Wide awake in dreamland

Was it just me or was The Time of Your Life completely and utterly barking?

The premise seemed a good one, a woman falls into a coma shortly after taking her A levels and awakes nearly two decades later to find she struggles to adapt to the fact that world has moved on without her and that she’s lost her youth.

My problems with it began when our heroine emerged from her coma, simply by waking up and managing in seconds to expertly extricate herself from the machines that had presumably been keeping her alive since the eighties. She then – get this – got up and walked unaided to her bathroom and locked herself in. God knows who was doing her physiotherapy but if they are that good, they should given a peerage immediately.

Her parents’ attitude was to get all the relatives round to stand outside the bathroom to terrify the poor patient to death when she subsequently emerged. The GP’s involvement seemed to be an afterthought.

From that barely believable start, other gaping plot holes and barely credible events permeated the piece and as well as being introduced to the tried and tested subplots of the family and friends we also had a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. The assumption was that the lad who had died had been killed for his wallet. Amazingly the police investigating the case never managed to find it, but our reawakened over grown schoolgirl had managed to lay hands on it almost by accident by the end of episode one.

This was one incredible coincidence too far. By the end this seemed such a clichéd old pot-boiler that I kept wondering why Julie Graham wasn’t in it. Something of a casting departure there. My partner groaned when I mentioned there were another five instalments to come but oddly I wasn’t that bothered. Maybe it’s out of sheer disbelief but I found myself setting the planner to catch episode two.

This is worrying. I don’t mind ITV1 dumbing down but if I’m actually prepared to sit and watch this pile of doggie do, they’ve managed to dumb me down too.

Summer’s here and the time is right…

Rome was back this week, so I was sort of expecting harrowing scenes of a violent nature. When they came though, they came in EastEnders.

Poor Dawn Swann was having a traumatic week that began handcuffed to a bed while deranged Doctor May was threatening to cut her baby out of her. She really should consider changing her GP because I don’t remember that being in the patients’ charter.

Dawn managed to escape that terror but worse was to come. When her waters broke she got trapped in a tube carriage with some of the worst actors ever to appear in this or any soap and then, having finally made it to the delivery room, was forced to endure Carly Wicks singing Consider Yourself as the little one made her first appearance.

Imagine if the first sounds you heard when you came into the world were those of a tone deaf car mechanic singing hits from Oliver. It’s tantamount to abuse, that.

Even grislier scenes were taking place elsewhere as Patrick and Peggy cast amorous gazes at each other and memories of his stomach churning fling with Pat came flooding back. Just when you thought you managed to stomach every gruesome detail of the show, we had to witness Genghis the dog licking gravy off Rob’s head. It put me right off my tea.

By the end of the week, Dawn was in mortal danger yet again as the dodgy doc had managed to breach hospital security and get her hands on the baby. Dawn should really consider changing her name to Penelope Pitstop as she’s in peril most of the time these days.

Is it just me or does Doctor May’s lipstick get redder as she gets more evil? Very Black Narcissus.

Of course May is middle class and it’s an unbreakable soap rule that if you're middle class you have to turn out evil. Evil middle class Stella got hit in the face with a football this week. What fun.

Rome if you want to

It’s been so long since series one of Rome that I could have done with a bit more of an update of what had gone before because this is quite a complicated show and for the first twenty minutes or so I was struggling to recall where we were plot wise.

Before long though there was blood and guts a plenty as the largely British cast set about stabbing each other metaphorically in the back and literally in the front. By the end of the opener there was more blood than you’d find in Ashley Peacock’s butchers shop.

It wasn’t long before Mark Anthony had the whole thing under some sort of control and it’s obvious that many of those present were impressed by the size of his weapon but it’s particularly difficult to feel sorry for “everyman” characters Voranus and Pullo when they are such merciless and barbaric killers.

Off the rails

Holby City was dominated by the shock death of Diane, all the more shocking because it happened off screen. I’d been looking forward to seeing her car hit by an oncoming freight train but it was not to be. All we got was Elliott taking a phone call and the sight of body bag, a shame because the Holby franchise has normally been good value for spectacular stunts.

I go through stages of really rating this show and stages where it just gets on my nerves and at present I'm not overly keen on it.

The week’s drama-by-numbers subplot featuring an old actress on her last legs was completely out of the textbook and we’ve seen it dozens of times over the years. Sometimes this series can provide some gripping drama but at the moment it just feels like they are going through the motions.

Whowatch

John Simm is clearly enjoying himself as Harold Saxon/The Master in Doctor Who and although I have a few misgivings about the way he is portraying one of the iconic villains of the piece, it has to said that his performance is very entertaining.

There’s been great pace and energy in this one and it may have taken me three months to get there but I actually care about Martha now, which can only be good.

I absolutely loved the laser screwdriver – “who has Sonic?” – and I’m sure that those with anti-American leanings at the BBC were cheering when the President was zapped from existence.

It was a nice touch that Saxon got his break because of the demise of Harriet Jones, another example of The Doctor’s do-gooding backfiring spectacularly and the references to Torchwood were most welcome as well. It would be good if we could see their “wild goose chase in the Himalayas” at some stage.

All in all then easily the best episode in this run. So good, I watched it twice.

Bits n Bobs

Jekyll gets better and better. Michelle Ryan can actually act. Who knew? James Nesbitt is clearly revelling in the role of a lifetime and the only thing letting the piece down at all is Paterson Joseph’s appalling accent. It’s great stuff though and a great opportunity to see the late Al Hunter-Ashton in action one last time.

Publicity stunt or not, I’m very glad that Louis Walsh is returning to The X Factor. I can’t say that I found that Brian bloke very inspiring during the woeful Grease is the Word. I don’t know why they didn’t rope in Chris Cowey from Soapstar Superstar. Perhaps it’s because he made too much sense.

I had a pop at Piers Morgan last week but somehow on America’s Got Talent his presence seems to work and work well. It’s wrong of me to find that irritating but I do. It’s hard for me to articulate how I felt about Hasselhoff’s contribution to the show without swearing but I’ll work on that for next week.

I couldn’t think of anyone less appropriate than toothy grinning jolly hockey sticks Kate Silverton to be interviewing mud splattered, sodden and often intoxicated festivalgoers at Glastonbury. I bet I wasn’t the only one hoping she would fall face first in the mud.

The BBC’s red button coverage of Glastonbury was great but it was intensely annoying that it wasn’t available until after seven each night.

Stanley Tucci was superb as the new abrasive head of ER as the show concluded its umpteenth season. The show needs a new lease of life and he could be it.