Saturday, December 29, 2007
House and country
OUTLAW! Robin Hood, BBC1, 6.00pm Labels: BBC1, Hallmark, House, Robin Hood, TV
While having lunch with a friend of ours yesterday, we were debating the condition of modern light entertainment, as is often the case with us. The conversation turned to the subject of Robin Hood, with our friend opining that while she couldn't bear to watch a single second of the first series, she'd rather enjoyed series two. The reason? The producers had clearly realised when they were onto a good thing, and had taken every possible opportunity to get Richard Armitage to take his shirt off. Because essentially, while we like to think we're a very sophisticated audience, it's surprising how quickly we can be won over with some utterly gratuitous but well-deployed shirtlessness. (The same can be said of season two of Heroes; even when the plot was hopelessly off-course, an episode could be instantly saved by the inclusion of shirtless Peter Petrelli.)
The second series has been doing a fair job of holding up the ratings in a thankless slot against The X Factor (perhaps if Robin spent more time talking about his dead parents, he might have managed a more sizeable audience), and some quite nifty guest stars including Charlie Brooks and Josie Lawrence. Tonight's series-closing double bill includes a guest appearance from Konnie Huq, our second-favourite Blue Peter presenter (after Gethin, natch), and hopefully twice the amount of shirtless Guy of Gisborne. If it ain't broke, after all...
MEDICAL! House weekend, Hallmark, from 10.00am
Although we were surprisingly unscathed by our downgrading from cable TV to Freeview a year ago, one thing we do miss from time to time is when the niche channels decided to boost their ratings by running a marathon of their top shows for an entire weekend, so you could just sit there and gorge yourself on quality (or otherwise) television without even needing to worry if the remote control was within arm's reach. We still miss the Living Charmed weekends, and we're more than a little disappointed that we won't be able to catch Hallmark showing the entirety of season two of House back-to-back. But we're still charitable enough to mention it to you guys, to make sure you know it's happening.
So, if your eyes and your bottom are up to it, look forward to LL Cool J, romantic entanglements, sex being a very dangerous thing, and that kickass finale episode with its alarmingly loose grip on reality, amongst other things. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for that one, though, so be sure to get some exercise in the meantime. We only want what's best for you.
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