Monday, March 17, 2008

Cooking up a storm

FOOD! Great British Menu, BBC Two, 6.30pm

Well, about bloody time. After all that schedule mucking about with Come Dine With Me and Masterchef, cookery finally returns to its rightful home of 6.30pm, with series three of Great British Menu. Whilst this series will never top the highlight of being a competition to prepare a feast for the Queen (and later being pwned by Her Maj on Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work), it is usually entertaining nonetheless.

FEAR! Hollyoaks, Channel 4, 6.30pm

The saga of Jake's descent continues tonight (remember when he was merely a loveable mother killer?) after Friday's suicide/child murder attempt. Is he dead, or like all bad horror movie villains, will he live to see another day? The horror movie angle Hollyoaks has adopted with this story has actually been quite effective, with several jumps and jolts along the way. What it has utterly failed to do, however, is treat mental illness or bereavement with any sympathy whatsoever. But this IS Hollyoaks so we don't know why we'd expect anything different.

Labels: BBC Two, BBC2, Channel 4, food, Great British Menu, Hollyoaks, TV

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Friday, March 14, 2008

Good Sports

CHARITY! Sport Relief, BBC One, 7.00pm & 10.45pm and BBC Two, 10.00pm

What are your favourite TV charity marathon moments? This correspondent is torn. Would it be Comic Relief 1987 where she got to go to school dressed as a clown, which somehow meant being able to wear pyjamas, which was absolutely ace? Or ITV Telethon 1990 where Grimsby theatre group Stage One released a dreadful single, 'Power to the Pupils' in league with Jive Bunny that sold so badly every household in Grimsby ended up with at least three free copies? Or could it be Children in Need 1993 with the Doctor Who and EastEnders er, classic, crossover, Dimensions in Time? Or, you know, that time when Dawn French songged Hugh Grant? One thing it's not likely to be, though, is any Sport Relief moment.

We are veterans of the charity telly marathon here, and yet we cannot remember a single moment of any previous Sport Relief event. Other than David Walliams swimming the channel, which we are assuming was for Sport Relief. That doesn't mean we are against the idea of sport and charity collaborating. After all, we totally remember Sport Aid with its 'Everybody Wants to Run the World' theme tune. It just means this event has been less than memorable in the past.

Still, this year it seems they are pulling the stops out a bit with the telly extravaganza. Highlights include Jonathan Ross v Parky in a 'battle of the chat shows' (Wossy, obviously), Jimmy Carr hosting A Question of Sport Relief, the unlikely collaboration between Top Gear and the long dead Ground Force (that's the bit on BBC Two when the 'main' channel goes to the news), and, best of all, the climax of Sports Relief Does the Apprentice when one of the hapless men gets fired (our money is on Kelvin MacKenzie - Sralan doesn't seem so keen on former tabloid editors) and Sport Relief Does Strictly Come Dancing which includes Gemma Bissix (Dame Clare Devine/Bates) and Elaine Paige, although given that they would be in our dream line-up for Strictly proper, we have mixed feelings about them being here.

Anyway, lest we forget, this is all for a good cause - supporting a variety of projects in the UK and overseas. So don't forget to go and donate.

Labels: BBC One, BBC Two, BBC1, BBC2, charity, Jonathan Ross, Michael Parkinson, Sport Relief, Sport Relief Does The Apprentice, Strictly Come Dancing, top gear

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Friday, March 07, 2008

All white now

CONTROVERSY! Last Orders, BBC Two, 9.00pm

Last Orders is the first in BBC Two's White Season, a series of drama
s and documentaries over the next week that look at aspects of being white and working class in Britain. This topic could well prove controversial, and there has already been a lot of heated discussion about the season ahead of anything being shown. However, with it being the Beeb and all, we expect most of the programmes will be fairly sensitive and thoughtful rather than just inflammatory. (This correspondent is also very chuffed that it is scheduled the exact week her students are looking at race in the media. Result!)

This opener, directed by the man behind September 11 documentary The Falling Man, visits the members of a working men's club in Bradford, and the image of working men's clubs always conjures up memories of Phoenix Nights for us. Any mentions of black bin bags, garlic bread or Japanese alcohol free beer will thus require a DRINK!

The remainder of the season carries on most days this week, with programmes looking at Polish immigrants, a multiracial school in Birmingham, an exploration of Enoch Powell's controversial 'Rivers of Blood' speech, a visit to multicultural Barking and, perhaps the most intriguing, White Girl, a drama about a white girl in a mostly Muslim school, which is on Monday at 9.00pm.

We know it might all be a bit heavy going when you could just watch American Idol or Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach instead, but never let it be said we don't offer you a diverse range of viewing options.

Labels: BBC Two, BBC2, Last Orders, White Girl, White Season

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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Rimmer's Dinners

CONTEST! Recipe for Success, BBC Two, 5.15pm
CONTESCO! Breaking Into Tesco, Five Life, 9.00pm

So last week saw the finale of Masterchef (About which: Ha! Johnny made a chocolate fondant! Fool!) and new series of Celebrity Masterchef and Great British Menu are yet to begin. What, then, is telly doing to fill the foodie gap in our lives?

Well, apparently it is turning to one man, 'celebrity' (us neither) chef Simon Rimmer, who looks like the bizarre mutant lovechild of Richard O'Brien and Dominic Littlewood. This man is at the helm, of not, one, but two-count-em brand new foodie shows.

We know both of these series technically began last night (Breaking Into Tesco was on normal Five, as opposed to tonight's Five Life repeat), but as we didn't have much clue what they were about, we thought we'd wait till tonight to preview them.

Filling the gap left by The Weakest Link, which in turn is filling the gap left by Neighbours, we have Recipe for Success (and can we just remind the Beeb here that the proper allotted time for food shows is 6.30pm, not 5.15pm, or 8.30pm or anything else). This show is a bit like a low-budget version of LC-fave The Restaurant (so sadly no Maman Blanc here). Each night we see a couple trying to run a restaurant type affair and they get marked by the audience. The winning couple at the end of the week presumably go into some later stage (we kind of missed the details of the rules and the prize and all that gubbins). Anyway, it's not as classy as it's BBC stablemates (except Kitchen Criminals, it's probably a bit classier than that. Sorry Angela) but it's a bit of fun and worth tuning into if you watch Neighbours at lunchtime. Or in the evening. Or the middle of the night. Or the omnibus.

The other new show, Breaking into Tesco is actually the more exciting prospect of the two. If you can try to stomach the elements of it that feel like an extended advert for our supermarket overlords, it's actually a warm, interesting and quirky little show. The premise is that four contestants each week design a dish that they hope to get on the shelves of THAT shop. They go through various rounds, including an audience taste test, a supermarket tasting panel and a pitch to the store's product team. Along the way some of them get elimated until the last one standing goes through to a final where the winner will get their product made.

It sounds a little dull, but it genuinely isn't. It combines the competitive elements of The Apprentice with the crazy contestants of Come Dine With Me, the wacky innovations of Dragon's Den, and a little bit of Schools-programme style education. In other words, it's proper lowculture fare.

Tonight's contestants are Jolly Jenny, with her Lancashire foot (a hot pot in a pasty, basically), desperate Danni with her gluten-free-egg-free-sugar-free muffins, Jovial Jenny (#2) with her Malaysian noodle soup and Passionate Paul with his, er, cherry ravioli.

We know who wins, obviously, but they are all television gold. The only problem is that the trailer for next week basically gives away who gets to which stage of the contest, which is blatantly rubbish. Sort it out, Five. You don't get that sort of behaviour on Masterchef.

Labels: BBC Two, BBC2, Breaking into Tesco, Five, Five Life, food, Recipe for success, Simon Rimmer

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Thursday, February 28, 2008

It doesn't get any tougher than this...

POSSIBLE SWIZZ! Masterchef Final, BBC Two, 8.00pm

Oh Masterchef, we love you very much. We love the calamitous chocolate fondants. We love the wacky chefs who combine turnips with popping candy (we may exaggerate, but only a touch). We love the way Gregg makes that 'oooarrrgh' noise when he tastes a good pudding. We don't love the voiceover, but we'll let that pass for now. However, we have a very rocky relationship with your finals. We don't like to criticise; after all, you provide us with eight weeks of quality lead-up every year. But the climax of these eight weeks is, shall we say, a little less than satisfying.

Basically, John and Gregg always pick the WRONG PERSON, leaving such worthy contenders such as The Lovely Dean and The Lovely Hannah by the wayside in favour of the 'least likely to' out of the three finalists. Don't believe us? Check out the amount of complaints there were to the BBC (well, a few people wrote to Points of View, anyway) after the travesty of the 2006 final. And don't get us started on Matt Dawson smugging his way to winning Celebrity Masterchef that year. We don't forgive easily, so we approach tonight's final with a great deal of trepidation.

After a week of watching them mostly be a bit rubbish and occasionally be a bit awesome at various catering tasks, tonight our three finalists will be going to France in the first half, to work in 'some of the best restaurants in the world', then no doubt retuning to the Masterchef kitchen 'for one final challenge'. The decision, we can be sure John and Gregg will tell us, will be tougher than ever.

So who will win? For the uninitiated, Emily (aka 'Mud Pie Girl') is clearly the star of the show. She is cute, bubbly and creates all kinds of mad but tasty food. Gregg and John think she is awesome. She won't win. We like her, she is young, she is a woman and she has been fairly competent throughout. This will all count against her. (We know a woman allegedly won in 2005, but we didn't see that series, so we refuse to believe it).

Then we have James (aka 'Sideshow Bob'). We took an instant dislike to him in the first two rounds he was in, because he was so smug and smarmy (In later rounds he has actually proved to be quite a nice bloke but let's not let that get in the way of our initial snap judgements, eh?). We predicted from the start he'd probably win, but will he? We doubt it. He has been mostly competent and capable all the way through, and as we all know, it's the people that mess up all the way through and have a good final that win.

Our final, er, finalist is Johnny (aka 'Johnny'). A nice bloke, who has had the odd flash of genius, Johnny has still managed to make more mistakes than the others, receive less praise from Gregg and John in the early rounds than the others, but he is a bit older, he is a bloke and he has no doubt been on a 'journey'. Therefore, we predict Johnny will win.

Unless he attempts a chocolate fondant.

Labels: BBC Two, BBC2, food, Masterchef, TV

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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Armageddon out of here

QUIRKY! Wonderland, BBC2, 9:50pm

Wonderland has been an interesting little documentary series so far from what we have seen of it. We can't say we have watched all of the episodes in the series, but we do like its quirky subject matter. We presume 'quirky is the running theme of this series of documentaries, as we can't see any other common thread there.

Tonight's episode is called 'The End of the World Bus Tour'. Tour rep Sharon provides ten-day tours to Israel with a speciality for those who believe Armageddon is upon us. The documentary follows one such group.

In the last year alone we have seen Louis Theroux meets... the most hated family in America, Keith Allen meets... the exact same people, The End of the World Cult and the upcoming Baby Bible Bashers (Thursday, 9pm, C4). You would think there couldn't be any more tales of extremist American (we're assuming most of tonight's subjects are American, as that is what the trailer has led us to believe) religious types to tell, but apparently not.

What seems to set this documentary apart from all the others is the focus on the tourism aspect of the trip to Israel, and the fact that Wonderland tends to take a slightly more unique (read: less patronising) angle than other similar documentaries.

Even so, documentary makers, take note, this theme is getting a little old. We understand extreme beliefs make for good telly (and on that note we also don't need to see any more shows on 'present-day Nazis' for a good five years now) but you need to vary your subject matter. Why not branch out and do a whole series on people who have an extreme belief in the values of, say, Echo Beach? Now that would be interesting...

Labels: BBC2, Wonderland

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Rhys Lightning

MEATY! Torchwood, BBC2, 9pm

Three episodes down and, thankfully, the rumours have been true so far: Torchwood keeps getting better. One thing it hasn't yet addressed, however, is Gwen's persistent wanderlust. She clearly isn't all that bothered about being with Rhys, other than that the relationship with him brings some stability to her life. And possibly helps her smug it over the others a bit. Last series we at least got to see him sometimes, though. This year he's been just featured in tiny glimpses, presumably as a metaphor for him moving to the periphery of Gwen's life, even if they are 'engaged'.

This is all a shame. We like Rhys. We think it would improve Gwen's character, too, if she was clearly in love with him, didn't keep flirting (and sometimes sleeping) with other men (and women) and if she was happy to maintain a life outside of Torchwood as well as her work life. It would add a little depth to the emotional side of the show and perhaps also challenge the others and their 'ZOMG! TORCHWOOD IS MAI TOTAL LYFE' attitudes, too.

We like Rhys. We also like Policeman Andy, Gwen's former colleague. A show like this needs its anchors to the rest of the world. Whilst Andy often represents the somewhat cynical voice of the viewer, Rhys fulfils the vital function (according to one of our most sci-fi geeky friends) of being the show's 'jock' character - and we mean jock in the butch blokey kind of way, not the slightly offensive term for Scottish way, because we must not forget that this is a WELSH show set in CARDIFF after all.

So how do we greet the news that tonight's episode is quite Rhys-centric? Well, with trepidation, if we're honest, even though we are pleased the character is finally getting some attention. Apparently tonight's episode sees Rhys find out about Torchwood. But he's done that before and had it all drugged out of him afterwards, so who's to say that won't happen again? We also wonder if someone might die this series, because someone always dies in long-running series eventually. We can't help but think that if Rhys finds out about Torchwood it might signal the beginning of the end for him. And if that happens, we will not be happy at all.

Labels: BBC2, Torchwood

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Monday, February 04, 2008

So, when's series 2 then?

RAUCOUS! Pulling, BBC2, 10pm

Regular readers will notice that several of your front page team (well, Steve and Rad mainly) have a slight obsession with Pulling, or, to be more precise, trying to find out when the fabled second series is going to start (we have heard there is going to be one, just no details of when). But perhaps its first showing on BBC2 indicates series 2 is one step closer. We can dream, anyway.

For those of you foolish enough to miss this on BBC3, you must tune in to it this time around. Alongside Gavin and Stacey it proves that the channel is still capable of churning out great quality comedy with loveable characters (Unlike the sweet Gavin and Stacey though, the humour of Pulling is pitch black throughout). Or at least that it was. We are utterly terrified by the prospect of the channel's revamp, as everything we have seen in the trailers looks rubbish.

Pulling centres around the love lives and other antics of three friends: Donna, the 'heart' of the show, played by Sharon Horgan, who dumps boyfriend Carl at the start of the series; Louise, played by Rebekah Staton, who initially seems to be the 'spare part' (see also Louise in Two Pints.... What IS it with that name?) but is actually very funny and may well be your favourite by the end of the series; and the 'real' star of the show, Karen, played by Tanya Franks (Renie in EastEnders). Karen is our kind of character: bold, brash, lewd, irresponsible, cutting and very funny.

We can pretty much guarantee they will be your new telly best friends within a couple of episodes, and that, like us, you will soon be clamouring for the fabled series 2....

Labels: BBC2, BBC3, Pulling, TV

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Friday, February 01, 2008

Box of Delights

The life of being a previewer for your favourite website is not easy, you know. Sometimes we look at the next week's TV listings, full of despair because there is nothing good to talk about that we haven't already previewed. And yet like buses, the law seems to be that you wait for ages for something exciting to come along, then it all comes along at once. Tonight sees such a ridiculous embarrassment of riches on the box that Steve and Rad needed to collaborate together (in a move that hasn't been seen since, oooh, Christmas) to get it all in. So get a cup of tea and a biccy and plan your evening with us....


RETURNING! EastEnders, BBC1, 8pm

It's good to see that Gemma Bissix's lucrative career of playing scheming bitches called Clare didn't end when she finally bowed out from Hollyoaks last year (and boy, does the show miss her. It's never the same without a good villain, and no, Jake Dean certainly does not count), as she reappears tonight in the TV alter ego we all knew before Clare Devine ever set foot in Chester: Clare Bates (née Tyler), in EastEnders on BBC1 at 8.00pm. Having been last seen as a rosy-cheeked schoolgirl heading off to Scotland with adoptive dad Nigel, she makes her entrance tonight in fine style - being thrown out of a car while wearing a skimpy dress and not looking not wholly unlike archetypal soap bitch-with-a-soft-centre Izzy Hoyland. Clare quickly reconnects with Dot, who's in dire need of a project at the moment, and then sets her sights on Ian, as everyone in the Square eventually does. Seriously, even the gays are going to be after him in a couple of weeks. When will this madness end?



ENDING! Jam and Jerusalem, BBC1, 8:30pm
We know that this series is never going to go down in the comedy annals in the same way that Absolutely Fabulous or The Vicar of Dibley have. However, we still love it, and it's a darn sight better than recent episodes of French and Saunders. This gentle, warm and still pretty darn funny series ends tonight when we see whether Tash will marry Spike. We'd like to see a Jam and Jerusalem wedding, so let's hope she says yes, eh?



SINGING! The Choir: Boys Don't Sing, BBC2, 9pm
We loved The Choir last year and we're very pleased to see it back. For the uninitiated amongst you, the series featured loveable, geeky and slightly hot choirmaster Gareth Malone (who has a touch of the Tennant about him, we think) in his attempts to transform a bunch of inner-city 'yoofs' into a choir to sing at the World Choir Olympics (if only they would integrate that into the ACTUAL Olympics, we would be so into that). This year, he's trying to repeat the same trick, only the 2008 twist is that it's an all-boys choir and they're competing in something at the Albert Hall instead. So there's a few echoes of The History Boys there, too. Only, we hope, without all the slightly creepy sexual undertones. This is your standard life-affirming fare, but none the worse for it.


JAW-DROPPING! Hey Paula!, ITV2, 10pm
Someone over at ITV2 has clearly broken into our top-secret personal diary, the one where we write our topmost secret telly wishes. While they couldn't quite see fit to give us "The Paula Abdul and Janice Dickinson Crazy Medicated Bitch Channel", they've done the next best thing, and got hold of Paula's very own reality show Hey Paula! to play directly after American Idol at 10.00pm. It doesn't take a genius to guess that the Paula in this show is Idol Paula, with the car-crash level upped by a factor of 20, so it will either be the greatest programme ever or the absolute worst. Possibly it will somehow manage to be both at once, thereby snapping the space-time continuum cleanly in two and killing us all where we stand. But let's hope not, eh?



COMPETING! Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong, Channel 4, 10pm
If you're not a Paula Abdul fan, get the hell out of here and never come back. Sorry, that should read: "why not try Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong on Channel 4 at 10.00pm instead?" - our mistake. We've read an interview with Alan Carr, seen a few trailers and looked at the listings, and yet we're still not really sure how on earth this show works, except that it pits celebrities versus civilians (no doubt inspired by Liz Hurley's famous clanger about the vast chasm between the two species) in a series of zany questions. It's got legs, certainly, but we'll wait until after the first episode before our final judgement.


REMINISCING! The Law of the Playground, Channel 4, 10:30pm
There was a time at the end of the last decade and the start of this one when you couldn't turn on your telly without a bunch of talking heads babbling on about the wonders of growing up in the 70s and 80s. Which was fine, because we all know that any conversation between 20 or 30 somethings always turns to the things of our childhood in the end. But there are only so many conversations you can have about all things retro before you get all meta and starthaving retrospectives of the retrospectives and the aforementioned space-time continuum comes and gets us. So what we are trying to say is that we are quite surprised to seeThe Law of the Playground returning for a second series. Perhaps Channel 4 decided it had been long enough without a nostalgia-fest that they could get away with it (or perhaps they were just desperate for some cheap filler whilst they wait for new episodes of Ugly Betty). The usual suspects are here: Justin Lee Collins, Vic Reeves, and, ooh, look who it is! Myleene Klass! Who'da thunk it, eh?


JAMMING! Later...200, BBC2, 11:35pm
The institution that is Later... With Jools Holland returns for a new series, and kicks off with its 200th episode. Although there is often a bit too much boogie-woogie jamming for our liking, the series is always guaranteed to pull off a few corkers from established artsists and is renowned for launching some great talent to boot. Tonight the big draw is a set from Radiohead, but there are other goodies to be had as well, including Cat Power, Dionne Warwick, Mary J Blige and Feist, a booking that will make at least one lowculture user very happy indeed.

So there you have it. Phew. We're going for a nice lie down now.

Labels: Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong, BBC1, BBC2, Channel 4, EastEnders, Hey Paula, ITV2, jam and jerusalem, Later..., Myleene Klass, Paula Abdul, The Choir, The Law of the Playground, TV

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

World of Wonder

COMPUTERY! Wonderland, BBC2, 9pm,
COOKERY! Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA, Channel 4, 10pm,
KY-ER-LIE! Kylie Video Exclusive, Chanel 4, 11:05pm

We have a sumptuous three course meal for you tonight. People of lowculture, don't say we don't spoil you.

Our appetiser is Wonderland which looks at couples who have formed relationships through Second Life. We're impressed they managed to use that thing at all. We tried it once and couldn't get our heads round it. Although it probably won't be as jaw dropping as My Fake Baby, it could still be intriguing enough to get the chat room fired up, and, if enough alcohol is consumed, maybe even launching an LC group in Second Life that will last, oooh, all of a week til everyone gets bored.

Your main course this evening is Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA. Whilst the show has become incredibly formulaic in the UK, the American version is an altogether more tantalising prospect. The two episodes shown thus far have featured some explosive characters, which has been nice, although the film style camerawork means the full horror of the grotty kitchens is less vivid than the UK version. Which is perhaps no bad thing as we have had to leave meals whilst watching Kitchen Nightmares in the past, so disgusted were we. Tonight's episode sees a restaurant in Long Island that has a debt of $1 million. Ouch.

For dessert tonight, Channel 4 have a very special treat for you. Tucked away after Gordon is the VIDEO EXCLUSIVE! for Kylie's 'Wow' (We'll ignore the fact that it has already leaked on the net). When this was announced as the second single, it caused, well, some ripples. Members of the forum were crying over this being favoured instead of 'In My Arms', 'The One' and 'No More Rain'. However, people have finally been just about won over by it, with Camden Pirate declairing it just about the best thing to ever be played in a nightclub.

It also seems a very long time ago since she performed this on The X Factor and it got added to the playlists of radio stations around the country (which it was). It has been on the chart on downloads alone for several weeks. And it still isn't released as a physical single yet. We only hope all this pre-promotion will give Kylie a bigger hit than 'Two Hearts' and won't backfire because everyone is already sick of the tune.

By the way, 'In My Arms' is the single in other parts of the world, and we thought you might like to see this video while you wait. Even if, as Nurse Dunkley pointed out that 'It's ok, but is let down in parts by Kylie wearing Roisin Murphy's old (and quite hideous) dress, along with the bits where Kylie was probably off playing cards or something and they had to get Gina G in to cover for her'.

Labels: BBC2, Channel 4, Kylie Minogue, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Wonderland

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Saturday, January 19, 2008

Johnny be Good

LAVERNE! The Culture Show, BBC2, 7:20pm

There really isn't much happening tonight that we haven't previewed in recent weeks. So thank goodness, then, for a 'new series' (surely it was only a few weeks since the last one finished?) of The Culture Show. We do like this show, which manages to marry lowculture and highculture most successfully, and always teaches us something we didn't know before.

Lauren Laverne is back hosting, following the shortest maternity leave since Myleene's, and still shows no signs of reforming Kenickie (for shame). She's a nice, warm, funny, engaging host for this, even if we do kind of prefer Verity Sharp. Still, as long as the annoying Zina Saro-Wiwa never gets the main gig, we'll be happy. Mark Kermode also returns, and we are intrigued to see whether his quiff can get even higher.

Tonight's episode features Sons and Daughters, Toby Young, Simon Pegg, The Coen Brothers, Chris Rock, a little architecture piece and, the key selling point (for us anyway), Johnny Depp AND Tim Burton, who will be talking about Sweeney Todd, a film that has had the forum users squeeing for months.

If you fancy cleansing your brain after The One and Only, then this could be just the ticket. We can pretty much guarantee no terrible Kylie imitators who sing the songs incorrectly will be featured.

Labels: BBC2, johnny depp, the culture show, tim burton

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

An important announcement from the Cardiff tourist board

NEW! IMPROVED? Torchwood, BBC2, 9pm

Yes, that's right, our favourite Cardiff-based alien-hunting bisexuals are back! Now, we are actually quite excted about the return of Torchwood. Contrary to popular opinion, we didn't think series 1 was all that bad. Well, it was in parts, but some parts of it were really good. What it suffered from was complete inconsistency. And a not-altogether-likeable bunch of main characters (except Suzie. We loved Suzie). And the fact that it wasn't a patch on Doctor Who. Then The Sarah Jane Adventures came along and blew it out of the water.

However, the portents for series two of this Cardiff-set drama are pretty good. Apparently the team behind it decided to pull their socks up and rectify all the things that were so wrong first time around. So we've been promised less angst, more likeable characters, more engaging storylines, more Cardiff and even some humour. The post watershed edited repeat (startng next week) means that the violence, sex and swearing will be minimised and so it will hopefully feel a little bit less like late-night Hollyoaks (ZOMG! WE IZ CAN DO SWEARING AN STUFF. IN CARDIFF) and more like a proper good sci-fi drama romp. In Cardiff. We are also ultra, ultra excited by the prospect of Dame Martha Jones turning up halfway and being fierce.

Episode one sees the arrival in Cardiff of another time-travelling sexual terrorist time agent in the form of Captain John, who is played, excitingly, by James Marsters. Whilst he may seem a bit exciting to be visiting Cardiff, apparently Torchwood went down well in the USA, so we get some proper exciting guest stars this series, in the form of Marsters, Jim Robinson (sorry Alan Dale, but that's all you'll ever be in this country) and, bizarrely enough, Richard Briers. And we're sure the Cardiff skyline will play an important role, too. And though we haven't heard any rumours to support our theory, don't be surprised if Myleene Klass turns up. Just so that Barrowman doesn't get all the limelight.

Anyway. Things we would like to see in this series include Martha being uber-fierce, Captain Jack actually shagging an alien (all the pre-show publicity was like 'oh Captain Jack, he'll shag anyone or anything, but all we have seen so far is him snogging men and women! How vanilla!), the return of Suzie, some properly scary enemies, Rhys growing some balls, Owen facing up to being a Weevil-baiting 'good' rapist (TM Hollyoaks) who almost ended the world by chasing after a woman WHO DUMPED HIM, a kick-ass finale, preferably featuring Suzie, and some more of Tosh and Ianto. And Cardiff, of course.

Things we would like not to see include Owen (or anyone) shagging Martha, Owen shagging Gwen, Owen shagging Jack, Owen shagging Ianto, Owen shagging Toshiko, Owen shagging Suzie's corpse, Owen shagging Captain John, Owen shagging Jim Robinson, Owen shagging alien/guest character of the week, the return of that rubbish demon baddie thing that ruined the finale, a return to Countrycide village, Owen shagging Richard Briers.

Every source we have read or heard (including our own beloved leader Paul) says episode one of this new series of the Cardiff-based show is a triumph. So let's just hope the rest of it carries on in that vein, eh?

Labels: BBC2, Cardiff, Torchwood

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Sunday, January 13, 2008

Sunday: the new black

MULTIPLE CHOICE! Lots of Shows, Lots of Channels, Lots of Times

Oh, the life of a member of team lowculture. You wait days for something interesting to write about, and then suddenly a whole bunch of shows come along at once. Tonight sees a veritable feats of LC-tastic telly, so much so that we're doing a bumper preview, the like of which hasn't been since here since, ooh, Christmas and New Year.

First off the blocks today (and possibly the most highly anticipated on the forums, not least for traditional sweepstake shenanigans) is Dancing on Ice, on ITV1 at 5:50 and 8:50pm. Much has been made of this appearing on a Saturday night, apparently too scared of The One and Only, but maybe ITV just thought if they slung this on the same night as TV Burp and Primeval, there'd be nothing left for the rest of the week.

Anyway, even if you haven't watched this before, exciting reasons to pay attention: 1) The judges have been joined by Ruthie Henshall, which gives this more credibility than it has ever had thus far; 2) The contestants include Suzanne Shaw, Tim Vincent, Samantha Mumba, Steve Backley and SARAH GREENE (who we wish could have done Strictly Come Dancing, but seeing as this teams her back up with Pip Schofield, we don't mind too much); 3) Some of the LC community have set up Bitching on Ice, a commentary blog, which will make it worth it even if the show itself proves to be less than ace.

After this (or rather, during the last ten minutes of filler), you should turn your attention to BBC1 at 7:40pm, where Lark Rise to Candleford continues the channel's current period drama obession. This is made all the more watchable because it features LC faves Liz Smith, Julia Sawhalha (fresh out of Cranford), Mark Heap, Dawn French, and, in a starring role, Olivia Hallinan. Frocks, hairdos and maybe even the odd bonnet - what more could you want on a Sunday night?

Well, you may be torn, because opposite this at 8pm on Channel 4 is the terrestrial premiere of The Phantom of the Opera. Addmittedly it's not all that great, and it shows up the flimsiness of the musical's plot in a way the stage version can almost camoflauge. But the songs! And after recent episodes of The X Factor and When Joseph Met Maria we will always now be replayng this in our heads with a starring cast of Lee Mead, Connie Fisher and Rhydian Roberts, something Andrew Lloyd Webber is no doubt working very hard to make happen as we speak.

And the TV goods keep on coming. On BBC2 at 9pm, we see the latest in Louis Theroux' occasional series of documentaries, Louis Theroux: Behind Bars. We have much enjoyed his recent documantaries on cults, gambling and liposuction, and his time in San Quentin prison promises to be just as entertaining, illuminating, challenging and heatbreaking. If you fancy something a little more cosy, then 9:20pm on ITV1 brings you the new series of Kingdom. We have never watched this, but it stars Stephen Fry, so it's probably a fairly safe bet. And if all you want is a bit of fairly average but occasionally amusing comedy, BBC3 brings you yet another series of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps at 9pm. We have never seen a full series of this, only ever the occasional episode on BBC3 when there was nothing else on, so our understanding of the show's timeline is completely skew-whiff. We expect to watch the new series in much the same manner.

Still not enough for you? Well, More4 repeats the surprisingly touching Half Ton Mum at 10pm, BBC1 screens episode 2 of Damages at 10:30pm, BBC2 features the opening weekend of Liverpool 08 at 10:45pm and Channel 4 has a profile of Robyn at 12:35am.

Never let it be said that you're not spoiled for choice, people.

Labels: BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, Channel 4, Damages, Dancing on Ice, Half Ton Mum, ITV1, Kingdom, Lark Rise, Liverpool 08, Louis Theroux, Phantom of the Opera, Robyn, Two Pints

By Rad :: Post link :: ::  
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Monday, January 07, 2008

Masterchef, no longer large

COMPETITIVE! Masterchef, BBC2, 8:30pm

Now, let's just say this once and for all, the proper time for this, and all cookery programmes is 6:30pm. This moving about the schedules business (see also: Come Dine With Me) is just messing with our whole routine. Also: please note, this new series is on daily at this time, except that this week there's some sporty thing on Friday, so Thursday sees a double bill, starting at 8pm. We wouldn't want you to miss out.

Right, rant over. When we saw this billed in the TV listings as Masterchef, we were intrigued, and a litle excited. Was this a return to 'traditional' Masterchef, and did it mean that we would be spoiled with three series this year: normal, Masterchef Goes Large and Celebrity Masterchef? Sadly, the Radio Times seems to think this is actually the series formerly known as Masterchef Goes Large, with a mere name change. To which: boo. We demand three series a year.

Anyway, for the uninitiated, the show sees judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace judging a bunch of the promising and the hapless for several week, giving the contestants a variety of challenges (and there is always one contestant they like, one they hate and two they can't decide between) until eventually they pick the winner, who is always the finalist we think is least deserving. But despite its formula being as predictable as Dragon's Den, it remains entertaining because of the contestants and the mixture of bizarre and sublime dishes they come up with.

Our fingers are crossed, however, that this move into primetime has seen the predictable voiceovers of 'dinner party cook, home cook, experimental cook' etc replaced by the sarky voiceover man from Come Dine With Me who accuses the participants of being murderers and so on. We can dream.

Labels: BBC2, cookery, Masterchef

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Friday, January 04, 2008

And did those feet in ancient times

AGAIN! Jam and Jerusalem, BBC1, 8:30pm
BORN AGAIN! Extreme Pilgrim, BBC2, 9pm

The Christmas and New Year season tends to mess with our ideas of time. We completely lose track of what day of the week it is (it's Friday) and the TV schedulers only add to our confusion by scheduling programmes on any old day. Case in point, the new series of Jam and Jerusalem. Now it may only seem like, ooh, three days ago, that we were plugging the first episode. And it was. But here is the second one already. However, this Friday 8:30 timeslot is apparently its regular home. We thought you should know. Never let it be said we don't have any public service concerns.

With the US writer's strike going on, and much of the new season of programmes yet to kick in, there really isn't a lot to commend to you on the box tonight. So our recommendation has to be Extreme Pilgrim. In this three part series, TV vicar Pete Owen Jones, who resembles the lovechild of Tom-Baker-era-Doctor-Who and Jonathan Creek, investigates various spiritual practices from around the world. It's probably very similar to The Beginner's Guide To... series that Channel 4 do, only more educational and serious no doubt.

Anyway, tonight he goes and visits some Buddhist Shaolin monks. And if film has taught us anything at all, it's that Shaolin monks are kick-ass martial artists. So whilst we expect Owen-Jones to have a go at adopting a Buddhist diet, chanting, meditating and all that jazz, we are also hoping he learns some fighting skills. In the name of public service and education, of course.

Labels: BBC1, BBC2, Extreme Pilgrim, jam and jerusalem

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Sunday, December 23, 2007

Shut up and Drive

VROOM! Top Gear Night In, BBC2, 7pm

Just before we go on: WOO! Thank goodness last night's result was better than last week's. Go Alesha and Matthew. Woo!

Anyway. We haven't mentioned this series of Top Gear much, but that's not because we are a bunch of gays and girls. Well, OK, we are (mostly), but we refuse to be categorised in nasty stereotypical ways. We can appreciate this programme as much as anyone. No, the reasons we haven't bothered with it are a) we only recently started doing Sunday updates and b) this series hasn't been as good as the last couple.

OK, so Simon Cowell smugging his way to the top of the 'Star in a Resonably Priced Car' was fun, as was Jennifer Saunders coming within a milisecond of stealing the title. Some of the challenges were fun, too, but not anything to compare with the limo task of yore. And the cars were... umm... cars.

Anyway, to mark the end of the series, BBC2 have scheduled comletely unrelated shows featuring Hammond and May (and a repeat with Clarkson in) around the final episode and made it a theme night.

First, and most excitingly, we haveJames May: My Sisters' Top Toys at 7pm, which we are very happy about because we might see some of the toys we used to play with: Major Morgan! Spirograph! That treehouse thing! (which he blows up). Sod the cars, this is where it's at.

At 8pm, we have the finale of Top Gear itself, with David Tennant taking the 'star in the reasonably priced car' challenge. There is also some car stuff, yadayadayada, and the Top Gear awards.

9pm brings us Richard Hammond Meets Evel Knievel (and there is a film, Viva Knievel! at 11:30pm). In this, Hammond meets his childhood hero, not long before his death earlier this year. Apparently this is a moving portrait that is of interest to people who don't just care about motorcycle stunts. But it's probably even more interesting if you do.

As for Clarkson, he didn't do an interesting one-off doc, so there's just an episode of Have I Got Old News For You, at 10pm, but if you haven't been watching Dave obsessively, it maybe a few months since you last saw this.

Oh, and in case we didn't mention it before: YAY for team Alesha victory!!!

Join us tomorrow for a bumper festive edition... bet you can't wait.

Labels: BBC2, evel knievel, james may, jeremy clarkson, my sisters top toys, richard hammond, top gear

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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

I'm gonna milk me a reindeer

FESTIVE FAYRE! Heston Blumenthal's Perfect Christmas, BBC2, 8pm

Labels: BBC2, christmas, cookery, Heston Blumenthal

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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

And then a hero comes along

ENDING! Heroes, BBC2, 9.00pm

If there's one thing we've learned from this series, it's that no matter how powerless you feel as an individual, great things can be accomplished if we can only all learn to work together. With that in mind, RAD and I decided to pay homage to this show's ethos by collaborating on a feature-length entry for this show's concluding double-bill tonight. (You might want to have a cup of tea and a biscuit on hand before you tackle it, seriously. We got a bit carried away.) Now all we need is a pithy catchphrase to accompany our endeavours. Something like "save lowculture, save the world", but one that actually makes sense.

So: if you've been watching, however inattentively, you can't have failed to notice that everyone's quite worried about the prospect of a radioactive explosion in New York that wipes out the entire city. (Everyone except Mr Linderman, who seems to think this is acceptable collateral damage to get Nathan into the White House). The big question is, of course, who will be responsible for it? Will it be Ted? Peter? Sylar? Someone else? We know, obviously, but we're not telling [You do, I don't - RAD]. Of course, at the end of last week's episode we saw Peter's hands getting all scary and glowy, which makes him appear a likely candidate, but it would rather mess with the natural order of things if the climactic explosion happened with two episodes still to unfold, wouldn't it? Anyway, here's our rundown of what to expect from our favourite differently-abled humans tonight.

The Spectacular Flying Petrellis (Steve)

They've been busy this season, haven't they? Peter's nearly died so many times that we've lost count, he's saved the cheerleader (but not yet the world) and has gone from whiny emo-kid to badass power sponge, while Nathan's cheated on his wife with Jessica, discovered a bastard child (hi Claire!), almost been abducted by The Company, had a couple of adorable encounters with Hiro, made an impressive double-entendre involving a phallic-looking vegetable and fought valiantly to get into political office. And in the background of all of this has been Angela, arguably the most kickass character on the entire show, manipulating everything from behind the scenes. God, she's awesome.

While we're trying to keep the kibosh on all spoilers, the big question is, while Peter heads off to Kirby Plaza to stop Sylar and possibly go kablooey along with 0.07% of the world's population, will he be operating alone? It did look for a moment as though that dastardly Nathan was willing to sacrifice his own brother for the sake of his political career, although perhaps when considering the likelihood of this we should factor in how Peter and Nathan's bond is beyond close by any normal person's standards (have you seen how much they touch each other?). We're not saying when it'll happen, and we're not saying how; all we will say is that these two are directly involved in our absolute biggest "HELL YEAH!" moment of the episode, possibly even the entire series. You'll know it when you see it, trust us.

The Bennets (RAD)

Oh dear. At the start of all of this, the Bennets looked like your typical middle-class, suburbian dream family. You know, the kind of family Bree Van De Kamp dreams she has. But that image didn't last long. For starters, there is the fact that (for the 0.0001% of you that don't know) cheerleader daughter Claire (she of 'save the cheerleader, save the world' fame) can regenerate at will, coming back from any injury, including several violent 'deaths' - the best of which was recovering from heading into a full on nuclear blast, which was clearly awesome.

Then there was sinister Dad Bennet, who worked for teh evil Linderman corporation to brain!rape anyone who found out any secrets about his actual work. (He also seemed to be a bit too overly protective of Claire, but maybe that's just our Hollyoaks-addled brains working overtime). We still don't know for sure if he is 'good' or 'bad'. Although as Hollyoaks has taught us, (brain)rape can be good if you feel a bit guilty about it. So maybe he is a good'un after all.

Mum Bennet hasn't had much to do this series apart from grow increasingly crazy due to the mind-messing action. We can tell she is crazy, because she shouted at her fugly little dog. Or maybe she just has the superpower to channel Sharon Osbourne. We're not entirely sure.

Son Bennet (he probably has a name, but I missed it) [it's Lyle. Why yes, I do need to get out more. - Steve] has been incredibly insignificant thus far, which leads us to believe he may well hold some latent abilities that will come to the fore in series 2. Or maybe even in this finale.

Those of you who recall the 'five years in the future when everything went bad' episode will know bad things happen to Claire. She worked in a cafe and dyed her hair brown - which we don't think is all that bad - there's no shame to cafe work (and she never does any school work anyway so is unlikely to pass her exams), and brown hair actually really suited her. But she did get her head sliced open by Sylar while he was cunningly disguised as her biological father, which we would class under the "less good" side of things. The fact that Sylar killed Nathan in this dystopian future just makes us even more convinced that that bitch needs to pay, dammit. (What? We love Nathan.)

The Sanders/Hawkins Brood (Steve)

"Who cares?" may be some people's response here. And the Niki/Jessica plotline may not have been most people's favourite, but we'd just like to give props to Ali Larter for the amazing job she did sketching out the differences between the two characters. We loved how she used her physicality to denote the character shifts, especially the way that Niki walks as though she's made of porcelain, while Jessica has shoulders like a prop forward and runs like an articulated lorry.

What we really want from the season finale is for Niki to realise once and for all that her superstrength is hers to access, not just Jessica's. It'd stop her whimpering, wouldn't it? Being understandably chagrined that Linderman (with the aid of Candice) has absconded with Micah the wunderkind, Niki and DL set off to kick Linderman's ass with their combined brute strength and mad phasing skillz, running into Nathan on the way. Of course, if they happen upon some kind of impending apocalypse, they might prove themselves useful, but what are the chances of that happening?

Everyone else (RAD)

Matt the cop has developed something of a cult following on the messageboards - in fact, he seems to have more lustful admirers than the rest of the cast put together. Matt's 'journey' this series has been a rocky one, with falling out with his lady after she discovered he could read minds, being fired/not being fired all the time from police/security work, having to be body guard to a nuclear man and going 'evil' in the potential future episode. As the 'everyman' of the series, we (RAD, anyway) wouldn't bet against Matt dying some kind of heroic death in this finale (now watch that prediction being proved spectacularly wrong).

Although Hiro is the guy we are all meant to love most of all the heroes (and we do love him), he is somehow a bit too, well, happy, for us to identify with. No, our hero among heroes (well mine, anyway - R) is Mohinder Suresh. The son of a geneticist Dad (WHO IS DEAD) who specialised doing research into people's special abilities, Mohinder carried on the work his father did after his death (so really he is just a boffin version of Niki off The X Factor) and connected with several heroes before discovering Sylar was following him around and bumping them all off. Ooops. Anyway, what we like about Mohinder is that he is clearly a genius, but he is also misunderstood and a bit snarky. Much like us. Last episode he was seen talking to a little girl who could locate people wherever they were but had her abilities hindered because she suffered a similar genetic condition to Mohinder's sister. WHO IS DEAD. We suspect somehow Mohinder and this little girl will have a hand in saving the day. (Come on, he's doing it for HIS DEAD DAD after all)

And finally, we come to Sylar. The 'big bad' of the series, Sylar is a serial killer who takes on his victims' abilities and has spent the series bumping off hero-types (inluding one main character, drug-crazed painter, Isaac). He has a mother. WHO IS DEAD. But that's because he killed her last week, so we're not sure it works that well as a sob story. In the 'possible future' we saw that Sylar might have some hand in orchestrating the destruction of New York and then go on to be President. Can our heroes thwart him? We honestly have no idea, althuogh we do know the actor who plays him is playing Spock in the new Star Trek prequel so we're not sure his outlook is good.

So....
That's your cut-out-and-keep LC guide to the end of Heroes series 1. We've heard reports that the first part of series 2 has been a bit rubbish [which turned out to be true - Steve], but in an astonishing feat, the producer did a total public mea culpa and brought things back on track, and the show got amazing again [which is also true, hooray! - Steve]. (We hope the writers of Torchwood are taking note). So we're not going to write it off just yet. Goodbye Heroes. You filled that Star Trek/Buffy shaped hole in our lives (albeit a few hours later in the day) and we will definitely miss you. Please come back soon.

Labels: BBC2, Heroes, TV

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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Breaking news

CURRENT! Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, BBC2, 11.50pm

Sometimes it's just all about being in the right place, with the perfect combination of speak and subject. The third episode of the most recent series of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe was an in-depth study of television news, in particular the slight ridiculousness of some 24-hour rolling news channels, and it was so precise, so cutting and most importantly so belt-bustingly funny that it made it impossible for the rest of the series to match it. Even the subsequent episode where Charlie made his own Apprentice-style reality show ("then you'll come back to the boardroom, and one of you is going to get fucked") couldn't live up to the near perfection of the news episode. It's getting a terrestrial run tonight, and we just wouldn't feel right if we didn't draw your attention to it.

Where shows like The Day Today and Broken News satirised the news industry with well-observed spoofs, this focuses on how close news has come to self-parody by using actual news footage instead. Particularly cringeworthy moments include a Sky News presenter announcing the death of Harold Pinter (except he wasn't really dead at all and had in fact just won the Nobel Prize for Literature), and the news broadcast that felt we'd best understand the concept of war if there were a large CGI helicopter in front of the presenters.

Pretty much every broadcaster gets a rough ride of things, although there is a particularly appalling clip of Fox News's Bill O'Reilly that pretty much wins all of the "most terrifying news segment ever" awards. There's also an interesting look back at TV news through the ages. We could carry on about how great this was until the cows come home, so we'll just end by saying that this is one of the funniest, cleverest half-hours of television we've seen all year, and we can't recommend it highly enough.

Labels: BBC2, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, TV

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Monday, November 05, 2007

Strict but fair

DAILY! Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, BBC2, 6.30pm

While we do tend to get overexcited quite easily, and spend a lot of time talking about shows that have had huge marketing campaigns and widespread public acclaim, sometimes we like to give some kudos to the shows that fly under the radar. The ones that make the most out of what is perhaps not the largest budget, the ones that promise a lot and deliver just as much, the ones that work really hard to cover as much ground as possible in a short space of time. Yes, it's a lowly spin-off show that's a little bit buried in the schedules, but we're going to come out and say it: we love Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two.

One very prominent reason for this is Claudia Winkleman in the presenter's chair, delivering what we consider to be little short of a masterclass in exactly how you present a show like this: she's extremely enthusiastic and passionate about the programme, she's knowledgeable but at the same time doesn't pretend to know things that she doesn't really know, and she's aware that the show is a companion piece to fluffy light entertainment and therefore doesn't pretend she's hosting Newsnight, but still takes things seriously when necessary. Her interviews with the likes of Craig Revel Horwood, or Brendan Cole and Kelly Brook, last week were very deftly done: she allowed them to talk and explain themselves without constantly butting in, but the second they started talking bollocks, she called them on it. Watching Claudia this week has made us realise just how disappointed we are with Dermot O'Leary being such a yes-man on The X Factor.

Another reason to like this show is that it manages to cram more into 30 minutes than some shows put into an hour. While this does make the pace of the show feel a bit breakneck at times, it still doesn't seem as though things aren't getting dealt with fully. Today Claudia will presumably be chatting with this week's eliminated couple Dominic Littlewood and Lilia Kopylova, Craig Revel-Horwood will probably be there because he almost always is, and we're also promised Pauline Quirke and Jessica Hynes as well during the week. Huzzah to that, say we.

Labels: BBC2, Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, TV

By Steve :: Post link :: ::  
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