Christmas Catch-up

The Christmas edition of Radio Times has run out of pages, so I guess that's the official end of Christmas and New Year television. Here are some mini-reviews of shows I watched, but won't get around to reviewing properly...

I was disappointed with Wallace & Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death, weren't you? Great animation, some fun moments, imaginative action scenes, a few good in-jokes (especially Ghost and Aliens), but it all felt too insular, predictable and repetitive to me. Wallace gets another love-interest, there's another killer on the loose (human this time), Wallace just gets dopier and needs rescuing again. The only notable change was having the obligatory dog turn out not to be the villain's accomplice. After the Curse Of The Were-Rabbit feature-length movie (shown earlier that afternoon to highlight this point), Loaf & Death felt like a step backwards for Nick Park. Why not create some new characters, instead of sticking to the safe bet of W&G? Oh well, 15 million people watched, which will hopefully bankroll a BBC-funded movie before Peter Sallis snuffs it.

The Peter Serafinowicz Show Christmas Special was surprisingly good fun, given the fact I disliked the original sketch show when it aired earlier last year. The quality control was definitely higher (although the next-day midnight extended repeat reinserted a lot of grot) and I was glad it didn't just put a festive spin on old sketches. A good 85% of it was new stuff -- and I'm still giggling at the intimidating estate agent ("did I arks you?") and the insane job interview ("you passed the test!") Let's hope a second series builds on this upswing in quality.

Contrarily, the QI Christmas Special was... well, just a regular episode of average quality. I can understand they've run out of seasonal trivia, but this "fire and freezing"-based special wasn't worthy of the Christmas Special tag in the slightest. A big disappointment on that count, but I thought Dom Joly showed promise as a new panellist and Rob Brydon was very funny. I loved his recurring gag of explaining obvious things as if they were secret gems of knowledge.

The Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special was background sparkle for me on Christmas Day. The second "voting scandal" for Strictly in as many weeks overshadowed it, too. This time, four couples tied with 39 points after the judges scores were added up, so the studio vote was entirely redundant, meaning Len Goodman had to put the top four into order of merit before voting could continue. But it was all nicely edited to look like this was the accepted way of handling the situation. As for the show itself: well, Kelly Brook was robbed.

Mock The Week Christmas Special? Nope. Mock The Week repeats all edited together, I think you'll find. Bah, humbug!

I caught bits of Alan Carr's Christmas Ding Dong. I hated the first series of this gameshow (with Carr mistreating "civilian" people in front of his chummy celebrity pals), so it was no surprise the second series quickly changed the format to a celeb-versus-celeb competition. This panto-themed special seemed quite fun, but the only thing I can remember is Paul Daniels planting a smacker on Alan Carr.

The Have I Got News For You? Christmas Special was okay, even though it was just another normal episode, masquerading as a festive special because of fancy dress. I just wish they'd give Alexander Armstrong the hosting job full-time and ditch the annoying guest-host idea entirely.

The 25th anniversary Blackadder Rides Again documentary was fifteen minutes of worthwhile information and footage, separating clips that sometimes didn't even last to the punchlines. G.O.L.D's Blackadder documentary a few months ago covered most of the bases here, so this was a bit tiresome for me. For fans, there wasn't much to get terribly excited about -- unless you liked to be reminded how dour and humourless Rowan Atkinson is in real life (he admits it himself), wanted to see a clip from the original pilot episode (is the whole thing available as a DVD extra?), and that terrible last shot of Blackadder Goes Forth (before a bit of slo-mo and piano music transform it into one of British comedy's greatest moments.)

ITV really didn't have a good Christmas, did they? Did they have anything worth watching? Oh yes, Affinity. Shame I missed that. Harry Hill's TV Burp Review Of The Year seemed like a safe bet, but I think I can feel a backlash coming on for Mr. Hill. After winning two BAFTAs this year, I'm kind of expecting more from this show now. And, truth be told, it all looks a bit too half-baked, formulaic and childish to me now. Maybe it always was? The clever, eagle-eyed observations are being swamped by desk-set slapstick. There are still some laughs, but this special wasn't much fun. I hope Harry manages to recharge for 2009, but ITV are flogging their only comedy hit to death with this extended run. A breezy seven episodes every three months is enough for me.

Charlotte Church's Nutcracking Christmas Special was on in the background, so I caught bits and pieces. For me, Charlotte's still a damn terrible presenter who should stick to singing. And the full-on celebration of Wales over the past five years is beginning to annoy me (with Ruth Jones and Rhydian flying the Welsh flag here.) Want proof that Charlotte Church should just disappear, or get back in the recording studio? Check out her unfunny secret camera stunt with Jeremy Edwards (feeding him ideas as he auditioned panto actresses) A terrible moment in Charlotte's hand, rescued completely by James Corden grabbing her mic and ad-libbing funnier ideas than anything Charlotte's feeble mind could improvise.

While hardly in the festive spirit, Top Gear's Vietnam Special was great, blokey fun. Clarkson, Hammond and May pootling up Vietnam in clapped-out scooters, aiming to complete the journey in eight days. Torrential rain, unexpected natural beauty (a good advert for the Vietnam Tourist board, funnily enough), war memorials, silly games, a daft driving license challenge, and more staged comedy interludes (the transporting of cumbersome gifts was particularly strained.) As usual, you're never sure what genuinely happened, and what was orchestrated by the production team weeks in advance... but when it's all this entertaining, I really don't care enough to complain. Catch it on Dave in 2009, every two hours.

I also saw BBC Four's Crooked House three-part chiller from writer-actor Mark Gatiss, and thought it was very good. In fact, I liked it enough that full review will hopefully be along next week.

What about you? Did the Christmas TV schedules impress you this year? Too many repeats? Were the specials not really special enough? Did anyone care about the return of oldies like The Royle Family, Rab C. Nesbitt and Jonathan Creek?