I did say at the start of this year that I wanted to write more reviews of TV things but I’ve failed miserably so far but I can at least come up with something to say about tonight’s torrrent of fresh comedy on BBC2.

Fear, Stress and Anger is one of those sitcoms that with a few minor tweaks could easily have screened with a laughtrack on BBC1, but thank god it didn’t go that way. Had it not been for a few short clips I saw on Richard & Judy this week, that nearly had me on the floor laughing, I probably wouldn’t have even given it a 5 minute trial. It’s the simplest of set-ups, baby-boomer parents with 20-something children who won’t leave home and all that that implies, in fact now that I think about it, it’s almost too close to Jack Dee’s Lead Balloon for comfort. But, honestly, at times it’s unspeakably funny, and it only got better as it went on for me. I didn’t think there would be anything funnier in this first episode than the grandma-in-the-lift scene I’d already seen, but the stuff with the dog and the final dinner party argument scene had me in stitches, then, finally, the absence of a laugh track allows for it to stray into slightly more emotional matter which I hope they keep tapping into, moreso if possible, in future episodes. It’s too soon to say whether this is brilliant or anything, but it certainly has more potential than I would’ve given it credit for. It’s simple, even asinine, clichéd sitcom stuff, lol, but it’s executed so perfectly and differently, it’s far from as bad as I expected.

Dead Ringers – hard to say anything new, this one has won me over many times in the past. But The Queen doing Helen Mirren’s part in “Prime Suspect” was probably the stand-out skit, and Judi Dench phoning the Academy saying ‘there’s a rumour about H’ to win another Oscar (“We’ve all done Queens, love, I spent 8 minutes in ruffles once …”) a close second.

The Graham Norton Show – truly didn’t know what to expect from this, and I expected the worst, ‘cos he has kind of phoned himself in a lot in the past. But the first two minutes of this worked about as well as the first two minutes of last year’s Torchwood in that it completely made sure ‘the wrong audience’ weren’t watching. Like, you can imagine a lot of kiddy fans of Doctor Who tuning into Torchwood and their parents happily letting them, right up until that first f-bomb was dropped. Here, you can totally imagine, as the many ads for the show actually did, cheery old church-going types tuning in thinking, “Oh, it’s that Graham Norton, he was so good on that Maria thing, and with the Dancing, that’ll be a nice show!” but ohhhhhhhhhhh no. It’s almost as if he started out being rude on Channel 4, turned all conservative with the BBC, and now has almost been catapulted back beyond the depravity of his 4 days, lol. When Kim Cattrall says, “I didn’t know you could say that,” Graham responds, “I don’t know, maybe we can’t,” and you find yourself thinking, “Can you?”, you know you’re not wasting your time, lol.

So anyway, that’s a must-see 90 minutes for the next 5 or so Thursdays Oh and of course later on is Man Stroke Woman – always painfully sidesplitting

While I’m here, I guess this might turn out to be the way I do my TV things, like a few things at a time, ‘cos looking at my log for the year so far, I do seem to be watching more than I could possibly keep track of on an individual basis, lol. So I may as well play catch up. I just caught up on the first couple of episodes of Primeval – dubbed ITV’s answer to Doctor Who – pah. I already felt this was a slightly enthusiastic claim and had already decided before even watching that it was probably closer to Torchwood if anything. Now that I’ve seen some of it, I have to admit, it’s annoyingly watchable and it’s nothing to do with Hannah Spearitt (who was to be my last possible reason for watching the show) – but really, so far, it’s closer to The Sarah Jane Smith Adventures than anything, with elements more of Mimic than Jurassic Park, and hints at an annoyingly “We promise we’ll tell you what’s going on next week! Promise! PINKY PROMISE! PLEASE DON’T TURN OFF! They beat us when you do!” mystery to rival that of Lost. But anyway, for now, I’ll keep watching. At least it’s only 6 eps, lol.

Queued up I have Heroes (on Richard and Judy today, again, I think I’ll regret watching this because I’m bound to get into it, and it looks like yet another slick, technically perfect show with nothing to say except “PLEASE DON’T TURN US OFF!!!”), Skins (actually looks interesting), Five Days and still last year’s The State Within as well as any number of things I’ve got lying around from decades past lol. Meanwhile, I feel compelled to watch Hayley Mills in Wild at Heart because she’s too much fun even though she hasn’t really made the show much better.

Anyway, same time next month, right?

Addendum: OOooooh and Lily Allen on This Week nice treat lol, except I wish she’d stop itching her head, lol, is this like part of her street image, she has nits??? But no, she’s cool despite the itching lol. I forgot to mention the other side of Thursday night which is the two great political programs, This Week and Question Time.

Addendum 2: First two episodes of Five Days weren’t too bad. Sarah Smart wasn’t in it nearly enough for me, but maybe that’ll change in further episodes … the ending of the first certainly took me by surprise. But anyway, how good is Penelope Wilton???? Between her fleeting moments in this and her role in Shaun of the Dead I could easily have a new fave actress. Give her a BAFTA TV award right now! Oh and there’s also a girl in this, I don’t know her name for sure but deducing from the IMdb credits and boards I think it’s Lucinda Dryzek, who I wouldn’t mind them replacing Emma Watson with in future Harry Potter movies – she’s a great actress, looks a lot like Emma, and it doesn’t hurt that she’s practically dressed here as Hermione is in Azkaban, lol.

Just a top ten for this one. I didn’t give myself enough time to do this, ultimately. I hadn’t realised how much stuff I’d watched this year, there’s like 60 separate shows in the master list I’ve been working on over the past month or so, just yanking titles out of my memory, and I just know there’s other things, possibly even great things, I’m forgetting. I’ll keep a better log next year. I didn’t factor in how drunk I get on New Year’s Eve, among other things. But this is what I have at the time of posting. It’s probably pretty close to my true feelings. But “Jam and Jerusalem” really is the best thing I’ve seen all year, possibly better even than that. I’m just vaguely thinking about the show and I get a lump in my throat about how beautiful a picture Jennifer Saunders painted with her words and characters.

Oh yes, and I admit, I just realised, I’m quite the BBC whore, lol.

Jam and Jerusalem – as I said just now, just beautiful. I watched the whole thing with a homely grin on my face and on the verge of tears; even the Christmas special which was well within its rights to be cheesy turned out beautiful, if only for the moment it made me miss terribly a character we never even met in the series. Jennifer Saunders would’ve been a genius in my eyes if she’d only done Ab Fab … this is a whole new world, and I love it.
The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard – Jane Horrocks literally at her best, excelling even herself, inspiring, thought-provoking, and the ending actually changed my outlook on a lot of things.
afterlife – series 2 – I did worry about this one because I felt the first series was quite perfectly self-contained, and when Robert got the tumor I seriously could’ve switched off if my mood had been bad – so many shows have been ruined by that plot turn – but the last couple of episodes of this series, in fact the penultimate one was one of the most brilliantly written things I’ve seen in years, had me bauling my eyes out. Bring on the 3rd series, I really trust these guys to make gold out of lead now.
Time Trumpet – dark comedy in the Chris Morris mould. Just genius, if only for the Tesco wars skit. In fact, this one bears uploading, but luckily someone else put it on YouTube, ‘cos I’m too lazy to help you.
Extras – series 2 – just brilliant. More emotional, bigger stars, and I think the greatest praise to give it is to comment on how much Stephen Merchant outshone Ricky Gervais and Ashley Jensen. Merchant is probably responsible for more of my semi-fatal laughs this year than any other individual. He’s a comedy god.
Torchwood – what I love most about this show, and I keep telling people whether they want to know or not, is how free it feels. The stories are all over the place, and yes they sometimes suck badly. But it really feels like these guys are feeling their way around, finding out what works, finding what’s new, what’s good, what’s bad, like starting from the beginning again. With so many shows settling dismally into the reliable, this one is much needed. And when it’s good, it freakin’ awesome.
Doctor Who – if I watched this again right now I’m sure it’d be number one in this list, so I apologise, but it feels like too long ago now for me to make further comment other than including in the list where I’m sure it belongs.
That Mitchell and Webb Look – cracked me up continuously. “Hans … are we the bad guys?” “Oh and that’s a bad miss.” “And now he’s dead from too much electric!!!” This possibly matched my own personal sense of humour better than anything I’ve ever seen.
Countdown – I’m probably banishing better stuff from my list with this, but y’know, I have watched this show almost religiously this year, and I thought Desmond Lynam was a terrific replacement for Richard Whiteley and some people have been terrifically mean about him. If I’m the only person counting this in their favourite TV shows of the year, I still feel like I’m not doing enough. But it’s all I can do. I’ll watch one of Des O’Connor’s shows, but if I stick around as a fan it will only be because Susie Dent is so gorgeous.
Saxondale – it’s Steve Coogan, for heck’s sake, with character I personally found just as brilliant as Alan Partridge. I don’t know how this one came and went so invisibly. Its only fault was that it wasn’t on for long enough.

Honorable mentions – lots of them, mainly I don’t feel right including them in a top ten because they were one offs, and I know I might not ever watch them again and I don’t see myself actively seeking them out for a repeat viewing despite how perfect they were at the time – “How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria?”, for better or worse, the most innocent reality show of the year; “Time Team’s Big Royal Dig”, I spent, what, 12 hours, 24 hours? watching this and it was the laziest, most perfect Summer Bank Holiday weekend ever, I loved it, even though they found shit lol; “Manchester Passion” – I really hope they show this again next year ‘cos this is one I really am dying to see again, I loved it; “Children’s Party at the Palace” – best children’s TV event I’ve seen since I was a kid; “Children in Need” and “Royal Variety” – just for the “Wicked” and “Avenue Q” clips ; “Derren Brown: Something Wicked This Way Comes” – watched this yesterday and it’s just genius, really caught me out, I wish I’d seen it live, but I’d be scared if I caught the monkey, lol.

And that’s all!

The “Two Pints” team have done it again. As with the musical special, I had no idea this (a horror special, if the title doesn’t give it away) was coming as the series finale. The musical special (“When Janet Met Jonny”) remains one of the most amazing, hilarious, I even say beautiful, things I’ve ever seen on TV, and I’ve gotta admit that while it was a pleasant surprise when the announcer said the words “horror special”, the idea didn’t appeal to me as instantly as the musical idea.

The great thing is that, like the musical special, the team hardly ever resort to the more obvious parodies. Here, Jonny’s demise resembles a Freddy Krueger nightmare, and the ending is also a direct rip from the first of those movies, but that’s about it. Oh, they also pay a nice homage to the musical special itself, too, in a direct copy of the “jammy dodger rolls away from Jonny” shot which will amuse more the fans who have seen the outtakes show too (in which they insanely try to make a dodger – that’s a biscuit to the unaware – roll with precision to stop on the edge of a step). (update 1st May ‘06: oops, it seems my memory’s been warped by the out-takes show, I just watched the musical again and that shot isn’t there – I guess the out-takes show, which aired weeks ago, included out-takes from the new series, even unaired eps – I was sure that dodger shot appeared in the musical though, lol).

Again, as with the musical special, they bring everything the genre in question is about into the fray without losing the central comedy that the show should be – something I was a little worried as the episode began might be allowed to slide, especially in the absence of a laugh track. In the musical, it was the occasional glitz and the emotion that came in; here, it’s the gore (the “curse” makes all the characters doomed to die at the hands of the thing they love the most … consider that one character, Louise, loves herself more than anything …), the bizarre eroticism (Donna’s body is severed at the waist – Gaz loves Donna’s legs …), and the quite genuinely creepy atmosphere.

An amazing end to what has been a brilliant, not to mention unexpected from the very start (I only heard there was a new series days before the first episode went out, I really thought it was over since the team went on to make “Grown Ups”), series of easily one of my favourite sitcoms.

Season One

Well, I finished watching the whole first season of this show and I need to remind myself this TV section exists

I got wind of the fact it starred one of the little girls from the awesome School of Rock, Miranda Cosgrove, who played ‘class factotum’ Summer in that movie, and that’s why I started to watch it but I ended up completely addicted.

Pauses to insert gratuitous pic of the cute Miranda.

Isn’t she the cutest? And evil, too In the show :-p

My liking, scratch that, loving this show is probably less about it being necessarily good than about me being in the right mood for it, really needing something like this, and finding something that sorta feels like “mine” ‘cos nobody else I know watches it as passionately. Cosgrove plays the eponymous half-brothers’ evil little sister so well it makes me desperately want to be someone’s evil little sister. As to the boys themselves, they’ve really grown on me. Josh Peck cracks me up, he’s a true natural at comedy. All the gags are the corniest corn of corn but they’re stretched so far and delivered so pitch perfect I can’t help myself. Then there’s the guests like Gary Coleman as himself and Fred Savage directing, for god’s sake, and the silly ideas like someone parking the mean teacher’s car in the classroom and the cuteness of minor characters like Drake’s ‘number one fan’ (the sweetest episode so far) and the ridiculously lame trademark substitutes like Dr. Fizz and Gamesphere etc … it’s just all so … funny, lol.

It’s a show I definitely intend to watch until it fades away. I already watched the first episode of season two, and Megan actually spanked Josh there, lol, so consider me a disturbingly hooked boob, lol

Well I finally finished watching this 15-part series adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel (the last episode went out just before Christmas), and though I couldn’t begin to outline the story if it were asked of me, I’m glad I stuck it out and I might finally be interested in reading his work (to date I think I’ve only ever read an abridged version of “Oliver Twist”, if that, when I was a kid).

It really has everything, from laughs with people like Matthew Kelly, Johnny Vegas and Philip Davis (“Shake me up, Judy!”) to the deepest darkest horrors of poverty stricken streets of London, romance, sadness, and intrigue, not to mention a simply beautiful ending. The cast was well hyped, and not without good reason – Charles Dance, Gillian Anderson, Timothy West, Denis Lawson and the less-well-known Anna Maxwell Martin all turn in some incredible work. If I can find the cash, I might get this on DVD and give it more of my attention.

This has been marked as a draft since Halloween, lol, and I need more stuff in my TV section so I’m just gonna polish it as best I can and publish

I recorded the first 3 weeks of this series never getting round to watching but once I did, I couldn’t wait for the remaining episodes. This has been an incredible series, my only real complaint being that it’s been too short!

It has a classic set-up in its main characters – Alison, a woman blessed (or cursed) against her will with the ability to see spirits, and Robert, a skeptical pyschology lecturer haunted by the memory of his son who died in a car accident. The Exorcist (Merrin and Karras), The X-Files (Mulder and Scully) and Carl Sagan’s Contact (Ellie and Palmer) have all used this set-up to great effect in similar situations of paranormal conflict. Faith and science is one of the great ongoing debates and “Afterlife” is no exception in demanding its viewer to open its mind, if only just a little bit. The end of the last episode indicates a post-story (or, please, second series) that could take this battle even further.

It’s not without bias – we see the spirits as clearly as Alison most of the time, and the show frequently breaks rules one kind of assumes must be in place. Sometimes, the “guest” characters can see the spirits too (Episode 3); sometimes, the spirits take matters into their own hands; sometimes, in the very first episode in fact, Alison reads the situation very wrong indeed. It’s a little hokey sometimes – episode 2 (“Lower Than Bones”, a very emotional story about a little girl drowned trying to find and punish her killer) takes a particularly easy way out, kind of breaking one of the rules I would’ve thought to be sort of implicit in a show like this (the girl takes direct action herself in the end to solve her problem after speaking through Sharp fails – and “Angels” at the end of a funeral …. aaarrrrrgh ! vomit).

As Alison, Lesley Sharp turns in one of the best television performances I’ve seen in years. She should could convince the most narrow-minded skeptic to at least have an inkling of doubt about their beliefs.

I just read that series 2 has been confirmed and will run for 8 episodes instead of this series’ 6. Awesome

Starting a new section, television, for this one: for now it’ll just blend in to the rest of the site but I am planning a total redesign so bear with me

This is a tough thing to write about because, like all Chris Morris’ work, it really challenges the viewer to make the kind of decision that’s increasingly difficult to make these days: how to react. Even by writing that, I feel like I may have fallen into a trap, by even thinking just a little too much about what Nathan Barley “means”.

Nathan Barley is the kind of young man you see everywhere. He runs an uber-hip website, trashbat.co.ck (yep, that domain really does work), which is filled with weird videos, pranks on the general public (happy-slapping would be the real-life equivalent), he has the latest phone which does everything, a bluetooth headset attached to each ear, follows every trend, talks loudly into his phone on the bus about his amazing life … you get the picture. Dan Ashcroft considers him an idiot. Ashcroft writes for a magazine called SugarApe, which has recently changed its logo to look like “RAPE” with the ‘suga’ inside the R. Ashcroft likes to think he’s not an idiot, but he’s recently started to realise that he appears to be surrounded by them. Strapped for cash, he agrees to write articles about idiot artists and calling them geniuses, only to find himself physically incapable of doing such a thing. Meanwhile, Barley’s popularity seems to know no limits, driving Ashcroft to extreme tactics to prove who’s the idiot in the equation.

I think that’s as good a summary as I can provide. The whole thing is about how society decides what is cool, and that’s why I wrote at the start of this that it’s hard to write about Nathan Barley. There are some interesting discussions going on the IMDb right now. The thing is, the show itself here is almost a part of the concept. There will be people who find Nathan Barley cool because of the surface stuff, the shock language and the cheap laughs. And there’ll be the people who find it cool for deeper, ironic reasons. Then there’s people like me who think it’s pretty amazing for the sheer number of reactions it could provoke, it makes you think. Who knows what Chris Morris’ intention was. I’d like to think he’s poking fun at those who simply didn’t ‘get’ his earlier work, yet who still proclaimed its genius because he did things that made the Daily Mail readership fume. He’s probably out to get everybody, though – I think most people will probably watch this and at some point say to themselves, “F*ck! I do that!”. Or maybe it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s all possible, but you’ve got to make up your own mind in the end.

My favourite moment in the whole series could be in the final episode when Ashcroft catches Nathan Barley out and treats him to a taste of his own medicine. He forces Barley to approach a stranger while he films the encounter on Barley’s phone to go on the website. Barley has to throw peanuts into this stranger’s face, then pour a pint over his head, and finally kick him in the groin. All the way through, this stranger (who recognises Barley) thinks he is part of some kind of “happening” but finally with the kick in the groin, he says that Barley has gone too far. He then pauses after Barley has left, and sees Ashcroft with the phone. “Are you the crew?” he asks, “Am I at the centre of something? Is … something brilliant happening?” I think that’s really the whole show in a spectacularly concise nutshell.

I haven’t fully browsed the DVD yet, but it appears to have a nice selection of extras, including a Pilot episode, deleted scenes, a “re-dubbed” episode (not quite sure what this means but I’m guessing it’s like the extras on the “Jam” DVD – lava-lamp viewing option, mini viewing option, etc), trailers, etc, all accessible via some slightly hard to navigate but visually brilliant menus. The best thing about the DVD for me is the packaging, sturdy like a good hardback book, folding out to reveal the DVD and a small insert with a little paperback book containing photos, song lyrics, and general stuff. With 4-5 hours plus on the disc and this packaging, I think it’s well worth buying.