Strictly Come Boxing

Mismatch

Viewers to ITV1’s The Big Fight Live on Saturday night could have been forgiven for thinking they had tuned in to Strictly Come Dancing. Rather than trading blows, Danny Williams and Audley Harrison spent most of the first eight rounds lumbering around the ring in each others arms with about as much as grace as Fiona Phillips.

Although a few blows were landed in the later rounds, ITV must be worrying over its decision to return boxing to primetime. This latest showpiece fight was so dull that that crowd in the hall were chanting “what a load of rubbish??? while many viewers at home would simply have voted with their remotes.

Earlier Amir Khan had despatched his opponent in just two rounds in an blatant mismatch, so for any ringside action worthy of the sport, fight fans had to wait until the good stuff popped up on ITV4.

In the real dancing show, I was delighted that Darren Gough managed to get through to the final. As well as amazing us with his shocking light-footedness, his joyous personality has shone through this series and his glee is a far more attractive personality facet than Zoë’s angst.

Brucie Bonus

Strictly Come Dancing – It Takes Two featured a great montage this week, showing just what a marvellous song and dance man Bruce Forsyth really is. Despite strong competition from The X Factor Bruce has managed to reclaim his crown as the King of Saturday Night. I’d like to repeat my calls for Bruce to be given his special to display those remarkable talents once more; particularly as he now has a new generation of fans who’ll be unaware just how good he is.

Out of Square

This week’s EastEnders took place away from the square and away from the “exciting??? tales of Ian’s vendetta against Wellard and Johnny’s disapproval of Ruby’s relationship with Juley. We should be thankful because it was so much better.

There were just three stories to focus on which made for more appealing drama, Chrissie’s fate as she struggles to come to terms with prison life, Janine’s trial over Laura’s death and Stacey’s return to her bi-polar mother. It made for proper drama rather than the usual soap pulp fiction.

Chrissie's hair is innocent

Here at Hogan Towers we spent a fair part of the week puzzling over where we’d seen Chrissie’s cellmate before. She looked really familiar but where from? The accent led us to think it must be either Emmerdale or Heartbeat and not being regular visitors to Aidensfield we plumped for the good old Woolpack but whom did she play? It turns out she played the remarkably unmemorable character of Lyn Hutchinson (we had to look it up). Only very vague memories stirred but apparently she was in it for years. She must have been boring. Not much difference this time around. By the end of Thursday’s episode Chrissie had taken enough and given her a slap across the chops.

We cheered.

It’s wrong I know but cheer we did before spending the rest of the night trying to work out where we’d seen the prison officer before. I’m quite happy for Chrissie to rot in gaol but I think we should start a campaign to free Chrissie’s hairdo. Let me know if you’re up for it and I’ll get the t-shirts printed.

Moving

Far less forgettable has been Lacey Turner’s turn as Stacey this week, which has been truly moving and went a fair way to explain that character's motivation. More importantly though, it drove home what care in the community can actually mean without coming across as preachy. The scenes between Stacey and her mother were uncomfortable to watch, disturbing but very convincing.

For those of us who all but thought Janine has been forgotten about, her trial at least allowed that particular loose end to be tied up. Mike Reid made a welcome return as Frank Butcher who is as marvellously flawed as ever. That last scene when he realised Janine had gone leaving him there clutching his teddy bear was great.

Spaced Out

Astronuts

The schedulers couldn’t have put the opener of Space Cadets in a worse place for me, going out directly opposite the I’m a Celeb aftermath show on ITV, the latest episode of Rome on BBC Two and Manchester United’s make or break (break as it turned out) big match in Portugal on Sky Sports.

I’d torn myself away from the match for the first few minutes but I quickly bored and returned to the football. Thursday was no better with the show airing opposite Little Britain and the always enjoyable Doc Martin. By Friday, having heard mixed reports on the spoof show, I was on the point of not bothering.

From the snippets I have now managed to catch I’ve been unimpressed. An awful lot of effort seems to have been gone to effectively to humiliate a group of people who aren’t that bright. Big Brother can be justified by the fact that by and large the contestants know what they are letting themselves in for. This just seems cruel and exploitative. I’ll give a more considered view next week when I’ve seen more of it.

Thinner Skinner

I used to love Frank Skinner’s chat show but something has gone badly awry.

Firstly the topical monologue, which used to be one of the highlights of the show, is now so laboured as to make us wince rather than laugh. There’s no point going for shock value unless the gags are funny and some of Frank’s material in this series has made the toes curl. Even the studio audience are seemingly struggling to raise a titter.

Then we come to the Bob Dylan skit, which again is trying to be too clever and failing to hit the funny bone.

The biggest problem though is that Frank seems to have lost the ability to put his guests at their ease. This week, Jamie Bell looked very uncomfortable and the encounter felt more like a battle than an interview. Even the appearance of Al Murray, normally a highlight of each season of this, seemed a bit on the flat side.

Whatever Skinner needs to do to get his mojo back, he should get on and do it. If he carries on in the vein of form, he’ll be going out after midnight if at all.

Big Deal

Astronuts

Noel Edmonds is riding really high in the daytime ratings with trashy game show Deal or No Deal. I’ve spoken to loads of people about this and almost everyone I’ve spoken to agrees. It’s rubbish but once you’ve watched once there’s no escaping it. It’s like the television equivalent of a tube of Pringles.

Noel needs to take a lot of the credit (or should that be blame?) for making this simplistic nonsense into must see TV. Every show is somehow different depending on the competitor. This week saw the ultra cool Kai get the highest opening offer ever on the show and turn it down only to knock out nine consecutive high values. It looked desperate but he still walked away at the end with thousands.

I need to wean myself off this show. If anyone is setting up a support group in the West Midlands area let me know.