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"Time hasn't been kind. There's something a little tragic about Reeves and Mortimer peddling their brand of surreal comedy now they're both 50. It's difficult to keep a youthful, anarchic streak alive when you're middle-aged (ask Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson), so watching two crinkled men beckoning down "The Dove From Above" or singing in a "club style" wasn't funny, or even pleasantly nostalgic, it just felt tired and stale." Continue reading...
Do you remember The Fixer? The ITV1 drama starring Andrew Buchan as a prisoner released to become a state-sponsored hitman? The first series debuted to 6.3 million viewers and remained fairly strong in the ratings, so it's a little strange another series has taken so long to reach us. Well, it's back next Tuesday (1 Sep @9pm), 16 months after the last run finished, so it'll be interesting to see if and how they've improved it.
"Big Brother is still commercially viable but it's at a level now where the new programmes we commission, if we're optimistic, can do as well. If we were a purely commercial station, we probably wouldn't be axing it, but beating at the heart of C4 is a desire to do new things. We ought to be able to bring a new range of shows in that get 2 to 3 million viewers. The audience is very discerning and we owe it to them to give them new stuff. The channel's always gambled commercially. The creative challenge is more interesting than a sure commercial bland bet."I'm not surprised by this news. I even welcome it, speaking as a loyal Big Brother fan who's still watching the show. Fact is, BB has run its course, even if there's still much to enjoy about it. Anyway, take heart BB anoraks: Big Brother is the kind of malleable format that isn't likely to disappear forever. I wouldn't be surprised if a digital channel pick it up from Endemol for a knock-down price*, or it's revived in 10 years time.
"Cancelling Big Brother does not solve Channel 4's funding issues, this year we've nearly £125m less to spend on programmes than we did a couple of years ago and budgets for next year may have to be reduced further. However, assuming advertising revenues stop deteriorating at some point, we should have greater flexibility in how we spend our commissioning budget. The significant sums that have been committed to Big Brother in the past should now be available to boost budgets in genres, such as drama, that have had to be cut back sharply during the downturn."
At the Buy More, Morgan (Joshua Gomez) finds a golden ticket that gives him backstage access to Tyler's upcoming Burbank gig, so he holds an impromptu competition to determine which of his friends can be his "plus one". This leads to the usual tomfoolery, with Lester (Vic Sahay) humiliated when it's revealed he wears women's knickers, Jeff (Scott Krinsky) eating a urinal cake, and a competitive eating challenge with Jimmy Butterman (Jerome Bettis). Again, I'm impervious when it comes to finding the Buy More the hilarious hotbed of quirky, geeky humour everyone seems to lap up, but I did appreciate its huge array of injokes this week (from Sixteen Candles to The Shawshank Redemption.) It may be a somewhat easy way to earn a giggle, but the targets were fairly obscure -- like the aria that played while Jimmy was at the vending machine being the same one Tim Robbins' character played to his fellow inmates.
There's not much else to add about this blithe episode, really. It was light, it was silly, a bit boring in places, and I definitely felt the 3D subverted my ability to just enjoy the story. I was too busy trying to be drawn into the 3D, which occasionally worked nicely (mainly when scenes were composed with greater depth of field, or there was an obvious moment where something popped out at youl.) It wasn't too bad, and would probably be even better with the sharpness of HD (sadly not available to Virgin1 viewers), but it was a reminder why 3D in this cheap form never took off in the '50s and '80s.
After declining Audrey's invitation of sex after finding her naked in his hotel bed, the next day Cooper meets with Doc Hayward (Warren Frost) and Truman to "interrogate" Waldo -- the mynah bird they found in Jacques Renault's cabin who likely witnessed Laura's death there. As the species is a renowned mimicker of speech, Cooper decides to leave his voice-activated cassette-recorded next to Waldo's cage to pick up any vocals the bird may repeat. It's something you'd expect to see as a plot-point in a Scooby Doo episode, but that's part of the kooky charm to the series.
It's a plan Audrey also comes to herself, after sneaking into the office of her department store boss Mr. Battis (Don Amendolia) to eavesdrop on a conversation he has with a fellow shop girl. Indeed, Audrey appears to have quite a compulsion to snoop on people from behind walls and inside cupboards! She overhears how Battis is supplying One-Eyed Jack's with naïve female members of his staff to work as prostitutes (or "hospitality girls"), so Audrey assumes a new recruit's identity and arrives at the brothel for an interview with its madame "Blackie" (Victoria Catlin). Unfortunately, her deception is quickly exposed when she's asked a trick question to test her credentials, but Audrey still earns herself a place at the establishment by demonstrating her oral skills by knotting a cherry's stalk using only her tongue. A party trick that became one of Twin Peaks' most memorable and oft-copied moments.
Sam is holed up in a hotel room with Andy (Chris Bauer), the only man who'll believe his story that Maryann has infected the townsfolk, but they're drawn out to Merlotte's after receiving a fake S.O.S call from Arlene (Carrie Preston). At the bar, Sam and Andy are forced to take refuge from the baying crowd of zombified customers inside his cold storage room. Luckily, Jason has decided to put his Soldier Of The Sun training to good use, suiting up like a hick version of Rambo to spring his friends from danger, armed with a nail-gun. The escape plan doesn't go to plan, meaning Sam has no option but to give himself up for sacrifice -- but, as he'd being tethered to the roof of a car for transportation back to Maryann's, Jason decides to pose as the crowd's "God" by wearing a gas-mask and clutching lit flares from atop another vehicle. It proves to be an effective disguise as seen through the distorted view of the enchanted acolytes, and Sam stages an effective "smiting" by transforming into a fly to fool his captors that he'd been successfully destroyed.
"New World In My View" marks the writing debut of Kate Barnow and Elisabeth Finch, and it's a little strange they were given such an expansive episode to make their mark. Sadly, their inexperience showed and it became an episode of jumbled moments -- good, bad, absurd. I don't blame them entirely, as US drama is storylined by committee, so the writing staff must take responsibility for the rather awkward way this episode dropped the Dallas storyline and jumped into the deep end with Maryann and the Bon Temps debauchery.
"As with all Sky1 dramas, not only will it feature a gifted cast with a large popular following, but working with Andy Harries and Left Bank Pictures means an already crackling script will jump out of the screen. Shot in South Africa with stunning locations and high octane HD action sequences on a grand scale, Chris Ryan's bestselling novel will be a truly uncompromising, compelling, action drama."The series is scheduled to premiere next spring on Sky1 and Sky1 HD.
"Skins is one of those rare shows that cuts through to its core audience with unusually authentic stories due to the unique writing and casting process that Bryan [Esley] pioneered. Having personally pursued the UK project for almost two years, I am beyond thrilled to bring it to MTV in the US. We intend to preserve the authenticity of the British version and are excited to collaborate with the original team to develop stories that will speak to American youth."
"There is a bit of misinformation going on. Not for a moment would I say the BBC has problems with communication, [but] as far as the writers and the controller of BBC comedy, and the controller of BBC2, and Matt Lucas are concerned, we are developing a second series."Mulville also suggested that Kröd Mändoon's budget could be slashed to help make another run viable, and that the BBC are behind its return "because it did well, it is a very unusual piece, and it’s got ambition -– and it’s got Matt Lucas in it."
Four years after a successful restoration, Doctor Who is bigger than at any time in its 43-year history. Even during the heyday of its classic run (Tom Baker, mid-'70s), it was never as mainstream and globally-successful as its modern incarnation has become. As showrunner Russell T. Davies' final credits appear on the horizon, I thought it might be interesting to look back at that trailblazing first series...
A naïve shop girl called Rose (Piper) is rescued from her dead-end job and council estate mundanity to accompany a lonely, eccentric, time-travelling alien known as The Doctor (Eccleston) through the Space/Time continuum inside his rickety phone-box TARDIS. In this debut adventure of the revived classic, old foes The Autons (mannequins brought to life), are the boogiemen for Russell T. Davies' brisk but facile premiere. As a launch-pad, this is uninspired and leaden frivolity that leans on cultural familiarity and gratitude that Who is back after 16 years in the BBC wilderness. Whovians put up with cheapo charity sketches in the '90s, so a full episode that takes itself half-seriously felt like nirvana, but compared to episodes produced very soon after, "Rose" is trivial and weightless. That it contains one of the show's most embarrassing images (someone being "eaten" by a burping wheelie-bin) makes Who's ultimate success all the more startling. An inauspicious start, to put it mildly. w: Russell T. Davies / d: Keith Boak
1.2 - "The End Of The World" 
The Doctor takes Rose five billion years into Earth's future, to witness the destruction of planet Earth from a nearby space station populated by alien voyeurs that include "last human" Cassandra (now just facial skin stretched across a frame.) A saboteur provides a mystery to solve, in an episode pitched at a child's sense of wonder at dress-up and CGI. There are hints of a darker underbelly to the series -- like when The Doctor refuses to prevent an alien's gooey death ("everything has its time") -- but they're outweighed by clichés like a treacherous gantry to cross (did nobody see Galaxy Quest?), and creative headslaps like Britney Spears' "Toxic" sounding out the Apocalypse. w: Russell T. Davies / d: Euros Lyn Things perk up for Mark Gatiss' Victorian ghost story, possibly because Who's on firmer footing when its stories are sutured to history. Charles Dickens (Simon Callow) himself assists The Doctor and Rose in defeating gaseous aliens that want to inhabit human corpses, in a well-constructed story with a wintry ambience, some literary in-jokes, and sparkling dialogue. It also includes the first mention of mytharc lynchpin "The Time War", and co-stars Eve Myles (presumably playing a descendant of the character she'd eventually play in the spin-off Torchwood.) w: Mark Gatiss / d: Euros Lyn
1.4 & 1.5 - "Aliens Of London" & "World War Three" Our first two-part episode finds baby-faced, farting aliens called Slitheen posing as humans inside zippable flesh-suits, to smuggle themselves into Downing Street for reasons of global destruction. There's a memorable UFO crash into Big Ben (arguably the first time The Mill's FX work loosened jaws), and the first wholly agreeable performance from Piper, but this is ultimately another script that aims to entertain kiddywinks and cause anyone over voting age to squirm at its ridiculous, awkward and campy tone. And the least said about that "pig in a space-suit" sequence, the better. w: Russell T. Davies / d: Keith Boak
The long-awaited return of The Doctor's famous enemy, "Dalek" owes something to Star Trek The Next Generation's "I, Borg" in its attempt to humanize a genocidal automaton. Chained up underground as part of an American billionaire's collection of extra-terrestrial artifacts (spot the Cyberman head!), the titular Dalek soon escapes and demonstrates to a new generation of kids why they should be afraid of irascible pepperpots (They dissolve bullets! They fly! They suck your face with plungers!) While a lot of the peripheral material is goofy nonsense (bastardized from Shearman's own audio-play "Jubilee"), Eccleston and the Dalek are magnificent as the lonely survivors of a temporal war that annihilated their respective species. The script remains one of Who's best efforts in putting a fresh slant on these beloved menaces, too. It's just a shame the sense of threat re-established with the Daleks never fed into the rest of the series, as they quickly devolved back into screeching hordes of incompetent tin cans. w: Robert Shearman / d: Joe Ahearne
1.7 - "The Long Game" Another unimaginably distant future, another depressingly low-rent space station. Yawn. The TARDIS touches down aboard "Satellite 5", a celestial hub broadcasting news across the galaxy. Simon Pegg guest-stars as The Editor (a frostbitten baddie taking orders from a razor-toothed ceiling turd) in a story where his minions are being killed after they're promoted to work on the infamous Floor 500. A statement on the class system? Well, vaguely. This plays like reheated '80s-era Who; so while there's fun to be had from Pegg's curt performance, it all feels inconsequential and dull. w: Russell T. Davies / d: Bryan Grant An all too rare investigation of time paradoxes, as Rose changes the course of history by preventing her dad's death in a car accident. Winged beasties duly descend to repair damage to the timeline (don't ask...), meaning The Doctor, Rose and her parents who don't recognize their unborn daughter, are forced to take refuge in a church and find a way to set things right. Cornell's script is heartfelt and touching (albeit illogical – why doesn't Rose's mum remember these events?), but it's just nice to follow a story with actual human drama behind it. Of all this season's episodes, this is the one where a box of Kleenex would be handy... w: Paul Cornell / d: Joe Ahearne
1.9 & 1.10 - "The Empty Child" & "The Doctor Dances" 
The first episode to find equilibrium between daft whimsy and creepy sci-fi, future-showrunner Steven Moffat makes his Who debut to pen an atmospheric and intelligent horror story set during WWII. A gas-masked street urchin stalks the streets of London during the Blitz ("are you my mummy?") scaring homeless kids, while The Doctor searches for a mysterious cylinder lost in time, and Rose encounters a dandy time-traveler from the 51st-century called Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman, later rewarded his own spin-off.) It's disquieting, inventive, has a story grown-ups can sink their teeth into, and totally justifies its two-part format. Bravo! w: Stephen Moffat / d: James Hawes
An unwelcome quasi-sequel to the earlier Slitheen two-parter, The Doctor makes a pit-stop at Cardiff Bay to refuel the TARDIS using the "time-rift" he sealed in "The Unquiet Dead". While there, it becomes clear that a surviving Slitheen (Annette Badland) has become Mayor, intending to leave the planet by harnessing a nuclear power plant's energy. More of a character piece than usual (there's a great scene between Eccleston and Badland's villain in a restaurant), it's just a shame it's all hung on another asinine plot. w: Russell T. Davies / d: Joe Ahearne Has there ever been a more dreadful teaser than seeing The Doctor slump down in Big Brother's Diary Room chair? No doubt inspired by Davies' love of reality TV, we're back aboard another budget-saving space station and asked to believe The Weakest Link will still be on on-air (hosted by "Anne Droid", geddit?) thousands of years into the future. It's all silly nonsense that reeked of mothballs the day it aired, and only the final reveal of a Dalek threat rescues it from total failure. w: Russell T. Davies / d: Joe Ahearne
1.13 - "The Parting Of The Ways" A huge leap forward in ambition and scale, the finale of Who's faltering return is the first of many en masse encounters with the Daleks. The Doctor, Rose and Jack must protect the people of the "Game Station" from, ironically, a flying CGI assault of thousands of Daleks, led by a baritone Emperor version. Some enjoyable moments and ratcheting tension pulls you through clunking moments, while the story even manages to make hazy sense of the "Bad Wolf" motif secreted in many of this year's episodes. The real highlight is, of course, the last-minute regeneration of Eccleston into a grinning David Tennant -- hindsight proving that Eccleston's tenure was something of an expensive dry-run. w: Russell T. Davies / d: Joe Ahearne 
