TV
It’s four o’clock in the morning and it’s starting to get light
Good Friday morning, 4:15am and I’m awake. Not entirely sure why. I like to play my music loud so listening to the new Editors album doesn’t seem like an option unless I want to wake other residents of Hogan Towers.
I decide to watch a bit of telly in an effort to get back to sleep. Loads of stuff to watch on the PVR but somehow I’m not in the mood for any of it. I figure that watching something by Jimmy McGovern in the dead of night might not be too uplifting. I later prove that to be a wise decision.
I begin to scroll the myriad of programmes still on offer at this time night but can’t settle to anything. I remember reading somewhere that the lowest audiences are recorded at this time of day, virtually no one watches the box at this hour, so why is there is some much on? Fair enough, teleshopping abounds but there are “real” programmes to be found too.
BBC Two is offering bitesize revision. I took my GCSE’s or O Levels, as we quaintly called them, back in 1982 so that fails to grab my attention while the offerings from BBC One and ITV1 both have a signer in the corner. Clearly, all hard of hearing viewers must be insomniacs. I ponder for a while as to why they can’t dedicate a full time channel each to having a signer. The transponders are littered with different versions of both channels largely showing exactly the same shows almost all of the time. Surely they could find space for this?
Channel 4 offers Scrapheap Challenge, not a show I normally bother with but any port in a storm. The plan of getting back to the land of nod quickly goes out of the window as I find myself engrossed in two teams trying to create a harvesting machine out of scrap. I soon remember why I don’t watch this as smarty-pants Robert Llewellyn quickly gets on my nerves.
Both teams make a complete Horlicks of the task, which adds to the amusement, but I’m unsure I’d be bothering with this during the hours of daylight.
The two of us need look no more
5:25am and time to begin trawling through my backlog of viewing.
EastEnders focuses on Jake wrestling with his conscience, while little Ben decides he can’t take anymore of the irritating bickering between Phil and Ian – I’m with him on that one - and has it on his toes.
There’s a touch of the Vicky Fowler accent syndrome going on here. How come Ben’s such a well-spoken young lad with an English accent? Surely having spent his formative years in South Africa with Kathy he’d either be dropping his aitches with the best of them or sounding like most of the best cricketers to play for England in the last three decades.
I’m not sure I like what they're doing with Dot at the moment. It’s starting to feel more and more like an audition for the recasting of Hetty Wainthrop Investigates.
Well we got no class and we got no principles
5:55am and time for a cup of tea and to reassess a show I gave bit of slating to on its first outing.
Waterloo Road remains a bit of hybrid, with its good intentions surrounding the education system somewhat diluted by the soapy nature of the piece.
It manages to hold the interest though, as the young actors playing the delinquent kids do a fine job in taking their characters past the stereotypical nature of some of the writing.
Indeed the younger cast seem to be taking things far more seriously than some of the adults, who seem to delight in playing the whole thing with their tongues in their cheeks, none more so than Denise Welsh, whose French teacher Miss Haydock would be more at home in a Carry On film.
Where the show is crying out for a monster like Grange Hill’s legendary Mister Bronson, we get drippy Andrew and his house system.
Here’s hoping for a bit more grit and a bit less melodrama in series two.
It’s now nearly seven in the morning and I need some light and frothy information based telly. I turn to GMTV but unfortunately it’s bank holiday and the cartoons are on. Switching to the BBC, it’s Breakfast but not as I know it. No Dermot or Bill but a bloke I seem to remember from Five’s news offerings. I could stomach that but he’s paired with Kate Silverton and for a reason I really I can’t put my finger on I don’t like her.
Telly off. Radio On.
I always wanted you to go into space man
It’s several hours before the telly goes back on. However, while surfing the net in my office I notice thanks to the Digital Spy Forums that a preview of Doctor Who is available on BBCi.
I’ve only got Freeview in the office but amazingly the preview works, though for some reason there’s a caption at the bottom of the screen telling me that I’m watching The Streets from Top of the Pops.
The preview actually looks fantastic though there are still signs that there’s a touch of the Timmy Mallets about David Tennant’s performance. Elizabeth Sladen’s looking good considering it must be thirty years since she was in the show. I make a note to add Doctor Who to my planner.
2:30pm and I’m back at the telly and, with the time lord on my mind, I take a look at Totally Doctor Who which is a fairly weak fanzine type show for the kiddiewinks hosted by Blue Peter’s recently departed Liz. I wonder whether they are stretching the franchise too far with this nonsense.
I’ll reserve judgement on the new series until I’ve seen a couple of episodes.
It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
Ten to three and I take a gander at ER strongly featuring Dr. Carter out in Darfur. I quite enjoy these occasional departures from the regular setting and found the scenes set back in Chicago rather intrusive.
Maybe a spinoff show set in Africa would be a good idea. It was nice to see the talented Eamonn Walker in a guest role. It’s rare to see him on the telly these days. His appearance reminds me of the modern take on Othello he starred in alongside Christopher Eccleston. I search to see if I can buy the DVD of that but it doesn’t appear to be available.
I have a sulk.
The gods may throw a dice their minds as cold as ice
Time for yet another cup of tea, a slice of fruitcake and Deal or No Deal.
A bloke called Fad is clearly enjoying himself playing the game and has pledged to give all his cash to someone called Oona. The banker seems to be in mean mood and Fad is obviously there to play the game rather than to win pot loads of cash.
He gets down to the last two boxes and a penny in one and thirty-five grand at the other. He gets an offer of several thousand pounds but he has that look in his eye. I find myself shouting at the telly. I have the feeling I’m not the only one.
Fad takes the gamble, refuses the opportunity to swap his box and walks away with the penny.
A sad end but it fails to wipe the grin off Fad’s face. A top bloke and top telly.
Heaven knows I’m miserable now
Early evening and I decide to take a look at Jimmy McGovern’s new show The Street.
A bit of a stellar cast in this one and it’s an engaging enough story featuring infidelity and a young girl in a coma but it seems too unremittingly grim.
Shows like Shameless manage to get the grit of everyday life across but threaded through with a rich vein of humour. This show, as well performed as it is, seems to grind the viewer down rather than be uplifting. Dark humour used to be a trademark in some of McGovern’s other work and I wonder why this piece has been so relentlessly depressing.
A little bit soap will never wash away my tears
An hour of soap is next on the agenda, accompanied by a hot cross bun. I remember a nursery rhyme about the buns. “One a penny, two a penny” it went. Not in M&S they’re not. I wonder how to justify spending so much cash on what is effectively spicy bread as the theme to Coronation Street begins.
Corrie fails to hold my interest. I really don’t care which of Baldwin’s grubby offspring gets their mitts on the knickers factory. EastEnders is dominated by Ben’s disappearing act while Big Mo proves that hell hath fury etc. Dot gets sillier and sillier.
I’ve been looking for a saviour in these dirty streets
You’d never know it was Easter judging by the schedules of some channels. BBC Three comes up trumps with Manchester Passion, the kind of risky show that we seem to see so rarely these days.
Keith Allen seems ill at ease and the juxtaposition of the Good Friday story and modern day songs doesn’t quite come off but it’s a brave attempt. The use of Robbie Williams’s Angels jars a bit; I suppose it’s become such a cliché these days. The live element adds some excitement and I look forward to more risky stuff like this in the future.
All you need’s a strong heart and a nerve of steel
My long Good Friday of telly viewing is brought to a halt with Friday with Jonathan Ross. Johnny Vegas dominates in a way that only he can but his particular brand of near incoherence is wearing a bit thin now. Has he ever been as funny without the monkey?
Ross praises Joan Collins on her appearance. He’ll be calling her sprightly next. Amazingly he also manages to reign in his usual Carry On style innuendo while interviewing Carmen Elektra and teases a few interesting statements from someone I really wasn’t interested in hearing about.
That’s more than enough viewing for one day. Telly off. Now where’s that Editors CD?
Good Friday morning, 4:15am and I’m awake. Not entirely sure why. I like to play my music loud so listening to the new Editors album doesn’t seem like an option unless I want to wake other residents of Hogan Towers.
I decide to watch a bit of telly in an effort to get back to sleep. Loads of stuff to watch on the PVR but somehow I’m not in the mood for any of it. I figure that watching something by Jimmy McGovern in the dead of night might not be too uplifting. I later prove that to be a wise decision.
I begin to scroll the myriad of programmes still on offer at this time night but can’t settle to anything. I remember reading somewhere that the lowest audiences are recorded at this time of day, virtually no one watches the box at this hour, so why is there is some much on? Fair enough, teleshopping abounds but there are “real” programmes to be found too.
BBC Two is offering bitesize revision. I took my GCSE’s or O Levels, as we quaintly called them, back in 1982 so that fails to grab my attention while the offerings from BBC One and ITV1 both have a signer in the corner. Clearly, all hard of hearing viewers must be insomniacs. I ponder for a while as to why they can’t dedicate a full time channel each to having a signer. The transponders are littered with different versions of both channels largely showing exactly the same shows almost all of the time. Surely they could find space for this?
Channel 4 offers Scrapheap Challenge, not a show I normally bother with but any port in a storm. The plan of getting back to the land of nod quickly goes out of the window as I find myself engrossed in two teams trying to create a harvesting machine out of scrap. I soon remember why I don’t watch this as smarty-pants Robert Llewellyn quickly gets on my nerves.
Both teams make a complete Horlicks of the task, which adds to the amusement, but I’m unsure I’d be bothering with this during the hours of daylight.
The two of us need look no more
5:25am and time to begin trawling through my backlog of viewing.
EastEnders focuses on Jake wrestling with his conscience, while little Ben decides he can’t take anymore of the irritating bickering between Phil and Ian – I’m with him on that one - and has it on his toes.
There’s a touch of the Vicky Fowler accent syndrome going on here. How come Ben’s such a well-spoken young lad with an English accent? Surely having spent his formative years in South Africa with Kathy he’d either be dropping his aitches with the best of them or sounding like most of the best cricketers to play for England in the last three decades.
I’m not sure I like what they're doing with Dot at the moment. It’s starting to feel more and more like an audition for the recasting of Hetty Wainthrop Investigates.
Well we got no class and we got no principles
5:55am and time for a cup of tea and to reassess a show I gave bit of slating to on its first outing.
Waterloo Road remains a bit of hybrid, with its good intentions surrounding the education system somewhat diluted by the soapy nature of the piece.
It manages to hold the interest though, as the young actors playing the delinquent kids do a fine job in taking their characters past the stereotypical nature of some of the writing.
Indeed the younger cast seem to be taking things far more seriously than some of the adults, who seem to delight in playing the whole thing with their tongues in their cheeks, none more so than Denise Welsh, whose French teacher Miss Haydock would be more at home in a Carry On film.
Where the show is crying out for a monster like Grange Hill’s legendary Mister Bronson, we get drippy Andrew and his house system.
Here’s hoping for a bit more grit and a bit less melodrama in series two.
It’s now nearly seven in the morning and I need some light and frothy information based telly. I turn to GMTV but unfortunately it’s bank holiday and the cartoons are on. Switching to the BBC, it’s Breakfast but not as I know it. No Dermot or Bill but a bloke I seem to remember from Five’s news offerings. I could stomach that but he’s paired with Kate Silverton and for a reason I really I can’t put my finger on I don’t like her.
Telly off. Radio On.
I always wanted you to go into space man
It’s several hours before the telly goes back on. However, while surfing the net in my office I notice thanks to the Digital Spy Forums that a preview of Doctor Who is available on BBCi.
I’ve only got Freeview in the office but amazingly the preview works, though for some reason there’s a caption at the bottom of the screen telling me that I’m watching The Streets from Top of the Pops.
The preview actually looks fantastic though there are still signs that there’s a touch of the Timmy Mallets about David Tennant’s performance. Elizabeth Sladen’s looking good considering it must be thirty years since she was in the show. I make a note to add Doctor Who to my planner.
2:30pm and I’m back at the telly and, with the time lord on my mind, I take a look at Totally Doctor Who which is a fairly weak fanzine type show for the kiddiewinks hosted by Blue Peter’s recently departed Liz. I wonder whether they are stretching the franchise too far with this nonsense.
I’ll reserve judgement on the new series until I’ve seen a couple of episodes.
It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
Ten to three and I take a gander at ER strongly featuring Dr. Carter out in Darfur. I quite enjoy these occasional departures from the regular setting and found the scenes set back in Chicago rather intrusive.
Maybe a spinoff show set in Africa would be a good idea. It was nice to see the talented Eamonn Walker in a guest role. It’s rare to see him on the telly these days. His appearance reminds me of the modern take on Othello he starred in alongside Christopher Eccleston. I search to see if I can buy the DVD of that but it doesn’t appear to be available.
I have a sulk.
The gods may throw a dice their minds as cold as ice
Time for yet another cup of tea, a slice of fruitcake and Deal or No Deal.
A bloke called Fad is clearly enjoying himself playing the game and has pledged to give all his cash to someone called Oona. The banker seems to be in mean mood and Fad is obviously there to play the game rather than to win pot loads of cash.
He gets down to the last two boxes and a penny in one and thirty-five grand at the other. He gets an offer of several thousand pounds but he has that look in his eye. I find myself shouting at the telly. I have the feeling I’m not the only one.
Fad takes the gamble, refuses the opportunity to swap his box and walks away with the penny.
A sad end but it fails to wipe the grin off Fad’s face. A top bloke and top telly.
Heaven knows I’m miserable now
Early evening and I decide to take a look at Jimmy McGovern’s new show The Street.
A bit of a stellar cast in this one and it’s an engaging enough story featuring infidelity and a young girl in a coma but it seems too unremittingly grim.
Shows like Shameless manage to get the grit of everyday life across but threaded through with a rich vein of humour. This show, as well performed as it is, seems to grind the viewer down rather than be uplifting. Dark humour used to be a trademark in some of McGovern’s other work and I wonder why this piece has been so relentlessly depressing.
A little bit soap will never wash away my tears
An hour of soap is next on the agenda, accompanied by a hot cross bun. I remember a nursery rhyme about the buns. “One a penny, two a penny” it went. Not in M&S they’re not. I wonder how to justify spending so much cash on what is effectively spicy bread as the theme to Coronation Street begins.
Corrie fails to hold my interest. I really don’t care which of Baldwin’s grubby offspring gets their mitts on the knickers factory. EastEnders is dominated by Ben’s disappearing act while Big Mo proves that hell hath fury etc. Dot gets sillier and sillier.
I’ve been looking for a saviour in these dirty streets
You’d never know it was Easter judging by the schedules of some channels. BBC Three comes up trumps with Manchester Passion, the kind of risky show that we seem to see so rarely these days.
Keith Allen seems ill at ease and the juxtaposition of the Good Friday story and modern day songs doesn’t quite come off but it’s a brave attempt. The use of Robbie Williams’s Angels jars a bit; I suppose it’s become such a cliché these days. The live element adds some excitement and I look forward to more risky stuff like this in the future.
All you need’s a strong heart and a nerve of steel
My long Good Friday of telly viewing is brought to a halt with Friday with Jonathan Ross. Johnny Vegas dominates in a way that only he can but his particular brand of near incoherence is wearing a bit thin now. Has he ever been as funny without the monkey?
Ross praises Joan Collins on her appearance. He’ll be calling her sprightly next. Amazingly he also manages to reign in his usual Carry On style innuendo while interviewing Carmen Elektra and teases a few interesting statements from someone I really wasn’t interested in hearing about.
That’s more than enough viewing for one day. Telly off. Now where’s that Editors CD?
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