August 2008 Archives

Hollyoaks suddenly has a rival for its title of "best Sunday morning, watch while in bed, TV programme." Having battled and beaten Something For The Weekend over on BBC 2, a surprise enemy is now in play: X-Factor.

Whereas Hollyoaks has glamour and beauty to bring you back into the world after a heavy night out, X-Factor instantly makes you feel better about yourself as the great deluded line up to be humiliated by Simon Cowell and co.

Given that the prize of winning X-Factor is a bit hit-and-miss - for every Leona Lewis and a Shayne Ward there's a soon-forgotten winner too - it seems quite frightening that so many people can turn up to audition in the seeming belief they have a god-given right to be stars, even though God appears to have been less than generous when it came to giving them talent.

Having groaned at the number of times the word "Olympics" appeared on the BBC's schedules last week, something stranged happen on Saturday morning.

Having got up at 6am to drive to a wedding on the south coast, I'd parked up at Oxford services some time around 10am, and invested my overdraft in a breakfast (tasty, surprisingly) before sitting down in front of a telly. Since when did service stations have tellies?

The X-Factor's back, Spooks has got a Saved by the Bell "new class" and Jeff Stelling is ready to keep Saturday's kicking on the football front. Here is Remote Control's five to watch this week...

Quiz question for you: What was the most watched programme on regular TV last Monday night? Coronation Street with its dull "Ken's writing a book" storyline and the "will Kevin sell the garage?" dilemma? Eastenders with its twice-yearly "new Mitchell arrives at the Vic" non shock and Ian Beale being shown up shocker? Probably no surprise here, given my negativity towards both of those but no. It was New Tricks (BBC 1, 9pm).

New Trick is a programme I've mentioned on here before. It's a clever crime drama which mixes light-hearted interaction with the very serious business of investigating so-called cold cases. In some respects, it's a bit like the CSI franchise, only without the fast cutaways and banging background tracks. In a nutshell, though, New Tricks and CSI do the same thing: They investigate a crime in retrospect and do it in a way which doesn't tax the viewer, and relies heavily on "technological breakthroughs" for solving crimes.

IT'S a sad state of affairs when you can point to American TV and say: that's the sort of public service documentaries we should be doing.

While the BBC seems to think trawling council lists for eateries with a bad environmental health track record and then doing some undercover filming in there constitutes riveting TV, niche satellite channel FX is serving up something completely different.

To Catch A Predator (FX, 10pm, Wednesdays) is incredibly simple: Researchers pretend to be teenage girls on internet chat rooms, and wait until perverts start talking to them. The researchers, making it clear they are 14 or 15 years old, then invite the perverts over, claiming their parents will be away. Before they are invited over, the perverts have already made it clear what their intentions are.

From a daily diet of stand-up comedy to the American show which proves public service TV can still exist, the five programmes I reckon you shouldn't be without this week are:

1. Tonightly (every night, 11.05pm, C4): Channel 4 have been building up Jason Manford's part of a while, and this almost-live satiricial show feels so fresh compared to other news-as-amusement shows. Friday's first one was a belter, and it's great to see other comics being brought in for some very amusing sketches. Look out for the fake documentaries.

2. CSI:Miami (Tuesday, 9pm, C5): The Times' TV critic sees to have taken exception to CSI - so much so he used his "TV pick" slot to accuse of it of being vapid. I'll come back to that later in the week, but if you haven't seen CSI:Miami before, now's the time to start. Where CSI (Las Vegas) goes big on technology and CSI:New York aims to be more gritty, Miami adds glamour to the mix to create what Channel 5 claim is the most watched TV programme in the world.

3. To Catch a Predator (Wednesday, 10pm, FX): You'll have read about this. American TV network sends out staff to make contact with would-be paedophiles over the internet by pretending to be children. They then invite the predator over to their house "when my parents are away." They arrive, and find the "girl" is actually a 20-something woman, who has the police and several TV cameras present. The UK's crying out for a British version - can you think of a better public service for a TV show?

4. Mock the Week (Thursday, 9pm, BBC2): Ed Byrne, who is normally excellent on Mock the Week, and Zoe Lyons, who I can't remember if she's been on before, are the guest comics this week on the best panel comedy show TV has ever produced. Sadly, it's episode five of six. Why only make six?

5. Olympics 2008 (Friday, 12.45pm, BBC1): There are two parts of the Olympics which appeal to everyone. The opening ceremony and the closing ceremony. The former takes place at 12.45pm on Friday. The Chinese have a lot to prove. Read the Independent and you've got a nation which ignores human rights, disregards environmental concerns and advocates sweat shops. The Chinese hope we'll forget this when we see their Olympics. Which means the opening ceremony has to be pretty special.

For years, the comedy panel show was largely ignored by the mainstream channels. Year in, year out, Have I Got News For You? commanded cult status on BBC 2, but took the thick end of a decade to switch to BBC 1.

Then, on the back of the success of They Think It's All Over, it switched across and gained a new lease of life on the back of Angus Deayton's cocaine-fuelled antics which led to the creation of the "guest presenter" role following the dismissal of the autocue-monkey on the back of said allegations.

Since then, however, a light seems to have gone on above the heads of TV schedulers who, when faced with a blank half hour in the week, quickly devise a quick panel show.