The consumer journalism genre is a weird hybrid of camp, post-modern irony and quasi-legal case-studies. That's Life set the template and it has survived almost unchanged- and Watchdog's latest iteration breaks no new ground. Tortuous links to pop culture, bad puns, chummy presenters? Check. Disatisfied customers filmed in their own homes recounting their experiences at great length? Check. Attempt to use the BBC's authority to force a response from the company? Check.
Not that this makes it bad, necessarily. But certainly stretched over an hour it seemed, well, stretched, jumping from story to story, delaying resolution of the individual strands as if forever fearful that once we'd seen the auctioneers emabnarssed we'd switch channel. The lame humour is an overlay to conceal the fundamentally dull subject matter of customers not getting quite what they wanted.
But there are problems with this format. Companies are media savvy. They know that giving an interview is risky and a prepared statement is not, so there are few Frost/Nixon moments when the Midland Widgets spokesperson admits red-faced to extracting salt from the tears of orphans for use in the staff canteen.
Equally, the days when consumer were powerless innocents at the mercy of big corporations have gone. Anyone can email the company, chatter in forums, set up a 'sucks' website, stalk wikipedia. In many cases the 'victim' is shown to have actually entered willingly into a contract which they now find uncongenial - and to expect the law to support them in their wish to escape is to undermine the entire principle of commerce. And of course there was a time when 'real people' would be invisible on screen - so That's Life tapped into the seam that later grew into docusoap and reality TV - unmediated (or apparently unmediated) platforms for the excluded eccentrics, gurners, talking dogs and all-round characters. People Like Us are now only kept off screen because they're boring or mad.
Consumers have rights. The 'name and shame on TV' route is not, as it effectively once was, the only recourse for those without legal backing - now it is a bizarre nuclear option that may or may not actually improve things.
There is no space in the gladiatorial arena for nuance - epitomised last night at the end of an item of supermarket pricing (supermarkets change their prices, you know, not always downwards) - the supermarket explained that 'the cost of some items had been affected by changes in the £/euro exchange rate'. Rather than check to see whether this was a fair point, Anne Robinson (who was a career journalist until a decade ago) sneered and said 'whatever that means!' and the other journalist shrugged. Yes, because how could TWO JOURNALISTS working on a BBC FACTUAL PROGRAMME cope with a concept so arcane that everybody who has ever been abroad would have encountered? And even if it were obscure, perhaps it would have been interesting and actually, you know, helpful, to explore the issue, talk to an expert, leave the viewers a little better informed, rather than just basking in the rosy glow of comnfort having seen the BBC tell off those naughty capitalists.
It is possible that this genre has run its course - improved consumer protection and greater knowledge have removed the need for media champions. Here's hoping.
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Friday, May 14, 2010
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Radio 4 comedy: no laughing matter
The much-anticipated post-Huphrey Lyttleton series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue has now started, under the genial chairmanship of His Twittership Stephen Fry. I didn't think it worked very well. Even under Humphrey, the programme had become stretched and formulaic, giving increasing time over to rounds to allow bad singers to sing badly, at the expense of lively wit. But Fry didn't work very well, mainly because he followed so closely the phrasing and persona established by Humphrey. The same occurred when Angus Deayton was replaced on Have I Got News For You? : not only did his successors sound like ill-at-ease imitators, by demonstrating how much was scripted, it cast a retrospective pall over Deayton's talent by revealing its origins. It seemed to be a lack of confidence by the Clue producers: Samantha and Sven have been a running joke for 10 years or more - isn't it time to start a new one? And when Fry introduced Sound Charades with a reference to Give Us a Clue, last broadcsat in 1992, didn't someone pause to calculate how many people will never have seen it? It is a shame that the opportunity to introduce some new rounds or jokes was missed.
But it is still the best comedy on Radio 4, compared to the anaemic Hut 33, the bizarre and laughter-free WW2 Bletchley Park drama, in which the cast do what they can with funny accents and overacting to compensate for the lack of jokes, or Elvenquest, the Lord of the Rings parody. Successful parodies of fantasies have to be based on a credible sincerity about the world they inhabit: Elvenquest instead was a rag-bag of incongruous banter. This wouldn't matter so much if the elements had been original, but they included an evil master suffering disillusionment at his role and an incompetent sidekick (as in Old Harry's Game), a dog's view on human behaviour (as in About a Dog), and the central relationship between a dithering 'hero' and a strong and dismissive heroine (as in Hitchkiker's Guide to the Galaxy). This last comparison is fatal - at one point I thought to myslef 'that's nearly up to H2G2 standards' - in other words, the comdey had almost got as far as a programme made 30 years ago.
There appears to be a strangehlold of large-cast underwritten mediocrity at the moment, in which series like Claire in the Community and Old Harry's Game stand out like beacons of competence.
But it is still the best comedy on Radio 4, compared to the anaemic Hut 33, the bizarre and laughter-free WW2 Bletchley Park drama, in which the cast do what they can with funny accents and overacting to compensate for the lack of jokes, or Elvenquest, the Lord of the Rings parody. Successful parodies of fantasies have to be based on a credible sincerity about the world they inhabit: Elvenquest instead was a rag-bag of incongruous banter. This wouldn't matter so much if the elements had been original, but they included an evil master suffering disillusionment at his role and an incompetent sidekick (as in Old Harry's Game), a dog's view on human behaviour (as in About a Dog), and the central relationship between a dithering 'hero' and a strong and dismissive heroine (as in Hitchkiker's Guide to the Galaxy). This last comparison is fatal - at one point I thought to myslef 'that's nearly up to H2G2 standards' - in other words, the comdey had almost got as far as a programme made 30 years ago.
There appears to be a strangehlold of large-cast underwritten mediocrity at the moment, in which series like Claire in the Community and Old Harry's Game stand out like beacons of competence.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Review: Not Going Out (Series 2), The IT Crowd (Series 2) and Dog Face
I wasn't sure about the first series of Not Going Out (BBC1); now it's back, and I'm becoming sure that it doesn't work. The loss of Megan Dodds left a major hole in the set-up that shoe-horning Sally Bretton into the flat as Tim's sister, Lucy, did not adequately fill. The process has exposed the interchangeability of Lee's sparring partners, and has done nothing to diminish the peripherality of Tim. The most surprising thing about the second series is a sad drop-off in the writing quality: in Series One, Lee's rants were clever and funny if rushed; now they are slower and less funny. The introduction of an incompetent Cockney cleaner smacks of desperation. This is not to say that it won't be popular, of course; just it won't stand out as deserving of it.
Another first series that promised more than it delivered was The IT Crowd (Channel 4), but this has matured into something very good, mainly because it is less interested in the rather cardboard corporate context and more interested in the interplay of Jen, Roy and Moss (and Richmond) as friends. Jen (Katherine Parkinson) has learned tounderplay her main face-twitching, so that all she needs to do is look blank as she finds the colleagues with whom she had started the evening have transformed themselves into a wheelchair-bound gay and a barman.
Dog Face (E4) explores the area of the comedy of embarassment mapped out by Little Britain. Ideas with potential, like the film subtitler who imports his personal vendettas into his work, are overplayed and rendered needlessly coarse, while others might have made a good single sketch but are repeated to the point of boredom, like the science teacher whose answer to difficult questions fromher class is to distract them by showing them her pants. I don't think they will be a second series to review; the debut episode was sneaked out without fanfare as if the broadcasters were unwilling to promote it.
Another first series that promised more than it delivered was The IT Crowd (Channel 4), but this has matured into something very good, mainly because it is less interested in the rather cardboard corporate context and more interested in the interplay of Jen, Roy and Moss (and Richmond) as friends. Jen (Katherine Parkinson) has learned tounderplay her main face-twitching, so that all she needs to do is look blank as she finds the colleagues with whom she had started the evening have transformed themselves into a wheelchair-bound gay and a barman.
Dog Face (E4) explores the area of the comedy of embarassment mapped out by Little Britain. Ideas with potential, like the film subtitler who imports his personal vendettas into his work, are overplayed and rendered needlessly coarse, while others might have made a good single sketch but are repeated to the point of boredom, like the science teacher whose answer to difficult questions fromher class is to distract them by showing them her pants. I don't think they will be a second series to review; the debut episode was sneaked out without fanfare as if the broadcasters were unwilling to promote it.
Friday, December 22, 2006
The skin factor: X Factor and reality TV racism
Leona Lewis is going to be the Christmas No. 1, and we have X Factor to thank for unearthing the new Maria Carey or Whitney Houston. I must admit I'm not sure we need a new Maria or Whitney, but then I'm not sure I needed the old ones. I don't watch X Factor- if I wanted to hear indifferent cover versions of 80s hits, I'd listen to Girls Aloud. But I would in any case be put off by the blatant manipulation of the ever-lengthening pause for the 'and the winner is...', a trend started by Davina and Ant&Dec, but now universal. I now avoid all results shows on principle. Imagine how fresh and shocking it would be if someone were to revert to saying simply 'hand up who's not been evicted - no, not you'. However, we also have the X factor to thank for killing off a tendentious strand of comment arguing that the UK public was too fundamentally racist to ever allow a black contestant to win a reality contest.
This view was first advanced by Faria Alam, philosopher, social commentator and person-famous-for-having-sex-with-slightly-more-famous-people to her Celebrity Big Brother housemates Dennis Rodman and Traci Bingham. She told them the British public would "never let a black or Asian win"; we were denied the opportunity to find out, since the public decided that it wouldn't let Americans or ex-PAs who they'd never heard of win, regardless of colour.
The Guardian's Comment is Free forums then spent the summer bickering about it: white liberals suggesting that the dismal record of non-white contestants was due to chance, their individual performance, or, perhaps, the tendency of the voting public (mainly the old and silly or the young and silly) to promote those who were most similar to themselves (although until BB6 I wouldn't have guessed there was such a large consituency of Portguese transsexuals in the UK). But now we can say straightforwardly that it is not true: the British public will vote for a black contestant. I never really accepted the argument: I think, and hope, that politeness and tolerance are virtues fostered here. I always feel a surge of pride when visiting London to see its astonishing casual cosmopolitanism (a word whose meaning is presumably being shifted towards 'very very interested in sex and make-up').
But what do we really think? The Freakonomics authors have looked at how people behave on the US version of the Weakest Link, to see who gets voted off despite scoring well. They conclude, perhaps surprisingly, that blacks are not discriminated against; the old and Hispanics are, though. There's all sorts of methodological pitfalls with studies of this kind: just how fixed are these racial categories? Are they self-descriptions, or based on the researcher's opinion? Is it based on skin colour, country of ancestry, language, name? But if they are describing a real phenomenon, I'm still not sure that their analysis is correct. They say that the reason that blacks are not discriminated against is because it is no longer socially acceptable to behave in an anti-black way. Why can't they accept that (white) people might not be anti-black?
This view was first advanced by Faria Alam, philosopher, social commentator and person-famous-for-having-sex-with-slightly-more-famous-people to her Celebrity Big Brother housemates Dennis Rodman and Traci Bingham. She told them the British public would "never let a black or Asian win"; we were denied the opportunity to find out, since the public decided that it wouldn't let Americans or ex-PAs who they'd never heard of win, regardless of colour.
The Guardian's Comment is Free forums then spent the summer bickering about it: white liberals suggesting that the dismal record of non-white contestants was due to chance, their individual performance, or, perhaps, the tendency of the voting public (mainly the old and silly or the young and silly) to promote those who were most similar to themselves (although until BB6 I wouldn't have guessed there was such a large consituency of Portguese transsexuals in the UK). But now we can say straightforwardly that it is not true: the British public will vote for a black contestant. I never really accepted the argument: I think, and hope, that politeness and tolerance are virtues fostered here. I always feel a surge of pride when visiting London to see its astonishing casual cosmopolitanism (a word whose meaning is presumably being shifted towards 'very very interested in sex and make-up').
But what do we really think? The Freakonomics authors have looked at how people behave on the US version of the Weakest Link, to see who gets voted off despite scoring well. They conclude, perhaps surprisingly, that blacks are not discriminated against; the old and Hispanics are, though. There's all sorts of methodological pitfalls with studies of this kind: just how fixed are these racial categories? Are they self-descriptions, or based on the researcher's opinion? Is it based on skin colour, country of ancestry, language, name? But if they are describing a real phenomenon, I'm still not sure that their analysis is correct. They say that the reason that blacks are not discriminated against is because it is no longer socially acceptable to behave in an anti-black way. Why can't they accept that (white) people might not be anti-black?
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Review: The Innocence Project
Law works well on television, with its theatrical conflicts, alternation between exposition and rhetoric, rivalries, alliances and betrayals. It's not surprising that it has spawned a long line of iconic series: The Paper Chase, LA Law, Ally McBeal, Law and Order. The British roll-call is less long and distinguished: apart from Rumpole, which plays for laughs, there's what, Sutherland's Law, Crown Court, Kavanagh QC, and Judge John Deeds, which just aren't as good.
Nor is The Innocence Project. As a concept it might have worked: law lecturer helps his students hone their skills by taking on cases of alleged miscarriage of justice the professionals wouldn't touch. But the execution proved fatal (as executions do). The students were too samey, not in the way real students are samey (overweight, smoking and scruffy), but all earnest and moderately well-kempt and deeply dull (and, one might add, wooden: either they are good actors trying to sound ill-at-ease with the concept of speech, or bad ones). This needn't have proved disastrous (much the same could be said of Torchwood, which gets by on energy).
At the heart of the failure is the story-telling. The nitwits sit in the pub, or sit in a big room with a white board on which they try to puzzle out the details:
"If the cat was on the mat, then .. he ... must .. have been ... sitting"
"Omigod, the witness said he saw the victim draw his table leg and point it at the armed officer"
"Hey, maybe somebody was ... lying!"
Faced with quite simple brainteasers for these quite simple brains to unravel, tension has to be created by irritating obliqueness: so we see someone finding a file on Google - what is it? - we don't know, she just says 'yes' and prints it out, and we don't get to hear the answer until the enxt scene, where she says "I've just found this..."
But even with this, and the addition of extraneous sub-plots to show how each of the students is deeply troubled, sensitive or whatever, there isn't enough matter to fill the time. I was watching an episode without access to a clock, and when it finished I genuinely believed I had sat through a two-hour double episode, and doubted my sanity when I found out it was only 9 o'clock. The pace isn't just glacial (glacial in the global warming sense of moving backwards); every scene, every shot, is just a bit longer than necessary. Two of the team are talking as they walk through the campus; they finished their conversation and move out of shot, but the camera stays to show... nothing.
One can only conclude that the BBC decided to show the series at the moment to demostrate that Robin Hood isn't as bad as all that after all. They seem to have come to their senses, though: they are going to drop the last three episodes, presumably in favour of something better, like Eldorado.
Nor is The Innocence Project. As a concept it might have worked: law lecturer helps his students hone their skills by taking on cases of alleged miscarriage of justice the professionals wouldn't touch. But the execution proved fatal (as executions do). The students were too samey, not in the way real students are samey (overweight, smoking and scruffy), but all earnest and moderately well-kempt and deeply dull (and, one might add, wooden: either they are good actors trying to sound ill-at-ease with the concept of speech, or bad ones). This needn't have proved disastrous (much the same could be said of Torchwood, which gets by on energy).
At the heart of the failure is the story-telling. The nitwits sit in the pub, or sit in a big room with a white board on which they try to puzzle out the details:
"If the cat was on the mat, then .. he ... must .. have been ... sitting"
"Omigod, the witness said he saw the victim draw his table leg and point it at the armed officer"
"Hey, maybe somebody was ... lying!"
Faced with quite simple brainteasers for these quite simple brains to unravel, tension has to be created by irritating obliqueness: so we see someone finding a file on Google - what is it? - we don't know, she just says 'yes' and prints it out, and we don't get to hear the answer until the enxt scene, where she says "I've just found this..."
But even with this, and the addition of extraneous sub-plots to show how each of the students is deeply troubled, sensitive or whatever, there isn't enough matter to fill the time. I was watching an episode without access to a clock, and when it finished I genuinely believed I had sat through a two-hour double episode, and doubted my sanity when I found out it was only 9 o'clock. The pace isn't just glacial (glacial in the global warming sense of moving backwards); every scene, every shot, is just a bit longer than necessary. Two of the team are talking as they walk through the campus; they finished their conversation and move out of shot, but the camera stays to show... nothing.
One can only conclude that the BBC decided to show the series at the moment to demostrate that Robin Hood isn't as bad as all that after all. They seem to have come to their senses, though: they are going to drop the last three episodes, presumably in favour of something better, like Eldorado.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Review of Not Going Out
Not Going Out is a new comedy on BBC1 for Friday evenings. And if that sentence doesn't make your spirits sink, you haven't been watching Blessed, or My Hero, or the under-powered Worst Week of My Life, or My Family, or that My Family clone so bad that my brain froze rather than allowing its name to reach the cerebral cortex. The bar for success is not set high.
It ought to pass it. The writing is sharp and clever, if a little self-indulgent: the inclusion of three zany elements (depressive author, Lee's job packing Christmas crackers, and circus skills class) in a single episode seemed to me to be trying a bit hard, when the core of the comedy has to be the interplay between Lee, Kate and Tim. Unfortunately some of the best lines were lost; Lee's delivery was so fast that he didn't give them space to breathe, and the audience's early laughter often swamped the killer line.
A more serious problem is the location: whatever one may say about Men Behaving Badly, Extras, or even Two Pints of Lager, they all have a distinctive locale, a real place where these characters and their relatives live. In contrast, Not Going Out is set in a vague generic city, the same city as Coupling, with an anonymous flat, anonymous bar, anonymous office, and characters with no history.
Kate is American, so she is earnest and New Age. That doesn't really cut it as back-story. It always amuses me when people say America is a classless society when it is clearly just as nuanced as ours: Friends isn't just six random people, but six people each from a specific social milieu.
Tim and Lee's characters are equally simple: accountant and slacker; so middle class and dolemite; so pompous and sarcastic. It's a bit schematic.
But it's not as if we are spoiled for choice if we want to watch smart comedy, so I'll hope for improvement.
Update
Now the series is over, and it's time to come off the fence.
Actually, my first impressions proved quite reliable: the Tim character proved impossible to develop, and played only a minor part towards the end. The core of the comedy is the relationship between Lee and Kate, one of comfortable coupledom without the sex, masked by verbal bickering. Megan Dodds managed to undercut the excessive kookiness or earnestness of some of her lines with a sly twinkle in her eye that implied her detachment from her statements. Lee remained slightly problematic, partly because his character was boxed in by its narrow definition: the most complex thing he could do was to realise how he felt about Kate; but also because unlike Megan's actorly clarity of diction, his remained a rushed mumble. Jokes about the badness of Kate's cooking aren't funny: strangely enough, neither were the similar jokes in My Family, Butterflies, or The Young Ones. The only halfway good jokes about bad cooking were in (crikey) The Vicar of Dibley. So leave it.
Paradoxically, this was a comedy that tried too hard: it would have been better with fewer wisecracks and a more paced direction. Still, all on board for Series 2 (no, not you, Tim).
It ought to pass it. The writing is sharp and clever, if a little self-indulgent: the inclusion of three zany elements (depressive author, Lee's job packing Christmas crackers, and circus skills class) in a single episode seemed to me to be trying a bit hard, when the core of the comedy has to be the interplay between Lee, Kate and Tim. Unfortunately some of the best lines were lost; Lee's delivery was so fast that he didn't give them space to breathe, and the audience's early laughter often swamped the killer line.
A more serious problem is the location: whatever one may say about Men Behaving Badly, Extras, or even Two Pints of Lager, they all have a distinctive locale, a real place where these characters and their relatives live. In contrast, Not Going Out is set in a vague generic city, the same city as Coupling, with an anonymous flat, anonymous bar, anonymous office, and characters with no history.
Kate is American, so she is earnest and New Age. That doesn't really cut it as back-story. It always amuses me when people say America is a classless society when it is clearly just as nuanced as ours: Friends isn't just six random people, but six people each from a specific social milieu.
Tim and Lee's characters are equally simple: accountant and slacker; so middle class and dolemite; so pompous and sarcastic. It's a bit schematic.
But it's not as if we are spoiled for choice if we want to watch smart comedy, so I'll hope for improvement.
Update
Now the series is over, and it's time to come off the fence.
Actually, my first impressions proved quite reliable: the Tim character proved impossible to develop, and played only a minor part towards the end. The core of the comedy is the relationship between Lee and Kate, one of comfortable coupledom without the sex, masked by verbal bickering. Megan Dodds managed to undercut the excessive kookiness or earnestness of some of her lines with a sly twinkle in her eye that implied her detachment from her statements. Lee remained slightly problematic, partly because his character was boxed in by its narrow definition: the most complex thing he could do was to realise how he felt about Kate; but also because unlike Megan's actorly clarity of diction, his remained a rushed mumble. Jokes about the badness of Kate's cooking aren't funny: strangely enough, neither were the similar jokes in My Family, Butterflies, or The Young Ones. The only halfway good jokes about bad cooking were in (crikey) The Vicar of Dibley. So leave it.
Paradoxically, this was a comedy that tried too hard: it would have been better with fewer wisecracks and a more paced direction. Still, all on board for Series 2 (no, not you, Tim).
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Is he having a laugh? Extras, That Mitchell and Webb Look and Lead Balloon
It is ironic that Ricky Gervaise, who saves his sharpest barbs for what he dismisses as catchphrase comedy, has unleashed a catchphrase himself: in the last week I have heard at least three broadcasters say "Is he having a laugh?", in contexts where it is clear that the phrase has risen from their subsconcious, without any deliberate attempt to reference its source. So people are watching the new series of Extras. It's hard to see why exactly: the three main jokes are repeated each episode:
1. people are more prejudiced than they are allowed to admit these days, and this may be revealed in extreme situations
2. celebrities famous for their amiable image are in real life obnoxious in various ways
3. people (particularly Andy Millman) will sometimes have to deal with the conflict between what they want to do and social norms of behaviour
We haven't yet seen the last variation on the celebrity joke- Jeremy Paxman, Julie Burchill or Richard Littlejohn revealed as mild-mannered and indecisive in private.
But although I have laughed from time to time, the truth is that Gervaise's school of the comedy of embarrassment can get a bit wearing. In the most recent episode, Millman storms into a high-price shop to revenge Maggie's hurt feelings, boldly promised to buy the dress regardless of cost, and then attempts to wriggle out of paying for it once he finds out the price. This is quite funny at first. But watching five minutes of wriggling is painful, or boring. Now that Millman has lost his status as an Everyman figure, since being shown up at a BAFTA awards ceremony is unlikely to chime with many of the audience, the reliance on accuracy rather than gags that made The Office compulsive viewing is unavailable as a fall-back.
I have seen it suggested that putting on sketch-based That Mitchell and Webb Look immediately afterwards was tempting fate, but it bears up well, mainly because unlike most sketch shows its hit rate is close to 100%, probably because it is writer-driven. Some of the recurring sketches, such as the snooker commentary, worked better on radio, but the razor-sharp parodies of pointless gameshows, docusoaps, and lifeswap programmes are both accurate and funny.
Lead Balloon, Jack Dee's new comedy, isn't bad either. It was instructive to compare its first episode with last week's Extras, since both featured an accidental humiliation turning into a media frenzy despite the best efforts of the main character. There were some graces of omission: the tearaway teenage daughter was dealt with in passing in a matter-of-fact way, rather than forming a whole episode as it would in My Family. The foreign au pair was a bit unwelcome; the American agent was the major pain, along with the recursive 'I'm a comedian trying to write comedy' segments which comedians seem to love despite the indifference they inspire in everyone else. Strangely enough, in the light of my comment on Extras, Jack Dee is portrayed as being a nicer person 'offscreen' than in his usual persona.
1. people are more prejudiced than they are allowed to admit these days, and this may be revealed in extreme situations
2. celebrities famous for their amiable image are in real life obnoxious in various ways
3. people (particularly Andy Millman) will sometimes have to deal with the conflict between what they want to do and social norms of behaviour
We haven't yet seen the last variation on the celebrity joke- Jeremy Paxman, Julie Burchill or Richard Littlejohn revealed as mild-mannered and indecisive in private.
But although I have laughed from time to time, the truth is that Gervaise's school of the comedy of embarrassment can get a bit wearing. In the most recent episode, Millman storms into a high-price shop to revenge Maggie's hurt feelings, boldly promised to buy the dress regardless of cost, and then attempts to wriggle out of paying for it once he finds out the price. This is quite funny at first. But watching five minutes of wriggling is painful, or boring. Now that Millman has lost his status as an Everyman figure, since being shown up at a BAFTA awards ceremony is unlikely to chime with many of the audience, the reliance on accuracy rather than gags that made The Office compulsive viewing is unavailable as a fall-back.
I have seen it suggested that putting on sketch-based That Mitchell and Webb Look immediately afterwards was tempting fate, but it bears up well, mainly because unlike most sketch shows its hit rate is close to 100%, probably because it is writer-driven. Some of the recurring sketches, such as the snooker commentary, worked better on radio, but the razor-sharp parodies of pointless gameshows, docusoaps, and lifeswap programmes are both accurate and funny.
Lead Balloon, Jack Dee's new comedy, isn't bad either. It was instructive to compare its first episode with last week's Extras, since both featured an accidental humiliation turning into a media frenzy despite the best efforts of the main character. There were some graces of omission: the tearaway teenage daughter was dealt with in passing in a matter-of-fact way, rather than forming a whole episode as it would in My Family. The foreign au pair was a bit unwelcome; the American agent was the major pain, along with the recursive 'I'm a comedian trying to write comedy' segments which comedians seem to love despite the indifference they inspire in everyone else. Strangely enough, in the light of my comment on Extras, Jack Dee is portrayed as being a nicer person 'offscreen' than in his usual persona.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Celebrity Titanic: Love Island and the death of ITV
Love Island isn't a very good programme. Even the deluded who convince themselves that BB7 is worth watching know this. Love Island has managed to deliver the lowest ratings in ITV's history, at a time when success was vital for the survival of the company. It may well be that Fearne 'Jonah' Cotton's latest victim will be an entire television channel.
On the otehr hand, it's good news. It goes to show that it is possible to go broke underestimating the taste of the audience. You can imagine the production meetings when they're planning the series:
Where did they go wrong? Part of it lies in the premise. Although BB's sexual antics achieved some notoriety, what people remember best was not the quick fumbles beneath the sheets, but rather the developing relationships over time between Paul and Helen (Dumber and Dumberer) or Preston and Chantelle, in which sex hardly featured.
ITV has a difficult task, of course. The BBC can roll out its audience-pleasers, safe in the knowledge that its worthy-but-unwatched and edgy-experimental other product can be shown at other times, on other channels. ITV has to get it right all the time, delivering a stream of viewers who can be sold off to advertisers; if noone watches, no money is made. That is why their scheduling is usually completely ruthless: they literally cannot afford to keep showing underperforming series. And why they have risked so much (£20 million) on creating a programme to take on BB and win. Except it hasn't. Even when potentially moderately exciting things happen on Love Island, nobody knows it: the press have lost interest, the public were never interested to start with. I can only assume that the programme hasn't been shifted to 12.30, when they know nobody will be watching, because they realise 1. that any replacement will also come off worse; and 2. an admission of failure of the ITV's trump card will immediately lead to collapse of the share price and a renewed takeover bid.
The sooner they 'fess up and switch to showing Crocodile Dundees and Die Hards in constant rotation, the better.
On the otehr hand, it's good news. It goes to show that it is possible to go broke underestimating the taste of the audience. You can imagine the production meetings when they're planning the series:
"The audience love BB when it's drunken fights and sex: so let's give them that all the time. And we'll make sure she get rid of the wrinklies and fatties, cos who wants to see them up close and personal."
Where did they go wrong? Part of it lies in the premise. Although BB's sexual antics achieved some notoriety, what people remember best was not the quick fumbles beneath the sheets, but rather the developing relationships over time between Paul and Helen (Dumber and Dumberer) or Preston and Chantelle, in which sex hardly featured.
ITV has a difficult task, of course. The BBC can roll out its audience-pleasers, safe in the knowledge that its worthy-but-unwatched and edgy-experimental other product can be shown at other times, on other channels. ITV has to get it right all the time, delivering a stream of viewers who can be sold off to advertisers; if noone watches, no money is made. That is why their scheduling is usually completely ruthless: they literally cannot afford to keep showing underperforming series. And why they have risked so much (£20 million) on creating a programme to take on BB and win. Except it hasn't. Even when potentially moderately exciting things happen on Love Island, nobody knows it: the press have lost interest, the public were never interested to start with. I can only assume that the programme hasn't been shifted to 12.30, when they know nobody will be watching, because they realise 1. that any replacement will also come off worse; and 2. an admission of failure of the ITV's trump card will immediately lead to collapse of the share price and a renewed takeover bid.
The sooner they 'fess up and switch to showing Crocodile Dundees and Die Hards in constant rotation, the better.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
BB goes off the boil
As T S Eliot says, human kind cannot bear very much reality (Burnt Norton) , and he was of course thinking of BB 7 and Love Island (not Celebrity Love Island, as we shall see).
Big Brother, despite the media hysteria it has engendered, has singularly failed so far to drum up any great enthusiasm in its audience. Watercooler television it is not. You can imagine the producers find this hard to believe: have they not provided madness, surgery-enhanced breasts, screaming fits, and various near-couplings? Well, yes, and more than enough. But BB has also overpacked the house with too many too similar people, and by the tedious and unoriginal second house concept has meant that we still have almost as many inmates as we started with. The main interest as the series develops is usually the interplay between tensions within the house leading to nominations, and then the judgement of the public on those chosen. BB has ridden roughshod over both elements, and there is much less interest in watching the arbitrary acts of an absolute tyrant. Nevertheless, BB has proved a ratings juggernaut, presumably because its target audience, the young, are too lazy, drunk, drugged or stupid to consider doing anything other than watching.
It remains to be seen whether Love Island urges them to turn over. I hope not, but that’s probably because I find the prurience of promoting on-screen sex as the sole purpose for a show distasteful. It is by now established that any discussion of Celebrity programmes must include a joke about Z listers, but I shall break that rule and instead provide a catalogue raisonee of my classification of celebrities:
A superstars whose fame and influence is so great that they can use it to succeed in fields far divorced from their initial area of success (ie Arnie moves from bodybuilding through barely coherent acting to running the world’s fifth biggest economy)
B stars who rule their chosen realm but fail when they move outside it (Neil Young filmmaker, Bob Dylan actor)
C stars who have had a varied career but are mainly associated with one key role (most of the cast of The Bill who started off in soaps)
D stars whose fame is based solely on their one major role (one-hit-wonders)
E other actors (etc) who wouldn’t be famous at all if were not for their extracurricular activities (I’m sure no-one would remember Daniella Westbrook at all if she hadn’t dissolved her nose in cocaine)
F other actors who never made it to fame
G people associated peripherally with F-listers (glamour models, promotion models)
H lovers and children of stars, who achieve fame due to media notoriety
I lovers and children of near stars who achieve fame due to media notoriety
J lovers and children who never achieve fame
K relatives of J listers
This makes some sort of sense to me. So, let’s look at the Love Island line-up. By my count, the highest anyone can get is D (ex-reality), with most in G-H. In some ways this hardly matters, if the series is seen as reality. There is however something much more interesting about Celebrity reality, because it gives an unusual view of people who have an established public persona already. People may well have suspected previously that George Galloway was a pompous bully, or Michael Barrymore was a needy paranoid, or Faria Alam was a manipulative self-publicist, but now they could test this perception, and find out, well, that they were right.
ITV are desperate to turn Love Island into the hit of the summer, having seen their audience, and advertising revenue falling for years. In the absence of positive press (you might say that since the filming is so remote, there was no prospect of bargaining by granting better access), they have persuaded a producer to blog for the Guardian.
Not more interesting at all. And what do you mean, ‘real celebs’? My basic definition of a celebrity is someone you recognize without being told who they area. These you don’t recognise even after you’ve been told.
Big Brother, despite the media hysteria it has engendered, has singularly failed so far to drum up any great enthusiasm in its audience. Watercooler television it is not. You can imagine the producers find this hard to believe: have they not provided madness, surgery-enhanced breasts, screaming fits, and various near-couplings? Well, yes, and more than enough. But BB has also overpacked the house with too many too similar people, and by the tedious and unoriginal second house concept has meant that we still have almost as many inmates as we started with. The main interest as the series develops is usually the interplay between tensions within the house leading to nominations, and then the judgement of the public on those chosen. BB has ridden roughshod over both elements, and there is much less interest in watching the arbitrary acts of an absolute tyrant. Nevertheless, BB has proved a ratings juggernaut, presumably because its target audience, the young, are too lazy, drunk, drugged or stupid to consider doing anything other than watching.
It remains to be seen whether Love Island urges them to turn over. I hope not, but that’s probably because I find the prurience of promoting on-screen sex as the sole purpose for a show distasteful. It is by now established that any discussion of Celebrity programmes must include a joke about Z listers, but I shall break that rule and instead provide a catalogue raisonee of my classification of celebrities:
A superstars whose fame and influence is so great that they can use it to succeed in fields far divorced from their initial area of success (ie Arnie moves from bodybuilding through barely coherent acting to running the world’s fifth biggest economy)
B stars who rule their chosen realm but fail when they move outside it (Neil Young filmmaker, Bob Dylan actor)
C stars who have had a varied career but are mainly associated with one key role (most of the cast of The Bill who started off in soaps)
D stars whose fame is based solely on their one major role (one-hit-wonders)
E other actors (etc) who wouldn’t be famous at all if were not for their extracurricular activities (I’m sure no-one would remember Daniella Westbrook at all if she hadn’t dissolved her nose in cocaine)
F other actors who never made it to fame
G people associated peripherally with F-listers (glamour models, promotion models)
H lovers and children of stars, who achieve fame due to media notoriety
I lovers and children of near stars who achieve fame due to media notoriety
J lovers and children who never achieve fame
K relatives of J listers
This makes some sort of sense to me. So, let’s look at the Love Island line-up. By my count, the highest anyone can get is D (ex-reality), with most in G-H. In some ways this hardly matters, if the series is seen as reality. There is however something much more interesting about Celebrity reality, because it gives an unusual view of people who have an established public persona already. People may well have suspected previously that George Galloway was a pompous bully, or Michael Barrymore was a needy paranoid, or Faria Alam was a manipulative self-publicist, but now they could test this perception, and find out, well, that they were right.
ITV are desperate to turn Love Island into the hit of the summer, having seen their audience, and advertising revenue falling for years. In the absence of positive press (you might say that since the filming is so remote, there was no prospect of bargaining by granting better access), they have persuaded a producer to blog for the Guardian.
The live reality plays directly into my office and I watch as the celebrity stand-ins getting ready for bed. Two snuggle up and I try to imagine how much more interesting it will be when the real celebs are in there in less than a week's time.
Not more interesting at all. And what do you mean, ‘real celebs’? My basic definition of a celebrity is someone you recognize without being told who they area. These you don’t recognise even after you’ve been told.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
BB7- the revenge of the housemates
I await with interest the Endemol producers' verdict on this series' selection process: were these really the most psychologically suited 12 people in Britain? Bizarrely, as series runs into series, while the viewing trend is generally down, the number of would-be participants continues to rise, even though it should by now be clear that even winning cannot provide lasting fame or even notoriety.
Previous series have provided most interest in demonstrating the Stockholm syndrome, as the housemates became institutionalised and came to identify with BB who exerted arbitrary power over them. This time around, it's more the Stanford Prison Experiment, as the group divided immediately into two factions and the dominant group then savagely attacked any non-conforming individuals. This might be seen as depressing, especially since many of the silent majority might be expected in other circumstances to protest against such victimisation. The risk, of course, is that to do so is to become a target oneself. But all this really shows is that tolerance is not a 'natural' product of human society: it has to be fought for.
But one has to wonder at those who volunteer to effectively be imprisoned for 3 months, with a group of unknown and possibly hostile co-prisoners, at the mercy of a capricious authority with the power to control sleep, food, and clothing. In the past, resistance by the inmates has been limited to arguing with Big Brother and refusing to cooperate in tasks. By definition, these fail. This time, the three walkers have shown the way. Rather than face the full-length ordeal, or the humiliation of public eviction, they have simply walked out once they recognised that they could achieve no more. Unless BB starts to substantially reward all those who stay the course, or really lock them up, then the merry-go-round of bringing in new housemates to replace the walked will become a standard feature of the series.
There has been some discussion about how to make the concept more interesting (now it is clear that 20s wannabe celebrities have no ability at all to say anything worth hearing), and one aspect that hasn't been explored is the exploitation of the isolation from the external world. For example, it would be very funny (for us) if, as a special concession, details of England's triumphant World Cup campaign were to be provided, so that when the victors emerge from the house, they are mystified at the despondency of the crowd who watched the early departure from the contest at the hands of plucky Trinidad. Or if BB were to announce that a Bird Flu outbreak in the vicinity meant that they would have to take all sorts of precautions, check for symptoms etc. Now that would be worth watching.
Previous series have provided most interest in demonstrating the Stockholm syndrome, as the housemates became institutionalised and came to identify with BB who exerted arbitrary power over them. This time around, it's more the Stanford Prison Experiment, as the group divided immediately into two factions and the dominant group then savagely attacked any non-conforming individuals. This might be seen as depressing, especially since many of the silent majority might be expected in other circumstances to protest against such victimisation. The risk, of course, is that to do so is to become a target oneself. But all this really shows is that tolerance is not a 'natural' product of human society: it has to be fought for.
But one has to wonder at those who volunteer to effectively be imprisoned for 3 months, with a group of unknown and possibly hostile co-prisoners, at the mercy of a capricious authority with the power to control sleep, food, and clothing. In the past, resistance by the inmates has been limited to arguing with Big Brother and refusing to cooperate in tasks. By definition, these fail. This time, the three walkers have shown the way. Rather than face the full-length ordeal, or the humiliation of public eviction, they have simply walked out once they recognised that they could achieve no more. Unless BB starts to substantially reward all those who stay the course, or really lock them up, then the merry-go-round of bringing in new housemates to replace the walked will become a standard feature of the series.
There has been some discussion about how to make the concept more interesting (now it is clear that 20s wannabe celebrities have no ability at all to say anything worth hearing), and one aspect that hasn't been explored is the exploitation of the isolation from the external world. For example, it would be very funny (for us) if, as a special concession, details of England's triumphant World Cup campaign were to be provided, so that when the victors emerge from the house, they are mystified at the despondency of the crowd who watched the early departure from the contest at the hands of plucky Trinidad. Or if BB were to announce that a Bird Flu outbreak in the vicinity meant that they would have to take all sorts of precautions, check for symptoms etc. Now that would be worth watching.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Death of the chat show
Davina McAll's new chat show has generated small audiences. This is of course a terrible shock, since the last time the BBC decided to try to exploit their underused expensive talent by building a chat show around Graham Norton had similar results. Partly I think this is because those devising such programmes overestimate the audience's affection for the Big Name as a *person*. I like Davina in her Big Brother and Streetmate roles, less so in her sitcom; this isn't because I can only think of her talents in that form, it's just that that's hwere her talents lie (or so it seems to me). One of the best ways of cheering oneself up is to go through IMBD and look at all the actors who decided to leave long-running series to avoid getting typecast and who never worked again. Soap audiences, in particular, are very tolerant: if someone hangs around for long enough they will be thought of affectionately even if they can't act.
But more basically, there is a fault in understanding a chat show audience. It is, as Norton has noted, all about the guests. Good chat show hosts make their guests seem interesting, spontaneous and coherent. Unfortnately, the other half of the equation is that they should also be well-known. This makes choosing them hard. There's nothing in particular wrong with people appearing to plug their book or series, as long as they realise that when doing so they also need to provide some form of entertainment.
But chat shows have fallen in status forever. There was a time when apparently unmediated access to celebrities in their off-screen personas was in itself of interest. It came as a revelation to hear Eric Clapton in the 1970s talk about himself. This access is no longer exciting: every film comes with a dutifully dull 'Making of' film; celebrity magazines trace the ups and downs of stars' daily lives; websites can instantly provide more information than you could possibly want about the obscurist and most ephemeral of public figures. So the question about chat shows becomes: why should anyone bother? Even if Davina arranged a meeting between Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Bob Dylan to talk about their art, I still wouldn't be tuning in.
But more basically, there is a fault in understanding a chat show audience. It is, as Norton has noted, all about the guests. Good chat show hosts make their guests seem interesting, spontaneous and coherent. Unfortnately, the other half of the equation is that they should also be well-known. This makes choosing them hard. There's nothing in particular wrong with people appearing to plug their book or series, as long as they realise that when doing so they also need to provide some form of entertainment.
But chat shows have fallen in status forever. There was a time when apparently unmediated access to celebrities in their off-screen personas was in itself of interest. It came as a revelation to hear Eric Clapton in the 1970s talk about himself. This access is no longer exciting: every film comes with a dutifully dull 'Making of' film; celebrity magazines trace the ups and downs of stars' daily lives; websites can instantly provide more information than you could possibly want about the obscurist and most ephemeral of public figures. So the question about chat shows becomes: why should anyone bother? Even if Davina arranged a meeting between Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Bob Dylan to talk about their art, I still wouldn't be tuning in.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Everybody loathes Elton
Ben Elton is often mentioned by British comedians as the most-hated man in the business. It's a bit hard to see why, exactly, it's just that he is rich, successful and mainstream, and makes musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber (which is at least three strikes in most people's eyes, I suppose). His career has been odd, though: starting as a political firebrand and anarchist Young Ones writer, then moving to the high wit of Blackadder, before blanding out in his Man for Auntie sketch show and The Thin Blue Line anaemic police comedy, underusing Rowan Atkinson as almost a straight-main. From here it's easy to see his early radical days as a careerist stunt: that was where the buzz was at the time. I'm not sure that's right, though- his novels continue to reflect his passionate intensity, and even the Thin Blue Line was quite advanced in its philosophy considering its positioning: there were a lot of jokes about sex (that's not quite true: of the jokes there were, a lot were about sex), but the characters' sexual orientation and colour was never exploited, as it would have been in most comparable sitcoms. Given the widespread wish for Elton to fail, it's surprising how little anyone has had to say about his latest masterpiece, the couple-with-young children sitcom Blessed. Now, this may come as a revelation, but young children cry, and need feeding, and make a mess. Sometimes the parents get tetchy as a result. With hilarious consequences. Or not. Actually it's not entirely laugh-free. But what amuses is the plotting and the frustrated rants of the lead character, rather than verbal agility. One problem is the inaccuracy of the cultural references. The record producer hero has to deal with a manufactured Spice Girls grrl group, with the moral issues that raises about whether he should insist on his rights to his creative work or let them steal it in return for lots of money. The trouble with this is that he is starting from the view that groups should be talented and creative, not manufactured. It's hard to believe this when for a start, he works as a jobbing music producer churning out advertising jingles and backing tracks, and is hardly therefore at the 'art for art's sake' end of the business, but more importantly, his views are anachronistic: after all the Idols and X Factors, nobody seems to mind that stars and groups are designed by marketing consultants, publicised by publicists, and sold to the media in bite-size chunks from 'wow I won' to 'ex-singer in drug shame' to 'who?'. After Darius lost out to much laughter in the first Pop Idol, or whatever, and dismissed as a talentless poser, I thought I'd heard the last of him; I hardly expected him to crop up in 2005 as a credible and successful artist with fans and No. 1s and everything. So Elton here is being misled by what he thinks and feels, which is not believable as what his character thinks. The characterisation has another major flaw: the ageing rocker guitarist. With his wrinkled, twitching face and leathers, he models himself on Keith Richard. But Elton tries to have it both ways: sometimes, he is clearly a delusional loser whose pose is just that, masking an empty and tragically wasted life; but sometimes he really is a star, able to charm groupies and acquaintances. In general, I would think that the series owes its origins to Elton's life experiences, and would have been better if it had accepted the fact rather than mask it by, say, changing the father's job from comedian novelist living in London with his young family, to something totally different, like, record producer living...
What I don't understand, after all this, is the eerie silence. Shouldn't the airwaves be jammed with pundits queueing up to say it's terrible and Elton is finished? I can only suppose they have realised it's more cutting, in the long run, tosay nothing, just walk away.
What I don't understand, after all this, is the eerie silence. Shouldn't the airwaves be jammed with pundits queueing up to say it's terrible and Elton is finished? I can only suppose they have realised it's more cutting, in the long run, tosay nothing, just walk away.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Pranks and japes
The latest reality TV series, Space Cadets, has exposed what has lain mainly hidden in its predecessors like Game for a Laugh, Beadle's About, and Candid Camera: that its humour is derived from cruelty, or at the very least from exploitation of dramatic irony (the audience knowing something the protagonist does not). Hence it is an act of collusion by the viewers at the expense of the participants.
This is a strong but largely unexamined part of traditional humour. The attraction of the 'surprise party' is surely for the other attendees, who can smirk to themselves as they lead the dupe to believe that everyone has forgotten. And a similar pattern can be seen in the initiation of apprentices, who were sent off in search of tartan paint or for a long weight (wait): a rite of passage intended to remind the new workers that, however cocky they may be, in the workplace they are at the mercy of their bosses and colleagues. The humour is anaemic verging on albinoism: but humour is not the point.
TV programmers may not realise the danger they face. Newspapers these days very rarely present April Fool's stories; I think this is because they have realised that they rely on their readers gullibility, which offends them, or undermines the paper's credibility. If your newspaper tells you that Elvis is alive and well and living on the moon in a WW2 bomber, you are hardly likely to pay much attention when they tell you which political party to support. We do not expect, when being bombarded with information, to have to distinguish not just between hard fact and soft fact and opinion, but between fiction masquerading as fact and simple fact.
The irony is that the hapless and charmless space cadets, whose desire to be famous exceeds any talent that might justify such a desire, have proved to have some strength of character. Everyone else is smirking, but they have trusted in the
reliability and safety of Russian aeronautics, and have demonstrated that the Right Stuff can be found in all sorts of containers.
This is a strong but largely unexamined part of traditional humour. The attraction of the 'surprise party' is surely for the other attendees, who can smirk to themselves as they lead the dupe to believe that everyone has forgotten. And a similar pattern can be seen in the initiation of apprentices, who were sent off in search of tartan paint or for a long weight (wait): a rite of passage intended to remind the new workers that, however cocky they may be, in the workplace they are at the mercy of their bosses and colleagues. The humour is anaemic verging on albinoism: but humour is not the point.
TV programmers may not realise the danger they face. Newspapers these days very rarely present April Fool's stories; I think this is because they have realised that they rely on their readers gullibility, which offends them, or undermines the paper's credibility. If your newspaper tells you that Elvis is alive and well and living on the moon in a WW2 bomber, you are hardly likely to pay much attention when they tell you which political party to support. We do not expect, when being bombarded with information, to have to distinguish not just between hard fact and soft fact and opinion, but between fiction masquerading as fact and simple fact.
The irony is that the hapless and charmless space cadets, whose desire to be famous exceeds any talent that might justify such a desire, have proved to have some strength of character. Everyone else is smirking, but they have trusted in the
reliability and safety of Russian aeronautics, and have demonstrated that the Right Stuff can be found in all sorts of containers.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Without a trace
They are now showing the third series of Without a Trace on UK TV, which some have criticised for having too much personal stuff, but is still way ahead of most programmes. Last night's episode, 'American Goddess', featured Elizabeth Berkley as the post-surgery dumb blonde. I'm not sure why her agent suggested she make a career comeback in a show called 'without a trace', but then you're talking about someone whose career went downhill after Saved by the Bell (into Showgirls and then... that's about it). The producers didn't have the courage of their convictions, employing someone else to do the pre-op stuff and covering her face in bandages for the last scene. It's hard to pin down what is so good about the programme. Partly I think it benefited from the focus on the story rather than the team: the rot set in in ER when the patients became incidental events to break up the child custody wrangles, sex changes, partner swapping, dying etc of the staff. Of course Anthony LaPaglia does a lot, by doing almost nothing- he has saint's eyes, understanding all, forgiving all, suffering, but still caring. You would not recognise him from 'Frasier', where he played Daphne's Cockney brother, any more than you'd recognise his Cockney accent (closest I can get is drunk Australian). (and how did Daphne have a Cockney brother?).
George Orwell wrote in praise of the English murder (actually real murders as reported in the sensational press of the 1930s), reflecting as they did the code of morals that said that to get divorced would incur social disgrace so murder becomes the better option. These days, of course, fictional murder has become the main form of TV programme and a major form of fiction. Death is usually necessary: attempts to write crime fiction based on other crimes lack the apepal, mainly, I think, because there's no point pondering over a mystery when the victim can turn up at the end to explin what happened.
The cleverness of Without a Trace is to take the strong narrative line of the murder story (with a death acting as an opening into a particular social milieu) and then , by using the 24-style countdown (enough on its own to start adrenaline pumping) allow itself the option of different endings, so that there is, for once, real uncertainty about where a plot is heading. Catharsis, I don't know about - heart attack, sure.
George Orwell wrote in praise of the English murder (actually real murders as reported in the sensational press of the 1930s), reflecting as they did the code of morals that said that to get divorced would incur social disgrace so murder becomes the better option. These days, of course, fictional murder has become the main form of TV programme and a major form of fiction. Death is usually necessary: attempts to write crime fiction based on other crimes lack the apepal, mainly, I think, because there's no point pondering over a mystery when the victim can turn up at the end to explin what happened.
The cleverness of Without a Trace is to take the strong narrative line of the murder story (with a death acting as an opening into a particular social milieu) and then , by using the 24-style countdown (enough on its own to start adrenaline pumping) allow itself the option of different endings, so that there is, for once, real uncertainty about where a plot is heading. Catharsis, I don't know about - heart attack, sure.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
That's entertainment
One thing they say about the film industry is that "Nobody knows anything". It is impossible to predict which of the under-written over-hyped star vehicles that Hollywood churns out will turn into a billion-dollar money spinner and which will be a Heaven's Gate or Waterworld. Everybody says it, everybody knows it, but nobody wonders why. The reason why is simple: nobody knows anything because nobody learns anything. It seems just a week ago (but is in fact two years) that the BBC decided to re-launch Top of the Pops on Friday night to halt the decline in audience and in particular to recapture the elusive hip young audience (aka the dim and ignorant); their secret weapon was Fearne Cotton, who is as intelligent as she is talented (see my Live 8 post for details). Unfortunately, the radical redesign only accelerated the decline, and so the programme was moved: new channel, new time, new day, new look, new--no, same presenters. And what happens? New TOTP loses half its audience. If there's a common factor, I just can't think of it.
This reminds me of the story of the man in the hospital talikng to his wife "You were with me when I lost my job; you were with me when my dog died; you were with me when the roof fell off the house; you were with me when I was in a car crash; and now you're with me when I'm sick. Face it, woman, you're a f***ing jinx!"
Monday, July 04, 2005
The obligatory Live8 post
[IRONY MODE: ON]
There's been quite a backlash against the rich and famous people who used to be quite popular who took part in the concerts, suggesting that they are ignorantly and hypocritically spouting off about trendy issues without understanding them. This has annoyed political commentators, because that's their job.
I for one would rather hear a multimillionaire tell me about the importance of looking after other people than their more usual topics, encouraging gun crime, drug abuse, or vague New Age mysticism. I remember being shocked when Nelson Mandela agreed to be photographed meeting the Spice Girls; but now he's had his garden done up by Alan Titchmarsh and the Ground Force team, it's clear he's just a has-been C-list celebrity who would attend the opening of a packet of crisps if there was going to be a photographer there.
I saw in one comment the view that "Live8 has proved that miracles can happen - if the members of Pink Floyd can be persuaded to share a stage for 10 minutes then sorting out poverty and the environment will be easy".
I didn't actually catch much of the concert, partly because the BBC TV coverage seemed to assume that having assembled a panoply of stars unparalleled in the history of pop (or whatever), the music should be punctuated (and obscured) by witless interviews backstage, mainly by Fearne Cotton (who is born to do witless). (Incidentally, the BBC seem desperate to try to turn her into a happening presenter, unaware that she was disqualified for a Best New TV Personality award because she hasn't got one).
Our 4-year-old was happily dancing to Ms Dynamite, and my wife said "She would love to be there if she was older". I said that with any luck there would be another global catastrophe in 20 years time, and she could go to that.
I'd've liked to see Neil Young closing the Canada concert, but the BBC ignored that one completely. (Apparently it was very good. Thanks, BBC)
[IRONY MODE : OFF]
Overall, though, I'd have to say that any event which united the 18-25 lads and ladettes in thinking about the world, the future, and other people, is a good thing, and that the Big Brother gang cannot be taken as representing a true cross-section of the population. Thank St Bob for that.
There's been quite a backlash against the rich and famous people who used to be quite popular who took part in the concerts, suggesting that they are ignorantly and hypocritically spouting off about trendy issues without understanding them. This has annoyed political commentators, because that's their job.
I for one would rather hear a multimillionaire tell me about the importance of looking after other people than their more usual topics, encouraging gun crime, drug abuse, or vague New Age mysticism. I remember being shocked when Nelson Mandela agreed to be photographed meeting the Spice Girls; but now he's had his garden done up by Alan Titchmarsh and the Ground Force team, it's clear he's just a has-been C-list celebrity who would attend the opening of a packet of crisps if there was going to be a photographer there.
I saw in one comment the view that "Live8 has proved that miracles can happen - if the members of Pink Floyd can be persuaded to share a stage for 10 minutes then sorting out poverty and the environment will be easy".
I didn't actually catch much of the concert, partly because the BBC TV coverage seemed to assume that having assembled a panoply of stars unparalleled in the history of pop (or whatever), the music should be punctuated (and obscured) by witless interviews backstage, mainly by Fearne Cotton (who is born to do witless). (Incidentally, the BBC seem desperate to try to turn her into a happening presenter, unaware that she was disqualified for a Best New TV Personality award because she hasn't got one).
Our 4-year-old was happily dancing to Ms Dynamite, and my wife said "She would love to be there if she was older". I said that with any luck there would be another global catastrophe in 20 years time, and she could go to that.
I'd've liked to see Neil Young closing the Canada concert, but the BBC ignored that one completely. (Apparently it was very good. Thanks, BBC)
[IRONY MODE : OFF]
Overall, though, I'd have to say that any event which united the 18-25 lads and ladettes in thinking about the world, the future, and other people, is a good thing, and that the Big Brother gang cannot be taken as representing a true cross-section of the population. Thank St Bob for that.
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