Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Rimmer's Dinners
Labels: BBC Two, BBC2, Breaking into Tesco, Five, Five Life, food, Recipe for success, Simon Rimmer
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.
By Rad :: Post link
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Monday, February 25, 2008
Libbin' it up
RETURNING! Neighbours, Five, 1.45pm, 5.30pm, 5.10am, Five Life, 7.00pm Labels: Five, Five Life, Libby Kennedy, neighbours, TV
One of the great things about Neighbours is that whenever a favourite character leaves, there is always a good chance you'll see them again. Even if they die. (See also: Home and Away, EastEnders, Emmerdale).
Tonight sees the return of an old favourite, Libby Kennedy. Libby comes back to support mum Susan through her trial and her still-a-mystery-but-not-for-much-longer illness. It's a good job someone in the family cares. Mal and Billy are both too busy being overseas, and Carytyre is too busy going out with Paul McClain to actually give a damn. Seriously, they could at least phone.
We're not sure what kind of job Libby will have, what with Riley being the new resident journalist and 'Fitzy' the new teacher, but there's still a doctor's position going, so maybe she'll have had yet another career change. However, all is not well in Libby-land. She and Ben (worryingly, he is played by the brother of the actor who plays Mickey, we thought we ought to warn you) are back, but where is Darren?
What this all means is that not only is Libby back, she's back with a bang, as the Kennedy-Smith-Kennedy-Smith-Kinski-Kennedy clan enter into some of their biggest storylines to date. Following on from this, can we have Lucy, Gail and RobRob back now please?
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Monday, February 11, 2008
The Second Coming
Labels: Five, Five Life, neighbours
ARRIVED! Neighbours, Five, 1:45pm, 5:30pm, 5:10am and Five Life, 7pm
Was it only this time on Friday that we were blubbering like big girlies at the loss of Neighbours from the Beeb? Well, we are so over that now, because Neighbours on five is going to be great.
For one thing, they have kept(ish) its traditional times, so hopefully it won't feel that different. We know having adverts in the middle will be a bit weird, but at least there'll be time to go and put the kettle on or something.
For another thing, there is something rather exciting about the reliving the late 80s/early 90s-ness of having Neighbours and Home and Away back to back (though in the Yorkshire region we always had H&A before Neighbours).
However, the real positive about the move is that all those people who moan 'oh, I used to watch Neighbours, but now I'm not back from work in time' will have no excuses, because Five Life will show that day's episode at 7pm.
And, and, AND!!!! After 22 years of waiting, there is an omnibus at long last! This will be on Saturdays at midday (and we think Five Life might be showing the omnibus on Sundays as well).
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Monday, March 12, 2007
Regrets? We've had a few
BACK! Love My Way, Five Life, 9.00pm Labels: Five Life, Love My Way, TV
We seem to recall recommending this quite highly when the first series was being shown on Five Life around about the time that the channel launched, largely on the basis of it sharing some of its behind-the-scenes staff and on-screen cast with the decidedly awesome Oz flatsharing drama The Secret Life of Us. Being the dutiful web types that we are, we made a point of watching the first few episodes to ensure that we were recommending quality product, and thankfully we decided, in our entirely unbiased opinion, that we were totally right. Phew.
Unfortunately, we kind of lost touch with it after a few episodes, not because it was boring us, but because it had the misfortune to be scheduled directly opposite something else that we were watching religiously, which we suspect may have been Torchwood, so we lost out way and dropped out. (And given that we could have watched Torchwood when it was repeated on Wednesdays, we still aren't entirely sure why we had to sacrifice a programme at all, but then hindsight is a magical thing.) However, it returns tonight for a second series, and apparently a Big Major Plot Thing happened at the end of the first one which changed everything.
Frankie (played by Claudia Karvan, who played Alex in The Secret Life of Us) has been in Iceland trying to come to terms with the sudden death of her eight-year-old daughter at the end of the last series, only to find that it continues to haunt her. Possibly not the show you want to be watching for some easy-come jollies, but the quality of the drama and the acting is solid and we can recommend it with a little more authority than we did last time. We're going to sit down nice and early tonight to catch up on all those plot threads we dropped during the last series, and we recommend you join us. Not at our house, mind. Not unless you're willing to bring cake, and even then we reserve the right to refuse admission.
By Steve :: Post link
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Absolute zero
THIN! The Truth About Size Zero, ITV1, 9.00pm Labels: Five Life, Footballers' Wives, ITV1, The Truth About Size Zero, TV
There's no shortage of programmes lining up to tell us that losing a lot of weight in a short space of time might be a very bad idea (gee, you think?) right now, but we felt compelled to single out this one in particular because the person bravely volunteering to put it to the test is none other than '90s pop star turned footballer's wife Louise Redknapp. We were huge Eternal fans back in our youth, so we couldn't let this one pass.
Louise will be attempting to slim down to a size zero (American size, obviously - we don't even want to think what a British size zero must look like) from her current size eight (hardly chubby by anyone's standards) in 30 days, using the latest in faddy crash diets to help her achieve her goal. All we've seen of the show so far is the brief snippets on the trailer, but we're going to guess that her journey will probably involve sickness, tiredness, irritability and a general craving for nutrients before very long. We wouldn't be entirely surprised if Gillian "Not Doctor Any More, Bah" McKeith comes in to poke at her poo at some point, either. In an effort to be responsible, we'd like to remind any impressionable readers that trying to slim down to a size zero is really not a good idea, and that if you wish to diet you should pick a sensible one and consult a qualified professional beforehand, and remember to stop slimming when you reach an appropriate weight for your height. Just so we're clear on that.
Speaking of footballers' wives, as we were a minute ago, how could we let today pass without mentioning that lowculture's flagship show, Footballers' Wives is beginning a repeat run tonight on Five Life at 9.00pm. Enjoy a journey back to the days where Chardonnay hadn't set fire to her breasts yet, when nobody had quite realised how utterly, utterly awesome Tanya Turner was destined to become, and when people still knew or cared who Ian and Donna Walmsley were.
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