Snow Joke

I like Snow Patrol, I really do, but I’m seriously thinking of flogging their CDs on eBay because I don’t actually need them. It’s getting virtually impossible to turn on the telly now without hearing them. Chasing Cars is particularly overused and being greeted by groans here at Hogan Towers every time it obtrusively pipes up in a show.

Things came to a head on Saturday night when the aforementioned song was used by the ice skating rugby player in Dancing On Ice. Jokingly we wondered just how minutes of the following show would go by before a Snow Patrol track was used. Primeval had been on air for just three and a half minutes when sure enough we got one.

We really had to suspend our disbelief watching ITV1 on Saturday night, mainly because Kay Burley stayed out of the bottom two. If you’re wondering what sort of person is voting to keep the clod-hopping newsreader on the ice, I hate to say it but it’s probably me. Most of the celebs are far too good at this and we need a couple that struggle to give us something to laugh at.

Sadly we lost Stephen Gately and a lot of the tension waiting for a disaster to occur on the ice was lost. I’m pretty sure that Torvill and Dean made a mistake in their opening routine but this was ignored completely. It was not so easy to ignore Lisa Scott-Lee hitting the deck as the contestants took to the rink, though I do feel a little guilty at cheering at her mishap, almost as guilty as when I cheered when her single flopped at the climax of Totally Scott –Lee.

One big dinosaur egg

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the latest show to feature CGI dinosaurs. Would it be Dougie Henshall’s audition to be the next Doctor Who? Seemingly not. Would it be Miami 7 meets Jurassic Park thanks to presence of Hannah Spearmint out of S Club. Apparently not the case. So what it would it be?

As it turns out it was more of a Stargate SG1 rip-off than anything else.

The thing starts with Juliet Aubrey being chased round an Asda car park – nice bit of product placement that – by a big dinosaur type thing. The action then moves to years later where we discover that the woman is missing and the wife of lantern jawed fossil professor Nick Cutter (Henshall). This establishes our star as a maverick hero on a mission and makes him slightly less believable than the prehistoric monsters. Maybe they should have cast Time Team’s Tony Robinson in the role, I could accept that.

After much running around the Forest of Dean and some absolute nonsense involving a cute lizardy type thing, an annoying schoolboy and Hannah valiantly failing to convince us she’s a zookeeper, they find a gateway to the past. Great! It then takes them eons before anyone actually goes through it to explore.

If things were struggling a tad in the credibility stakes they were completely blown away by Ben Miller’s staggeringly bad turn as a Government big wig in what is possibly the worst role of his life.

All in all then, it should be an absolute pile of pants and there were so many plot holes and gaffes in the first opener that I expect several websites have already shot up to chart them, but somehow it does have a certain charm and it did manage to hold the attention for an hour, though probably for all the wrong reasons. Its multiple faults actually add up to an interesting whole and I’m actually hoping it doesn’t improve because I’m actually revelling in the badness of it all in much the same way as I enjoy the seventies Doctor Who repeats on UKTV Gold.

Trippy

If the dinosaur thing didn’t make you wonder whether ITV1’s Head of Drama had been sharing a smoke with David Cameron then Bonkers possibly did.

I can absolutely understand why so many people have taken against this because even while I was watching the second episode, I was wondering just why I am enjoying it so much, given that there’s so much to hate about it.

I think part of the reason it divides opinion is that the characters aren’t actually the most likeable bunch in the world, merely a collection of oddballs orbiting around the critical mass of Liza Tarbuck. The problem is that the leading lady isn’t the most endearing paragon of human virtue either, more like Hyacinth Bucket on speed, so the whole thing hangs very much on the charisma of the actress.

Another problem is that the multiple plots, set up so nicely in episode one, seemed to drag somewhat in the second show and there is an incoherence about events. It’s too scatter gun to hold the attention of the casual viewer.

The main issue though is the “Bonkers” thing whereby an actor in a coma has appeared to Tarbuck’s character in a form that only she can see. This would require a major suspension of disbelief, even if it were at the heart of things, but as it seems to be have been nailed on as an after thought, it doesn’t work at all.

Be careful what you wish for

I’d been moaning about black clouds Pauline and Sonia for months but now that they’ve gone, I can find precious few characters that I care about in EastEnders.

Dominating proceedings at the moment is the daft baby storyline but Doctor May hasn’t really been in it long enough for our sympathies to lie her with her while Dawn has always been such a self centred piece of work that we tend to boo here at Hogan Towers whenever she comes on screen. As for that dopey Rob bloke, it’s hard to see what either woman sees in the sad act.

Then we have the unsinkable Shirley, an addition so unpleasant that our cat leaves the room every times she appears. While Linda Henry is doing a great job bringing this monster to life, it would be good if we got more than a passing glimpse of any redeeming features. It’s difficult to buy into a character that comes across as unremittingly unpleasant.

Bert’s grandson is the latest demon child to descend on the square and a real sense of déjà vu was to be had as he burst on the screen and almost immediately began nicking things. Why do all the children in Albert Square come across as being really horrible? It seems the angelic Chloe/Rebecca got out just in time.

The times they are a changing

I caught an episode of Only When I Laugh the other day. This was considered very funny in its day and even now, nearly a quarter of a century later, it has its moments. What really stuck out in the episode though was that the characters attitudes would almost certainly be considered racist in this day and age.

The episode centred on the need for one of the characters to get a blood transfusion and much of the comedy was derived from their fears of receiving blood from someone who was not of their class or ethnic group. Now while the characters were made to look to stupid for holding these views, it still made for less comfortable viewing now that it did when first made. That’s how far our attitudes have changed.

I wonder whether our more enlighted outlook on life has created the dearth of comedy on the box and precipitated the death of the sitcom. I read somewhere the other day that the last sitcom to be made at The London Studios was the glorious politically incorrect Time Gentleman Please some years ago and that was for Sky One.

Comedy often has to be at someone’s expense and as a society it seems we’ve become so scared of offending anyone that it’s left no targets to hit and the sitcom has become an endangered species.

I don’t even think this a problem confined to us here in Britain. Given the choice between an episode of Out of Practice and an ancient episode of Taxi the other night I plumped for the old show because I knew I could rely on it to give me a laugh. That isn’t the case with current shows.

To be guaranteed a giggle from new material these days, it seems we have to turn to the likes of animated shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons. What’s telling here is no target seems to be considered to risky to tackle.

Perhaps it’s our fault we don’t get great sitcoms anymore because we get overly sensitive over any reference that we are tempted to complain even if we’re not actually offended but think we should be.

Whatever the reasons, it’s sad to see the genre going so painfully through it’s death throes. So sad in fact that I hardly bear to watch Nicholas Lyndhurst floundering in After You’ve Gone.

Bits n Bobs

Plagiarism can go too far. Harry Hill’s Emmerdale plane crash gag had already been done in the very scene he was taking the Mick out of and far funnier too.

I’m not sure what put me off my tea more, Viv giving birth or Marlon giving her a foot rub.