events being wrapped up in the final scene was very reminiscant of Chalk and Lab Rats, two very overlooked sitcoms. I'm glad the BBC have put this on at a reasonable time as well. It'll be interesting to see if it continues doing watered down versions of Peep Show plots- but I'll certainly be keeping at least one eye open.

Noelstalgia

2009-01-31T21:42:00.001Z

Christmas TV of 2008 seemed to be all about nostalgia. Shows returning included The Krypton Factor, Blackadder, Shooting Stars, Jonathan Creek... all that was missing was a 10-year special of Goodnight Sweetheart. That's not a bad idea actually. Picking up in the year 1955/2009. Are you listening, BBC?

Well, obviously you are not. Mainly because instead of doing genius ideas like mine (you know what else.. bring back Crime Traveller. It was brilliant), they're doing rubbish ideas. Another nostalgia trip is upcoming... with the return of Noel's House Party.

Oh blob.

I thought it was generally agreed that Noel's House Party took a nosedive, ended up being utterly awful and then Noel disappeared for a bit, only to return in awful shirts and telling people to open some boxes. I also don't understand why the 30-year olds nowadays who say that Saturday Night TV isn't as good as it used to be, but will happily sit and reminisce the time where celebrities were gunged, and a purple/yellow creature blobbed about the set.

Instead of, you know.. Hole in the Wall, where celebrities are pushed back into a pool of water. Granted, there's no purple/yellow blobby creatures, but I'm sure a quick costume change for Vanessa Feltz would solve that.

So you're saying that if a crazy man tells me he can see the future using eggs I should maybe ignore him? Oh, this is too complicated for me.

2009-01-31T19:25:00.005Z

I'm watching The Real Hustle: High Stakes. They are doing a con called "The Psychic". In it, one of the hustlers has set himself up as a fortune teller, done a bit of trickery, and told a woman she needs to put a load of money somewhere safe so that he can nick it later.

Now that's all well and good, but really? This is a woman who thinks he's got psychic abilities and that an egg was genuinely full of blood. You could get more cash out of her by not getting her to put loads of it in a box for you to steal. I doubt if there's any upper limit on how much money I could get out of her if I was an unscrupulous conman, at least before I came up against the wall of her total earnings over her lifetime. This is not exactly a Derren Brownian level of sophistication being discussed here. When your con relies on the mark being the single most gullible person in all of London, it really doesn't matter what you do: nobody watching a show about Here Are Some Cons So You Can't Get Fooled By Them was ever in any danger of falling for that one.

I guess really that the idea that there exist psychics who aren't conning their customers is what's annoying me here.

Twenty Bored

2009-01-22T18:59:00.005Z

There are terrorists planning to assassinate a presidential candidate. My wife and daughter have been kidnapped, and some of the people that I work with may be involved in both. Oh, and David Palmer's son may have killed somebody, but he probably didn't.

There's a nuclear bomb about to go off in Los Angeles. An American business looks like it's behind it. But, you know, Jack Bauer's daughter is going to be running for a bit. And getting caught in bear traps.

There's a weaponised virus strain loose in LA. Jack Bauer has a heroin addiction. They need to break a druglord out of prison. Oh, but somebody may say some naughty things about the President. And something involving a guy called Alan Milliken. Who I don't care about.

In case you haven't worked it out, I'm going on about a common theme in American drama 24, which has beautifully returned to our screens on Sky One. It seems they can never complete a series without introducing a very boring plotline that has nothing to do with anything. I call the phenomenon "getting Twenty Bored". But it happens all the time, so it can't be that big a phenomenon. 24's been away for 18 months now due to writers striking and Kiefers drinking. The writers have promised that it will "go back to it's roots" and be "rebooted". This scared me, as the last time it "rebooted" was around the time of Series 4, where something awful happened. They decided to dumb down the "one plot that takes 24 hours to complete" regime, and added a new "plotline is resolved within four hours, new plotline takes over" tactic. It might as well have been four series' of a show called 6. Which sounds good on paper, but really isn't.

And then a grizzly bear started gnawing on her remains. She got a silent clock for that scene

As the seasons went on, so did the plots. We had a nuclear power station melt down, which is heartfelt on it's own... but we had to be given the emotional backstory that Edgar Stiles' grandmother was stuck on the island the power station was melting down on. Emotional overload! The writers decided that this strand of plot wasn't emotional enough, and decided to let Edgar's grandmother commit suicide. And then a grizzly bear started gnawing on her remains. She got a silent clock for that scene.

This "reboot" was not going to plan. It got worse as the long days continued, until we reached the final abomination that was Series Six. We had a nice idea about suitcase nukes and the potential death of Jack Bauer... until about episode 10 where the writers decided to involve Bauer's entire extended family. There was also the kidnap of a blonde haired effeminate Bauer relative, and a final scene set near some docks, where the bad guy died. And one of the characters announced she was surprisingly pregnant. This was not longer a reboot... it was a rehash.

The fans were very vocal about this series. I'll be honest and say that I haven't even watched three of the final episodes. I didn't have much hope for this new series.

But... it's been good so far. Five episodes in, and we've had enough twists and turns than we did in previous series, everything seems believable so far, and for the first time since 2002, I'm watching the episodes once a week, as they air on TV. I usually wait til the end of the series and watch all 24 episodes in a day. I'm also doing something new, which is watch the new series with somebody whose never even seen 24 before. It's nice to get a fresh perspective on it.

It's also nice to know that in this reboot, we have a plot that I don't care about! It wouldn't be 24 without it. This time, it's Did The President's Son Roger Kill Himself Or Not? , a plot that I didn't welcome with open arms. But, luckily for me, we're five episodes in and the plot is beginning to make a connection with everything else going on! This excites me, as it's never been done before. But then again, when Chloe ended up looking after a baby in Series Three, I never did suspect that it was behind the virus attacks in any way. Would have been cool though.

I look forward to the rest of Day 7. Don't fail me, Bauer

Channel Flip is now on Twitter!

2009-01-22T11:36:00.002Z

In case you thought checking this sparsely updated blog about television couldn't get more exciting, it just has! We're now on Twitter, where you can check to see if there are new articles or even watch some 140-character reviews about TV shows. We're just rolling aboutin Web 2.0 goodness. Lovely stuff.

Channel Flip on Twitter

Ad Absurdum

2009-01-19T21:54:00.003Z

Adverts are annoying me again. Some in particular:

I'll Wear This Wig!

[Watch this dreadful ad] Just, no. It's just so awful. First of all, even after Quote-me-Happy-gate, they've decided to invent a character to represent themselves, named him 'Happy', and made a little film about him. But while they've chosen a voice (annoying) and a personality (none), they've not chosen a face for Happy, so to avoid showing it the entire ad is shot in first-person, where the viewer is Norwich Union. That's just surreal. I presume the ad is supposed to be humorous, with the hapless comic foil for Happy (whose name is not mentioned, but I shall call 'Dopey') agreeing to wear a silly wig in the very old and very tired (or 'Sleepy') "Our Prices Are Crazy!" tack. Well, it doesn't work.

But the worst part is, I nearly couldn't find a link for this ad because I honestly heard the character's name as "Abbey" and so never knew who it was advertising. (I don't pay much attention to ads -- I feel it's the ads' job to grab me.)

Mister Muscle: Super Scientist

[Watch this dreadful ad] This advert is bad for several reasons, principally that it makes no sense. It makes no sense in terms of dialogue: why does Mr Muscle say "no, thank you"? What, for having their kitchen cleaned? It also makes no sense in terms of message: the whole point of Mr Muscle's adverts for as long as they've been going out has been that 'Mr Muscle' is a weedy guy who can still clean the tough grease because of the power of the product. When he's a muscly superhero it says nothing about the product: that guy could clean all the grease with tapwaterand a sheet of Bounty. There's no reason why he should be CG, that I can see, except that it makes it simpler to redo his video to match his localised voice... but they didn't even do that.

And a 'super scientist' is not the same thing as a 'twat in a white coat'.

Your Dress? No, My Hair!

(I don't know which particular version of this tripe is on just now, but they're all basically the same so here's the first I found.)

Who wrote this one? It has exactly no merit at all. It features Davina McCall and appears to have been filmed after she was turned into a zombie but before Andy Nyman thankfully put a lamp through her. In the ad, she talks to her mother -- who again isn't shown (although this time at least it's shot in the third person and Davina is on the phone). Whether this is because they couldn't find an actress who could pass for Davina's mother or to stop her actual mother from suing isn't clear. Personally, I think it's because they couldn't bring themselves to feature anyone who could be a 41-year-old's mother in their advert.

The dialogue is awful even by the standards of other hair-dye adverts (except perhaps the Just For Men one where some guy's kids try to get him a girlfriend using dye) and the voices are, too. I just can't see what part of this advert is supposed to get people to buy the product. Girls, does this shit work on you? If so, I'm going to try talking vacuous crap in bars (more so).

I'm sure there are more ads I hate running at the moment, but I can't think what they are just now. Oh, and while I'm here, I'm not what you might call 'impressed' with what Visit4Info.com think constitutes an embedded video. A thumbnail and a hyperlink isn't embedded media.

At Least If Joseph Fritzl was in Big Brother, There'd be Cameras in the Basement this time.

2009-01-18T19:32:00.010Z

This weekend, me and my flatmate Hugh have been able to have a rare insight about how certain aspects of television are made. The decision that we'd embark on this adventure occurred after a tipsy remark on Friday night, where we joked about auditioning for the next Summer series of Big Brother. The logistics were easy enough... the auditions were just down the road from us, and it'd be a nice easy way to kill time on a Saturday. I'm not saying the decision was that easy; we were able to fit in a couple of pints before arriving at the auditions at 1.30pm. To ease ourselves into it, you see.

We arrived at St. James' Park, and found a very interesting sight. Just at the entrance to the audition room stood two people in their mid-twenties, one holding pamphlets and the other with a large camera. As we approached the entrance, they turned to us and asked "Big Brother auditions?". We agreed. We were then asked to pose for a photo of us holding one of these pamphlets. The experience was an odd one. It was only when we walked inside that I realised what they were doing. In the off-chance that one of these hundreds of applicants would finally get into the house, they were able to take photos of them all endorsing their product. Six months down the line when the housemates are announced, they can trawl through the thousands of photos they have to find anybody who is remotely famous holding one of their pamphlets. It's a very arduously planned method for a cheap photoshoot with a potential future celebrity. How tedious.

One claimed to be gay for ten years, and then worked out that he'd only been gay for six years.

Walking inside St. James', we were greeted with a queue of people on the stairs- all of which were about 20-23. It is interesting how many young people a show like Big Brother attracts. In the hour we were in this queue, we then went to join a second queue. This was a task in itself. A queue for queueing. Seemed a bit pointless. After our extensive double-queue, we were asked to join participants in groups of ten to do a number of activites. This included yelling, contact improvisation, knot tying with our hands and me getting acquainted with the insides of people's legs. After our team won (for, it seems, doing nothing), we were all asked through to the next room for the next stage. Hopefully not involving queues.

In our team of ten, we had to get to know each other with interesting facts. I pulled out my gem of "I have no toenails"; but there were a few facts from others that topped this. One claimed to be gay for ten years, and then worked out that he'd only been gay for six years. One person had a glass eye. Another was a fireman. One person claimed to have a wooden leg, then told us that this fact wasn't true. We all thought he was a bit odd. After this, one person at a time had to line up the team in order from "Most" to "Least"., but wasn't allowed to say what the category was. According to the people, I was the least arrogant (which is fair enough) but one of the most likely to have murdered somebody. So, I'm a serial killer, but I don't let it go to my head. At the end of this, the people through to stage 2 were stamped with the Big Brother logo on their hand. Fake-fake Appendage man and Dyscalculaic Homosexual were the only two in our group not to go through to the next round.

Quite happy that both of us were through, me and Hugh went to the next stage- which consisted of having our photo taken and filling in a little form. Questions involved "What do you do" to "What's the most shameful thing you've ever done" and "Is there anything you haven't told your parents?". We both answered the questions with a bit of humour about ourselves, as none of us were taking it seriously. After the form was filled in, we had our one-to-one interviews, which were designed to provoke us:

"So, what's your name?"
"Stephen Frizzle"
"Do you prefer a nickname?"
"Friz, if you don't mind"
"Friz? What if we called you.. Frizzy?"
"Friz is fine"
"What about Frizwald?"
"What? Well.. if you want to"
"Fritz?"
"I'm not German"
"Fritzl?"
"Please don't call me Fritzl"
"Are you posh? You sound posh? Are you posh, Fritzl?"

At least if Joseph Fritzl was in Big Brother, there'd be cameras in the basement this time.

Then, a bit of a wait, until I was directed to another part of another room.. where I was asked if I had a fun time, and then was told that "unfortunately, we won't be requiring you for any more stages. But, thanks for coming". This was good. I'd done what I planned to. At least I could say that I tried. And, at least I hadn't travelled miles to attend like a lot of other people. It was literally a twenty minute walk. I text Hugh to see if he was ready to go as well. I was text back: "Go home, got more writing to do!".

Excellent! Hugh was let through! Our day wasn't wasted at least. I head off home, prepared for a night out. Hugh joined me later, and mentioned what Stage 3 was like.. basically questions about his life, relationships and creativity. I was happy for the guy. But I was even happier at about 8.20pm when my phone rang.

"Hi Stephen, it's Julie from Big Brother"
"Yes?"
"Hi there. Just thought you'd like to know... at the end of the day, we go through other contestant's videos.. and we've changed our minds about our decision with you. Do you want to come in tomorrow at about 11am?"
"... Excuse me?"
"Yeah, just say that Julie called you back. Okay! Thank you!

Hmm.

Check that out.

I told Hugh the good news, and we both were very happy about the turn of events. And that's where I've been today. Filled out the 52-page giant form of giantness. Had a discussion with other potential candidates; one of which didn't know who Barack Obama was. No doubt he'll end up in the house. I was then taken to an impromptu Diary Room, and was asked questions by one of the Big Brother producers/voices. I was mainly asked about my humour, my background, my songwriting and my veiws on life. I was then asked for a 20-second soundbyte to say why I should be chosen.

It's a weird feeling. Part of me doesn't want anything to do with Big Brother, part of me thinks "this is so funny I've been able to get this far without trying", and the tiniest part of me thinks... this might be fun.

Only time will tell.

Is It An Argument Against Flimsy Pretexts For Putting Mildly Amusing Pictures At The End Of Panel Shows?

2009-01-18T16:28:00.004Z

Dave has commissioned a second series of Argumental. The TV channel Dave, that is, not my mate Dave, who almost never funds or broadcasts comedy panel game series. For those of you who haven't seen Argumental, the idea is that two teams of comedians debate topics in various silly ways and the audience judge who is the best and they win nothing. It basically works, but there are a few things that I noticed in the first series that spoil it somewhat. These things are centred around Rufus Hound.

Hound is one of the team captains, the other being Marcus Brigstocke. While Brigstocke is polite, well-spoken and usually very funny, Hound has an annoying habit of attempting to use Argument By Volume and Argument From Length Of Rant as his two intellectual mainstays. And that's not bad, in its place, but it's place is not when Marcus Brigstocke is trying to say something which is probably cleverer or funnier than whatever Hound is shouting over it. I'm pretty sure I've seen Hound 'win' an episode simply by being the only person who got a word in.

What I'm getting at is that Hound Vs. Brigstocke would be a perfectly good setup if the show had a decent compere. It doesn't. Argumental is presented by John Sergeant, who is an accomplished political commentator but knows as much about compering a comedy panel show as he does about ballroom dancing: he can turn up and go through the motions as well as the next man, but it's not his strong point. He almost never intervenes in the debates -- in the first series I think it happened once, and that was to correct Hound about history.

If your compere isn't prepared to wade in, you need polite and respectful contestants, and if you have shouty, ranty contestants then you need a strong compere to rein them in. Hound and Sergeant are both returning in series two, so either Dave has not noticed that the setup isn't working as well as it could or else they're going to have a stern word with Sergeant and tell him he needs to stop Hound sometimes so other people can play.

If It Ain't Broke, Update It: The Secret Twin Motto Of Microsoft and ITV

2009-01-03T00:30:00.005Z

In retrospect it was inevitable after the success of Doctor Who that ITV would realise the potential of ressurecting popular shows that were axed long ago. And so, The Krypton Factor is back. I notice disapprovingly that the show has been entirely ITVed.

It's not all bad by any means. They've kept the green K that morphs into symbols for the rounds, albeit in a more modern incarnation. (The change is probably for the best given that today's new generation of nerds would look at the old logo and say, 'I never knew they made a game show out of Slashdot.') The new set is very impressive, too, if about four sizes too large. They've even kept a couple of smaller touches from the old series, such as the links between questions in the general knowledge round.

They've changed the scoring system slightly. In the old days they'd generally tiebreak the rounds based on some secondary factor, usually time, and give out 10, 6, 4 and 2 points come hell or high water. That wasn't ideal, since a photo-finish could result in an 8-point gap, so the new series doesn't do that, and (learning nothing from Strictlygate II) allocates 10, 6, 4 and 4 in the event of a tie for third place. Potentially, this means you could lose an extra 10 points on the other players just because they happen to tie. I think you'd then have legitimate grounds to feel hard done by. What would be wrong with splitting the total points (i.e., 10, 6, 3, 3 in a tie for third) I don't know. More generally, why TV producers are so repeatedly incapable of inventing scoring systems that work is something of a mystery.

Other changes are more unambiguously bad. The show is now hosted by Ben Shephard, a basically okay but woefully generic presenter who ITV and the BBC seem to drag out whenever a show is so unremarkable that Nick Knowles refuses to do it (this despite Gordon Burns working within walking distance of the studios). The Mental Agility round now takes place in something called The Cube, an idea presumably taken from Families At War. This is a flimsy plastic hut in which questions are delivered by a mechanical female voice, but not until Shephard has "Activated" the Cube. There is also a heart-rate monitor in there for no adequately explored reason. As is TV practice, the heart-rate monitor's output is shown as an graphic designed to look like an ECG trace by someone who clearly knows less about ECG traces than can be easily derived from watching Casualty. The Observation round in the first new episode featured a clip from Emmerdale. The theme music has been replaced with that tune that ITV always use for theme music on game shows. The series winner will be the "Champion" and not the "Superperson". The assault course seems to be much longer and has been totally redesigned in such a way that only two contestants can run it at once and it's in a forest so you can rarely see them both at the same time. The second race is shown interspersed with the first, but delayed, so you're left with utterly no idea what the hell is going on until the times are shown at the end. The order the players are shown crossing the line is certainly not a clue. All it needs now is a phone-in competition.

I also noticed that the show didn't have any flight simulators in it. The Response round had been totally removed. You can't do that! That's like an episode of Jonathan Creek without a mystery: you might watch the show and enjoy it if you didn't know anything was missing, but when you know what is supposed to be there it feels like you're being short-changed. Especially since one would hope that flight simulators would, by now, be better and cheaper to use. Possibly there were fears of terrorists appearing on the show to get practice at flying planes into buildings.

It's as though ITV actively want to make shit television. They've bought a successful show with a sizable following and set about systematically changing things that didn't need changing. I'd chalk it up to plain old incompetence -- after all, few shows from a decade and a half ago could be shown now without seeming preposterously dated -- but let's not forget they did the same thing to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? after no break at all. Hell, it was probably ITV's meddling that killed The Krypton Factor in the first place.

Seriously, ITV, why must you always break everything?

The Next Doctor

2008-12-30T12:28:00.003Z

I think it's only fair that I say how much I enjoyed the latest Doctor Who special. I've said some bad things about many of Russell T Davies' episodes since he took over, and while I stand by at least the ones I remember, when he's good he's fantastic. Midnight was excellent and so was The Next Doctor. And probably some others that I've forgotten.

I must admit, when I saw the trailer, I was afraid that Davies had introduced a shitty new Doctor as a parting blow just to ruin Steven Moffat's day, so I was very pleased with the resolution to that mystery when I figured it out well in advance of the reveal. At least, I figured out that he wasn't the real Doctor. Obviously the whole bit with the Cybermen having left their Doctor database on a USB stick on the train I didn't see in advance. I liked that bit. It nicely fit in: the TARDIS lands in the middle of an apparent battle between Cybermen and Doctor and the whole thing is explained by one event.

It was perhaps a shame that the Cybermen, a fairly interesting 'viral' villain like zombies or the Borg, were reduced to rampaging vandals, but they were probably necessary for the Next Doctor puzzle to work. I have no idea what the weird copper Cyber-ring-wraiths were in aid of, though. They were neither needed nor properly explained. I would have preferred they were left out, and that the Blink reference had stayed at the one line from Morrissey, but the episode was great with or without those things. I did like the "I can't not pull from this position" line.

Of course, the fact that I know Davies can produce such tight, clever plots makes it all the more infuriating when he doesn't, but that doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the ones he does write.

Dave Hitt Is... well, wrong.

2008-12-06T23:58:00.006Z

The last Heroes annoyed me. It had some great bits, and some naff bits, because it was Heroes and that's what it does best. But it annoyed me just because the characters kept referring to the eclipse as 'a worldwide event', which eclipses demonstrably are not, at least, not unless you live on the Moon (and even then you can only actually see it from half of the Moon).

But I feel I have to defend it because... well, because someone has accused it of Jumping The Shark. "Jumping The Shark" is a phrase derived from an old Happy Days episode that many fans think of as the defining moment of the show's decline, and now means "I have appointed myself Supreme Judge Of Television, indeed I confidently expect to be asked to present the next series of Screenwipe, and I have noticed that something has changed in this show and therefore it is awful now". It can't be coincidence that without exception everyone who uses the phrase is disagreeable. They mostly drag it out when something happens that changes the initial setup of the show, such as Niles and Daphne getting together, or Chandler and Monica getting together, or some other yardstick event that points out that ten years is quite long enough for anyone to find themselves a girlfriend, and they're forced to either admit that they're socially inept or else start hating the show for letting the characters be happier than they are. Or whatever. I'm guessing here. Who knows, they might just be the same automatically-change-hating reactionary imbeciles that keep organising pathetic protests against the new-look Facebook.

In this case, though, I know the guy who's complaining of old. Dave Hitt and I have had our disagreements before, but he is at least a bit more refined than just some guy who turns off the first time anything clever happens. But still, he gets his basic facts wrong...

It’s not physically possible for an eclipse to happen simultaneously in Kansas, New Jersey (the location of Pinehurst) and Haiti, or to last for an hour.

Well, actually it's not only possible but highly likely, since the show clearly showed that a partial eclipse was all that was needed. None of those places are all that far away from each other. The eclipse was done wrong on a number of levels but these were not them.

There are also major continuity errors. ... Arthur Petrelli gains power by sucking other people’s powers away, leaving them powerless. But when he did it to Hiro, Hiro retained his powers and just lost his memory. Huh?

He absorbed Peter's powers, including the one he gained from Hiro, and he's always been able to wipe memories. What part of this is impossible? Question his motives for doing this, sure, but don't act like it's a continuity error.

None of the major characters in Heroes die and stay dead. Arthur Petrelli was supposedly dead, but then we find he’s really immobilized in a hospital somewhere. He steals Adams immortality, killing him, but we’ll probably see him resurrected later. In the last episode Noah kills a powerless Sylar, who is, of course, resurrected as soon as the eclipse is over. I’ve lost track of the number of times Clare has been killed. In this episode it looked like they finally killed her for real. Fat chance. She came back to life as soon as the eclipse was over. Of course. The result of these endless resurrections is that death has no dramatic impact in the series. Another character killed? Ho hum, what’s for dinner?

What? Of course major characters stay dead. Adam Munroe is dead. Elle is dead and so is her dad. Niki Sanders is dead, as is D L Hawkins. Alejandro is dead (and none too soon). Isaac Mendez is dead. Lindermann is dead. Parkman's dad is dead. Eden is dead, which is a shame because she was hot. None of these is coming back, except in flashbacks or dreams or whatever. The point is that it is clear which characters can do this, and therefore it's usually pretty clear which deaths are reversible: the only characters who have come back from the dead have done so as a direct result of Clare or Adam's regenerative powers. Arthur's surviving his apparent death was handled pretty well, I think, and in any case I don't think he was ever a major character before then. Similarly, things like Noah's ressurection using Clare's blood relied only on events that had been previously explained and was shown in the same episode as his death so nobody should feel too cheated by that. In any case, it was the resolution to the 'painting foretelling his death' plotline. If everything that was painted came absolutely true and was never subverted then the show would be fantastically boring.

Clare's death in the eclipse episode wasn't there to say 'look, we killed Clare' it was there to give Noah a decent 'oh shit, Sylar might still be alive' moment. I don't think it worked especially well, because we've had enough precedent by now that we all know Sylar and Clare won't be killed off halfway through a series.

The show has been entertaining, but spotty, and I’d been hoping it would improve. Instead it’s gone the other way, and now has officially Jumped The Shark.

It has improved. Series three is better than series two but worse than series one. Everyone in the world agrees on this. Now stop whining. If you want to make a point, don't pad it with nonsense. That only diminishes your argument.

The Mitchell And Webb Situation

2008-10-12T23:43:00.003+01:00

BBC2 have just finished rerunning The Mitchell And Webb Situation (the title having been suggested by Robert Ludlum), a TV sketch show that essentially became That Mitchell And Webb Sound on Radio Four and then That Mitchell And Webb Look on BBC2 again.

It's strange. It's very clearly Mitchell and Webb. You could tell that from a transcript: many of the ideas are ones that turn up in their later work and there's a lot of the clever poking of fun at ridiculous aspects of life that sets the pair apart from the catchphrase monkeys who make drivel like Little Britain. And it's very funny, technically, I think. It just doesn't make me laugh.

I can't watch That Mitchell And Webb Look without laughing. It's too good. But this I can. I watch a sketch, and I can see the joke, and it's clever, and I get the point, but there isn't the big impact punchline you get in their later work. It's like the it's entirely comprised of sketches rejected from the new show because nobody could quite make them work properly.

Quite interesting to watch, though. I feel like I've learned something about how comedy develops.

Heroes is back!

2008-10-06T20:26:00.004+01:00

...And with it, Sylar, the most redundant baddie in TV history!

Sylar is a great character -- he's a murderous psychopath, but the writers have still gone to the bother of fleshing him out properly, with motives and consistent weaknesses and everything else that excites Greg Grunberg so much. And yet, he's never really used. In the first series he was always there, being a threat, but the nuclear bomb was a bigger threat. In the second, he played second fiddle to a deadly virus, and this year it looks like a large explosion, a troupe of even mentaller people, and a crazy Patrelli from a future that might not be the future.

This is arguably a waste of a good baddie, but that's why Heroes is great -- they come up with enough great stuff to fill the series, then they come up with a bunch of extra great stuff and put that in too. And then they do it again for the next series. And let's face it: we've not lost anything -- as if any of the hacks on other shows would use him any better.

A Glass and a Half of Effort

2008-09-05T22:26:00.004+01:00

Cadbury's have two recently famous adverts. One, in which a gorilla plays drums along to the tune of In The Air Tonight, and a second one in which colourful airport vehicles race alongside each other to the tune of Don't Stop Me Now.

They've just aired both those adverts, in full, in a row. With two major changes. The gorilla advert is now dubbed with Total Eclipse of the Heart, and the race is now dubbed over with Living on a Prayer.

Why? Why waste 3 minutes of advertising with existing adverts redubbed? It just seems wasteful, and the only reason I watched both adverts in full is because I assumed there'd be some sort of twist. Like Bonnie Tyler in the gorilla costume. Sadly, no.

Very pointless.

Dead Set

2008-09-03T13:38:00.002+01:00

Charlie Brooker, that guy who rants about TV on BBC4, has finished writing and filming a fantastic-looking new series for E4. It's called Dead Set, and seems to be about contestants on Big Brother leaving the house to find a zombie apocolypse on the outside.

Here is the trailer.

I'm looking forward to this quite a lot. There hasn't been a good horror series since Jekyll.

How to deal with the Doctor Who gap year: An Easy Guide

2008-08-27T15:02:00.005+01:00

Certain corners of Doctor Who fandom is absolutely terrified of the Gap Year. That's understandable. I mean, how will they survive without their fix of thirteen brand new episodes of Doctor Who? Well worry ye not, faithful readers, for I have formed an idea.

Here's what you do:

Beginning from Saturday 3rd 2009, watch an episode of New Who on DVD every Saturday at 7pm. Don't watch more than one episode.
Assuming that the planned specials will air on Saturdays at around 7pm, postpone the viewing of your next episode for the following week.
Postpone the viewing of your next scheduled episode for the Eurovision Song Contest. Log on to Outpost Gallifrey's forum to complain that your viewing of Doctor Who has been interrupted, then watch the Eurovision anyway.
Optionally, write a review of Eurovision Song Contest on Outpost Gallifrey as if it were an episode of Doctor Who.
That's it.

With fifty-five episodes of New Who in the can, this should take you all the way through 2009 and part of the way into 2010, with mere months - or maybe even weeks! - to go until Series Five starts. Good luck, Fandom.

Philled With Confidence

2008-08-15T21:56:00.004+01:00

The BBC Doctor Who site reports that producer Phil Collinson, who is a producer for Doctor Who, managed to come up with two ideas during one season run of the show, and manage to run the article praising the guy throughout.

I'm pretty sure "coming up with ideas" is what a producer is meant to do.

Reading the article, I begin to think that Collinson may be some sort of editor of the BBC site. Either that, or the editors of the website are getting sick to death of praising Stephen Moffat every fortnight.

Not that I see how that's possible, of course.

It seems CBBC is better than BBC3.

2008-07-29T00:43:00.005+01:00

Is there any reason why a CBBC sketch show called I'm Sorry, I've Got No Head is smarter, cleverer and made me laugh more times than a BBC3 sketch show called Scallywagga.

This is YouTube's first clip if you search for I'm Sorry I've Got No Head:

That's pretty funny, albeit the punchline has been given away by the preview picture. But go on YouTube and search for more sketches from the show. Most of them are really good, with collaberations from great comedians such as Marcus Brigstocke and Mel from Mel and Sue.

Here is the top rated clip for Scallywagga:

Oh. I. I see. I understand why this is meant to be funny... they're making fun of sketch shows with pointless catchphrases within a sketch. But they're sort of repeating that Colin Hunt sketch. But they've turned the fake catchphrases into a catchphrase.

It's all very confusing and odd.

"I Said to Beethoven 'I Can Rattle off a Tune', he said 'Pardon?'"

2008-07-27T12:00:00.009+01:00

Despite it not technically being television, the BBC Proms this year showed a little mini-episode of Doctor Who as part of their Kids-Centric Proms. They showed this little episode...

It's quite funny, and I suppose it'd be greatly appreciated in the Albert Hall with lots of children talking to the Doctor. All in all, I loved it. It publicised the Doctor's love of music, it interacted well on a pantomimic scale (especially when listening to the Proms on Radio 3). The ending is a bit.. sappy, but it's all round fun entertainment.

But... I'm going to guess that a lot of people won't. In the comments section of this post, I would like you to find a link of every source you can find which complains about this little mini-adventure for the following reasons:

- It surely can't be canonical
- The Doctor breaks the fourth wall!
- They didn't credit Jimmy Vee!
- Pah! It's far too kids-centric now!

That's your task. Go.

Censor Sensibility

2008-07-26T06:51:00.003+01:00

The Channel 4 franchise is rubbish. Well, that's a lie- it's excellent, but it's rubbish in one field. Why do they feel the need to censor programs at 2pm because they contain questionable words?

Let me explain further... the other day, they showed an episode of Friends where Ross and Rachel throw their daughter a 1st birthday party. They get her a novelty cake which is supposed to be shaped like a bunny. But it isn't. It's shaped like a penis. Hilarity ensues. However, if you're airing that episode on E4 at five in the afternoon and won't allow the word penis on air, the plot does lose a bit of sense.

The end scene is supposed to go like this:

(Rachel wipes away some tears.)

Ross:
What's wrong? Are you okay?

Rachel:
Oh yeah, nothing! These are happy tears! This is just what I wanted.

Phoebe:
(pointing at cake) Hey, you made it into a bunny.

Joey:
(looking worried) What is wrong with me. It looked more delicious when it was a penis!

Here is E4's version of that scene:

(Rachel wipes away some tears.)

Ross:
What's wrong? Are you okay?

Rachel:
Oh yeah, nothing! These are happy tears! This is just what I wanted.

Phoebe:
(pointing at cake) Hey, you made it into a bunny.

Joey:
(Looking worried) What is wrong with me. It looked more delicious when it was-

(Cut to bizarre audience laughter)

Making no sense at all, but at least the kids watching at home won't question what a penis is.

There seems to be something vulgar about the word "Penis" in the land of Channel 4. Watching The Nutty Professor the other day on Film4 (and being slightly freaked out at the fact it was made twelve years ago), they cut out the line after Professor Klump gets thin for the first time, looks down at his trousers and exclaimed "My penis! I can see my penis!". However, what they decided was perfectly acceptable for 1pm is the scene where the newly thin Klump goes to a comedy club and defends a comedian, claiming his date to "give the nigger a chance"- and then later calls a piano player Niggeraci. What are Channel 4 trying to do here... be too sensitive? Worry that if they edit that out, people will be more offended?

And despite cutting out jokes that end up creating an episode that makes no sense (seriously - try watching a Scrubs episode called "My Dirty Secret" on E4 in the evening. The episode is about Eliot accidentally giving a patient an orgasm during a pelvic exam and then focuses on her inability to say rude words - the edited episode is something like 12 minutes long), Channel 4 still continue this tradition- to the point that they're now airing Desperate Housewives at 2pm, which when recorded without the adverts is now 35 minutes long.

I just don't know who they're trying to protect with most of these bizarre edits. Are they worried that an unattended 8-year old is going to be watching Friends at 5pm and then ask his parents what a penis is? It's silly is what it is.

Shut Up, D. Fitzgerald

2008-07-26T06:44:00.004+01:00

I do love people who write letters into magazines like TV Choice:

Why on earth does a backstreet boozer like Corrie's Rovers Return need so many staff? They've got Steve, his mother Liz, Michelle, Betty, Sean and Becky!
D Fitzgerald
Staffordshire

Shall we look at this logically, D Fitzgerald? You've counted up six people there. Working in a pub. Now, let's say for argument's sake that pubs are usually open from 11am til 11pm - about twelve hours a day. That's 84 hours a week. Divided by the seven staff means everyone's working about 12 hours a week. However, most the time, there's usually two staff members working, so if people are sharing shifts, that makes on average that the usual working week for any one member of staff there can be 18-24 hours. When I worked at a pub, this was usually my regular amount - and we had a small pub in a village called Holdingham that was staffed by about nine people. Nine people. AND we served food as well, much like the Rovers Return.

I may be thinking about this too much, but I can't get over why stupid people write in to magazines complaining about this sort of thing.

Cotton Wool Brains

2008-07-13T22:42:00.007+01:00

On More4 just now was a show called Cotton Wool Kids. It's about parents, and children of parents, who think that the world is so dangerous that they simply can't let the kids out of their sight for even a second.

There's a guy who will stalk his son in his car whenever he lets him go anywhere (although he's rubbish at it), a woman who has conversations with her daughter that start "see that man? He's a stranger, isn't he?", and a woman who is having her children "chipped", like... God, I don't even know -- we don't even treat animals that way. Anyway, she's having GPS things put in them so she'll always know where they are and how deep the nasty man has buried them.

Partly it's just gullible, tabloid-trusting paranoia, which on its own is stupidity in such massive amounts that it's frankly verging on becoming a punishable crime, but as well as that it's the most god-awful selfish hypocrisy -- they were perfectly happy to run around free when they were kids, and let's not pretend their parents weren't at all worried, but now it's them doing the worrying and their kids' freedom at stake, suddenly now they flip into overprotective mode and keep the kids locked up where they can be monitored at all times by their parents and thirty-two satellites. All this, and the kidnappings they fear (largely on the back of one case that was almost certainly just the parents drugging the girl to sleep, overdoing it, and hiding the evidence) haven't actually got any more common in 20 years. Apparently. They want it both ways, and it's just selfish and stupid and pathetic.

I'm convinced they're busily wrecking any chance their kids might have of growing into useful members of society. They have good intentions, certainly, but so do the anti-MMR-jab whack-jobs and and suicide bombers, and they're all going to ruin and shorten people's lives. These people need to be fucking told.

Is it just me, or is there some really horrible stuff on TV? That nobody notices?

2008-07-13T00:22:00.006+01:00

Claire cut off her toe on Heroes, and that was done brilliantly, but it was underplayed, I think, presumably because it play it as it would be would have been horrific. Of course, that was nothing compared to what happened to Jack in Torchwood after that. He was buried. In a hole. For hundreds of years. And when he came out, had he gone mad? Had he even lost his accent a bit? No. On his own, unable to breathe or eat or talk, for centuries on end, and the moment he's dug up he's straight on the job again, without missing a beat. I'm not buying it.

We've all seen the reports of torture in Guantanamo. It's becoming pretty apparent that you don't need to go to anything like those lengths to break someone's mind, at least for a while. We all know now that an hour feeling like you can't breathe and you're going to die is spectacularly awful enough to render most people useless for at least the remainder of the day. Unless you're Captain Jack. Earlier in the same series, Toshiko was basically date-raped and nobody said a thing. Even Jeremy from Peep Show can spot date-rape when it happens. (I did like that Toshiko didn't think of it that way, as she still 'loved' him, but I'd have thought Owen would have said something.) And don't get me started on the incredible stunts Jack Bauer pulls shortly after undergoing literal physical torture or while recovering from a heroine addiction or something.

It's so inconsistent, too. Staying in series two of Torchwood, because I think that has a lot more scope to do horrid things to the principal characters than most shows, when Zombie Owen went a bit mad and started breaking his fingers at Toshiko, she all but broke down. I thought that was great TV, and the final scenes between those two were also fantastic. (I'm struggling to think of a reason to watch the show without those two.) And yet, that was the same episode that Jack was dug up after apparently failing to notice that he'd been buried for longer than anyone else lives.

I don't know. It always seems fine at the time -- it's usually only after the show that I think "hang on, that was actually pretty fucked up" -- but even so. Maybe it's just really, really hard to write good TV without this kind of thing happening once in a while. Or maybe it's just lazy.

I Actually Do Like This Show.

2008-07-11T21:59:00.002+01:00

Dara O'Briain: Hello, and welcome to Mock the Week. I'm Dara O'Briain, and I'm not doing a stand-up bit, presumably because it used to give away all the answers. The first round is called "If This Is The Answer, What Is The Question?" Russell, pick a topic.

Russell Howard: Anything.

Dara O'Briain: Okay, the answer is "a ridiculously large number".

Russell Howard: Is it "how many times has this episode of Mock the Week been on Dave?"

Andy Parsons: EXTERMINATE!

Dara O'Briain: And I'm going to give the points to Frankie, Hugh and Easily Booked Guest #1. Okay, the next round is called "try to tenuously link an existing bit of your stand-up routine to a category I read out", so would everyone go and stand on the lowered bit of the set we used on Whose Line Is It Anyway? Okay, the first topic is "the congestion charge". Anyone?

Andy Parsons: So, the congestion charge, eh? George Bush is a bit thick. A joke about that.

Dara O'Briain: Well done, Andy, sit down. The next round is called "Between the Lines", where Frankie, you'll take the part of Gordon Brown making a speech, and Hugh, you say what he really means.

Frankie Boyle: Clever setup line for Hugh.

Hugh Dennis: I hate everyone.

Frankie Boyle: Clever setup line for Hugh.

Hugh Dennis: I hate everyone.

Frankie Boyle: Clever setup line for Hugh.

Hugh Dennis: I hate everyone.

Dara O'Briain: Well done both of you, sit down and I'll award one of you points for "winning" even though you're both on the same team. The last round is called "Scenes We'd Like To See", and the first topic is "Bad or Otherwise Unlikely Things for Someone with a Vaguely Newsy kind of Job to Say".

Hugh Dennis: Are you paying too much for your car insurance?

Frankie Boyle: Paedophiles.

Dara O'Briain: Okay, so this week's winners are whichever team I feel like. Well done to everyone. Goodnight!

The Official Channel Flip Review For "Bonekickers"

2008-07-08T21:59:00.003+01:00

It's crap.

It's like the commissioners thought "Yeah, let's make a TV show based on The Da Vinci Code. Only we can't for legal reasons." Then, they got some really terrible actors to run around about an age-old mystery using brushes and digging, and at the end nobody really gives a shit because the mystery happened 300 years ago and everyone back then is now dead.

Pointless.

It's the Master, disguised as Davros, who is actually Adam, in a parallel Universe populated by Sontaran Cybermen

2008-07-03T17:13:00.010+01:00

This post contains spoilers for last Saturday's Doctor Who. If you haven't seen it by now then, well, what's wrong with you?

Being the Doctor Who fan that I am, I tend to hang around on the Doctor Who Forum. There you'll find some of the most terrifying aspects of the fandom, from people who think that the show is rubbish based solely on the fact that the current series isn't called Season 30, to people who think that Davros is actually Adam from the revived show's first series, to people who start entire threads just to post "squee" at varying lengths over and over again. It's also a breeding ground for suspect speculation, convoluted conspiracies and idiotic ideas for what people think will happen in the current series.

There have been a couple of theories bubbling to the surface this year. The dramatic reveal in last week's "The Stolen Earth" (which you can still watch on the BBC iPlayer if you're fortunate enough to live in the UK) is marginally less dramatic when you consider that a large portion of the fanbase has known about it now for very close to a year.Much of the fanbase chose to ignore this info, of course, and flat out say with absolute certainty that Davros wasn't coming back. Even when his silhouette appeared in the mid-series trailer, even when leaked photos which clearly showed him on set with a red Dalek leaked, people were denying that he would return.

Didn't stop him though, did it? I mean, it'd make things much easier for the Doctor, certainly...

Davros: I have returned, Doctor!
Doctor: No you haven't.
Davros: ...Yes I have.
Doctor: No, you haven't.
Davros: Haven't I?
Doctor: No, you definitely haven't.
Davros: Oh. Er... this is... um, sort of awkward now, really.
Doctor: It is a bit.
Davros: I'll just, um... I'll be off then, shall I?
Doctor: Prob'ly a good idea, yeah.

...but returned he has. Suck it, Portion Of The Fanbase Who Choose To Ignore The Bloody Obvious.

The other popular fan-theory over at the Doctor Who Forum is that the Master will also make a Triumphant Return, aiding the Daleks in some manner. It's not going to happen, as already apparent to anyone who is a) a fan of the classic series, and/or b) in possession of something vaguely resembling a brain. Fans are even stretching this ridiculous idea as far as to speculate that the Master is actually inside that ruddy great big red Dalek.

The annoying thing is that you can't tell 'em it's not going to happen, either. Because they take the viewpoint of "If you're not part of the NuWho Production Team, you're not qualified to say it won't happen." Apparently this means that it is happening, which is the kind of Dave Hitt Logic that jes' dun't compute.

Next they'll be trying to tell us that Donna Noble is the Final Cylon. Tch.

Too Much Continuity

2008-06-22T12:07:00.003+01:00

Here's a question I have about Heroes. If you've not been watching it lately, and you don't want to know, obviously stop reading.

But I'm puzzled by Adam's accent. When he was first introduced, as Kensei, I assumed he was a time traveller: his accent and dialect were decidedly modern-day English, which I assumed didn't exist in the seventeenth century. (I don't really know how I would check this.) Eventually I just assumed he wasn't.

Then he lived in Japan and America for four centuries, and hasn't picked up an accent at all? I for one think that's weird. Does his accent have healing powers of its own?

It would have been a nice touch if his accent had changed a bit between the 1650 and 2008. And the actor is American, so I assume he can do an American accent.

Everything You Need To Know About Next Week's Doctor Who Finale

2008-06-21T23:42:00.006+01:00

Sorry to post a forth Doctor Who post in a row, but it comes around that time of year where people are searching for information about the show. Specifically, information about the finale. So, from my conclusive sources*, I can tell you everything you need to know!

American UNIT Guy: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are at war"

I can deduce from this sentence that there will be a war.

Doctor: "Can't Be"

I can deduce from this quotation that somebody says something that The Doctor doesn't believe.

Jack: "There's Nothing I Can Do"

There is nothing Jack can do.

Sarah Jane: "It's impossible!"

I can deduce from this quotation that somebody says something that Sarah Jane Smith doesn't believe.

Martha: "It can't be!"

I can deduce from this quotation that somebody says something that The Doctor doesn't believe.

Ooh! Sounds like a decent finale!

*The trailer that aired after tonight's episode

The Scary Thing Is that the BBC Three Repeat was On at Excatly the Same Time

2008-06-15T01:16:00.005+01:00

Just because I feel I've been a little harsh on Russell T Davies from time to time, I feel I should mention that I thought tonight's episode, Midnight, was excellent. (It certainly didn't hurt matters that Catherine Tate was hardly in it, although I assume that means they're double-banking again and that all bodes ill for next week.) It was a good concept, with good dialogue, and a very good execution of an idea that looks simple on paper but is decidedly freaky to actually watch made it one of the most genuinely frightening episodes in a long— er, one of the most genuinely frightening non-Moffat episodes in a long time. Davies even managed to resist being frivolous and silly, at least after the first couple of minutes, which is good because it would have really ruined the feel of that episode, more so than most I think. I'm tempted even to compare it to Blink, but that would just seem needlessly cruel, like praising some great new film and then dismissively saying "still, no Godfather trilogy, eh?"

It was exactly what Doctor Who should be. Why can't we have this kind of thing more often?

The Stolen Earth

2008-06-12T17:36:00.004+01:00

When the premiere of Doctor Who's forth series aired, Radio Times had a special that told us all about the series. Except Episode 12. Episode 12's title was being kept a secret for some reason. I can only assume it's because they read my previous rant on 'Episode Twelve Syndrome' and decided not to get my blood boiling. The official statement was that the title "gave away too much".

It's been announced now. The Stolen Earth it's called. That doesn't give much away at all. An Earth gets stolen. The Doctor wakes up one day and thinks "oh crap, the Earth's gone. What a bugger". Will it have people just floating, grumbling that the Earth's been stolen. How the hell does one steal an Earth anyway?

No Hype for Midnight

2008-06-10T10:54:00.003+01:00

Just a quick thing... this Saturday's episode of Doctor Who (BBC1, 7.00PM) is entitled Midnight. Not only is it the fiftieth episode produced of the revied series, but it's also the two hundredth Doctor Who story... ever.

Then why isn't it being hyped up?

Did I Lie To You?

2008-06-09T18:32:00.003+01:00

Right now, on Radio 4, there is a panel show where the celebrity contestants must determine if each other's statements are truth or lies. David Mitchell is on it.

Lee Mack is also on it.

It is a totally original concept.

You can play along, because I have hidden a lie in this post.

Fore Mour

2008-06-05T03:33:00.003+01:00

More4, showing their late night repeat of Countdown, just had the continuity announcer say

"And now on More4, some train-braining with Dountcown..."

Really? Is that meant to be funny? Just because the announcers on Dave are retarded, doesn't mean these ones have to be.

The Fresh Limericks

2008-06-04T17:26:00.001+01:00

A story that's all about how
My life got flipped; turned upside-down
So sit right there
It's all about Bel Air
And the story will start about now.

West Philly I was born and raised
The playground is where I'd spend days
Chilling, relaxing,
And all about maxing
And playing some basketball games

Two fellas, who're up to no good
Made trouble in my neighbourhood
I got in their sight
And they started a fight
Know the outcome? I know that I should!

I didn't think that it was fair
That when my mother got scared
What the hell was she proving
When she said that "you're moving
With your aunt and uncle in Bel Air."

I whistled, and a cab was near
License Plate: Fresh; Dice in the m'ir
I thought it was rare
But then I declared
"To Bel Air, Taxi Driver, and steer!"

I pulled up to the house about eight
(Could be seven, it wasn't too late)
Said fairwell to the cabbie
It's time for this laddie
To start his life in Bel Air. Great!

Double Entendre of the Month

2008-06-03T14:58:00.003+01:00

Today, the first (and possibly only) Double Entendre of the Month goes to the most recent episode of Crimewatch, whose Number Four Most Wanted had a rather unusual name.

It's like something out of a pantomime, isn't it?

It Should Be Okay, Torch Wood

2008-06-03T13:59:00.003+01:00

The Doctor Who News Page reports that Torchwood is coming back for a week.

I'm not kidding. The third series, at the moment, is comprised of five episodes to be shown within the same week. Not only that, it's a five-part-story.

I'm not so sure how to feel about this. Torchwood can be really naff at times, and rather excellent at other times. A five-part story of 50-minute episodes however... that's four hours and ten minutes worth of Torchwood. And what would the plot consist of? Will it be one monster? Will it be resurrecting Owen and Tosh and dealing with the consequences? I don't know how Torchwood can do this- they've never even done a two-part episode before. And, previous cliffhangers involve Captain Jack hearing the TARDIS (which wasn't even resolved in Torchwood, Owen dying (which was resolved by resurrecting him) and Owen dying a second time (which was a bit naff).

I guess I'll feel more about it when they announce what it's about.

Iσως, Iσως, Iσως

2008-06-01T21:26:00.006+01:00

I've recently found out, mainly accidentally, that there is a sitcom called Coupling. It features three girls and three guys, and ventures through their love-lives via a complicated and often non-chronological way of storytelling.

Oh, what? You already knew this?

I highly doubt it.

Welcome to Greek Coupling. It's Coupling, but in Greek. Instead of Steve Taylor, we have Stephanos. It's the little differences I like. I love how the opening credits are the same, how the sets are the same and how the dialogue is the same. The DVD has a similar design too.

Having just watched Part One of the above episode (the first five minutes of a forty-five minute show), I can tell that it is Sex Death and Nudity, a Coupling episode from series one. In the clip, you can see Greek Jeff Murdoch explaining the giggle-loop. Watch it. It's the scene where Greek Jeff puts down an empty pint glass, and the explanation that follows. It seems quite serious, doesn't it? Now watch the scene from the UK version. That's pretty damn funny, isn't it? It makes you wonder why the BBC cancelled it. Maybe because Richard Coyle didn't return to do a fourth series, and they got Richard Mylan, who hasn't seem to do much since. Except star in Grown-Ups. And that wasn't very good at all.

Does Steven Moffat know of this translation of his show? It doesn't seem to credit him. Or maybe it does, but they credit him as Stephanos.

A Better Title For That Post Would Have Been "Pulling Daisies"

2008-05-28T12:18:00.004+01:00

Friz will doubtless be thrilled.

The episode of Pushing Daisies that ITV1 absurdly chose not to show will be screened after all: on their website. Well, clearly that's good enough.

I might even watch it. I watched the first one, and it was very good, but then I found out the second one wasn't going to be shown and didn't bother to tune in for the third. I want to see them in order -- there's enough good TV around at the moment I can afford to be picky. If they get round to re-running the show then I might watch from the third that way.

I don't know why TV companies go to such lengths to stop me watching their shows. Last night, I recorded The Apprentice and went out to see some live comedy, and when I got into work today, the BBC News website told me the result! Right there in the headline! I couldn't have avoided that if I'd wanted to.

Surely anyone who wants to know would want to find out by watching the show?

Kaiser Grief

2008-05-23T01:35:00.004+01:00

There's been a show on Channel 4 tonight called "Kaiser Chiefs vs Kaizer Chiefs". In the show, famous Leeds band Kaiser Chiefs met the South African football team Kaizer Chiefs. They played a gig with Kaizer Chiefs watching. They then played football.

Is this really worth half an hour of airtime? I attempted to count the amount of times they mentioned that both had similar names, but got too bored. I'd also like to know whose idea it was to commission this show. I didn't even learn anything from it. The one fact that had was that Kaiser Chiefs borrowed their name from Kaizer Chiefs. And this fact was uttered again and again.

What next? Franz Ferdinand studying the reasons for World War One?

I'd Make a "Pluto" Pun, But It's Too Obvious

2008-05-22T22:44:00.002+01:00

An advert for Bakers Dog Food currently airing states that they

"are the leading brand of dog food in Britain, so you'll have to go a long way to find a dog that hasn't tried it."

It then cuts into dogs in space.

Surely France is closer?

Oh No! The TARDIS is Trapped in a Giggle Loop!

2008-05-21T00:24:00.004+01:00

According to the Guardian, Russell T Davis has chosen to stand down from his job as lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who. His replacement, when the show returns in 2010 or so (blimey that sounds like a long way off), will be Steven Moffat. This is, broadly, what I've been saying they should do for... well, more or less since the end of the Christopher Eccleston series. He's written the best episode every year, and Jekyll proved he can do multi-episode stories. Also I'm pretty sure I spied him on the "next time on Doctor Who Confidential", so watch out for a damn good two-parter coming up next.

Moffat said: "My entire career has been a secret plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked back because the BBC wanted someone else. Also I was seven.
"Anyway, I'm glad the BBC has finally seen the light, and it's a huge honour to be following Russell into the best - and the toughest - job in television."

Finally, people have chosen to listen to me. This has never happened before. I hope it goes well, or else I'll lose all my angry, shouty credibility.

If it does, perhaps other people will start doing what I tell them, and then we can all live in a blissful utopia where the trains work and faith schools don't exist.

We live in an exciting time.

BBC Three To Make Doctor Who Confidential Anyway

2008-05-20T15:19:00.003+01:00

According to Chortle, ITV have commissioned a second series of Moving Wallpaper... but not Echo Beach.

Which is fair enough, given that Echo Beach was total shit, but it really was all that made Moving Wallpaper different from every other behind-the-scenes sitcom.

I take this to mean that the whole ridiculous venture was probably a mistake.

Yesterday I Got So Scared/I Shivered Like a Child...

2008-05-17T18:10:00.004+01:00

I'd like to point out a show I've been watching, I think possibly alone. It's a six-part British sitcom about a 16-year-old boy starting at a comprehensive sixth form having previously been in private education. I know, I'd instinctively have assumed it was drivel, too, but the trailer made me laugh, so I set the first episode to record.

It turns out to be very good. It's on on Thursday nights, repeated on Wednesdays at a ridiculous hour. It's pleasingly mature and clever, and it's a programme about young people that isn't ridiculously outlandish, which is nice: this week's episode featured a party with the parents upstairs and the closest thing to a sex scene the show has had yet — and that didn't count. Compare that to something like Hollyoaks, where the local school seemed, last time I saw it, to be a hotbed of knife crime. I'm sure that happens sometimes, but it's nothing I can relate to. The main character, Will, reminds me a lot of Mark from Peep Show, and The Inbetweeners shares Peep Show's liking for overblown "toe-cringing" farce climax scenes — and a Google search reveals Peep Show's script editor co-writes it. It's the first time E4 have commissioned a sitcom, and I think they've done bloody well for their first go.

There's not much of this series to go now. I think maybe three episodes, if you include a late-night repeat. The last couple of episodes are on Channel 4's free catch-up thing. It's also on 4oD, although I think you'll need a few spare pounds to catch up.

It's definitely worth a look, though.

It Made Me Clench My Fingernails

2008-05-09T22:14:00.003+01:00

The Channel Four continuity announcer before Derren Brown today promised that tonight's would be "the most uncomfortable Peep Show yet". In fact, he said it would be "toe-cringingly funny".

That does sound uncomfortable.

...

I honestly, now that I come to think of it, don't really know what specifically cringing is, but surely you curl your toes. That's the saying.

Channel Flip Presents: The First Five Minutes of Scallywagga

2008-05-07T00:35:00.000+01:00

A man in a red shirt jogs through the forest. He is portly and in need of exercise. He turns his head over his shoulder. He sees bikes coming towards him. Aloud, and to himself, he says one word. “Bike”.

Two people on a park bench. They are comparing phones, and showing off the technology that their phones contain. One of them stops time and pours water onto the other person’s lap. He looks like he has wet himself. A comical fart noise appears in the middle of this sketch.

A fly on an S.

A boy with long hair and black clothes claims he drinks blood. His mates say that he drinks Tizer.

Jeff from Peep Show and Sally Lindsay try and kill their son, unsuccessfully.

A boy with long hair and black clothes claims he once wore a wig. His friends disagree.

A woman straightens her hair. She sneezes. Her hair is no longer straight.

Bone Idol

2008-05-01T18:09:00.004+01:00

America is enamored with American Idol. Not just this year, but every year. It is unfathomably the number-one rated show in the US, at times receiving over 36 million viewers during the '06 season. Why is this, I wonder? Why are people more interested in watching glorified karaoke than they are watching half-decent scripted television like Scrubs or Battlestar Galactica? The skewed interests of the American audience and the monstrous viewing figures that the show has received have, of course, led to television studios in the US trying to do one thing - top those numbers.

Shows are unfairly held up against American Idol's figures. If a show isn't getting the numbers that American Idol gets - if it doesn't even come close - it's already considered a failure by the network. No other network is more guilty of this than Fox, which is silly when you consider that they already have a track record of canceling successful shows for no real reason whatsoever, but even more moronic when you know that Fox airs American Idol. Ah, I get it.

Television Networks in the US, I implore you - stop using American Idol as a viewing-figure benchmark. The show is a fluke, an anomaly. Treat shows under their own merit. Stop being so bloody narrow-minded and let good television thrive.

This One Show, At Band Camp

2008-04-25T19:23:00.003+01:00

I just watched The One Show. They started with a little item about homeopathy, introduced by Christine Bleakley saying, quite wrongly, that "the jury's still out". It's not out. Homeopathy doesn't work, and if it did then almost everything we currently know about science would have to be re-evaluated because the two are completely at odds. The doctor presenting the item was pleasingly dismissive of the "science", but really I'd have liked her to be less respectful of the homeopath's nonsense. I like my presenters to not take any crap. She said "The theory is that water has a memory. How does that work?" and the homeopath, Dr Sara Eames said this:

Yes, I think that's a really confusing point if you don't know actually how homeopathic remedies are made. They're actually prepared in a very careful way which is a series of dilutions and what we call succussions, which is a vigorous shaking. We think that it's that process of diluting and shaking, diluting again and shaking which actually transfers the information into the remedy.

She didn't answer the question (it has no answer) and she referenced at least two bits of unsupported pseudo-scientific gibberish. All I'm saying is, Paxman would have pressed her on it, like he did when Paul Dennison tried to explain that there isn't any water in processed foods. Then Eames was allowed to say that "there have been over a hundred clinical trials [of homeopathy] and the majority of them do show positive results or at least positive trends" (this is only true if you stupidly include really crappy trials) and "there's also more evidence from laboratories now suggesting that homeopathic remedies do have some sort of physiological activity" (this is only true if you define "true" to mean "false" -- unfortunately I can't directly refute this claim because like most 'evidence' for alternative medicine it is as vague, elusive and nebulous as it is voluminous).

Next, the presenter complained that homeopathy isn't regulated. (This is perhaps out-of-date information, since the government launched Ofquack, but it's still basically right.) Then she asked "how can someone know they're getting a qualified homeopath?", which is as nonsensical a question as you'll ever hear. The homeopath was then allowed to say this:

The body that I belong to, the Faculty of Homeopathy, does have a list of registered practitioners so particularly if people have a serious medical condition I would strongly advise them to approach that organisation.

What?! That's advice that will get people killed. If people say things like that there should be a big flashing message at the bottom of the screen saying "DO NOT TRUST HOMEOPATHY TO CURE A SERIOUS MEDICAL CONDITION". It is, at best, a useful placebo to reduce pointless medication for self-limiting conditions. At least the presenter should have offered a counterpoint. Not only that, but she utterly failed to disclose, and this might seem like quite an important detail to forget, that she is the sodding president of the Faculty of Homeopathy (or at least she was this time last week -- it's hard getting information out of a homeopath without rapping them hard against a hard but elastic object such as a leather-bound book). Oh yes, investigative blogging, this, where "investigative" means "Google". Essentially, the BBC is giving a deluded quack a platform to promote her own organisation by posing as an ordinary user of that organisation and giving potentially lethal advice and misinformation. I'm fairly sure there are rules against that.

After that was an item about the song Baydon Races. You have very much not lived until you've seen Myleene Klass playing football anthems on the accordion using one finger. At the end, there was an "art psychologist" on, who had figured out just by looking at someone's favourite pictures that she was fun, sociable, and creative (which I think almost anyone will agree to) and a couple of obvious things formed by taking an adjective that describes the painting and applying it to the owner and "possibly a woman, rather than a man", then stated very wrongly that she was probably a housewife, and failed to work out that she was an artist. It would seem to me that at least being able to identify an artist when you see one standing in front of you in a room full of paintings would be a pretty simple job for an "art psychologist", but apparently "art psychology" is not what you'd call an exact science.

Shunning Daisies

2008-04-15T12:16:00.004+01:00

Pushing Daisies. It's good. We like it. A lot of people like it. It's won a lot of award because of this. It's first episode aired Saturday on ITV1. People liked it. It's a well-liked show.

Then why in buggering biscuits aren't ITV showing all the episodes?

ITV has decided not to broadcast the second episode of its latest drama series Pushing Daisies. The episode titled "Dummy" will now not air during this current run, which means that episode 3 "The Fun in Funeral" will be shown next.

Oh?

An ITV spoksman explained why: “Unfortunately due to scheduling restrictions we can only screen eight of the nine programmes in the current run. Episode two is the only one we can take out at this stage with out disrupting the flow of the series but it’s a great ‘stand alone’ episode, and one that we will broadcast later this year”.

What?

"Unfortunately given the high profile nature of the 9pm Saturday slot, we only have eight windows at the moment and have therefore made the decision to show the second episode at a future point."

Whu- What? The amount of advertising ITV have done for this new show... and they didn't have enough weeks to air all the episodes? Couldn't they find a chance not to schedule tedious murder dramas, ridiculously thought-out game shows or Celebrity Mr & Mrs?

That's like hyping up 24, and only having seven weeks in which to air it. It's stuff like this which is the reason why people download and stream so much TV. If you take it away from them, they are going to steal it.

3DTV

2008-04-13T23:18:00.004+01:00

From the recent media coverage, I am forced to assume that I am the only person in the country who wasn't sent a preview tape of ITV's new impressions show, Headcases. As such, I had to watch it on my actual television, on the actual day it was on (although I was still allowed to skip the adverts).

Because you don't actually see the impressionists, this show is being compared to Spitting Image and 2DTV. ITV have said that the clever CGI methods used allow them to make new sketches very close to broadcast if need be (although this week it appears they chose not to). I'm not certain what it is about pointing a camera at Rory Bremner which makes this impossible but apparently he is a very busy man. To be honest, I don't see how it makes the slightest bit of difference if the show is live-action, CGI, animated, latex puppets, stop-motion, marionettes, sock-puppets, or shot with crap cameras in the dark so we can't see who's who, like that ridiculous impressions show a few years ago that used the Barenaked Ladies' Humour Of The Situation for its title music, this being the best part of the show.

I did quite like Headcases. I laughed in a few places. I liked the political stuff best, because I follow politics more than gossip and because I think there's a richer vein of humour there -- plus the opportunity to make a point (which Headcases did exactly once, possibly by accident). That said, the fact that David Cameron had essentially the same character device as princes William and Harry did mean that about half the show was given over to just one gag. I was impressed by the credits. The show had two pages of performers and one of writers, and most of the names I associate more with the BBC and Channel 4 than with ITV. One or two I associate with BBC Four. That's unnerving. It's the sort of thing that just cannot happen. It's like finding out Alan Titchmarsh has written raunchy novels, or seeing the Prime Minister on Football Focus, or something.

It was a fun diversion, and it got the tone about right. But I don't think it had clever enough writing to make me want to watch it every week. The risk with impression shows is that the writers develop their characters into something quite other than the person they're based on, and then they become just regular dodgy sketch shows. I'm not sure Headcases didn't do that before it started. I guess the test will be how well it manages to stay current and interesting in the coming weeks. (You know, because David And Victoria In America and Northern Rock Has No Money! are bost such up-to-date stories.)

Simon Says

2008-04-13T13:50:00.006+01:00

I've just heard Simon Cowell say this:

And if Britain has no talent, it'll be the end of Britain's Got Talent

Really? And I suppose if they run out of casualty victims on Casualty, it'll be the end of Casualty.

How To Watch Torchwood

2008-04-09T22:48:00.004+01:00

Thanks to the BBC's iPlayer service, the unmissable is now unmissable™. It's not always that simple, though, so here, based on my experience last week, is a guide to using the new service:

Set Torchwood to series record on your hard-disk TV recorder set-top-box. Use the BBC Three broadcast; it's almost a full week ahead, after all. This will suffice for almost the entire series.
You will have to remember to record the last two episodes manually, as these have randomly moved to a different day (presumably to get them out of the way before Doctor Who started up again) and the finale is not on BBC Three because this would be making life too easy for us. In any case, the series is now on two channels, on two days, at two times, with gaps of anywhere up to two weeks between episodes, so the series record feature can't be trusted with this.
Make sure you are not discouraged by the fact that the penultimate episode was a thoroughly missable (oddly, Firefox's spellchecker objects to "missable" but not to "unmissable") affair or the fact that the antipenultimate was shit. The finale is actually pretty good.
If you miss the finale, and the series record feature didn't work, you can download it from iPlayer. Go to the TV Replay menu on your HDR box and select "Torchwood".
Torchwood may, for no apparent reason, be absent from this menu. If this is the case then (a) you will have to use a PC, and (b) the associated episode of Torchwood Declassified is probably there.
Fire up your laptop. Go to the iPlayer website. Browse to Torchwood and click "download". The file should register as 500MB. Do not click "stream", as we want to watch this later, elsewhere, offline, as downloads permit us to do.
You are told that you must download some software. Do so.
You are told that you must restart Firefox. Do so.
You are told that you must update Media Player. Do so.
Browse to Torchwood again and click "download" again. Wait for a pleasingly short amount of time, partly because the file now registers as 250MB.
Shut down the laptop using hibernate mode to save time, and take it to your chosen viewing location. In my case, the train.
Reboot the laptop. The iPlayer software has crashed, so you'll need to restart that.
Browse to Torchwood, and click "play".
You will be told that you must download a license to play this file and cannot watch it without an internet connection. Start mentally composing an angry blog post.
Return home, safe in the knowledge that Torchwood is repeated on Tuesday evening.
Turn on the TV at the appointed time.
You will see a documentary about various inept conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Not-Actually-A-Princess Diana, which has replaced Torchwood at the last minute despite very obviously having taken quite a long time to research and make, because of the BBC's insipid obsession with showing every damn thing they have at the most 'relevant' moment possible, without considering at all how convenient or useful that is to anyone.

Nice job, BBC. You've made the unmissable very nearly unwatchable.

This Would be Liveblogging If We Didn't Have a Hard Disk TV Recorder

2008-04-09T22:11:00.004+01:00

Kevin on the Apprentice just told Sir Alan Sugar,

The ciabattas sold like hot cakes!

Genius. Almost as good as Great British Menu the other day, when Jenny Bond, on a post-production voiceover, wondered how Angela Hartnett rated a meal out of ten, a musing which was followed by an apparently unrelated clip of Hartnett being critical of said meal, which itself was followed by Bond saying, "so, about two out of ten, then".

It's fantastic, watching the show and listening to Jenny Bond making stuff up to try to add layers of drama that don't even nearly exist. I never paid much attention to news about royalty, but if she ever had any credibility, it's long dead now. If she ever tells me how the Queen feels about something now, I think I shall assume she's made it up to add drama.

Having Worked Out How To Embed YouTube Videos, I Demonstrate My Mental Superiority Over All Sixteen Apprentice Candidates

2008-04-07T21:18:00.005+01:00

Yes! The Apprentice is on again! Of course, in the first few weeks all the fun lies in poking fun at the inept attempts of the candidates to carry out even the most basic tasks. (In later weeks, all the fun lies in poking fun at the continued inept attempts of the candidates to carry out even the most basic tasks.)

Last week, they were challenged to run an industrial laundry. The men's team (Team Renaissance!) were disarmingly competent, especially after their woefully shoddy fishmongering skills in the first episode. The comedy came almost solely from the women's team (Team Alpha! Or something) who took incompetence to staggering new levels. While the men rang a proper laundry service to find out what they charge, the women decided to pluck a price point out of thin air and chose to charge a flat rate of £4.99 per item. Four pounds and ninety-nine pence per item of laundry. Their first task was to pitch for a contract from a hotel with a thousand sheets and pillowcases and towels to be washed, so they were looking to charge five thousand pounds. The hotel was unsurprisingly taken aback by this, expecting a price at least an order of magnitude lower.

To occupy my time, I have constructed a short list of proofs that they could have employed, without recourse to any actual research, to reach the realisation that this was not a plausible pricing strategy.

Some Proofs That £4.99 Per Item is Not a Sensible Price to Attempt to Charge a Hotel for Cleaning One Set of Laundry

Several of the items were pillowcases, and you must be able to buy a pillowcase for less than that. I mean, surely. At TK Maxx.
If the eight of them can earn £5,000 for less than one night's work, then they could do that for 200 nights a year and make one million pounds. Assuming you can rent and run the premises they were using for less than £100,000 (which obviously you can) this means the candidates can earn more than Alan Sugar is offering them just to clean sheets.
If a guest staying one night at a hotel generates one dirty sheet, two pillowcases and two towels, this would cost the hotel £25, which even in London is a fair proportion of what the hotel would be charging.
You can buy a lobster off Renaissance Fisheries for that price.

If anyone has their own proofs, please add them below.

Torchwood Reclassified

2008-03-19T23:35:00.005Z

When you watch a show like Doctor Who or Torchwood, it feels very slick. Like a big-budget, American-style, cinematic job. It's a far cry from the old Red Dwarf II era, when the BBC would shy away from sci-fi because it was invariably both very cheap-looking and very expensive. (Ask Ben why they don't do it now.)

The BBC, of course, still don't have huge amounts of money to spend on these shows. That's why we have Brainbox Challenge. The reason these shows look so good is the huge amount of effort that goes into making them as good as they can be without spending a year and twenty million pounds on each one. And you don't really appreciate that until you watch the little documentaries they show afterwards. You get to see even little scenes you barely noticed in great detail, and even those have been painstakingly crafted by people who actually care about the show.

(A few weeks ago on one of these little documentaries, after Owen was shot in Torchwood, Russell T Davies said he'd had to be shot because it was important that the audience realise that "almost any of their heroes can die at almost any moment". This amused me, because of course Jack can't die at any moment, but now it's starting to annoy me, because months later Owen is still here, and in fact has been in it more since being killed than he was before, and this week was even strolling up and down not breathing saying, "these people should be dead. This is impossible," with no trace of irony.)

And so when I see all this effort poured into making a programme look and feel and sound as real and as gripping, as immersive and as good as it possibly possibly can, it just makes me sad that all that effort was wasted -- all because the plot of this week's Torchwood was such unadulterated crap.

For those that missed it (and I use the term "missed" generously), I shall summarise.

The monster was a Creepy Travelling Circus Ringleader Guy and his friend, Pearl The Strange Sideshow Woman Who Needs A Lot Of Water For No Stated Reason.
These two were trapped on a reel of film (somehow) and escaped (somehow) after sneaking it into a projector (somehow) and now they're running around Cardiff "stealing people's last breaths" (somehow and whatever that means) and sealing them in a silver flask (somehow). It is never explained what they are, where they came from or how they ended up trapped on videotape, much like those tiny green flies in The X-Files only infinitely less plausible.
Their victims go into coma-like states. If their breath is returned they recover; if it is lost, they die.
Eventually, Jack kills them by videotaping them, thus trapping them again (since obviously that is what would happen), and leaving the tape in his car until they turned into Freddie Mercury (or was that something else?). When Jack announces this plan, Ianto turns to him as if he's just said something really profound and says, in a state of total awe, "a film of a film..." as if someone who films a film has anything more deeply impressive than two films. That said, this would explain why the people at the cinema are so keen that I don't video the movies, and in any case it was nice to hear Ianto say something for a change. I was beginning to suspect he was just a particularly well-dressed extra. When (if) they finally do get rid of Owen properly, they won't need to draft in a new character -- just let Ianto speak sometimes.

I mean, come on. Torchwood is sci-fi. Everyone knows that. Look at Wikipedia:

Torchwood is a British science fiction drama television programme, created by Russell T Davies and stars John Barrowman and Eve Myles. [See, they don't think Ianto is a real character either.]

So why doesn't Peter J Hammond know that? He clearly wrote a fantasy episode -- and bad fantasy at that. I mean, the plot made no sense, and I object to that because when the setup and the crisis make no sense, there's no reason for the resolution to make any sense, and when the resolution isn't obliged to make any sense, there's no tension because I've no real sense that anyone's in any danger (least of all Jack or Owen), because they could easily be saved at any moment by even the most preposterous Deus Ex Machina, and so no situation is even close to the level of apparent hopelessness you need to build up to make the audience fear the worst. And not only that -- not only could Hammond have picked almost any random combination of words and pictures, bolted it onto the episode and called it a resolution -- but the resolution he eventually chose was both totally predictable and stupid.

Seriously, Torchwood. This won't do. Where's Steven Moffat when you need him? Well, let's check Wikipedia again, shall we?

Steven Moffat (born 1961 in Paisley, Scotland) is a British comedy/drama writer who has contributed to television series since the late 1980s. He is married to Sue Vertue, a television producer.

His best known works include Press Gang, Coupling and some episodes of the revival of Doctor Who. He is currently scripting a trilogy of Tintin films for directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.

Er... okay then. (I was skeptical when I heard about Jekyll and can only assume he enjoys a challenge.)

But you know what? We don't need him. We just need someone who writes better plots than "an unspecified monster breaks out of a video and kills people in a needlessly impossible way until someone points a camera at him." (CCTV apparently doesn't count.) I could do that. You know what? I'll do it for free. Seriously. Me, Euan and Ben can each write an episode of Torchwood or Doctor Who, and the BBC can pick the ones they like, and if they like none of them, sod it; they've only lost a couple of hours' reading -- and they have a whole department just for that anyway. They get free scripts that are doubtless better than From The Rain, Last Of The Time Lords and Love And Monsters (because they'll make sense), and I get to impress slightly-geeky girls with my shiny new Doctor Who writing credit. Everybody wins, except perhaps the bad writers, and even they will at least have something decent to watch on TV as they sit at home all day without a job.

I mean, really it seems almost petty to rant at Torchwood for one bad episode (even if it was a really bad episode) when there are entire series that don't even get that good at their absolute peaks, but the point is that I can simply choose not to watch those series, whereas a bad episode of a good series not only wastes 45 minutes of my life, but it does so when I thought I would be watching something good. That's not fair.

Worried About Ray (Mears)

2008-03-15T15:05:00.001Z

I was watching Dave this morning (the channel, not my neighbour), and among all the Top Gear repeats was one of Ray Mear's survival programs. In this enthralling episode, he was describing how a tribe in Africa pull out a type of poisonous vegetable, drain out all the cyanide and then eat it. He then had a taste. Then, he described how the fry larvae and consume them. He also had a little nibble. Num num num.

Something then concerned me. They didn't show any of the tribe eating these snacks. What if Ray Mears wasn't watching them prepare food, but watching them prepare wallpaper paste? And what would happen if they weren't frying the bugs to eat them, but frying them to sort out the bug infestation in their village? How annoyed would you be if you were trying to sort out an infestation problem in your house, and some hairy guy walked in and started eating the flies off the flypaper? I'd be very annoyed. Well, not annoyed. Concerned.

Prances With Wolves

2008-02-21T17:10:00.003Z

The Writer's Strike, which as you should know crippled American TV to a point where NBC decided bringing back Gladiators was a good idea; had many effects on me. Most importantly it made me go cold turkey which made me quickly realise that I seem to depend more on new episodes of How I Met Your Mother than I do oxygen. It also made me actually watch some British television, watching Hollyoaks, Holby City and reality shows on BBC Three about whether fat amputee chavs can fight on bears with sticks and tutting, all the while criticising modern society when they fail to do so.

It was soon after I realised that TV in Britain is generally crap and so decided to give some classic shows a watch. Dusting off my old Seinfeld and Cheers DVDs and then stumbling upon a delightful old sitcom called Three's Company. A remake of an old British sitcom, Three's Company has the wacky premise of a MAN moving in with two WOMEN! Oh the potential for hijinks and hilarity! It's rife with sexism jokes, homophobic jokes and when they manage to fit it in, a cheeky one-liner about sex. It's classic 70's humour, the kind when the male chef talks to his female room-mate and says "The bun's are ready! Oh, I see you already have two of your own" followed by a minute of whooping from a studio audience filled with sugar.

Amidst a week-long marathon of bad puns and flared jeans, I found out that the new BBC Three (now with 75% more pink!) were to air a pilot about a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost living in a flat. It was with a 50/50 mix of excitement and dread that I thought of the prospect of it being done in the cheesy sitcom style, full of one-liners like "Oooh, no need to get so hairy, it's not a full moon y'know" or "What's for dinner? STEAK!". Even if it was actually supposed to be taken seriously, a straight up drama with this premise it just much too silly to be bother with.

So how in the hell, in the form of Being Human (click here to watch on the fantastic iPlayer), did they manage to make one of the most engaging hours of television I've seen on either side of the Atlantic for a long while?

It's style was perfect, no OTT levels of mass fast-paced cuts, needless angles and scenes that last less than 5 sentences. It's storyline was perfect for a pilot - setting up characters, who are played to perfection, and their relationships perfectly. The main, probably-season-long plot is introduced slowly at a point when you actually give a monkey about these characters, and more importantly it's a compelling cliffhanger that makes you want to carry on and see how it progresses. But most importantly, it somehow manages to take a ridiculous idea and make it seem so believable. They do seem like people that could be sitting in the same pub as you, even though they may be a supernatural being. The fact that it sounds incredibly silly typing that a show about a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf living together is realistic proves my point. And it's about time we have such a fictional show be so rooted in reality, with Heroes, Torchwood et al presenting such a stylised portrayal of the world.

I urge the BBC to pick this up for a full series; this episode fails as a one-off hour drama, but succeeds so well as the start of a compelling series. This is the new BBC Three, get rid of every documentary you make that has a swear word in it, and use that budget to commission this. And while you're at it, stop bringing back Two Pints of Lager. Thanks.

No Skin Off My Nose

2008-02-21T16:36:00.006Z

I'm a student. Being a student, I often find myself hanging around with other students. It's something I cannot avoid. Try avoiding it, and you become an outcast. Try it if you want.

However, being a student with all my student mates often means I go to student parties. The last party I went to was a two-day bender of which an onion ended up in the toilet, and we watched Elf on TV. This is typical student life. However, it'd never make an episode of Skins (E4, Mondays 10pm)

Skins has recently entered its second series on E4. It's become so successful because of it's ability to 'handle the true side of teenage life'. I watched all of the first series because I wanted an opinion of it so when discussing it with aforementioned student friends, I could express a view instead of agreeing with everyone. My opinion turned out to be a negative one, and I was a bit disheartened when the series finished that I had spent many hours of my life watching a half-arsed drama. Kidnappings had occured, eating disorders were dealt with in a patronising way and the final dramatic scene involving a car accident also involved a song and dance number. I'm not kidding. Watch the last episode on 4od.

If you've never seen it, let me give you a run down of the characters.

Tony - a student who looks a bit like Adric from Doctor Who, but contains as much charisma as a pot of paint. Sleeps with anything he sees and likes to live his life like a retarded Casanova. Got in a car accident at the end of series one and is not a twat anymore. He's now a twat with no motor skills.

Michelle - Tony's on/off/on/off/on girlfriend. Loves Tony, despite him treating her like dirt. Will try anything pill-based. Since Tony's accident, she appears to be a slut. But is still in love with Tony, because that is her one character trait.

Sid - Tony's best mate. The most likeable of the lot. Obsessed with Michelle, sex and sex with Michelle. Does anything Tony says. Started having feelings for Cassie. Michelle once tried to have sex with him, but decided her feelings for Tony were too strong. Because she loves Tony. Because that is her one character trait.

Cassie - a girl with OCD and an eating disorder. She's kooky. That's literally it. For the second series, she's moved to Scotland where she's learnt the highland fling. THAT'S LITERALLY IT.

Maxxie - has two x's in his name. 'Nuff said. He's also gay. Tony made out with him once, much to the annoyance of Michelle. But she forgave him because she loves him because that is her one character trait.

Anwar - The "hilarious vigin" out of the gang. Maxxie's best mate. He's yet to have his own episode. I don't think the writer's have thought of a decent back story for him. Most likely to be the first one killed off.

And that was it. It was hard seeing these 2D characters move forward as a plot device, so I gave up. There truly was no reason to give the second series a watch. I had given my opinion that Skins went in my 'Apathy' pile, but I'm glad I did give this new series a chance. This Monday's episode was one of the best examples of TV drama I had seen in a good while. It was humourous, dramatic and even had Shane Ritchie as a perverted drama student. It also introduced us to Sketch, a never-before-seen character, and her obsession with Maxxie.

So, congratulations to Skins in being able to convince me to carry on watching it. Nothing like this has happened since the premiere of Torchwood's second series. Although, that's getting more rubbish by the week.

But the Film is a Saddening Bore/’Cause I Wrote it Ten Times Before

2008-02-16T22:35:00.004Z

I really don't know what to think about Ashes To Ashes. Not least this is because I managed to miss the second episode. I'm sure my opinion is slightly coloured by the fact that Life On Mars is one of my all-time favourite songs and I never really rated Ashes To Ashes anything like as much.

The first thing that struck me about the opening episode was the singing. I still don't understand why the gunman was singing "I'm happy, hope you're happy" before she was shot, except that that's the message the action man is supposed to give. One can only assume that she has a tumor as well and she was out of it long before she woke up in 1981. That, or the gunman had watched Life On Mars and wanted to fuck with her head.

I was also slightly annoyed by the ending. Okay, you've set up the series. But after all the "how do you know my parents" routine, it's now impossible for that plotline to be resolved until the series ends, presumably either a month and a half or a year from now.

But all of the above notwithstanding, there is one thing about the show I absolutely loved:

Look, all right. Just relax. OK, 'Chris'? I know how this goes. Hunt's the bullish one, Ray's the misogynistic one, and you're the nervous one, blah blah blah. I don't care. I am going to stop Arthur Layton because that could be the mental trigger to get me out of here. OK?

It's just so pleasingly self-aware. Like in Voyager, when Tom Paris points out that every time they find what appears to be a way back to Earth, something goes unexpectedly wrong. Or in Trumpton when Captain Flack gets all excited when he thinks there's finally a real fire. The characters in TV shows should notice when similar things keep happening. Otherwise it just starts to look ridiculous.

The test of this show, I think, will be in how well it keeps Drake interested without getting her thinking that her 1981 world is real. If she thinks it's real, it'll just be Life On Mars again. If she doesn't care what happens to the imaginary people in her head then the whole show will descend into farce.

Actually, that would be much better. I hope she masters the art of lucid dreaming and learns to create any object she likes. It'd be like a gritty version of Penny Crayon, except with marginally more sensible clothes.

How To Watch TV

2008-01-31T18:30:00.000Z

(This article is mainly about hit TV show The Simpsons. Bare with me.)

I watch television in a very simple way. I find a show that looks vaguely interesting, sit down, watch it, and then keep watching until the show has finished it's airtime. I believe that's how the majority of people like to watch televisions.

The thing is, I have a blog about television. This means, sometimes, I will watch a show with a critical eye. This is also how others watch television is they are a TV critic or if they too blog about television. This is also an acceptable varient.

What I don't understand are the people who mass together on the internet to scutinise every second of the show's continuity. The most-talked about show is Doctor Who. I like watching Doctor Who; it's reasonably entertaining. What I'm not going to do is complain that a recent boxset of the show involving the Pertwee adventure Doctor Who and the Silurians uses the correct title of Doctor Who and the Silurians. Many people complained when Christopher Ecclestone was credited as Doctor Who because "the character's actual name is The Doctor". David Tennant was one of these people. Shame on you, David Tennant.

That's one end of the scale. The other end of the scale are fans of The Simpsons. Earlier this week, FOX aired a brilliant episode titled That 90's Show. It was a flashback to before Bart was born about how Homer and Marge had troubles in their relationship before they got married. I found it hilarous because I grew up in the 90's, and identified the stabs at culture of that era. However, a lot of people are complaining that this episode was even allowed to air. Why? Because it 'deleted 20-years worth of continuity'.

So?

The fact that the characters don't age doesn't delete continuity? The fact that it's a cartoon? The fact that they're all yellow?

I realised that The Simpsons wasn't a drama series to be taken seriously when I was quite young. Probably after the first episode I ever watched. But it really conerns me to see a lot of people trash this episode because it completely ignores the fact that Homer and Marge met in the early 70's. These type of people don't seem to realise that this would make them in their late 50's, and that Bart should be 30 by now. It's not even the young people on the internet that think this, TV Critic Robert Canning thinks so too. Grow up, Robert.

I think ignoring this type of person is for the best. Enjoy watching TV, everyone!

It's The (American) GLAAAAADIAAATORRS!

2008-01-30T20:26:00.000Z

The news today that The Gladiators is to return to our screens (albeit on Sky One), made my inner-child positively jump around like back when I was 7 years old and my mother had given me too much Um Bongo. If any show has been calling for a revival back to it's Saturday Night slot, it's the cheesefest that is The Gladiators. Thankfully NBC thought the exact same thing I did, although it may have to do with them scraping together any old crap they can make quickly; seeing as how all their actual television shows have ground to a halt due to the writers' strike. But one man's loss or another man's gain, and whilst some poor sap is mourning the loss of a season of 24, I'm experiencing the delight that is American Gladiators.

See, American Gladiators is quite possibly the the craziest show to be put on TV in a long while. It's exactly what you'd expect The Gladiators to be if it were: American, made in 2007, and targeted at teenage boys. Yet somehow it manages to give you so many "WTF!?" moments that make you laugh out loud, even if that wasn't the intention.

So let's compare the old-school 90's Gladiators from the era when ITV on a Saturday night was brilliant, with the new American Gladiators from an era when the kids that are watching can't stay still for more than 3 seconds. It's still the same format, play games, win points, gain seconds, do Eliminator. It's still the visual feast it's always been, only the new version whacks it up about 10 notches. Even in just the intro you have the logo spinning round, exploding, coming back, spinning some more, jumping from side to side, breaking apart, coming back together, staying still for about half a second, then exploding into your face once more. As this time we get to hear the first delights from the commentator who takes it all seriously, like he's bet his house and his family on one of the contestants to win.

Then there's the differences, instead of John Fashanu and Gladiator shag-piece Ulrika, it's hosted by Hulk Hogan. Yes, they thought it'd be a good idea to give an aging old man hosting duties. And yes, he still does that hand to the ear thing and says the word brother in every 3rd sentence. There's the wealth of new Gladiators, all angry, glistening and full of attitude, at one point in a game, a contestant is hanging on for dear life, so the Gladiator does the only plausible thing - kicks her in the face so she falls off. Of course.

The oddest difference to the British version of old is that, for some unexplained reason, most of the events take place above a huge pool of water. Get hit off in The Duel, down in the water you go. Get pulled off The Wall, better hope you can swim, cause it's nothing but pool for you. I was hoping for some kind of morbid twist to mixed in with the whole water gimmick, perhaps the contestants have heavy weights tied to their ankles, so they know that if they fail that there'll be a fight for survival. Or perhaps a shark... and a crocodile... and a bear with snorkeling gear, so they get ripped to shreds when they lose a game. Unfortunately, the only morbid twist is during The Eliminator round, for some reason, again not entirely explained, the pool is set aflame, so the contestants not only have to swim through the water, but they also have to make sure they don't catch fire.... whilst underwater... I'm not sure the makers of this show thought that deadly obstacle through...

The best water related piece in the whole show is the round called Assault. Now this isn't in the British version so let me explain it. The contestant runs from weapon to weapon, each getting more powerful than the one before, in the hope that they can use these weapons to fire Nerf balls at a big circle. But up top is a Gladiator, who also has a big Nerf gun, who is trying to shoot the contestant below with his Nerf balls. Yes, this round is actually sponsored by Nerf. So far so Gladiators, but what's odd is when the big circle target is hit, and the Gladiator i one final inexplicable moment, gets fire from the stage to the other side of the arena, and they end up in the pool. Just because you're as far away from the pool as you could possibly be, doesn't mean you're safe from a soaking. Seeing a 6 ft, 200lb bodybuilder scream whilst airborne and then get dunked in water is the funniest sight you'll see in a long time.

This is the kind of show that's so bad it's good, which gives me high hopes for the Sky One version that is imminent. If it keeps the cheesy nature and the incredible music of the original whilst borrowing a little of the exploding typography and general anarchy from the American version, this could send Sky subscriptions through the roof.

But if they don't bring John Anderson as the referee, there's gonna be hell to pay. I know where you live, Sky One.

Duel or No Duel

2008-01-19T23:24:00.000Z

Oh, ITV1. We've given you nothing but praise over the past few weeks, and how do you repay us? By scheduling another hour-long quiz show that is quite tedious to watch.

Today was the premiere of greatly-advertised Duel, a game show which despite getting a lot of publicity all week didn't tell us anything about the game itself. Presented by Nick Hancock, a man with as little charisma as a toe, it breaks the mold of question-and-answer game shows by having the option for the contestants to reply 'all answers' to each of the questions. Let me explain further.

"Welcome to the Duel Arena" exclaims Hancock, "where over the next few weeks and months, we will be making dreams come true". It's sweet to think that the show will be lasting months. Nick introduces us to the first two contestants, Matt and Karen. I'd have given them hilarious nicknames if they weren't so horribly dull. An attempted explanation about how the game works is provided by Hancock; "We'll give you one question between you and four possible answers. You are then given ten chips, and you must place a chip on your answer. If you're not sure about an answer, you can put your chips down on more than one answer. You then can lock down, or accelerate the gameplay. Each chip that is on a wrong answer is then eliminated, but the prize fund is then increased by £1,000". See. If only Deal or No Deal was that simple.

The first question is asked. "In a game of cricket, how many balls are bowled in an over?". Matt puts down his answer, 'B. 6'. Karen puts down her answer. 'A. 5, B. 6, C. 8 and D. 10'. Karen thinks she's playing Battleship.

The game plods along. Because Karen used four of her chips for her answer, she uses three of them. This game begins to make a lot of sense. Obviously, whoever runs out of chips first loses, making the other person the automatic winner. Not so. You have to win four games in a row in order to win the jackpot.

Four games in a row? Statistically, this game could go on forever. I'm glad Nick mentioned that it'd go on for months, otherwise I'd go crazy. If I was a game show fan, that is. Which I'm not.

So, Matt wins the first round. He can now choose his next opponent. Unsurprisingly, he goes for the young attractive woman. She is Sherise, a flight attendant. The game is over quite quickly, with an odd moment where Sherise seems pretty happy to think that having a knowledge of the Sugababes is more worthwhile than knowing what 7 x 6 is. Then again, she is a flight attendant.

Luckily, after Matt wins two games in a row, he's given two options: keep playing for the grand total jackpot prize, or walk away with £10,000. At this point, orchestral music is used for dramatic effect... quick camera shots of Matt's face and the cash prize are juxtaposed. Anticlimactically, Matt takes his prize and walks off apathetically, leaving Nick Hancock to quickly announce the winner of the first episode.

I left it at that point. When I noticed that what was happening was the same thing over and over again, my brain switched off. I also realised that for a high-stakes fast-paced quiz show, only eight questions were asked. Why can't TV quiz shows be about questions anymore? I miss Wipeout.

This New Service Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be..

2008-01-14T17:14:00.000Z

Studio Simpsons on the South Park Missed

2008-01-13T15:46:00.000Z

Channel 4 are brilliant. They buy the rights to air South Park and don't. They buy the rights to air Studio 60 and stick it on an obscure digital channel that people avoid because it's aguely intellectual. They buy the rights to air The Sopranos and stick the new episodes on at 1.30am.

The latest way that they're screwing up the schedules is buying the rights to The Simpsons, airing a series of new episodes only to suddenly cease showing the new series half way through, sticking on an entire season that's ten years old, and then start showing the second half of the new series. ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

Well, I say "new series". The "new" episodes are five years old by now.

Thank God It's Here

2008-01-12T22:05:00.001Z

If you hadn't noticed, ITV1 have recently started making a decent name for itself. They've revamped the schedules for the weekends to make them more entertaining. Gone are the dreary game shows and occasional "Celebrity" reality shows, and here are the shows purely made for entertainment value. Saturday nights are finally as entertaining as they were fifteen years ago.

Tonight was the first night of the revamption. Yes, I'm allowed to make up words as I go along. Firstly, Harry Hill's TV Burp returns. It's as excellent as ever. Then I sit through a lovely hour to come up with the conclusion that Primeval is as rubbish as it ever was. Oh well. Can't get them all right.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire churns out the 430th 'Celebrity' episode. I'm a bit disheartened at this, as ITV1 promised they would stop 'Celebrity' versions of game shows. And the fact that this was followed by another 'Celebrity' game show doesn't give me great hope for the future of ITV1.

But sometimes, I can be wrong.

What I forgot was that the channel were finally airing the UK Version of Thank God You're Here. The show, if you haven't seen it, is a brilliant hour of improvisation where four celebrities enter a room in costume and haven't the foggiest about what is going on. Living with a housemate who downloads all the latest American shows, I had already seen the US version of it. Across the pond, our Stateside friends cancelled it after only thirteen episodes. This is a shame, because the show has such great potential. (The previous two sentences can also be used for many other great US shows, mainly Studio 60 and Clone High.)

What I must congratulate ITV on is their brilliant timing to schedule this show. A few months ago, Freeview veiwers were introduced to Dave. And with Dave came endless repeats of Top Gear, but more importantly, repeats of Whose Line is it Anyway. These repeats have made the nation remember how good television was in the early 1990's, and how brilliant improvisation shows are. Not only that, but when the only competition is BBC1's The One and Only, it's definately one of Saturday Night's gems.

Congratulations, ITV1. And, when you finally start airing Pushing Daisies in the next few weeks, you may be one of my favourite channels. Just don't start airing another series of Vernon Kay's Celebrity Family Fortunes, okay? Thank you.

To Catch a Phrase

2008-01-10T21:45:00.000Z

Today, I watched Little Miss Jocelyn. I would have reviewed it in a blog post, but it would have consisted of "A cavalcade of sketches featuring loud characters in similar situations without the decency to come up with a decent, memorable catchphrase". Instead of reviewing that, I will talk about the humble catchphrase.

Many people slander catchphrases in sketch shows. I do too. When a sketch show character has one, every story told about said character turns into a set-up to get aforementioned character to utter their catch phrase. This was where Little Britain had their major downfall. The episodes never differed: seeing Andy agree to something and then disagreeing to the decision moments later was funny the first time, but the average audience of that show only stays around to listen to "yeah, I know" or "want that one". It's so they can justify saying the phrases themselves in public places, like restaraunts, my local bar, the bus I go on and anywhere within three feet of me.

However, not all catch phrases are bad. Last Friday, Channel 4 (in a very Channel 4-esque thing to do) decided to count down the top fifty. Surprisingly, barely any of the catchphrases were from sketch shows. Hell, the top-rated one wasn't even from a scripted comedy- it was Bruce Forsyth's "Nice To See You To See You". It was an enjoyable countdown show to watch, mainly because it consisted of clips of classic comedy shows such as Fawlty Towers and And Now For Something Completely Different.

What I did find interesting to see was how many of the catchphrases listed never actually happened. Somewhere in the list was "Ooh, Betty" and "Super Smashin' Great", two phrases that had apparently, never been uttered in the shows they were famous for being uttered in. I find it amazing how people can attribute a popular and memorable catchphrase to a show where it has never been uttered.

It's a shame Little Miss Jocelyn doesn't have that power.

Wait, so there's something on ITV worth watching?

2008-01-07T22:19:00.000Z

So I sat down for my first part of TV watching in 2008 this Friday; the whole madness of Christmas TV dying down and making way for all the little shows they've had stored for months but wouldn't dare put on during the rating battle that is the month of December. So on an extremely bare Friday night that had shows like Extreme Pilgrim and Greatest Comedy Catchphrases, one of which seemingly is a religious version of Fear Factor whilst the other is a load of clips from Little Britain and Catherine Tate saying the same things over and over for 3 series (guess which title matches with which description). It was then I found an interesting little ditty called Bike Squad, a show that had recieved absolutely no press attention apart from a 3 inch wide "Inside Story" in a bumper version of the Radio Times that consists of 270 pages. With this in mind it was a shock to realise it wasn't just a piece of quickly mushed together piece of... mush, but was actually a piece of decent TV. Which was a first for Friday the 4th of January 2008.

Describing Bike Squad is pretty much the same as listing it's faults. The first thing you have to mention is it's called Bike Squad. An absolutely terrible name which sounds more at home on CBBC than primetime ITV. Then you have to note it's on ITV. That doesn't exactly bolster it's potential to be any good, in fact it throws any possibility of it being decent and smashes it with a large hammer. Then you finish with the fact that it's a feature length "dramedy" and it's at this point I'd throw in the towel and go watch something else. This article right here pretty much sums up why I hate comedy dramas that last longer than some movies. But it's either this or a repeat of New Tricks, so I keep going. The thought that it'll give me another reason to hate ITV by the end of it keeps me from turning off my TV.

Featuring a mildly stellar cast, the main star that bald, fat guy from the Full Monty who went to Hollywood to star as Fred Flinstone before being promptly booted back to ol' Blighty. It also has that decent actress from Shameless and Dinnerladies who once played that serial killer and a rather pointless character who is portrayed by that guy who was the male one in Smack the Pony and I'm slightly sure was in Saxondale. For a bit. It also stars a load of people I've never seen before who are all ok at what they do I suppose but won't be winning a BAFTA any time soon.

Going back to problems with one-off comedy dramas that last an hour and a half, this had the same problems as every other one of them. The story was too weak for something movie-length, it would've worked better if it was re-written as a 3 part comedy, you don't care about the characters enough to care that their lives are better at the end of it all, the jokes were too poor and again, the story was too weak.

But despite this, it was one of the better one-off shows there's been recently. It was at least watchable - and compared to the terrible and befuddling Learners it was great. They all had their predictable problems that they all overcame at just the right moment, the main character got his family back in a nice, if a little snoresome scene and it all wrapped up nicely in a big bundle of happy. It shows just how well some likeable characters can carry a show that has a weak plot, just a shame characters like this were wasted on a one-off and won't ever be seen again. At least I can thank the show for making me realise not everything on ITV is turd. Maybe next week I'll watch ITV again!

Oh wait, Dancing on Ice starts again, doesn't it? I'll stick to Dave then.

Telly Has Been Fine

2007-12-19T23:51:00.000Z

I realised today that I've not written a post here for a while. I ascribe this to the fact that the last month or so of TV has been basically pretty good. I have greatly enjoyed Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Heroes, Heston Blumenthal in Search of Perfection and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, have liked a further few programmes moderately, and have steadfastly ignored others. No scandals have been unearthed for a while, and no game shows with fundamentally flawed concepts have been launched for me to mock. (Well, maybe one.) Idents have become pleasantly festive, and adverts annoyingly so. I have not watched ITV1.

Merry Christmas!

The Mid-Programme Squeeze

2007-12-06T21:30:00.000Z

BBC2, not one minute ago, shrank Never Mind The Buzzcocks down into a tiny box to inform me about other shows that will be on later. They've been doing this a while, and Charlie Brooker is very cross. But when he was cross, it was when they squeezed programmes down during the end credits. Today they did it before the end credits, halfway through a sentence.

That had better have been some monkey pressing the wrong button. It was annoying when they started putting those "NEXT" boxes up. This isn't Dave. Get with it, BBC2.

Damn You, Jimmy Carr!

2007-11-29T20:07:00.000Z

I've never been much of a fan of Jimmy Carr. I think he's overexposed and over-rated. Also he looks weird. I think most of it stems from the first time I saw him, which was him doing stand-up. He told old jokes badly and made no effort to tie them into a coherent act. I've not liked him much ever since.

That said, he is funny when he's off-the-cuff, and he does have a pleasing habit of mocking people who deserve it. He was on Jonathan Ross's show a while ago and they both insulted each other for several minutes before eventually Ross had to bring on a new guest.

But damn, damn, damn you Jimmy Carr for so utterly failing to capitalise on what we now know was one of the greatest opportunities of all time: Anne Widdecombe has promised never to appear on Have I Got News For You again because of his fairly relentless mockery of her (which is of course good news, which combined with her retirement from politics means the number of things she's crap at but does anyway is slowly but surely diminishing). And he was fairly harsh, but to be fair, if she's stupid enough to sit in front of a professional comedian on national television, admit she called her cat "Arbuthnot", and proceed to demonstrate her air-raid-siren-like tri-syllabic call which makes that name a particularly efficient choice, then what the hell did she think was going to happen?

"His idea of wit is a barrage of filth and the sort of humour most men grow out of in their teens," she harrumphs in her Daily Express column today.

You know, because to understand just how infantile the filth that BBC2 truly is requires the kind of well-developed mind that's really only found in the intellectual elite that is the readership of the Daily Express (today's top searches: madeleine; Madeleine McCann; Princess Diana; mccann; [empty string]; Crossword; Kate Middleton; offers; madeline; sunday express), a level of culture and sophistication I naturally aspire to one day achieve.

"The edit got rid of much of it but there's no amount of money for which I would go through those two recording hours again. At one stage I nearly walked out." (from the Guardian)

Nearly? That's not good enough! Think how fantastic it would have been if she'd walked out! And he only had to push her that little bit harder.

Damn, damn, damn you, Jimmy Carr!

(Those were the genuine top searches today. "Princess Diana" is the example search it does if you don't type anything in -- which makes the presence of the null string in the top searches all the more fascinating. I also see Express readers can't spell the name "Madeleine" any more consistently than the hacks who write for the Metro.)

It is Also Armstrong Time.

2007-11-28T16:24:00.000Z

Armstrong and Miller's programme on BBC1 on a Friday, which is pretty good, I guess, has included a recurring sketch lately which confuses me.

The sketch involves Armstrong and Miller dressing as Flanders and Swann, sitting the latter in front of a piano, and singing comedy songs. At first I assumed this would be parody, but really it's not that different from the original. The BBC describe it as "Brabbins and Fyffe, the filthy alter-egos of Flanders and Swann", but to be fair, Flanders and Swann are the filthy alter-egos of Flanders and Swann. Brabbins and Fyffe sang a song about poo, but Flanders and Swann sang at least two songs about date rape. ("Madeira M'Dear", and "It’s Hard To Say Oly-ma-kitty-luca-chi-chi-chi".) Brabbins and Fyffe sang a song about foreigners being filthy, and Flanders and Swann sang a song about foreigners being filthy. ("A Song of Patriotic Prejudice".) Brabbins and Fyffe swear more than Flanders and Swann, but then the latter did sing a song called "Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers".

I'm not sure it's parody at all, so much as it is as surreal a theft of someone's act as I've ever seen.

Have I Got Views For You

2007-11-25T18:04:00.000Z

I used to love Have I Got News For You. It was an intelligent and topical panel show with a good presenter.

I do not like Have I Got News For You. It is a pathetic excuse to show poor-quality not-funny video clips downloaded from the internet, presented by a parade of people none of whom are TV presenters, just so that Ian Hislop can make the same tired snide comments at them while Paul Merton talks nonsense and generally acts like he's totally bored of the whole thing (which is fair enough) and the guests say nothing at all. Anne Widdecombe, who I hate anyway, presented the show last time, and she was rubbish at it. (She's rubbish at everything she tries to do, in my experience, particularly politics.) The answer to the odd-one-out round was "he's the only one whose name isn't a type of oven". Seriously. That's not satire. It's not even topical -- their names were ovens this time a decade ago. The guest publication has taken over the missing words round, so that's not topical either. The "In The News This Week" routine that bookends the show isn't topical. Last week one of the questions was "how did silkworms cause trouble in 1947", and the answer was "by coming from the wrong countries". That's not topical, and nobody will know the answer. That's more like a QI question, except that it's not remotely interesting.

I find that I'm increasingly watching Have I Got News For You solely for Paul Merton, and he's not at his best on the show.

Probably it's because it's not shown on a Thursday.

"My Name Is Hiro I Am Thirty One/I Can Bend The Space-Time Continuum" — Ben Folds (credited)

2007-11-14T22:03:00.000Z

The music at the end of Heroes Unmasked just gets better and better. I presume it's by the same people who do Doctor Who Confidential, whose speciality is ending on a clip montage with music whose lyrics describe the events of the episode, often in painstaking detail. For example, The Parting Of The Ways' clips were accompanied by Snow Patrol's "Run", which is not only a song about losing someone, but also features the lyric "Light up, light up/As if you have a choice".

Tonight, BBC2 viewers were treated to the image of Isaac Mendez shooting his kindofex-girlfriend to the accompaniment of Jeff Buckley singing "Maybe there's a god above/All I ever learned from love/Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya'..."

Well I guess Heroes was never really a show for fans of subtlety.

Oh, and while I'm here, you know what's funny about Mohinder Suresh?

Thursdays. In tonight's episode (on BBC2) Mohinder wore a shirt with black/white/black/orange stripes, exactly like BBC2's Thursdays Are Funny trailers use. I don't mean to post spoilers for those among you who don't watch the BBC Three 'previews', but watch out for his tie next week.

Three Minors and One Major. I'm Sorry to Say That You've Failed. Good Try Though.

2007-11-13T12:22:00.001Z

I was mostly disappointed with Jessica Hynes' Comedy-Drama Learners that aired on Sunday Night (BBC1). Firstly, I'll admit that I only watched it because David Tennant starred in it, and I'm a sucker for any drama that's Tennant-related. Casanova was good, Recovery was excellent, and there's a little-known drama about time travel that he's in which is okay, I suppose. Sadly, this wasn't.

And it had so much potential as well. It had a good writer, some of my favourite actors (except maybe Laura Solon who so far, in everything I've seen her in, has the one act of 'Look, I can do a Russian accent') and a great plot. It just lacked in story. It may have worked if it were a 6-part sitcom, but the situation that it's in doesn't feel like a ninety-minute drama. It was just too pointless. In sticking with the theme of Learner Drivers, I may as well review it like a driving test:

Minors:

- if you're going to introduce a sub-plot where the mother steals £120 from her own daughter, do something with it. Don't just resolve the situation in one line within a sub-par scene.
- cast people more suited to the character role. Just because you're friends with David Tennant, doesn't mean you have to cast him in a drama that you've written. Cast a lesser known actor who could have portrayed the role so much better. Tennant seemed to confident to play a lonely driving instructor. I didn't believe his character at all.
- A note to Laura Solon: We get it. You can do a Russian accent. Move it along, please.

Major:

- Jessica, you tried to write a drama. Please stick to comedy. You're brilliant at comedy. It's just the stale kitchen sink drama scenes I could have done without.

Better luck next time though.

To Say Nothing of His Clothes, Consant Infantile Sex Jokes, Speech Impediment or That Ridiculous Beard He Was Sporting a Bit Ago

2007-11-02T22:01:00.000Z

Last week, Heston Blumenthal (whom I think of as the Ben Goldacre of cookery, partly because he insists on having evidence for things like marinades, but also partly because of the amount of quackery he put an end to on Tuesday's show) was a guest on Jonathan Ross' show. Ross said Blumethal was the best chef in the country and much better than Gordon Ramsay who was going to be on the week after.

This week, when Ramsay actually is on the show, Ross describes Ramsay in the trailer as the world's best chef.

So why the hell should I trust him when he tells me his opinion of films?

2007-11-02T18:42:00.000Z

My brain hurts. Seriously hurts. It's been more than 24 hours since I watched Dirty Rotten Cheater and I have spent pretty much every waking hour thinking back to that show and wondering what the hell was going on. Stephen had a point with Countdown and any game show out there. A good game show has to have an original idea and has to have that basic premise explained in a sentence. Deal or No Deal is "someone eliminates boxes of money at random and gambles accordingly", Who Wants to be a Millionaire is even simpler with "someone tries to answer 15 questions (or however you have to answer since it's re-vamp) or they can use one of three lifelines". Dirty Rotten Cheater however, would take about 175 sentences, 8 full-colour illustrations and 16 mathematical equations to fully explain. And even then you'd still kind of go: "...Eh?"

It starts off pretty well, 5 contestants, cash prizes. Simple enough. Then it starts to go seriously downhill with the introduction of the gurn personified, also known as Brian Conley. I had one of those moments of "aaah, so he's still alive then?" followed one of those moments of "aaah, so he's still employed then?".

But surprisingly, he's not the worst part of the show, nor is the fact that it's a load of confusing bollocks. It's the fact that it steals from every game show out there, jumbles them together into one big load, then unleashes. Here's a quick drinking game, take a shot every time you see an idea taken from another show. You'll be legless by the end of the first round.

The game starts with said 5 contestants, and after the usual mundane chat in which Brian Conley tries to pretend he doesn't know what these people are about to say and tries even harder to pretend he hasn't written "comedic" material beforehand to respond with, the game starts. The contestants now proceed to guess the most popular answers of a question that 100 members of the general public (who also happen to be the studio audience) were asked. Shot number one right there. Then after that, the five have to choose who is The Dirty Rotten Cheater, in the exact same style as The Weakest Link, down to the looking down at their podiums, the lights lowering, the tense music, the name of the person appearing on the front of their podium. Only difference it's all a bit more red. Shot number two. But before they vote, they are goaded by Brian Conley to bitch and argue about who is this Dirty Rotten Cheater in front of each other, ala Poker Face with Ant 'n' Dec with it's lying except with this show it occasionally cuts back to Brian, gurning away, looking like he's taking some sick enjoyment in it all and barely holding back to urge to start chanting "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!".

Now let me explain just what The Dirty Rotten Cheater part is all about. Turns out one of them is a Dirty Rotten Cheater. They know all the answers, sneaky! They're working on the inside! You could possibly even call them... oooh I dunno, The Mole or even possibly... The Enemy Within. They have to try and get through the game trying to make sure they're not found out, and if they succeed, they keep the money they've won!

Now I feel I've done a reasonable job explaining the basic premise of the show in two paragraphs, but all that is pretty understandable. It's only when random things start happening that confuse unless you've been taking notes whilst watching. At seemingly any time, Mr. Conley can say "and that means I have to halve your money" and it is done. I only presume he says it when he's feeling like a bit of a bastard and wants people to feel inferior to him and his vast BBC wage. Then, when someones evicted, Mr. Conley tells them to go to the Losers' Lounge (in actuality, it's a bench in front of the audience) and as they walk off, taunts them with the promise that they can come back later and win 250 quid, despite this never actually occuring at the end of the show. As the fallen contestant meets up with all the other losers where they proceed to hug and kiss like they're family members who haven't spoke in years, not strangers who have spent the past half an hour accusing each other of lying. Halfway through the show, the audience starts voting instead of the contestants. No explanation is given, Conley just seems to decide willy-nilly that he wants the audience to vote instead. Maybe he got a bit bored of being a bastard halfway through and decided to change the was the game is played.

The best of all the confusing elements of the show was near the end, two contestants left and we've found out just who the cheater is, then for no reason that I can fathom other than the need for tension, the final two have to walk up to two clear tubes. It was at this time that Stephen walks into the living room and asks just what is going on, but by this point I'm physically weeping and crawling up in a ball, trying to make any sort of sense what's going on myself. I'll try to explain what I think happened. Y'see... these tubes have a hole, and some cash in them and, in all truthfulness, look spectacularly weedy if they are supposed to be elements in a climatic piece of drama. Conley, in the final act of bastardness, tells the cheater to put their hand in their hole, and as they do, his money falls through a small, hiddren trap door, presumably making the midget that evil Conley has trapped in there, a very rich person. Everybody claps, Conley gurns for a final time, roll credits.

I'm sure this show would make some sort of sense if I watched another episode or two, but unfortunately I've already dedicated the half an hour the show lasts to watching the BBC Three screen that tells me that programming starts at 7pm. It's a hell of a lot more fun.

The Good Kind of Countdown

2007-11-02T17:20:00.001Z

Today, Channel 4 celebrates their 25th Anniversary. This is a fact that I don't much care for. Sure, they've had a lot of hit documentaries and shows, but all of that becomes pointless when you compare it to the amount of old Simpsons repeats, spectacularly irrelevant chat shows and Big Brother. The channel has had a lot more misses than hits.

However, a fact that does interest me is that it is also the 25th anniversary of Countdown. This game show, for people outside the UK, consists of two people choosing an assortment of letters and trying to make words out of them. It sounds horrendously dull, but it is in fact the perfect game show. And because it is perfect, it has lasted so long.

It's a simple set, the rules are easy and it's a game that people at home can also play. It can be patronising at time, but that's so the old people watching with their cats feel like somebody is visiting them. It's never controversial, never pointlessly mean to their contestants and best of all, the grand prize at the end is a set of dictionaries. Dictionaries! You know what this means? You''ll never get greedy gits who are only on the show for big cash prizes like you get on Deal or No Deal.

I mentioned how it is such a simple premise. Nowadays, when a new game show is commsioned, it has to be original and fresh. My flatmate, JoeyJ, watched the entirety of Brian Connely's new vehicle Dirty Rotten Cheater yesterday, and still wasn't able to explain what the rules of the game were.

Countdown seriously cannot compare with other game shows. It's in a class of it's own. Not only that, even the dumbest of individuals like myself can take 45 minutes out of their day where they can pretend to be smart. And when you compare the fact that the first question The Weakest Link today was "What is the first letter of the alphabet", you realise that you really are talking about two different shows.

Music To Watch Bad TV Talent Shows By

2007-10-28T11:18:00.000Z

Until yesterday, I'd not seen The X Factor since the early audition rounds, what seems like many months ago. Last night the first thing I saw after the channel changed was someone who looked like Spike from Buffy The Vampire Slayer proclaiming himself to be the Phantom Of The Opera. That caught be somewhat off-guard. I guess my point is, to anyone who watches this program, take a step back and try to see it how I do, coming to it for the first time.

For example, when Sharon introduced the following act as "little Emily", we just laughed. Then there was a boyband called "Futureproof", which is a delightful name for a group whose act is already laughably dated before they've released anything. The little recap showed me a girl group called "Hope", which is again a delightful name for an entry in a singing competition who palpably can't sing. There were others who weren't great, but Hope weren't even okay. I thought by this stage in the competition they'd all at least be halfway decent acts. The idea that out of 200,000 auditions there weren't even eleven who could carry a tune is presumably testament to just how deluded and insane you have to be to want to be on the show.

I'd naturally expect out of a random sample of the population that most would be fairly poor singers and almost none would be amazing. A random sample of X Factor contestants, I would expect more who were awful but loud, but also more who could actually sing really well, because I still think that winning The X Factor would be a perfectly good way to launch a lasting career in pop, provided you actually have some discerning talent -- it's just a way to get exposure. (One day, with luck, this theory will be tested.) But if the judges have done their job, there were maybe four credible singers out of 200,000 applicants, and that's a little scary.

Of course, the judges plainly haven't done their job: Hope is made up entirely of people who were deemed unable to hold a tune in the auditions, but were lumped together in the bizarre hope that they could hold a tune and harmonise.

I also enjoyed the judges repeatedly saying how brave the last contestant (who doubtless had a name but it isn't important enough to warrant another trip to Wikipedia) was to do a Celine Dion song in front of Celine Dion. The implicit and all-pervading assumption that Celine Dion is actually that full of herself that she'll rip you apart if you get the slightest thing wrong, especially compared to the clip of her saying "Well done... I don't always hit that note", was amusingly misanthropic. And aside from anything else, Dion didn't write a word of the song anyway. How her singing it is any different from an X Factor contestant singing it is something of a mystery to me.

There may also be a slight problem with one of the acts: Andy. He can't -- I mean literally can't -- launch into a pop career without changing his name. His surname is "Williams". That would be like us calling this website "Google". But he also can't change his name, because his only apparent selling point is the connection with The X Factor, and I think there's a real danger of people not recognising him if the slightest thing were to change. Presumably, he would have realised this before auditioning, and at least called himself "Andrew", thus limiting the problem to an unlikely confusion with an obscure guitarist.

Oh well, too late now, I suppose. It'll all be over soon enough anyway.

Fridays are Funny

2007-10-26T20:47:00.000+01:00

That's how the BBC can get out of the horrible 'Thursdays are Funny' campaign: simply change the day and spend more time advertising Have I Got News For You, The Armstrong and Miller Show and QI. There. Problem solved.

Solve for X

2007-10-26T12:44:00.001+01:00

The X Factor certainly do like to dish out drama where there is no drama. At the beginning of this year, the entire gimmick was that Louis Walsh was not coming back. Then, lo an behold, he returned. This didn't really come as a shock to the viewers; mainly because all the adverts running at the time had Simon Cowell looking forlorn into the camera, muttering "I think we should bring back Louis", as if that decision was made then and there.

They've decided to pull this routine a second time by having Sharon Osbourne "storm out" of the show. The reason they gave for Sharon's supposed exit was that "she was upset as two of her acts faced the judge's vote". What a rubbish reason. Thing is, we must remember after the whole BBC controversy about the Queen documentary that the phrase "storming out" doesn't usually mean what it implies. Lo and behold, Sharon has agreed to return to the show.

Well, it certainly was a roller-coaster of high tension drama. I'm so glad we all got through it.

So, how is The X Factor this year? Well, we've finally got through the watchable 'audition shows' where we get to laugh at talentless people have their hopes and dreams squashed through a wave of sarcasm, pity and Irishness. Now we appear to be at the stage of 'Live finals'. These 'Live finals' aren't final enough, for we appear to be having one of these shows every Saturday until Christmas.

For once, I watched one of these live shows last Saturday. Are these really the twelve best groups that auditioned? Who was the scary Aryan-race character who sang Meatloaf? His name sounded like some venereal disease... Rhydian! That was it. It turns out that he's alsobeen through his own bit of drama this week. As TheXFactor.com reports in an enthralling piece of news, "Rhydian Quits X Factor and Then Changes His Mind". Astonishing news.

I was also witness to Brother and Sister combination Same Difference, who manage to turn The X Factor into The Steps Factor. It was pure nauseating nonsense. But, it still gets ratings. I'm surprised.

I wish there was a talent show that would only show the rubbish auditions. They are always funny. And, I also suggest to the producers of the show not to cause random bits of drama and suggest that a member of the show is "walking out". Not a single member of the panelists or singers have ever walked out of The X Factor for good. It's as if you're teasing the people who actually do care about the future of pop music in our country. And, it's also a little patronising.

A Brief History of Time Travel Related Charity Events

2007-10-24T23:12:00.000+01:00

Today, I purched the double-DVD boxset of two old Doctor Who stories: Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity. Why? Well, firstly it was only £13 in WH Smith. But secondly, and most importantly, I wanted to watch a lot more of Peter Davison-era stories, especially with the BBC announcing that he is returning for a Multi-Doctor Charity Special.

I'm in two minds about this. I'm quite happy that Steven Moffat is writing the ten-minute episode, but I keep wondering whether or not said episode is canonical. Will it be humourous? Where will it take place? Also, how will they explain that the Fifth Doctor looks twenty years older? The answer to that is simply that if they want to bring back a classic Doctor, Davison is the man to do it. I mean, have you seen Colin Baker recently?

Anyway, I'm trailing off the subject. Whilst you decide on whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that Peter Davison is returning, I shall give you a brief history of the past three Doctor Who Charity specials.

1. Dimensions in Time (1993)

Oh, how unremittingly awful. Doctors Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven are stuck in Albert Square thanks to the Rani. Also, his companions keep popping up through time as well. Not only did this seem to not have a script, it also seemed to not have any cohesion in the slightest. Luckily, both parts are avaliable on YouTube if you fancy having a laugh. If you happen to have a spare pair of 3D glasses lying around, that may also increase your enjoyment of the show. Marginally.

2. The Curse of Fatal Death (1999)

For Comic Relief, a new Doctor was brought to our screens: Rowan Atkinson. A hilarious 23-minute long adventure which is more true to the series than Dimensions in Time could ever dream to be. Although, using farts as a defence mechanism does leave some questioning.

3. Pudsey Cutaway (2005)

A rubbishly-titled first entry for the Tenth Doctor. Also included time-burps and typical Tennant-gurning. Also, the first Charity-episode that is considered canonical.

So, which one of these genres will Time Crash fall under? Will it be a laughably-poor romp through Albert Square? Will it be a humerous adventure with fart jokes? Or, will it be a canonical first meeting of a multitude of the same Timelord since 1986? Sadly, the only way to find out is to watch bloody Children in Need. There's always a downside to everything.

And We Don't Need No Water

2007-10-24T19:02:00.000+01:00

Southern California is a little hotter than usual at the moment, seeing as large areas of it are currently on fire. Interesting of note, however, is that most of the big news channels here in the US are only reporting on the areas with Money. San Diego continues to be a hot point, haha, for news reporters, but considering the large-scale evacuation of the city that makes sense. But Malibu, which is home to celebrities such as Ted Danson, Pamela Anderson, and Sting, seems to be getting an inordinate amount of news coverage despite the fact that the fires there are largely under control. We're still receiving updates on Santa Clarita, where you can find some Very Expensive Houses, but the fires there are also fairly contained now.

Of course, no updates on the smaller communities threatened by fires. In fact the last update most news programs seem to have is over two days old. Lovely.

It's not just American media, either - even the good ol' BBC has been tracking the Malibu fire using this handy map:

Meanwhile, we have friends sleeping on our living room floor who were evacuated from their mountain town who have no idea what is happening, or even if they have a home to go back to. It's all bit a stupid, really.

Ones To Watch #1: Pushing Daisies

2007-10-21T02:53:00.000+01:00

Autumn coming always leaves me with a large sense of melancholy. It's a stark reminder that I accomplished nothing over a summer break apart from eating excessively and sitting on a sofa in front of endless TV repeats - despite having plans to have "The Best Summer Ever!" and... y'know... step outdoors. It also reminds me that the feeling of happiness that summer instills will rather quickly get progressively crapper, the days will shorten, the wind will become sharper, the rain will become more frequent and Argos & every sofa company out there will start to broadcast Christmas adverts in the middle of October.

One thing that perks me up about the autumn months however is television, namely the Fall TV line-up. Whilst not a big deal over here in Britain possibly due to the fact that we all stay in to watch TV over the summer because going outside involves battling against flood-enducing downpours; in America, the marketing big-wigs realised long ago that as Autumn, or Fall if we're being grammatically American, approaches, people come indoors of an evening and start to watch TV. Hence this is the time that just about every big show on every big network launches, hoping to win the ratings battles in time for sweeps (another explanation for another day). This means that, should you have access to American TV in any sort of way, September brings a a treasure trove of new shows along with new seasons of your old favourites. And 2007 looks to be a good year.

2007's Fall Line-up seems to focus on what I like to call... "lovely dramas". The kind that don't have big, complex plotlines that run through entire seasons ala Desperate Housewives, nor do they have the feature-film pizazz and feature-film budget of Lost or Heroes. Shows like Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, Veronica Mars and even down to shows like Monk and What about Brian all fit this mould. They're light, fluffy, make you laugh and don't particularly tax you in a way The Unit, for example, does.

Whilst I plan to go on about several different shows that have either just started this September or have come back for a new run, there is one show that shines far and beyond any new show this season and so far already rivals the TV elite in terms of quality. And that show is the incredibly hyped (and deservedly so) Pushing Daisies, which broadcasts on ABC.

If you haven't heard of this so far, let me try to explain, although it is one of those shows that sounds terrible in word but brilliant in execution. When Ned was a child, he discovered he had the ability to raise things from the dead. However he soon realised this power had a catch, should he touch that particular thing once more, they will be dead again, and dead forever. He also realised that should he make something alive again for more than a minute, nature balances it out by killing something else of similar value in proximity of him. This is shown in example when he brings his mother back to life when she suddenly dies on the kitchen floor. A minute later, in the house opposite, the father of his childhood sweetheart, Chuck, dies suddenly as a consequence. Then later on that night, when his mother kisses him goodnight, she dies once again, but permanently this time. Thus all this sets up a show that involves him becoming a pie-maker (never fully explained why, but worked so beautifully into the whole show that you won't care), helping a private investigator, and falling in love once again with his childhood sweetheart who he finally sees again after years apart... but who he can never touch since he has brought her back to life.

All this mixes in together to become what is, in both style and story, a modern fairy tale. So sweet you can't help but smile, so beautifully shot with all sorts of bright colours in just about every scene that you can't help but become immersed in their world, and so wonderfully told via a huge amount of original ideas you can't help but smile even more than you already are at each and every one of them. Superbly funny and immensely clever, it proceeds at such a quick, bouncy rate that it never stops to make sure everyone watching understands what's going on, and it just doesn't care when it creates a plot point that has everyone watching saying "WTF!?" in unison. For example, in the second episode, the plot revolves around a company that is making a car fulled by dandelions. Just once is it mentioned that this is not a particularly normal thing to do, and it's this kind of moment that helps you realise that this is a fantasy land where the good guy always wins and people always fall in love. The kind of show that will happily dedicate 2 minutes of it's time to a version of 'Hopelessly Devoted To You' just because it's funny and just absolutely lovely to have in there. It's the kind of show so good you wish that some British TV channel would take the risk and try something like this instead of putting out the safe, stale drivel that is Heartbeat, Casualty, The Bill and all those others. Does British TV really have to stick to dramas that can be described in one short sentence and starts with "Drama set in a..."? But that's another rant for another time.

But back to Pushing Daisies, and one notable mention besides the brilliant and unnamed narrator, has to go to the cast. Built up of relative unknowns, they are superb and are a good chunk of why the show is as good as it is. The only two who are even slightly recognisable are ex-Brookside lesbian turned proper American actress Anna Friel (who plays the slightly eccentric and delightfully cheery Chuck) and Chi McBride (who plays grumpy, dry-witted but ultimately nice Emmerson Cod), who fans of House M.D. will remember appeared in a couple of episodes of season one as the grumpy owner. Everyone, even the dog, plays their part superbly to the point where I'm already starting to think that no-one else could play these roles half as well as they could.

There are bad points however. There are a whole lot of moments when you'll tut and think "well isn't that handy?" when one of them suddenly has something to hand or can miraculously do something that saves the day. Also, for a story full of murder mysteries, so far none of them have been solvable by the audience, a very-very limited "Whodunnit?" situation in each episode, mainly because the killer or the motive is suddenly explained out of the blue by the narrator.

But you know what? I don't care about any of these gripes. This is the perfect show to sit down and just watch for an hour, knowing you'll be thoroughly entertained. And best of all, it's been picked up for British broadcast! Finally, ITV 1 will have something worth watching when Pushing Daisies starts in January. Yes, I know it's pointless me telling you about it now since it's so far away and yes, I shall rant and rave more about this show nearer the time, but I advise you mark your calendars now, this is well worth a watch.

Just For One Day (And Then Again, on BBC Three)

2007-10-20T11:22:00.000+01:00

Ah, Heroes. It's a modern classic, in many ways, and it's compulsive viewing on many levels. Thing is, I find myself utterly unable to work out what those ways or levels are. Lost held my interest by being highly unpredictable, feeding me a trickle of answers just more than sufficient to stop me giving up on it, and having a range of exciting mysteries that need answering in the first place. And Heroes doesn't seem to do those things.

It's unpredictable in the limited sense that it's not a parade of clichés like many shows are, so you don't know what specific event will happen next, but you can bet safely that the principal characters will survive. To my recollection (at the pace the show is running on BBC Three), we've had somewhere in the region of two recurring characters killed, and they were unimportant ones -- the closest thing to a main character's death is probably Eden, who may have had incredible persuasive powers but far more probably just asked men to do things and they did them because she was hot. Lost killed the main characters often enough to makes sure that almost anybody could die at almost any moment.

Heroes really only has three mysteries: where the powers came from, why a paper merchant has so much money, and how Nathan Petrelli ever had time to systematically involve himself in everybody's lives from Vegas to New York with a stop in Texas to father a child. That's some impressive canvassing. The problem is that it's hard to create mysteries when you have a character who can fly, turn invisible, read minds, heal himself, move objects with his mind, stop time, and explode a whole city, and another who can hear things 40 miles off, move objects with his mind, liquefy toasters (for some reason), remember everything that ever happens to him in perfect detail, and probably has a whole host of other powers that have never really been explained. There's really no explanation that's going to satisfy, particularly not when they're making such a big show of the whole "evol-yoution" thing -- Sylar calling himself "the watchmaker's son," for example. Evolution doesn't work that way, so we just suspend disbelief, and that's not the same thing as being curious like we are with Lost.

And yet, I still find myself watching it. It's well written and entertaining. It's a damn good show. But I guess my point is that it's not the ground-breaking piece of TV history it often believes itself to be. Not, that is, unless you watch Heroes Unmasked afterwards and listen to what Greg Grunberg has to say.

Grunberg is the thoroughly-oddly-named actor who plays Matt Parkman, the psychic cop who thinks his mind-reading ability is tearing his life apart when in fact his life is falling apart because he's a bit of a twit. And his job, on Heroes Unmasked, is to sit open-legged and excitedly extol the virtues of the preceding show. He'll say things like "I think it's incredible the way the writers gave these powers to just ordinary people", or "this is a really exciting thing to be involved in because I get to play a man who can read minds! Imagine that!" or "my character is having marital difficulties -- nobody's ever done a show about that before".

Grunberg is also entertaining to watch but not the profound creator of TV history he believes himself to be. And again, I can't help but like him for it.

If you've missed this post, catch it from the start now on Channel Flip + 1

2007-10-18T17:12:00.000+01:00

Something that's annoying me recently about the otherwise entirely welcome Channel 4 + 1 service is a tendency for the continuity announcers at the end of hour-long shows to say words to the effect of "if you've missed this programme, don't worry; it's starting now on Channel 4 + 1". This is good and well, except that they don't seem to fully comprehend how the timeshifted service works. They broadcast exactly the same thing an hour later - the same sound, the same pictures, the same thing. This means an hour later, they'll tell all the people watching Channel 4 + 1 that if they've missed the programme that just finished (on Channel 4 + 1) then it doesn't matter, because it's just about to start on Channel 4 + 1, which it manifestly isn't.

You'd think a company capable of broadcasting television signals to an entire country could invent a little button they can press if the announcement they're making won't make sense on the +1 channel, and then the announcement doesn't broadcast on the +1 channel. But apparently not.

The Home of Witty Banter

2007-10-16T13:24:00.000+01:00

Last night, as far as I'm aware, was the launch night of Dave, a new Freeview channel which proclaims itself as "The Home of Witty Banter". I do love the schedule today. Top Gear, followed by Whose Line is it Anyway, followed by a double bill of Airport. Then the same episode of Top Gear, Whose Line and Airport. Repeat a further two times.

Still, if you overlook all the repeats, it is an enjoyable show to watch. Last night they aired some pretty impressive episodes of QI, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Have I Got News for You. However, for some odd reason, on their launch night the channel decided to air an episode of Coupling. Which one? The Season 4 Finale.

My advice? If you're going to get people to watch a show on a new channel, don't start with the last ever episode of it.

How to Cook the Perfect Roast Chicken in 473 Outlandishly Complicated Steps

2007-10-15T23:49:00.000+01:00

Tommorow (Tuesday) night at 8:30 on BBC Two, a new series of Heston Blumenthal: In Search Of Perfection starts. It's the best cookery show ever. And if that sounds like I'm damning it with faint praise, I'm not. It truly is awesome. There's none of that food-can-be-easy, fresh-ingredients-cooked-simply, made-in-five-minutes lifestyle crap here. (I saw the latest Nigella Lawson show earlier today between University Challenge and Dragons' Den. She 'got a call' from a friend having man-troubles, conveniently while the cameras were rolling, so she invited here over for chocolate-chip cookies, which miraculously cured her emotional distress. Lucky these things happen to Nigella, or there'd only have been ten minutes of show. I don't know how they get away with it in these anti-fakery days.)

Heston Blumenthal every week takes one classic dish (tomorrow chicken tikka masala) and spends the whole half-hour striving to make a perfect version of it, using the twin powers of cookery and science. He works only under the two constraints: that what he makes must essentially remain the same dish, and must be able to be made at home. This second constraint is imposed purely for comedy value, because nobody is going to be able to follow these recipes at home. Last series, his black forest gateaux involved getting chocolate, melting it with groundnut oil (I-Spy Heston Blumenthal awards 10 point for spotting groundnut oil - it has no flavour, you know), putting it in an aerosol can, spraying it into a tupperware box with a pinhole put in it, stuffing this in one of those bags you suck all the air out of to compact your luggage, and being attached to a vacuum cleaner until the chocolate aerates. Having made seven other layers similarly, he piles it up and sprays the whole thing with more groundnutty chocolate from a paint gun. This is served up with kirsch (cherry liquer - it's not a proper black forest gateaux without it apparently) in an atomiser which you spray into the air prior to eating (15 points for something in an atomiser).

The fact that none of his recipes are remotely feasible for home use is the genius of the whole enterprise. How-to shows are all very good and useful, but they're rarely especially entertaining. What's always entertaining is watching people do things that we demonstrably can't do - whether it's prefessional sports or Jack Bauer saving the world from terrorists. If this post comes too late for you to rearrange your schedule and you miss it, do what Heston would do - use the power of science and head on over to bbc.co.uk/iplayer where you can download it for free for a week. Hurrah!

Is it "Good Luck Getting Through"?

2007-10-14T12:38:00.000+01:00

In March, after a little less than a year (the service rather tellingly having launched on April Fools' Day), ITV shut down the ITV Play channel, principally because they'd been forced by a sudden and unusual upsurge in national levels of common sense to close all their premium-rate phone lines. This included the ITV Play that comes on at night when ITV have nothing else to show (and, presumably, didn't think anyone up that late would be able to pay enough attention to enjoy a repeat of A Touch Of Frost).

The ‘participation TV’ genre is growing fast and ITV Play will lead the market with higher quality programmes, higher production values and higher and more regular prizes.

So I was rather surprised last night when I switched over after Screenwipe to find a ridiculously cheerful woman soliciting calls from people who knew phrases that start in "good". It looked, as far as I could tell, to be exactly the same as the old-style ITV Play that was so universally condemned, but with one subtle change: every so often, the presenter would remind viewers to set themselves a limit on how many times they were going to play today, and to play within their budgets. She never said you had to be over 18, though.

I didn't watch enough to say for sure if the questions have improved -- though to be honest you could make them as easy as you like and the morons who phoned in and guessed "good likeness" and "good -ie two shoes" still would have been £1.50 of pure profit. Possibly, ITV have put in easy questions so the regulators won't complain and then preyed on viewers who think they've got wise to ITV's game and have started avoiding the obvious answers and guessing "balaclava" to every question instead.

I'm amazed they still get away with this, not least because it has pre-recorded applause and cheers played over it apparently at random, which surely counts as Nasty TV Fakery? Well, apparently, they don't. The show seemed to be taking callers rather less frequently than one might hope -- the presenter managed to go into quite some detail about exactly what she might buy if she won £1,500 on ITV Play that evening. The ideas kept coming -- considering she must have just been ad-libbing for an unspecified time, probably all night, and it was gone 2AM I was actually impressed with her. Except her credibility, obviously, which was in tatters because she was on ITV Play. I usually assume with these things that they charge all the callers and let maybe one in a hundred of them onto the air to have a shot at winning (which they won't, because "good rawlplugs" isn't what you'd call a common phrase), which of course is exactly what they did. But then they "went turbo", which meant they take "more calls than usual". Still nobody got through.

So either they're still running a phone-in competition that's essentially rigged, or else nobody very much phoned in. Which is it? Well, here's ITV's Strategy Update on the subject, published about month ago:

ITV Play’s Call TV programming will be phased out by the end of this year as negative publicity following compliance problems across the sector has seen call volumes drop to uneconomic levels.

So, to sum up, they're running an unpopular feature that's not making them any money. So why are they doing it? Why phase it out? Why not just stop?

How To Watch "In It To Win It"

2007-10-13T20:44:00.000+01:00

The actual quiz show is so dismal on every level it's not worth the bother, but I find it's more fun if you pretend to be the editor of a satirical TV clip show, looking for clips of Dale Winton making embarassing sexual confessions (when in fact he's doing his ridiculous "final answer" routine):

'I accept Jason Bourne.'
'I accept David Blunkett.'
'I accept "cucumber".'

It's very childish, I know, but when In It To Win It is on you just have to make the best of a bad situation.

Gradin' Sladen

2007-10-13T18:41:00.000+01:00

I must admit, when they first announced Sarah-Jane Adventures, yet another spin-off of Doctor Who for those who don't know, I can't say I was too thrilled. I enjoy me some Doctor Who; and I know it's supposed to be a family show but there are a lot of times when watching certain episodes that I wouldn't have batted an eye-lid if it was on CBBC. Hell there were times when aliens started farting or used straws to suck blood that I expected to see the CBeebies logo in the top corner and Basil Brush to make a cameo. So when it was said that 'Sarah-Jane' would be a kids-centric spin-off of an already kiddy show, I feared that it would be more Chucklevision than Doctor Who; and that they'd stop the aliens through a series of slapstick mishaps that would end with an anvil dropping on the bad guys head. So it delights me to say that, after watching 4 episodes (5 if you include the New Years pilot), it is so far not absolutely terrible. In fact I'd say it's better than at least half of Doctor Who and about two-thirds of Torchwood.

My main worry before seeing the show was with the enemies. Doctor Who has always been hit-and-miss with it's enemy characters. For every brilliant evil like The Master or the Clockwork droids there's always been sheer crap like the Slitheen. And whilst the Slitheen are back for the first two episodes of 'Sarah-Jane', you can tolerate them more now they're in a kids show. In fact, it seems the Slitheen have been found the perfect place for them to stay. However, it was with the two subsequent episodes in which I was mostly surprised. My initial thoughts of aliens for a CBBC show would be things kids would think were cool. So skateboard-riding ninja aliens who kill people with Playstation and come from the Planet X it is then. So it was a nice surprise to see that the first original alien was based on the Greek Mythology story of the Gorgons, but with a relatively modern twist. WTF!? Where's my Space ninjas damnit!

Even more surprising is the level of drama outside of the main stories. Sure it doesn't have the adult intensity of the bonk-a-thon Torchwood, but considering it's audience, it has a nice range of child appropriate situations. It ranges from the age-old secret crush story, to hating homework, to the social awkwardness of a teenager starting school (admittedly a teenager that has not only been alive for 3 weeks but was genetically engineered, so quite rightly doesn't get the whole social interaction thing. But still, kids can relate to anything nowadays). But it can also get serious (yet still child appropriate) with the on-going divorce storyline between the main kids parents and her struggle being stuck in the middle of it. A surprisingly well-acted scene occurred with the kid complaining to her mum about her not being around for her anymore. It was quite welcome considering I thought the pinnacle of drama for this show would be the kid complaining to her dad about how he doesn't give her enough pocket money for make-up; and when you compare it to everyone falling in love with The Doctor or the Owen "sex-triangle" in Torchwood, it was quite original.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with what I have seen so far, the use of CGI, the subtle references to both past and present Doctor stories. Even the two Slitheen episodes were pretty decent, touching on the subject of killing as well as, if not better than The Doctor's scary eyes in last year's Christmas Doctor Who as water poured around him. Let's just hope they don't balls it up now although, judging by the next episode preview, they may just do that. It's based around the gang joining in a game of deadly laser-tag to help find a missing child.

Let's just hope their opponents aren't ninjas.

An Open Letter to The BBC News

2007-10-12T22:08:00.000+01:00

When you do a story about climate change, it is not strictly necessary to fly a correspondent to the Arctic in order to film 45 seconds of footage which is indistinguishable from the same footage filmed in the river Thames.

Yours,
Andrew

x

Deal of the Century

2007-10-12T18:55:00.000+01:00

I like it when Deal or No Deal feature very odd offers from The Banker. Today's episode had the very odd offer of "£8,000 and a dead magpie".

If it was me, I'd have dealt at that offer. It's a win/win situation. If they don't give me the dead animal, I sue them for false advertising. If they do give me the dead animal, I sue them for cruelty to magpies.

Let He Who Is Without Singing Cast the First Stone

2007-10-12T18:34:00.000+01:00

As a formulaic process, you can't really argue with it. Holiday Showdown did it, Wife Swap did it, and both always got the same hilarious results. What formula am I on about? Get two groups of people from different backgrounds and get them to live with each other with astonishing consequences as they attempt to get along with clashing beliefs via the handy method of shouting loudly.

BBC3 have a lovely new show which follows this formula accurately. Singing With the Enemy was an interesting watch. It didn't, as I assumed, give people the chance to Sing with The Enemy. Instead, it gave the chance for two bands with different views to live with each other for a week and then write, record and perform a song. This week showed the adventures of punk band Paparazzi Whore (which claimed to be 'ironic', but I found it to be quite fitting what with them jumping at the chance to appear on BBC3) and Christian rock band Dweeb. Now, I understand why the BBC want to film a week of Punks and Christians sharing a house: for filmed tense content and guaranteed arguments. However, what actually occured during the show was far from this.

The first thing the bands need to do is perform for each other. Firstly, Paparazzi Whore play. Dweeb like them. Then, Dweeb play. Paparazzi Whore like them. This clearly is not what the BBC are wanting. When they filmed a goth band and a boy band together, they started ripping the piss out of each other left right and centre.

So, when the expected conflict you wanted in your BBC show isn't occurring what do you do? You could take the typical BBC approach and fake it. But why not try and make it happen!

For no reason whatsoever, they ask the punk band to play again for the Christians to watch. Only this time, they've brought strippers on the stage! Strippers! With breasts! The punk lead female singer then confesses that not only is she married to her husband, but she's also sleeping with the female back-up singing of the band! Such controversy!

I was wondering if they were going to go the whole hog and just start poking the Christian band with sharp sticks. Sadly, this is television and emotional teasing is just so much better than physical teasing. Hilariously, the Christian band don't really raise an eyebrow. Some may say that this was dull television, but I was loving every failed moment that the producers of the show attempted to add controversy into their otherwise sub-par show.

So what do they do? Cause controversy within the punk band itself!

Over the course of the week spent together, the female back-up singer decided to look back on the punk life she had loved for 20-odd years and starts to lead a spiritual quest to find her true meaning on this planet. Obviously the punks are upset, and begin to blame the Christians for warping the back-up singer's mind.

But, despite all the differences, they were able to record a decent song. Well, half decent. The only decent part of it was when Dweeb were singing. Paparazzi Whore's lead singer couldn't hit a damn note.

Not only was this a very odd hour of television, but it contained one of my favourite snippets of dialogue between the two lead singers:

"I don't know why you can't accept that we are followers of Christ"
"Well, that's where you're wrong. I'm not a follower. I'm a leader. In fact, I'm the leader"
"Heh.. I don't think you're The Leader"
"Well I 'ave to be. If I'm not a follower, I'm The Leader."

You can't argue with odd punk ideology.

Scene and Not Heard

2007-10-07T03:23:00.001+01:00

I've just finished watching the 24 Season 6 DVD Box Set. I shan't go into details about how rubbish most of the episodes are, but I will talk about one thing I was looking forward to in this collection: the Season Six Alternate Ending.

If you aren't familiar with how season six of 24 ends, it is essentially the following: Jack has a conversation with his old lover who has recently gone insane thanks to some Chinese people kidnapping her, then he goes outside by some cliffs and looks at the horizon of the sea. It then fades to black and counts down from 05:59:57am to 06:00:00am (not surprising, what with this episode taking place between 5am and 6am). However, it isn't the most exciting television you've ever seen, but there we go.

Now, a lot of people won't fork over £35 for the DVD set, mainly because Season Six of 24 was a giant pile of toss. However, for your reading pleasure, I shall tell you the alternate ending of Series Six for absolutely free!

Jack has a conversation with his old lover who has recently gone insane thanks to some Chinese people kidnapping her, then he goes outside by some cliffs and looks at the horizon of the sea. Then he throws his gun into the water.

Then, for some bizarre reason, the on-screen clocks counts from 07:59:57 to 08:00:00. Because in this alternate ending, Jack Bauer finds a portal that sends him two hours into the future.

You think I'm kidding, don't you.

A Deadly Game of Cat and Mouse

2007-10-06T00:54:00.001+01:00

I've spent the last 24 hours with a mate of mine, his girlfriend and their two year old kid. This means, through no fault of my own, I've witnessed a lot of Children's Television. The main channel on has been Boomerang, a haven for old-school Hanna-Barbera cartoons. It's only through the past day that I've realised that Jerry the Mouse is a right bastard.

I've seen a total of five Tom and Jerry cartoons today. In all five, Tom the Cat is minding his own business, and Jerry suddenly appears from nowhere just to ruin Tom's day. At one point, the cat is trying to flirt and dance with a lady cat at the local discotheque (it was the 70's after all). In my opinion, he was getting lucky with the lady feline and if he carried on his flirtation skills, he'd go back to hers and have crazy wild cat sex. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Jerry the Mouse comes along and steals Tom's potential shagpiece. What is going on? The mouse has no chance of getting lucky with her.

In another episode, Tom's trying to relax in a hammock when Jerry comes along and steals it. What a bastard.

My favourite episode had to be when Jerry teamed up with some canary and actually killed Tom. After the cat's death, the canary and the mouse do an odd little dance. However, when it turns out that Tom was only faking his death (in a rather profound Jack Bauer-esque moment), the throw a pissing bowling ball at his face. What is the point in all this violence? You would assume that in this game of Cat and Mouse, the Cat would be the one provoking the violence. It really isn't. Why do we route for Jerry all the time? Why can't we root for the Underdog?

Or the Undercat in this case.

Also: Scooby Doo has also been playing at my mate's all day. My favourite scene was at the end of an episode where the ghost/mask/villain turned out to be this French guy. As he is arrested, he screams in an hilarious French accent "I would have gottern away wiv dees if it weren't for dose medd-el-ing keedz!". Daphne then responded with the hilarious comeback: "I wonder what 'meddling kids' is in French!".

The entire Scooby Gang pissed themselves with laughter at that line. It was worrying.