Doctor Who: "Homo sapiens. What an inventive species..."

File under 'Anthony Head' for complete and utterly dispiriting lack of imagination.

And another...

Point it somewhere else.

Now Sarah's at it too...

Can you imagine if every publicity photo of Patrick Troughton had him waving the Sonic Screwdriver about like a wool-capped Napoleon Solo? It's getting tedious.

Heroes: some pointers

• Get a move on
• Don't take yourself so seriously
• Women are people too
  

Eurovision Dance Contest: "Her legs are like a motorway!"

Having had a surprise hit with Strictly Come Dancing, and unable to produce it on a rolling 52-weeks-per-year basis, the BBC are desperate to fill its Saturday night slot with approximations and bastard-cousins. The best, by far, was the two series of Strictly Dance Fever - a series destined to be remembered only because it immediately preceded the first series of the all-new Doctor Who, leading to the infamous Nortongate affair. That show was fun, with genuinely talented dancers experimenting with lively and imaginative routines (I'm not talking about Doctor Who now). Because it didn't feature anyone famous from reading the news, or have the easily graspable prize of a number one single or West End show at the end of it, it died a quiet, unlamented death.

Following the saccharine horror of How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and the car-crash of camp that was Any Dream Will Do, the latest attempt at the Strictly slot was Dance X - labelled by Popjustice as "one of the most derivative, complicated and ill-conceived primetime 'reality' shows of all time", which sums it up nicely, and with which we need not concern ourselves further.

Last night, though, brought us the Eurovision Dance Contest, the format of which shouldn't really need unpacking from the title. This was rather more entertaining than it first promised, returning to the Strictly Dance Fever model of showcasing simply the dancers and the choreography. It was hampered only by the brevity of the routines, through the constraint of having to show two routines from sixteen couples, and then the self-fulfilling shambles of the international vote. Graham Norton, having turned up on these programmes as a result of the BBC's uncertainty as to what to do with him having poached him from Channel 4, does actually fit them well, showing the right level of engagement and amused detachment. Last night, though, showed a lapse of judgement as he decided to send up the representatives of each of the voting countries as they appeared onscreen. Not only was this cheap and gratuitous (What? English isn't their first language, you say? How hilarious! And there's a time delay, which I can exploit to make them sound even more stupid? Terrific!), but actually caused the kind of communication breakdown that he had predicted at the start. Ultimately, he ended up looking bitter and sounding rude, which isn't quite the kitsch fun that had been predicted when this programme was mooted, I'm sure.

The saving grace was the running commentary provided, out of sight, by judges Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli. Like a peculiar, European version of Statler and Waldorf, their disembodied voices burst in, and were faded out, almost at random. It was easy to imagine the whole of the BBC Saturday night schedule being livened up by leaving them to comment on it ("Ooh, look 'ow they pushed 'im through those Casualty doors, like a tempestuous boat on a sea of vomit!" "Yeah, but where's his hips, Bruno? No hips!"). Near the end, Len, in his elder statesman tones, said "Well, I'd just like to say - " and was cut off, which was as good a summation of the proceedings as anything I've written.

Doctor Who: Put It Away!

I remember the time when a Radio Times cover promoting Doctor Who seemed an excitingly rare and desirous thing. Now you can't move for the bloody things, and they seem far less interesting as a result.

Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about. Rather this week's set of covers has prompted a sigh of depression at the seeming impossibility of photographing the Doctor without him waving the sonic screwdriver around like a gun. I know the screwdriver is an omnipresent part of the programme these days, but thankfully it's only taken on the iconography of weaponry once, when the Doctor was sneaking round Canary Wharf at the end of last series, and then you could kind of forgive it as David Tennant indulging himself.

This is too much, however. Look at them both, pointing their weapons at us. Now imagine how much better, how much classier, how much more interesting it would look without the toys. If both men were simply staring out it would make the threat about them; instead, here, it becomes about the gadgets: which is more deadly the sonic or the laser? Frankly, who cares? If this story, this contest, is meant to mean anything, it should be about the characters. And I know I said I was talking about the publicity photographs rather than the programme, but the photos are symptomatic of the role the wretched screwdriver now assumes in the narrative.

For my part, I agreed with Russell T. Davies on an early Doctor Who Confidential when he argued that in a 45 minute story you haven't got time for the Doctor to be trapped in a locked room; however, there's a long way between that and the all-purpose magic wand it's since become - and when I find myself agreeing with Christopher ("H") Bidmead I know something's wrong. The series tries to have it's cake and eat it: the screwdriver is verbally mocked for being a tool and not a gun, yet is increasingly used, passive-aggressively, so to speak, as the Doctor's weapon. Steven Moffat sent it up well in Series One's 'The Doctor Dances', through Jack's incredulity and the Doctor's banana response, as an argument about arms; last week's sight of the Master taunting the Doctor with the size of his (the Master's) own 'laser screwdriver' is not half as funny, and only points up how ubiquitous the gadget has become. Moffat was poking fun at a piece of the series' iconography, celebrating how much it defined the series by it taking the traditional place of a weapon when it patently wasn't one; but that was back when largely all it did was open doors. Now it does everything, and the Master can laugh about his being larger, because everything is diminished as a result.

Last year's otherwise lacklustre 'Fear Her' contained a terrifically weird and typically Who-ish moment, as Rose opens a door and is attacked by a furious piece of pencil scribble; the Doctor then ran round the corner, 'fired' the screwdriver, and 'killed' it; nothing typifies better the sad dichotomy of inspiration and cliché in the series than this moment. By all means, get the Doctor out of a locked room. That would be a dull 45 minutes. But if, once he's out, he's not acting in the ingenious, inspired, and exciting way he once used to, because he's got a wand that does that all for him... well, why bother? I can't see much of a difference between these two pictures and that's really depressing.

Would I Lie To You? & the panel show drought

Now in its second week, Would I Lie To You? is yet another comedy panel show, something that engenders no excitement or anticipation - and yet it's actually not too bad. The only two examples of this genre that feel like they have a strong underlying premise are Have I Got News For You and They Think It's All Over; HIGNFY (the ubiquitous use of stock phrases as titles for these shows necessitates falling back on initials, to save discussion of them taking as long as an episode of A Touch of Frost) gains relevance from the week's events, while TTIAO has a breadth of specific and popular material to draw from, as sport generally encroaches into television comedy far less than current affairs.

Really, though, all of these panel formats only exist to provide the panelists with an excuse to go off on one: Paul Merton's mastery of HIGNFY is usually completely unrelated to any topical event. Would I Lie To You? succeeds in this respect by having David Mitchell and Lee Mack as captains; Mitchell, though dangerously close to reaching panel show saturation, is undeniably in his element, and Mack can pull his weight; on the basis of last night's episode, the key to this show could be their stoking of a class rivalry on the Merton/Hislop model. What sits most oddly in this show, however, is not the blatant crib from 8 out of 10 Cats (guitar-driven theme tune, mock-pompous introduction of the guests, showman's entrance of the host), but Angus Deayton. It's hackneyed now to say how his absence from HIGNFY has reinvigorated that show, but it has also allowed to us forget him - and for him to reappear in a similar premise, reading the same tortuous links, makes you feel like you've slipped 15 years back in time.

So, in short, it passes half an hour, but I'll never set the timer if I'm out.

It does bring me to a particular bugbear, however. In what we must call "the old days" there was a sense of occasion to guests appearing on this kind of programme; maybe television itself felt more special just because there was less of it. But you did feel that an effort had been made, and I've realised why - jugs of water.

On any kind of panel show, or any kind of programme where people were expected to sit and talk at length, there was always a glass carafe of water and a couple of glasses. I remember noticing this as a child, because someone stopping to take a sip of water felt odd - it went against the flow of the rest of telly, where people knew their lines and things happened and no one stopped to refresh themselves. Then, sometime in the last few years, the carafes vanished, replaced by plastic bottles. The problem is that these are bottles of commercially bought water, and so have to stay out of sight, which means that, now, quiz rounds are punctuated by shots of guests bobbing down and to their side as they replace small bottles of Volvic. This may not seem like a matter of great import, but it makes everything feel a bit shabby: rather than the impression that someone had gone to the trouble of making sure there was water available, and creating a pleasant atmosphere for the panelists, you can't help but picture some beleaguered runner, sent out at the last minute and struggling back from the local cornershop.

Television is about putting on a show, making an effort; that carafe of water is as much a part of the aesthetic of the programme as the custom-built set. Jonathan Ross does it on his show, but what's the point of him appearing from behind double doors, in a showbiz suit, if he's going to blow it all a moment later bobbing down for a plastic bottle? They should put a couple of plastic chairs down in the empty studio and he could roll up in his own clothes to do the show (though, admittedly, he's probably the wrong person to pick for this example). It makes everything look cheap, while every other element of the show is attempting to look as though money has been spent, and as I'm not sure what to conclude from all this I'm just going to say - bastards.

Daniel Boys: Upping the hit count

As I haven't posted for a week now (off out playing instead of in front of the telly, like mum used to urge), and to celebrate the fact that he's responsible for the largest number of visitors to this site thanks to Google searches, here's a picture of Daniel Boys from "the most enjoyable and professional pantomime Swindon has seen in years".


There. That's a treat, isn't it?

Britain's Got Talent: The Bear Pit

Britain's Got Talent. You could be forgiven for hiding in anticipation of strangled renditions of Mariah Carey songs and people banging tea trays over their heads, and to be fair there have been instances of both of those kind of thing. On the whole, however, it's been a refreshing take on the Pop Idol-type show, with an interesting diversity of act, providing some genuine entertainment. There's been the good, the mawkish (de rigueur on this kind of show, of course, especially on ITV), and the woefully-deluded, but the mix has been good; held together by Ant'n'Dec, who excel in this role, celebrating the talented, sharing our incredulity and hilarity at the bad. The three judges, Piers Morgan, Amanda Holden, and Simon Cowell, have been less irritating than they might, also.

That all changed last night. Last night's episode was the first of the semi-finals, moving into the studio from the theatres in which the heats had been held. Everything was bubbling along happily until Caroline Boyes entered. For those that haven't been watching, Caroline presented herself as hip-hop dancer in the heats. She wasn't very good, but she certainly wasn't the worst thing the judges had to endure; she was just having a go, chancing her arm in an open audition, and that's hardly a crime. Anyway, the judges put her through to the next round.

Last night she presented a pastiche of Madonna's 'Vogue'. It was, yes, rubbish, but no one had cause to assume it would be anything else, following her initial audition. Anyone with eyes and ears could see that she wasn't going to go through to the final, and that she was by far the least talented person on stage that night.


None of that excused the reaction she got. From her first appearance, the audience, who were disconcertingly rowdy throughout the show, started booing, and this became the soundtrack throughout her performance, and beyond. When it came to the judges' comments, Amanda Holden seemed unnecessarily brittle and dismissive, while Simon Cowell was just cruel, in a way that went far beyond his 'Mr Nasty' persona. What had been a fun show suddenly turned sour. Ant'n'Dec encouraged Caroline to respond, but the poor woman was incapable of finding the words, cast, as she suddenly was, as the studio fool and pariah. The reaction to her was simply out of all proportion to what she had presented.

What ITV broadcast last night was the distasteful spectacle of a woman in her 50s, and of above average weight, being abused for her presumption in getting up on stage. Her talent, or lack of, should have been the sole criteria for judging her, but instead became a fig-leaf for a display of cruelty and misogyny that demeaned everyone involved, including the viewer at home. The producers should force the judges to watch again the performance and their responses, making it clear that they stepped over a line, and the audience should be reigned in, their contribution made more proportionate; even during those acts that they enjoyed, such as Paul Potts, one of the finalists, they screamed and wailed throughout, as though Christ himself had appeared and was promising each of them eternal bliss. They're encouraged, of course, to respond in this way; it's a cheap way of adding some sensation to the show, but it yields diminishing returns. If everything is met with riotous ecstasy, what response to give the truly brilliant? What response the untalented get has, sadly, been answered.

I hope the remaining episodes will display a different character. I hope the production team feel as I do; everyone involved should feel ashamed at their involvement. There is no credit in selecting a winner of a competition in which we all, by displays like last night, have made ourselves losers.

Doctor Who: The Climax of Pride

Ah, the gay agenda! News that you can go out and wave a glow stick* and still catch the climactic final episode of Doctor Who.

Now, if they're really serious about it, they'll dress Nelson's Column up as the Time Rotor. John Barrowman should be a dab hand at that now.

*I don't think think that's a euphemism. Not in an entry that's already so priapic.

Blue Peter: UtoPeter*

Programme of the Week has to be the Blue Peter Doctor Who Special or (ahem) Who Peter. Primarily a show to announce the winner of this year's Who-related competition, the winner of which gets a speaking part in this coming week's episode, 'Utopia', it followed the by-now familiar template of shortlisted auditionees being put through their paces before the unsuccessful ones are booted off.

What marked this programme out from the usual "It's not you" fare was the obvious talent of a lot of the kids, their unalloyed excitement at being there at all, and the concomitant disappointment when those that were rejected left the room. Now, I'm not so hard-hearted that I like seeing children deliberately upset on television, but the disappointment seemed so heartfelt and, more importantly, proportionate; if you're 9, being told you're not going to be in Doctor Who would be crushing - for a few days, until real life kicks back in. Kids are robust; appearing on Doctor Who is extraordinary and remote, so extraordinary and remote that they'll get over it. More difficult to stomach are those deluded adult souls who regularly fill the conference centres booked by The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent and who talk of 'their dream', as though universal adoration is in their grasp, as they tunelessly raid the Robbie Williams back-catalogue, or pull their luminous 'showbiz' waistcoat out of the wardrobe.

Anyway, enough of them. If the disappointment of the losers was tangible, it was nothing compared to the elation of the winner, 9-year-old John Bell. Receiving the news of his win on the phone from Russell T.Davies, the young lad went through astonishment, excitement, disbelief, and a silent tumult of all of these and more as the news sank in. The announcement delivered, he offered a professional thumbs-up to camera, before asking ingenuously if he could go and tell his mum and dad. The following footage of him on-set, having the time of his life, was simply a bonus after this. Terrific stuff.



Sandwiched in the middle of the programme, and I use the term advisedly, was the homoerotic sight of the week; namely, John Barrowman being lured into the Blue Peter greenhouse by Gethin in order to, um, make a TARDIS interior playset ("I need your help with something" "Oh boy..."). I'm aware that the mere presence of Barrowman is enough to make any given situation homoerotic, but the effect was compounded by the sheer complexity of the make, the speed at which they rattled through it, and the feeling from the viewer that both of them would rather be doing something less boring instead. Whether they were thinking of the same alternative will remain a matter of conjecture - but watch John Barrowman's face as Gethin displays his selection of coc - um, time rotor rings.



*Look, we can all force a pun if we want to!

Radio T***s

Last week's Radio Times (we've got busy lives here at Eejit Hall, OK?) contained an interview with cover star Jarvis Cocker. He had a, um, pop at Pop Idol, which is the bit that got mentioned elsewhere, but we needn't concern ourselves with that.

Rather more worthy of note is the magazine's teeth-grindingly twee policy on 'bad language'.

Towards the end of the interview, talking about his infamous appearance during Michael Jackson's messianic wank fantasy, Cocker says

To suddenly become known by a lot of people simply because I waggled my arse at somebody isn't brilliant, is it? [...] Although my arse-waggling is second to none, I would rather people remember me for what I create.

Except he doesn't appear to say that. He, instead, talks about his a**e.

What? His what?

It's even included in one of the boxed-out quotes

To become known simply because I waggled my a**e at somebody isn't brilliant, is it?

Are the readers of Radio Times judged to be so fragile of spirit that they'll suffer immediate prolapse if they read the word 'arse'? A quick google search for The Royle Family reveals that the BBC's online comedy guides have their entries supplied by Radio Times; also, that the 2000 BAFTA Television Awards, which contained a nomination for Caroline Aherne, were sponsored by the Radio Times, so I'm guessing that a lot of the readers may have a familiarity with the series, whose catchphrase was, of course, "My Arse!". I have a feeling they ran a poll of favourite comedy characters, or catchphrases, which Jim Royle scored highly in, or maybe I imagined it; they're usually doing something like that. Maybe they're about to do one.

Maybe 'arse' is judged more offensive in print, where minors might see it, and have more time to peruse it. I hope there's no one under 16 reading this; I'd hate to be responsible for their moral corruption by exposing sustained and gratuitous arse at them.

Ultimately, it's just a bit silly. If the editorial team can provide evidence that readers find such words offensive, then those same readers ought to have their televisions confiscated, and their windows bricked up. If they can't, then they ought to stop treating us like morons, or Victorians. Any publication that can seriously feature a box-out like that isn't fit to w*p* my arse on.

Springwatch

Let's have a breather from all this excitement about credits, and coloured coats, and the like, and take a moment to sing the praises of Springwatch (BBC2). You'd be surprised how addictive and enthralling this nightly programme is; that is, unless you've fallen under its charms already.

Bill Oddie may be just (just) the right side of irritating, but I do quite like his lack of televisual slickness. You imagine he'd be acting the way he does, whether a camera were on him or no. Kate Humble does a good job as the indulgent niece, bringing him back on track; and Simon King is one of those old-school experts who's ended up on camera due to his knowledge and enthusiasm, rather than because he 'wants to be a presenter'. They're a good mix, and this is the kind of programme, or, in terms of its encouragement of the viewer to get involved, event that the BBC does really well.

Whether it's charting whether the baby barn owls have eaten one of their siblings, or spying on the golden eagle nest, or learning about the lifecycle of bees, or watching Bill make his 'shushing' noise to attract birds, or just drinking in the beautiful views of the island of Islay, the nightly hour really is a tonic for the cares and pressures of life - or for the rest of your televisual viewing. I really urge you, if you've the slightest interest, or even if you haven't, to give it a go. You might learn something too. It's the Fruit'n'Fibre before the salt and fat of Big Brother (or the sugar rush of Britain's Got Talent - more of than anon), and that sounds like a balanced diet to me.

See also: here!

You Are Joseph!

It's Lee!

Full story here.

Doctor Who: The horror! The horror!

It's been talked about for a few weeks, the BBC's new credits policy, but no one actually thought they'd do it...

When Doctor Who returned, two years ago, there was a tacit assumption that the end credits wouldn't be squeezed to the side, as those of many programmes were, and that proved to be the case. It was felt that the BBC understood that Doctor Who was... different. People are less bothered by the squeezing of the Holby City or Hustle credits. But not Doctor Who. Yes, the announcer talked over the theme, but, then, you can't have everything.

But mark today, Saturday 9th June, down as a day of television history. More shocking than anything in Steven Moffat's very scary episode was the moment when the closing time tunnel suddenly receded to the bottom right corner of the screen and Graham Norton, for the second time in the programme's recent history, made an unexpected appearance in the episode. Have the BBC prepared themselves for the avalanche of criticism that will follow this? Because it will; I'm as sure of that as I am of John Barrowman appearing onscreen every time I switch on. I wouldn't like to be staffing the switchboard tonight.

And the 'not-we' reading this and thinking that it confirms their view of Doctor Who fans as social illiterates have a point in the wider scheme of things. Of course they do. In many ways, (deep breath) it doesn't matter much; not compared to the suffering that the news will tell us of later on in the evening. But that's a specious argument. In its own, small way, something's been lost tonight: the unspoken contract between broadcaster and viewer that spoke of respect and consideration, that accorded the viewer autonomy to choose their own viewing, and evinced the broadcaster's pride in the programmes they were transmitting. This breathless panic to reel the viewer into the next programme, even while they are watching the preceding one, smacks of desperation and bad faith. Yes, we've known it was coming; yes, we've been subject to it for a while now, like a form of coastal erosion - but tonight, on the most televisual of all its television output, the BBC lost something, and we, the viewers, lost something too.

Doctor Who: Any Dream Will Do

Sure, it's just had the best story in a good while, and we've got a Steven Moffat episode due on Saturday, but when the time comes and the Doctor Who ratings start to slide, this is what the regeneration might look like - go here and click on the next button repeatedly (it's like Romana in Destiny of the Daleks all over again!) By the by, do you think Andrew Lloyd Webber's complicit in the way he's sent up in the trailers for Any Dream Will Do? I wish I had a screengrab, by way of illustration. Actually, no, I don't.

Instead, we can wonder what anyone was thinking when they took this:

Were they anticipating Clive Owen and George Clooney auditioning? The pair of smoothies!

Anyway, let's finish on this.

Daniel Boys. That name's just too perfect.

By Gum! John Noakes and ropey ladders

Working my way through BBC4's Children's TV on Trial, I've just watched the 1978 Blue Peter John Noakes retrospective. This was mainly a collection of all his stunts and more daring challenges from his time on the programme; and it's only worth mentioning a 29-year-old repeat in order to marvel at the three words demonstrably absent from everything attempted i.e. Health and Safety. Watching him climb up the ramshackle collection of roped-together ladders to get to the top of Nelson's Column was enough to induce giddiness, even from the confines of my sofa. You wonder if any disquiet was voiced from senior management, but, being the 70s, they probably didn't have to mention they were doing it anyway; they probably just grabbed a camera crew and headed off into central London. Have a tiny lookette here. Other familiar clips included his freefall with the RAF, the climbing of the mast of HMS Ganges, and, less dangerously but gloriously, the Lulu the elephant segment in full, rather than the 30 seconds or so you normally see - which showed that it actually was quite funny, despite having been told so for the past 40 years.

Loose Women: "If you're wondering how to shut your children up, try violence!"

Incongruous sight of the day was Clive James on Loose Women (ITV). There to plug his new book, Cultural Amnesia, James desperately tried to reduce his conversation to the level of banality required by the four hosts, who gazed at him in a way that reminded me of the apes who found the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Coincidentally I'm in the middle of rereading his Unreliable Memoirs, and that, plus seeing him on this show today, has reminded me of my disappointment that he isn't still a fixture on our screens. If you feel like this too, you might like to visit his website, where he has a series of video interviews with various interesting people.

ADDENDUM: apologies to the inordinate number of people sent here by the link on the Wall Street Journal. I'm sorry that I haven't written anything more profound for you to read.

Aw...

Terry Hall, the man behind Lenny the Lion, died in April.

Perfect Night In: Bank Holiday Special

As a special Bank Holiday post, here's the modern eejit take on Channel 4's recent Perfect Night In series. It's not a definitive list of the best telly ever, objectively or from a modern eejit perspective; rather a personal choice of what would make a great night's viewing (though, admittedly, it'd be rather a long night).

Let's start with channel idents. Well, they're the first things you see, aren't they? These are two classics and, though decades old, both seem really vivid and distinctive, now that every channel is going for the same kind of mini-lifestyle film (the BBC one is evidently taken from the close of programmes - hence the stirring anthem!):





OK, so onto the programmes proper. Early evening, so time for this:



Really charming stuff, and can you imagine a theme tune like that for a kids' show nowadays? We was really spoiled then.

Speaking of theme tunes:



and you won't enjoy the full majesty of anything like again that if the BBC have their way.

If we're still early evening then there has to be a episode of Doctor Who. Hopefully one like this:



Or this:



Or this:



Marvellous stuff! Now, maybe a bit of music after that excitement. Ah, good old Top of the Pops. That's where I first saw this, my earliest exposure to visual effects:



and where you could conceivably see something like this:



Or this Pops classic:



And, finally, some serious strutting:



True Reithian eclecticism. After that sugar rush I'd be tempted to take things down a gear with an episode of HTV's Robin of Sherwood. Amazingly we managed to follow the stories without any whooshing signposts in those days. As we're over on ITV we'd have to have some adverts. I love this one (and in the course of searching for that, found this, which gives a rare showcase to my spiritual home):



Staying on the commercial channel, let's slip in an episode of The Sweeney; maybe even the one featuring these two, shown here in one of the simplest and funniest routines I've ever seen:



Turning back to BBC1, I'd probably now go for an episode of Clocking Off - excellent and overlooked series of a few years back - or the eternal Potter classic, The Singing Detective; as epic and sumptuous as a nineteenth century novel.


After that, it's got to be something life-enhancingly stupid - this, say, or this.

Then, for an intentional laugh, an episode of the sublime Porridge - one of the Christmas specials, for a treat.

Flicking over to Channel 4, this was where I got my cinematic education, in the days before people started selling their houses on telly. I might never have heard of Terence Davies were it not for the screenings of his heartbreakingly-beautiful films Distant Voices, Still Lives, and The Long Day Closes in the early 90s - both of which are infuriatingly still unavailable on DVD.


'Infuriatingly still unavailable on DVD' leads me naturally to A Very Peculiar Practice, the second series of which suffers this fate. A funny, unsettling and melancholy series, product of a distinct authorial voice; who would have guessed it would be all bodices and bustles for Andrew Davies after this?


Ahh, Rose Marie! To finish, pint in hand and big bag of kettle chips aplenty, three slices of Saturday night telly, full of weekend glamour and silliness:







There we go. Proof, if proof be need be, of what a marvellous thing telly is - and what better way to spend a rainy British Bank Holiday than watching some, or all, of that?

Life On Mars: The Eyes of Fools

More evidence of moronic appreciation for Life On Mars (see this post) comes today from Teletext's 'TV Talking Point' letters page (page 199). I don't often venture to The Other Side (as it was called in the 70s), preferring my daily fix of idiocy from Ceefax page 518, but these two missives deserve reprinting in full:

Life On Mars DID win a Bafta which was chosen by the viewers. That's how police were in the '70s and I'm glad the BBC had the guts to broadcast it. I'm fed up of living in a world where I'm afraid to sneeze in case I offend someone.
Seb, Sussex

The judges were afraid of LOM, they knew that UK voters still want coppers who will do what it takes to keep streets clean.
Jean, Sheffield

The staff make these letters up themselves, don't they? Don't they...?

I Should Be So Lucky

Speculation aplenty as Kylie's stylist, William Baker, is seen with the item "When Doctor Who script arriving? Russell's number" on his 'to-do' list.

But, really, this proves nothing. Doesn't every fanboy walk round with this written on their 'to-do' list?

Moan, moan, etc. (an ongoing series)

From Digital Spy:

Richard Farleigh, a panellist on Dragons' Den, has been dropped from the show.

The businessman, who has put around £130,000 into ventures over two series, said he was "disappointed and bemused" with the decision. Bosses told him he was now "into the TV world" enough.

The Daily Mail says insiders had suggested he was dropped in favour of getting more dragons from ethnic minorities.

A BBC spokesman said the new dragon would be chosen by their "business credentials" and not ethnicity. He said it was normal that the show sometimes changed its team.

It's not a very interesting story, merely another wearying example of the Daily Mail leaking its neuroses into our lives.

Only stand and wait

Useful article here, which I'm prompted to highlight by my own disquiet at seeing the panel of judges on tonight's Any Dream Will Do (BBC1) - of all things - with yellow ribbons tagged onto their lapels. It really is mawkish in the extreme for this terrible story to be appropriated by a Saturday night light entertainment show. By the same token, I chanced on a Doctor Who website that squeezes in a 'Help Find Maddie' box between banners advertising a range of action figures and a Doctor Who podcast; I was going to upload a screengrab by way of illustration, but it's so distasteful that I've changed my mind.

It should go without saying (though obviously I feel it can't) that I would love to hear the news that Madeleine McCann has been safely returned. But it isn't contradictory to wish for that and feel deep unease at the sentimentality of these misplaced actions. Is anyone who knows anything about her disappearance, or in a position to offer practical help, really going to be moved to action by a Doctor Who website? And what are the ribbons meant to suggest? I would assume, by sheer dint of being human, that the panel of musical theatre judges feel sadness for the McCann family; it achieves nothing to parade that - quite the reverse, as it implies that they have some special claim on the case that I, being ribbonless, do not. But I do feel for the family, and, to the best of my knowledge, Bill Kenwright and Denise Van Outen have no extraordinary attachment to them.

It is awful when bad things happen, and frustrating when you want to help, but can't. But, with a case like this, most of us can't offer any help; we can only act as spectators. To pretend otherwise is absurd, and it is a fragile ego that is incapable of being content with that.

It occurs to me, as I type this, that someone might think this hypocritical, in view of this blog displaying a button highlighting the disappearance of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston. My answer is that the cases are different: Johnston has (it appears) been kidnapped by an identifiable group, that direct appeals can be made to them, and that the BBC, as his employer, have thought it useful to display support for him in this way. The button links to a petition and news pages on the case; it is not asking for information or help, other than to sign the petition. One specific plea for one specific action you can make, albeit a very small one. That's the difference between appropriate and inappropriate.

See also: here

Convincing Doctor Who Female Spaceship Captains: A List

No.1:
No.2: Um.


That's it.

One of the greatest desktop wallpapers of all time

The amiable Shelley (I nearly typed 'George'...) looking terrifying. Maybe that's what Mark Gatiss should have turned into in Doctor Who the other week. Mind you, no one comes out of this photo shoot very well: maybe they were all thinking about Richard Marson. "Not entirely coincidental" indeed. This is disproportionately going Down In History as Blue Peter's darkest hour, when it was merely rather dim.

Oh well, let's cheer ourselves up.

Yikes!

Charlie Brooker slags off new BBC credits guidelines

No need to add anything, other than that he's right, again.

No explanation necessary

Ahh, morning telly.

Eurovision: Not In My Name! UPDATE!

While composing the previous post, we received this breaking news!

• "Harmful to the relationship between the peoples of Europe"!
• Commons early day motion!
• "Five or six" countries "angered"!

It is... it's War!

Eurovision: Not In My Name!

Digital Spy reports that the Eurovision Song Contest was a hit for BBC1 on Saturday.

Coverage of the annual Eurovision Song Contest brought in 8.7 million viewers and a 39.9% share for BBC One on Saturday night.

Grabbing its largest audience since 2001, the show peaked at 10.30pm with 10.9 million viewers and 50.8% of the audience watching at that time, rising to 53.4% at 10.45pm.

There's a lot of fuss being generated about block voting also, meaning 'we' never stood a chance at winning, though I feel that the UK entry (I can't bear to type that awful name) was simply too calculated and cynical in its lunge for campery.

International joke
Despite the figures though, I just wonder whether it's all starting to feel a bit lame. The party line is that it's a joke we participate in at everyone else's expense, and I'll be the first to admit to enjoying Terry Wogan's undercutting of the saccharine and the pompous in previous years; it just felt like going through the motions this time.

There comes a point where, no matter how many funny remarks you make about how crap the thing you're watching is, in the end you're still watching crap.

Mind you, it did lead to Paul Gambaccini saying this:

It may be the strangest reason for ending a war but if you want to win the Eurovision Song Contest again, bring the boys home.

See also here for more in-depth analysis.

ADDENDUM: Doctor Who writer Gareth Roberts agrees!

Quick! It's started! (pt.2)

Brilliant piece of professionalism from the thinking person's channel on Saturday night as, having extensively trailed the return of Parkinson, including a headline interview with man-of-the-moment David Tennant, ITV bizarrely and surreptitiously move it forward 15 minutes. Most people therefore tuned in just as David Tennant was wrapping up. Even the website still gives 10.40pm as the start time.

Do people really just walk in off the street and "manage" the "schedule"?

New, improved nonsense

There are a thousand different ways that modern advertising can irritate, if you let it, but I can't let the current TV commercial for Miracle-Gro pass without comment.

It's the perfect example of the 'spurious need' school of advertising; in order to demonstrate the boon to modern life that is their current spray attachment (or whatever it is - I'm not entirely sure as my brain liquifies whenever it's shown), a young woman is shown (a) making a complete hash of pouring some liquid into a small container, (b) being utterly inept with a garden hose, and (c) somewhat flummoxed by a watering can. The average viewer would conclude that, rather than invest in a new piece of garden equipment, she would be better served by improving her basic motor skills, or buying a games console to work on her hand/eye co-ordination, or by simply being less crap. It's the kind of advert that really diminishes the splendour of humanity, and I wouldn't be surprised if many of those who have seen it subsequently become alcoholic.

I hate that supposedly winsome kid who sits on the bog complaining precociously about how smelly his crap is too.

Quick! It's started!

Good article here criticising the BBC's cak-handedness with the scheduling of Doctor Who. I won't repeat it, other than to agree that, what with the current fluid approach to the schedule, and now the news that the series is to skip a week for the Eurovision Song Contest, it seems a perverse and foolhardy way to treat the show that has galvanized Saturday nights for them. It brings to mind the Monty Python gag about the number of exams you have to fail to work in programme planning, and that was made almost 30 years ago.

All Become Idiots

Breakfast on BBC1 is currently displaying one of my pet hates: a reporter interviewing people in settings, or involved in activities, inappropriate for the interview. So, for instance, the piece currently airing is about a teenage girl who lost a lot of weight by exercising. She is answering questions while using a cross-trainer machine at a gym. She is dressed nicely for an appearance on telly, not in sports gear, and the exertion of the exercise makes the whole thing look awkward in the extreme.

What is this idiocy? Are we as viewers not trusted to understand what exercise in a gym actually entails? Or is the fear really that the package would be deathly dull without the interviewee performing in this way? And, if so, what does that say about the item in the first place?

This practice of embedding the reporter in the environment or activity they are reporting is often so ludicrous as to distract all attention from the story they are telling. The prize example of this, performed time and again, is when the feature is on education, and the reporter delivers their piece to camera while standing in the middle of a quiet classroom of children ostensibly working away. It's a fatuous practice, and one that cheapens us all.

Life On Mars: knowledge comes with death's release

So, Sam Tyler makes a different choice to Dorothy, deciding there are places better than home. Last night's Life On Mars saw the lead character gloriously choosing to leap to his death, for a fleeting moment of reconciliation with his preferred fantasy of 70s pastiche, rather than carry on in a bleached-out, enervated 2007.

There is some grist here for the mill of those blockheads who've praised this series for being wonderfully 'politically-incorrect' (Sian Williams on Breakfast this morning being merely the latest). Being generous, I imagine they mean that Gene Hunt doesn't seem like the product of endless focus groups or demographic profiling. And yes, in a sense, that is refreshing. Hunt is preposterous, and in this context good fun. But I really wish these people would think before opening their mouths, as the implication is that life would somehow be better if we could go round calling people pakis, wogs, poofs, bitches et al - you know, like everyone thinks.

Anyway, I think it's less overtly political than Sam having woken to the profound rightness of the reactionary, despite the diametrically dull police procedural meeting he attends directly before his jump; Sam's return to his fantasy is an abnegation of adult responsibility (which, really, is also the motor driving the 'string-em-up' brigade). He chooses to return because it's fun dressing up in funny clothes and skidding along in funny cars. As the car screeches into the distance, the children dancing in its wake are an emblem for the nostalgia of that decision - not of specific tokens, like space hoppers and Space Dust, but an idealized 'land of lost content'. Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills was a riposte to that kind of infantile hankering after a mythical golden age, but I can't find it in my heart to begrudge Life On Mars for this ending. If nothing else, a modern lead character choosing suicide as a positive resolution is also well off the page of focus group reports, and it contains a kind of vitality purely for that. We've had fun over two series and we haven't mistaken Life On Mars for real life - that of now or thirty years previous. Neither has Sam, but if you're going to hanker after a fantasy world, have the courage to really embrace it.

ADDENDUM: See also here and here for some excellent other views.

Pudding

The first episode of new series of Sweet Baby James on BBC2 was pretty stodgy. I imagine the horrendous title and the gallery of photographs documenting James Martin's journey from sweet little boy to, well, rather less sweet man are designed to appeal to the succession of broody women who felt something stir within themselves during his appearances on Strictly Come Dancing. Once they were out of the way we were treated to a pretty ordinary cookery show, made watchable mainly due to the fascinating relationship between Martin and his boy acolyte, the wonderfully named, Will Torrent. Maybe this is how chefs and trainee chefs are in the kitchen, but on telly, more used to the pally-pally dynamic (cf. the uneven Neneh and Andi Dish It Up, immediately preceding), Martin's commands ("Get me a spatula!") and continual sniping at Torrent ("Got to keep your eye on him") just made him seem deeply unpleasant. This is on top of the many shots of Martin in his mid-life sports car, and barrow-boy hand jewellery, which were already doing the job of alienating this viewer perfectly well. Still, give it 12 months and Torrent will have his own BBC3 series - though it'll either be given an equally twee title, like 'Sugar Sugar', or a (sigh) 'controversial' BBC3 title, like 'Fuck Off, I'm A Chef, you Fuckwits'. Still, at least the shots of Castle Howard were free of the Brideshead Revisted theme, and that's something to be thankful for.

Idiot of the Month

Both of these fools are contenders, but the one with the glasses takes it. Pompous, posturing eejit.

London Tonight idiocy

Two people, Julia and James, were getting married. They wanted to have a bit of fun on what can be, let's face it, quite a dull occasion. They spent 6 months rehearsing a Dirty Dancing routine. Being a wedding, it was filmed. Being 2007, it's been put on the internet. This is it:



It's funny. Like all acts designed for a live audience, when filmed it loses something. There are longueurs, certainly, but you can sense the surprise of the other guests, and enjoy the, well... happiness of the whole thing.

Unless you're ITV's London Tonight.

They decided to give the story a bizarre "isn't it embarrassing?" spin. Have a look:



Now, you could question how much this event counts as 'news', but regional programming is founded on such stuff, so we'll let that pass.

What is astonishing is the tone of desperate repression that is threaded through the item. Once you get past Alastair Stewart (who seems to be being operated by remote control from the Outer Hebrides, and who plainly hasn't got a clue who 'Johnny' and 'Baby' are or what 'Dirty... Dancing' is) there is footage of typical wedding 'First Dances'. They are banal and stilted, as the voiceover makes clear.

We're then shown Julia and James' video. Now the agenda kicks in. "Needless to say, the whole thing was Julia's idea," crows reporter Glen Goodman. "Poor James was forced to go to dance lessons for six months until they had every move of the film sequence down pat." Glen "tracked the pair down to their house", where James was apparently "still apologising for his dancing inadequacies". After Julia gives her, very sound, reasons for wanting to do the dance ("we really just wanted to make everyone laugh") the whole thing is then rubbished further by accusations of unoriginality, as footage of another couple doing the same routine at their wedding is shown. And guess what? They did it better! Cut back to the studio for more lazy gender stereotyping from the asinine presenters. James is a man, he can't have enjoyed that at all, he was "browbeaten" into it, how embarrassing, etc. Hmmm. If you watch the full video James seems to enjoy fully entering into the spirit of the comedy set-piece of his happy day, and the kisses he gives to his male friends at the end would seems to confuse the Neanderthal projection of him that London Tonight would prefer.

I don't object to James and Julia playing up to these roles in the item - both obviously under direction as Julia scolds him over a missed step, and he stiltedly groans "How embarrassing!" - as they seem like nice people and are probably excited to be on the telly. It's the needlessly cynical and jaded editorial line that is depressing.

The dance looked like a laugh, and came as a surprise to most of the guests. Would that most weddings could boast as much. Would that Glen Goodman or any of the other London Tonight retards could show as much lightness of spirit, goodwill and emotional freedom.

Dicks.