Goodbye Originality: Welcome To The Age Of Rewhatever

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ reinvention of Sherlock Holmes is the latest in a long list of remakes and reimagining’s that is swamping both television and film. Though Moffat and Gatiss have taken a uniquely original approach to well-worn source material, Sherlock nevertheless adds to a growing infection within screen story-telling. Where are the new ideas? Where is the creativity?

In recent years we have been treated (though I use the term loosely) to a plethora of television remakes, or ‘updates’, which have brought revered shows into the twenty-first century, often with varying degrees of success. The BBC’s Survivors was generally favourably received, though the ratings slowly tailed off. Another Moffat creation, Jekyll, performed well. Shane Ritchie’s Minder, which the makers described as a revival rather than a remake (notice the frequent use of ‘re-‘ to denote a lack of original thinking), only lasted for six episodes. Doctor Who’s rejuvenation has been a great success though.

But should we be worried by these reimaginings, retellings, reinventions or whatever whimsical word they want to prefix the term ‘re’ to excuse the dredging up of old material? The new American series of The Prisoner was received with mixed feelings – which given the cult status attached to the original, was something of an achievement. But despite all this chat of “bringing classic shows to a fresh audience” shouldn’t these great pieces of television be left alone, ala Blackadder? Read more

“Please Not Tydlesley!”: World Cup Pundit Review

What do vuvuzelas, Louie Spence and getting your foreskin caught in your flies all have in common? All are significantly less painful and annoying than the recent World Cup coverage.

Football is a game of opinions. Watching a game of football is like reading a novel or watching a film: they are all open to interpretation. Ideally, coverage should be like a York Notes for football, offering in-depth analysis that would make even @zonal_marking purr. Instead, the World Cup coverage provided by BBC and ITV is the equivalent of having the finer nuances of The Brothers Karamazov explained by Miss South Carolina. I feel as though I’ve spent the last month being bludgeoned to death by clubs made out of chicken wire, tired clichés and human faeces.

The anchors of both stations are largely inoffensive, though Adrian Chiles’ pre USA versus England anti-America tirade was a miscalculation to say the least. It is not even the multitude of errors (most notably ITV HD opting to cut to an advertisement as Steven Gerrard opened the scoring against the USA) that riles me. Rather, it is the complete lack of intelligent discussion from the “expert” pundits.

Alan Shearer, whose hairline has receded further than a Shaolin Monks’ testes, is less insightful than a cephalopod mollusc – although Paul the psychic octopus has been particularly acute with his recent predictions. Shearer is as intelligent as his goal scoring celebration was creative and when commenting on Pele’s assertion that an African team would win the World Cup before 2000, he muttered: “I think it’s going to be longer”. Really, Alan? Are you sure? Read More…

Big Brother Fans: Fickle

Big Brother fans across the country will be looking on in interest this afternoon to see if close friends Caoimhe and Shabby actually make good on the threat they made last night and walk off the reality show. If they do join the small percentage of renegade contestants to actually storm from the Elstree compound, then we won’t be hearing any whoops of delight from show producers.

When the pair came to the diary room resolved in their decision to leave yesterday, they were persuaded to delay their exit until the morning, whereupon they would be allowed to walk if their determination was still undimmed. But this was not a case of making the girls sweat, indeed if anyone was sweating it was the execs on the other side of the one-way glass.

Producers have long understood the importance of holding on to the most unpopular (and therefore the most interesting) housemates and following the exit of the dizzily myopic Sunshine on Friday, they were probably panicking at the prospect of losing their three most watchable contestants in the space of two days. Read More…

Over The Rainbow: They Think It’s All Over – It Is Now

OVER THE RAINBOW: Saturday 22nd May, BBC1, 7pm ALERT ME

Over The Rainbow warbles towards its conclusion this Saturday when the public decides which contestant deserves to seize the coveted prize of playing Dorothy in the West End.

Whittled down to the final three out of a starting eleven, fans are in for a nail-biting finish with two thin brunettes dominating the fixture. Will it be Danielle, Sophie or Lauren? Which dog will be crowned Toto? Will they be able to impress Andrew Lloyd’s Bank and Chardonnay Church? Who even gives a s***?

Quite how the BBC has gotten away with these hour-long adverts for Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals will leave many feeling stunned. Considering Over The Rainbow’s ultimate achievement is to act as a PR exercise for its future production, it is extraordinarily cynical of the Beeb to make air time available to promote “the Lord’s” current monstrosity Love Never Dies. Read More…

Our Daughter, The Mermaid Review: Poor Unfortunate Soul

BODYSHOCK – OUR DAUGHTER, THE MERMAID: Tuesday 17th May, Channel 4, 10pm ALERT ME

In a recent interview with Radio 4 Francesca Martinez defended her decision to appear on Ricky Gervais’ Extras on the basis that any opportunity to bring a disabled character into the mainstream should be leapt on. According to Martinez, Ricky Gervais was not mocking anyone with disabilities, he was in fact confronting the public with their own prejudices. In the same interview Victoria Lucas – who suffers from a facial disfigurement – challenged Martinez by recalling an event where the Extras creator and his cohorts mocked her repeatedly with Gervais at one point asking where, in Karl Pilkington’s opinion, she came in that year’s “freak list”. Even after Lucas had lodged a complaint Gervais continued his usual tired line of comic phrasing by telling Pilkington she “was bigger, at least head wise” for having supposedly not sought an official channel to have her grievances heard. Martinez was stumped and will probably be re-viewing her cameo in a different light. Read More…

Simon Cowell and his cynical hit machine

Here’s a little tidbit of information for you: today, Alexandra Burke, winner of last year’s X-Factor, signed a £3.5million deal with Epic, an imprint of Sony. I know that the majority of Britain will probably toast the achievement – it’s well known that breaking the US is one of the most difficult things for any act to pull off, a fact demonstrated by Oasis’s failure to make any real impact – but to me it is a terrible indictment of our own gullibility, and its infectious nature. How on earth do we allow ourselves to be convinced by the hyped up, turgid dross that Simon Cowell feeds us? How are we not left feeling like foie gras geese – overfed, bored and vaguely frightened?

It seems sad to me that as a whole we repeatedly fall for Simon Cowell’s hit-making cynicism. He has a formula worked out that is slowly chipping away at the core of the music industry – quality music – and turning it into a commercial and corporate farce. The charts have become a circus, and Cowell is cracking the whip. By running his TV shows, Cowell obviously gains publicity, but he also makes it possible for viewers to empathise with artists in a way they’ve never been able to before, regardless of talent. In the past, before Cowell and his Syco label became so prevalent, talent came first – musicians were known primarily for their work, often without even being recognisable names – but now personality is at the forefront and the target audience feels like it knows the artist before they ever even sing their own songs, a situation which would have been laughable even ten years ago. Read more, my therapist said it was important.

Tragi-comedy

I can barely contain my rage. I have a tingling at the base of my neck, a cold shiver down my spine. My eyes water and my ears pop…David Mitchell and Robert Webb are writing a sitcom, of all things.

Sitcoms p*ss me off. The occasional gem can undoubtedly be dug up from amongst the dross, but when a comedian of the quality of Jack Dee, or actors like Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker can’t save the primetime sitcom then I have little hope for Mitchell and Webb, much as I loved Peep Show. The majority of sitcoms are just crap. You sit down to watch the first episode eager for a laugh, but more than that, in the hope that there’ll be a decent story, but halfway through you’re on the balcony having a cigarette whilst the TV plays to an empty room.

The problem is that all that is funniest about human relationships, that bedrock upon which a sitcom is built, isn’t suitable for a mainstream primetime audience. So we end up with these boring pieces of dross like My Family, Beautiful People and Hyperdrive. It takes a writer of remarkable sensitivity, combined with exactly the right cast, to produce a decent sitcom, and it makes me both angry and sad that I can be so certain that Mitchell and Webb’s sitcom will just add to the canon of horse sh*t we’ve become accustomed to.

That Mitchell and Webb look showed that they haven’t the nuance or understanding of any particular eccentricity to write anything riotously funny, unlike Graham Linehan’s wonderful skewed stereotypes in Black Books and Father Ted or Simon Pegg’s sharp portrayal of wasted youth. They’re great actors, but they just don’t have the requisite way with words to put together a decent sitcom.

There’s already too much perfectly good talent being wasted on idiotic, unoriginal shows. Please, Mitchell and Webb, don’t add to that list.

By Chris Harding

First Class Fib

Could someone explain how adverts in this country still get away with just blatantly lying? Halifax are running ads where entire regions of staff appear to be dancing around the street singing joyfully about how good everything is. Has anyone told them that there’s a pretty serious recession going on and if they returned to their desks and got back to work they’d probably find a P45 resting on top of their ‘to do’ pile? Likewise has anyone mentioned to advertisers who insist on basing ads around happy go lucky call centre staff that in reality, most spend the day either trying desperately to pass the ‘Chapter 1 – greetings’ section in their English language workbook or by flicking through the department code list trying to find some other chump to deal with the problem?

However, there is only one winner when it comes to most deluded advert of all time. Thankfully no longer in existence (ironically, now providing a better service than when they were), Virgin Trains seemed to pride themselves on taking a white lie and making it whiter. Anyone that can remember the variety of TV outings Virgin Trains mustered up whilst delivering the cross country train service will recognize the tag line ‘Love every second’ and recollect images of happy passengers blissfully speeding through picturesque countryside. With this is in mind let’s look at some of the stages of a Virgin adventure that made it all so special:

-Ticket doesn’t arrive in post- Call helpline who say it was sent, but turns out they were delivering it by rail so it’ll be a couple of days… Ominous.

- Arrive at the station to discover your train has been held up just outside Birmingham (interesting to note at this point, in one of the adverts, the Virgin train effortlessly survives an attack by Red Indians but here, seemingly can’t get the better of a bored teenager trespassing on the lines in Crewe)

- Finally get on the train an hour and a half late to discover the electrics are down so your reserved seat now belongs to a guy who is chewing on a bone and has ‘death to all’ tattooed across his forehead. You decide against raising the issue.

- Fortunately you are able to sit on your bag in the train corridor as there is no space to put it anywhere else. Despite this being a ‘cross country’ service it is shrewdly assumed by some higher powers that no one will bring any luggage. The only nuisance with the corridor is constantly maneuvering awkwardly so that other passengers can get to the toilets… The toilet wall could definitely afford to be a bit thicker. You buy some overpriced ear plugs.

- As it’s a long trip you risk leaving your stuff and head for the buffet to discover that a Bacon sandwich, looking as though it’s fallen off several lorries before being sold second hand twice on Ebay during it’s journey to the shelf costs a mere low interest mortgage (which can be purchased through Virgin’s new onboard banking service). Some people decide to pay in jewelry and family members instead.

- Arrive four hours late to discover you have missed the local connecting train and a night in the station beckons. Before you can complain to Virgin staff they have hopped back on board and ironically left 5 minutes early to get back down the country.

Love Every Second? How are taglines like this still legal?

I say lets start a name and shame campaign! What are the adverts that have p*ssed you off? Now is your time to tell us…

By Craig Woods

Rant: Sort it out Setanta!

Setanta’s purchase of the exclusive rights to broadcast England’s away qualifying games for The World Cup 2010 is yet another example of their aggressive attempts to muscle in on the Sky’s domination of non-terrestrial coverage of top-class football.

OK, so everything is fair in love and the televised sport war, but while Sky have always played by gentleman’s rules, allowing free-to-air channels to show highlights of games at a later time in the same day for a reasonable price, Setanta whacked a whopping £5 million price-tag on their highlight package. Thus, the BBC and ITV were locked in a bidding war with Setanta in which neither side caved in, and so terrestrial viewers could not watch any footage of an England game for the first time in over fifty years. Rubbish.

Setanta previously angered football fans by making it necessary to subscribe to both Sky and Setanta if they wanted to watch their team play in the Premiership. The Croatia game though, was the final straw, resulting in downright justified anti-Setanta chants during that and subsequent England internationals.

This is not the only example of big business’s blatant disregard for football fans. This season Channel 5 have bought the rights to the UEFA cup, the poor mans European Champion’s League. They have chosen to screen the matches in a consecutive format, which means changing the kick-off times. A round of fixtures on October 2nd demonstrated the madness of this format: Tottenham Hotspur were asked to kick of at 2.40pm in Krakow on a Thursday. Prime time! Then the football was put on hold for Neighbours and Home and Away before Everton kicked off against Standard Liege at 6.40 and Portsmouth played Portugal at 9.35pm.

Portsmouth followers complained about their kick-off time of 6pm in the first leg, which had forced them to leave work early. Although 9.35am sounds more reasonable, the problem was that the game was tied meaning that extra time ran ‘til well past midnight. Add to that the weary trip home and an early start for work the next morning and you’ve got some grumpy-arse fans. Staff weren’t all that happy either. The team got back to the hotel at 2.30am on Friday and had to fly back for a game against Stoke on Saturday.

Greedy TV stations should rub some of the pound signs out of their eyes and bloody well wake up to the reason why football is such a lucrative business in the first place: the fans. Ok, make money from covering games but this should not be at the expense of the millions of people who are, after all, your customers!

By Charlie Coffey

Rant: Bloggers Who Should Know Better

A few days ago there was a blog on the Guardian website titled ’sick to death of sex and violence’ which called for HBO to ‘excercise restraint’ on its dramas.

Diane Shipley goes to town on such shows as Big Love, The Wire, Californication, Dexter and Weeds.

I have seen all of these shows, and mostly I have seen every episode of all of these shows. They involve a fair amount of sex and violence. They are also by far some of the most superbly written, acted and at times profound dramas to grace the U.S. telly network. And yeah, they are sometimes not easy to watch.

However I find it disturbing that anyone could compare Desperate Housewives and Weeds as Shipley does ‘I’d much rather watch ABC’s Desperate Housewives than weeds…both attempt to subvert the suburban experience but, lacking the constraints imposed by a network, Weeds always takes things too far…’

Yep, they do certainly subvert the suburban experience except that one of these shows is a well written, ethically challenging, thought provoking drama and the other is a soap opera. Guess which is which? It’s like saying Shameless should be more like Hollyoaks and I find it weird.

Sure, if you prefer DH there’s no problem with that. It’s a fun, trivial easy to watch show. But don’t call for HBO to stop challenging its audiences, stop pushing the envelope of social query that they do so well. The Wire is often described as one of the best, most realistic cop shows, if not TV shows, ever made. I would rather watch The Wire than Holby City any day. And I will take Weeds over DH a thousand days over.

“Although they all have great production values and occasionally feature a likeable character, they are for the most part low on charm and lacking in subtlety.” She says, referring to The Wire, Californication and Dexter. She then goes on to describe how she watched one episode of Weeds in which the main character “abruptly engaged in energetic sex on a kitchen counter. For no reason.” Actually, if she’d seen more than one episode then she would know this is not for no reason- Nancy Botwin is a character that is sexually reckless and often uses this sexuality to manipulate her way out of difficult situations. It is one of her key flaws.

If you prefer easy watching TV then that’s fine, but don’t try to pretend it is a flaw in the shows that is the problem. If you personally don’t like the violence or sexuality in them then don’t watch them, but please acknowledge that the difference between these shows and a soap is that these dramas actually examine society in all its messiness; its dark corners and hidden stories. What sex and violence is in them is used to this end.

Also, perhaps, watch more than an episode before dismissing them.

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