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review

Mock the Week's back. And mock it did

Posted by Remote Control on July 13, 2008 8:27 PM

Kerry Katona's determination to populate the planet, Robert Mugabe's "Brazilian moustache" and how seeing a moonwalking duck would improve Russell Howard's mood. On only one TV show can just a single question lead to discussions about all of the above.

Yes, Mock the Week is back. And, now in series six, it is so good that I'm currently watching it again. Frankie Boyle at his best from the off, kindly pointing out that "John Prescott needs to know there is a difference between bulimia and eating until you puke."

Russell Howard, pointing out the absurd at every opportunity, saying: "On one hand, we're throwing away millions of pounds of food a year, yet a quarter of the nation is obese. This means one thing: fat people are raiding our bins at night. Now that's a reality TV show I'd watch - fat people dressing up as foxes and going through our trash."

Andy Parsons, shouting as usual, yet solving the problems of the olympics: "We don't need to spend billions on new arenas. We only win at pub sports, all we need is the world's biggest Wetherspoons. A giant pub quiz. We'd all watch that."

And then there were a couple of new faces. The hopelessly happy Lucy Porter, cheerfully pointing out how sweet it is that Osama Bin Laden still keeps in touch. "Many men don't, I find. And he still uses audio casettes. He's the only man in the world who uses them. Find the man still buying the c-90s and you've caught the bugger."

But perhaps the most surprise package of the show was Mchael McIntyre. He tried very well on NewsKnight over on ITV but perhaps even he couldn't save that show. Yet on Mock the Week he was superb, cheerfully pointing out: "I don't eat whole asparagus. I'm not a monster."

And then onto how the Archbishop of Canterbury solves every argument by playing the "Jesus card." "No, we're not watching that, Jesus says it's the Whole Nine Yards tonight."

So good was Michael that as I wait for this blog to write itself, I'm buying tickets for his next live gig.

And finally, Dara O'Briain. A host to put any other panel show to shame. No autocue needed. And the banter was second to none all the way through. It's strange, isn't it, how the Beeb keeps quiet about its best shows - yet plugs nonsense like Bonekickers all day long.

Yes, it's a very welcome return to Mock The Week (episode 2, Thursday at 9pm). Shame they've kept Hugh Dennis though - Still can't have everything


The Visit. It's great

Posted by Remote Control on July 3, 2008 7:56 PM

Have you ever noticed a programme in the TV listings and thought to yourself "Nah, it looks crap, I'll give it a miss" only to stumble across it anyway and actually realise how bloody good it is?

For me, that moment arrived at around 10.40pm yesterday. Having revelled in the sheer crapness of the current midweek Nationa Lottery draw - especially it's graphics, which make the current News at Ten look positively space aged - I had meant to hunt out something else instead of watch The Visit, BBC 1's new comedy.

Why bother going to Glastonbury?

Posted by Remote Control on June 29, 2008 10:49 PM

When that nice farmer chap who invites 180,000 mud lovers onto his Glastonbury land every year sits down and asks himself why his world-famous festival failed to sell out until the last minute, I hope he remembers this: BBC.

Why? Forget the discussion about whether rap artists should be allowed to perform at Glastonbury (answer is yes, after all the festival has it origins with all-embracing hippies) and whether that knocked sales. The answer is much simplier. The middle class who have made it so hard to get tickets in the past now know they can experience Glastonbury in a much nicer way, from their living room.

It might sound sad, but it's not

Posted by Remote Control on June 22, 2008 11:21 PM

SUNDAY evening telly ain't what it used to be, is it? Well, actually, yes it is. It's utterly crap. If ever there is a time of the week when the National Grid might feel a surge as television sets the country over flick between channels at lightning spped, it's Sunday evening.

This week, my hunt for a decent programme on a Sunday evening took me to BBC 4. It's normally a channel I skip by in a hurry - it's highbrow remit, a kind of doffing of the cap by the BBC to its traditional roots, doesn't normally appeal - but The Secret Life of the Motorway (BBC 4, Sundays, 8pm) stopped me in my tracks.

The best sport on the telly? Sorry Mr Lineker, it's nothing to do with you

Posted by Remote Control on June 14, 2008 5:33 PM

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WHILE the Euro 2008 opening games have colonised the BBC and ITV schedules, causing havoc with Mark Austin's meal-times, another sport has been quietly occupying an earlier part of the BBC's day.

Normally, I'd simply skip by anything with the word "tennis" in it, but as the temperature creeped up during the afternoon in Menorca, dragging the TV out on to the balcony was the only way to go. With BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3 and Sky News to go at from the English channels, it doesn't take long to get bored with rolling news and day-time afternoon dramas.

So thank God for the Artois tennis tournament from Queen's. It doesn't have the wall-to-wall promotion of football, nor the tens of millions to lavish on its key participants, but there's a lot "soccer" - and those covering it for TV - can learn from it.

Britain's got a sob story

Posted by Remote Control on June 1, 2008 10:59 AM

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THE SUNDAY MIRROR'S article on Britain's Got Talent winner George Sampson makes a subtle point which pretty much sums up Britain when it described how viewers got behind him after hearing his hard-luck story.

George, for those of you who have maintained a life in recent weeks rather than be glued to the series, is a dancer. In my opinion, not a particularly good one. He's in his early teens and didn't even make the semi finals last year.

Who is a the best April Fools prankster of them all?

Posted by Remote Control on April 1, 2008 7:44 PM

So there you go. April Fools Day 2008 been and gone. You can believe what you see on the TV again (unless its Sky News and they have the words breaking news on the screen, in which case it's wise to remember the phrase "never wrong for long.")

But who took the biscuit for best April Fools? Certainly Google sprung a good one, tricking many people into believing it had invented a new search facility which enables you to look at what tomorrow's search results would look like.

The Apprentice: A hero found already?

Posted by Remote Control on March 27, 2008 12:50 AM

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I said in a blog posting earlier this week that the Apprentice would be utterly boring if the producers didn't inject something a little different into the mix.

By chance, it appears they have: class warfare. Whether they meant to add it in or not doesn't matter I suppose, but there's no doubting that at the end of week one, it's Alex Wotherspoon who appears to have come out of things best.

Hotel Babylon? Bobbins

Posted by Remote Control on March 26, 2008 2:51 PM

There was quite fun piece on MSN yesterday about the UK's favourite TV phrases. I suspect it came from one of those survey press releases which appear in abundance on newsdesks the week before a bank holiday because PRs somehow think they are more likely to get them in print when news editors think no-one else is reading.

All the usual catchphrases are in there - Only Fools and Horses (plonker), The Simpson (Doh!) The Apprentice (You're Fired) - all catchphrases which bring a smile to the face because you know you enjoy watching the programmes from which they come from (or, in the case of The Apprentice because someone is being humiliated).

Steve Scott v Bizarre ER

Posted by Remote Control on March 7, 2008 6:58 PM

IT'S probably all Michael Burke's fault. While everyone's always known that things involving the police, ambulance or fire service will quite normally fill up slots on the news, it was probably Michael Burke's 999 programme which first set off the emergency services as an entertainment industry too.

Dexter (with video trailer): Good cop and bad cop combined?

Posted by Remote Control on March 1, 2008 6:58 PM

Good cop, bad cop – the tired staple of many an American drama series has been given a whole new lease of life on UK telly screens thanks to the arrival of Dexter (ITV 4, Sunday, 10pm; second episode ITV 1, Thursday, 10.35pm).

But what I can’t work out is if it’s any good or not. In a nutshell, Dexter is a blood pattern analyist for the cops in Miami. And when he’s not helping provide the evidence for cases, he’s dishing out his own form of justice. As a serial killer, bunking off those who evade the law.

Episode one, which aired last week and is on again on Sunday, saw him see off two people – a serial child killer and a bloke who is in to making snuff movies. We don’t actually see the full killing of them, but we do know his way of seeing them off is as brutal as it is methodical.


Change is good - and Bill Bailey dances with dogs

Posted by Remote Control on February 22, 2008 5:34 PM

MUCH debate in the last few weeks about Ashes to Ashes - rip roaring success or just a slapstick Life on Mars? Two distinct camps appear to be emerging - those who wanted Life on Mars to be recreated in the 1980s, and those who just like the new show.

Me? I fall into the second camp. Change can be a good thing, and the whole point of Ashes to Ashes is that the central character - DI Alex Drake - actually understands what is happening to her. She gets that has slipped into a coma and is now living out some bizarre life in the 1980s. She understands this because she has studied Sam Tyler, the star of Life On Mars, who was transported back to the 1970s when he went into a coma.