Saturday, January 12, 2008
Prime(val) suspect
META! Harry Hill's TV Burp, ITV1, 6.30pm Labels: Harry Hill's TV Burp, ITV1, Primeval, TV
Christmas can be a traumatic time in many ways, but by far the worst experience we had to endure over the festive season was getting back to London only to find our TiFaux had steadfastly refused to record almost everything we'd asked it to - including the seasonal special of Harry Hill's TV Burp. To be looking forward to something for so long, and then to be denied, it's...well, it's not very nice, let's put it that way.
In light of which, we're extremely grateful to the sympathetic types at ITV who've seen fit to start the new series today, so at least we have new episodes to watch. Hooray! As well as all of the regular features we've come to know and love, including the pre-ad break "FIGHT!", the TV Highlight of the Week, and the random TV personality coming on at the end to sing a song, we gather we can expect a look over TV not just from the past week, but since the end of last series. Quite how they're planning to squeeze that into 30 minutes without having some kind of early-90s type moment where it's all played at lightning speed for us to rewatch later using a freeze-frame function, we're not sure. Either way, we can't wait to see what he made of The X Factor. Welcome back, Harry. Please never leave us again.
DINOSAURS! Primeval, ITV1, 7.00pm
People may be cock-a-hoop wherever you look on the internet right now over the return of Torchwood later this week, but we're just as excited about the return of slightly wonky but entirely loveable ITV sci-fi effort Primeval, which was most notable in its first series for endless gratuitous sequences of Hannah Spearritt dancing around in her underwear, and the general sense you got as a viewer that perhaps the show's "anomalies" (rips in the fabric of time) were meant to represent the gigantic plot holes that cropped up at least once per episode.
We started off sneering at it, admittedly, but we grew quite fond of it as the series went on. Sure, it had its flaws (and let's be honest, here: show us a genre series that doesn't), but it had a properly good yarn at the centre of it, which counts for more than you might think. We were left on a cliffhanger where dashing team leader Nick Cutter emerged from one of the anomalies only to discover that the world he was returning to had changed, perhaps forever. Presumably we'll be picking that thread up where it dropped off, and revisiting the time-honoured themes of dinosaurs rampaging in heavily urbanised areas, and sexy scientists toting large amounts of weaponry. Ahh, good times.
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Monday, July 30, 2007
Somewhere beyond the C
PROFANITY! The C Word: How We Came To Swear By It, BBC3, 10.30pm Labels: BBC3, Harry Hill's TV Burp, The C Word
Some of you are probably clutching your pearls already, so if it makes you feel any better, we tried really hard not to write about this programme, but the temptation was just too strong. We did wonder how best to approach it without causing offence, which got us thinking: really, it's just a programme about words, isn't it? Isn't it really just Balderdash and Piffle with a slightly higher potential to offend? We could technically proceed further down the "isn't it really YOUR problem?" school of thought, but we're not looking to get into a fight, so we won't.
We don't maintain any illusions that this is a family website, but we'll refrain from actually using That Word in this preview just to be on the safe side, especially since there are those who would argue that since lowculture is a predominantly male website, editorially speaking, we don't even have the right to say it because we don't have one. Which is an interesting point, but then you return to the old argument where you say that you can say "umbrella" without actually having one, especially if you're Rihanna, so what's the difference?
ANYway, for those of you who haven't already guessed, this is an exploration of what is arguably the English language's most powerful expletive, and the one that is still surrounded by a pretty strong sense of taboo. Will Smith (the British one, thankfully - and hopefully this clarifies why we're using his picture to illustrate this, just in case anyone assumed we thought he was a you-know-what, which we swear on a stack of Bibles - or copies of Inside Soap, whatever's to hand - that we absolutely don't) will be exploring the word in more detail and trying to figure out why it riles people so much, with the help of some ubiquitous talking heads. Not one for the easily offended, we suspect. (And also FYI, if you really don't like That Word, you're probably best off steering clear of the Hollyoaks thread on the messageboards, just to be on the safe side.)
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007
TV Regurgitated
REPEAT! Harry Hill's TV Burp, ITV1, 11.00pm Labels: Harry Hill's TV Burp, ITV1, TV
We realise that this is a repeat, but frankly we couldn't let the current series of TV Burp come to an end without marking it in some way, and since we're generally far too lazy to write anything on Saturdays, we're doing it today. Questions? No? Good.
It's quite nice to wave this show off into the distance without having to worry too much about whether it'll be back. For ages it was that show that we loved that didn't get the ratings it deserved and seemed to be permanently at risk of an undignified offscreen burial. And then during this sixth series (and fair play to ITV for keeping it going for so long, given their reputation for canning shows that underperform), something rather magical happened - lots of people started watching! Like, figures in the region of six million. Our cockles were well and truly warmed - and we imagine that Harry and the production team were quite chuffed as well.
There's no big end-of-series song and dance, sadly, but there is everything you'd expect: more ridicule directed in Paul Burrell's general direction as a result of Australian Princess (a show we're beginning to think only exists so that this show can remind us how awful it is), more well-chosen odd moments from the soaps, a singing appearance from someone who got mocked on the show earlier (and this week's is a cracker), and the obligatory pre-ad break fight. We'll miss this show lots. Now hurry up and recommission it, ITV plskthx.
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Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Jackson | noun, informal: a lesbian
SURREAL! Harry Hill's TV Burp, ITV1, 12.35am Labels: Harry Hill's TV Burp, ITV1, TV
Arguably the best thing on telly at teatime on a Saturday is Harry Hill's TV Burp, but unfortunately that's also the time where we're most likely to completely forget to watch it. We prayed to the gods of television (we usually specifically target Heather Locklear, because she's generally quite benevolent where we're concerned, but she was unavailable on this occasion so we settled for Su Pollard) for a repeat, and while they give with one hand, they slap you round the chops with the other, because 12.35am isn't exactly an ideal time for us either. Still, it's better than an extra half hour of The Mint.
As well as spotting some of the slightly weirder things to happen in the soaps (we love the show's skill for finding the perfect moments to take out of context and thus change their meaning entirely - especially the ones involving Marlon from Emmerdale, lowculture substitute (we're not entirely happy about that as a concept, but if you're going to cheat on us we'd rather it were with a TV show than if you started seeing other websites) for tracking down some of the more craptacular programmes that get buried in the TV schedules and are best watched from behind the fingertips.
The only downside is that you may never be able to enjoy television in a straightforward non-thinking fashion ever again. You'll be too busy looking for that unfortunate bit of blocking that makes Naomi from EastEnders look like a Christmas tree or something.
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