Thursday, December 20, 2007
Come dine with me, let's dine, let's dine awaaaaaay
Labels: Channel 4, christmas, come dine with me
Disclaimer: First of all, apologies if this post reaches you in less than comprehensible form. Some of us have been out for two Christmas meals and attendant drinks and thusmay not be in the most suitable state to do previews. However, rather than disappoint you with posting much later in the day than usual, we are soldiering on to serve you. You lucky, lucky people.
Anyway, when we looked at the schedules for this week, we were very excited to see a Come Dine With Me Christmas Special. As you may have gathered, this series has a cult following on the forums, although attempts to get lowculture members to host it have been met by a bunch of excuses such as 'I don't have enought chairs' and 'I'm a vegetarian' proving that we are all a bunch of wimps.
However, upon closer inspection, we discovered that this was not a brand new Christmas special at all, but a repeat of last year's. Indeed, we discovered that there appears to be no 2007 Christmas special at all, which is an even bigger swizz than this episode only having five participants intstead of the usual four. (Come on channel 4, as much as we like Jamie Oliver, we'd rather see a new one of these than a Jamie at HomeChristmas special telling us how to rear and killour own turkeys and other such things we'll never do).
Anyway, once we'd got over our grump, the prospect of this actually cheered us, as a) it was the show that got us into Come Dine With Me in the first place, b) several LC-ers won't have seen it before anyway and c) we don't rememebr who won, or anything, so it will be like watching it for the first time again (accompanied by salad and water no doubt, after yesterday's excesses).
The christmas 'spin' on this show is that as well as being judhged on their menus and entertainment skills, our four dinner party hosts are being judged on their Christmas decs. We're guessing paper cone angels, cotton wool sheep and sprayed gold pine cones don't feature heavily.
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The King's Christmas Message
Labels: 2007, BBC4, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, christmas, review of the year
CURMUDGEONLY! Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, BBC4, 10:35pm
Now as you should all know by now, Charlie Brooker is regarded as some kind of deity by lowculture and as such, it is your loyal duty to watch this show tonight (or at least try and catch one of the many repeats that are on over the next few weeks).
This special edition of Screenwipe has been billed in some quarters as a Christmas special, and others as a review of the year. So we don't know whether it'll be old 'Chuckles' reminding us of the TV highs and lows of the past year (although he's covered phone fakery, advertising, reality TV, talent shows, rolling news and yoof TV in the series proper already, so goodness knows what else is left), a preview of the festive fayre that awaits us, or, perhaps more likely, a combination of both. LC fave Aisleyne will no doubt crop up to, to the delight of the many 'Caisleyne' lovers on the board.
What we do know is, Voyage of the Damned aside (and the annual treat from new LC icon The Queen, of course, gawd bless ya, maam), this is the most essential thing on TV this festive period and anyone who doesn't watch will be demoted back down to 'slabface'.
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I'm gonna milk me a reindeer
Labels: BBC2, christmas, cookery, Heston Blumenthal
FESTIVE FAYRE! Heston Blumenthal's Perfect Christmas, BBC2, 8pm
This Christmas special features Heston cooking for six celebs (Terry Wogan, Richard E Grant, Rob Brydon, Sue Perkins, Dara O'Brian and Kirsty Walk, should that influence you), in a location we can only presume is Narnia (no sign of Mr Tumnus though... hmmmm... what IS the meat they will be eating?)
We are promised a menu including reindeer milk ice-cream, mulled wine that is both hot AND cold in the same glass, sugar baubles with salmon mousse, something called babe in a manger, which is, ahem, communion wafer sprayed with the aroma of freshly accompanied by sherbet fountains (!) and stock cubes served in gold, frankincense and myrrh.
We don't know if he'd win Come Dine With Me with a menu like that, but it's certainly worth a gander...
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Sunday, December 16, 2007
O come, all ye faithful
Labels: BBC3, Channel 4, christmas, liverpool nativity, make me a muslim, religion
CONTROVERSIAL! Make Me a Muslim, Channel 4, 8pm
SONG-TROVERSIAL! The Liverpool Nativity, BBC3, 8pm
Before we begin today's previews, let's take a moment to reflect on THAT result. Yes, we know.
OK, moment over, let's move on, people.
So... it is at this time of year that our thoughts turn to the spiritual side of life (unless like us, you're doing a research project on religion on telly, in which case you think about it all the time), and we don't just mean of the alcoholic variety, ba-dum-tish.
In a slightly bizarre feat of scheduling, we see two shows with a loosely spiritual/religious dimension on at the same time tonight. So, which should get the lowculture vote?
Well, should this influence your choice at all, Channel 4's offering, Make Me a Muslim runs across three consecutive nights, not weeks, as you might expect. This already controversial 'reality' show follows six volunteers as they adopt an Islamic lifestyle for three weeks and try and live according to the values of Sharia Law. All well and good, but didn't BBC2's The Retreat do something very similar early on in the year?
Anyway, early reports (well Newsnight Review anyway) suggest the show is engineered for conflict, with participants including extreme stereotyped characters (e.g. the truck driver who 'just happens' to have a huge stash of porn, the gay man who 'just happens' to dress in women's togs from time to time), so we don't expect too much. But it should still hopefully be interesting.
BBC3's one-off offering, The Liverpool Nativity is one of those things that will either be a triumph-against-all-odds, or an unmitigated disaster. Following on from 2006's actually very moving Manchester Passion in which the story of Easter was set against a backdrop of Manchester-based songs, and featured local actors and pop stars in the main roles, this show does the same for the Christmas story, but sets it in Liverpool. See what they did there?
Promising to feature the songs of The Beatles, Echo and The Bunnymen, The La's, The Kalxons and, er, Cast, this also boasts a very LC-friendly cast, including Jennifer Ellison, Nerys Hughes and Geoffrey Hughes (Onslow from Keeping up Appearances. Yes, we know he was in Corrie and The Royle Family as well).
We hope this will be as entertaining and emotive as its Manchester counterpart (although to be honest, we don't hold out too much hope), but we'd still rather they stopped the series here and didn't attempt the Sheffield Pentecost, much as we'd like a starring role as an extra, and to see how Disco 2000, Don't You Want Me and I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor could be turned into loosely Biblical messages.
Peace and goodwill to all of you, lovely people. And remember, the true meaning of Christmas is to download Mariah's All I Want for Christmas Is You and cause an upset in the Christmas Number One stakes...
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Saturday, December 23, 2006
One last thing
OK, I know we said we were taking a break, but this is too good not to share. Watch all the way to the end!
Observations:
1. Gail's wardrobe is fabulous.
2. Harold is still really fat, but looks thin by comparison to how fat he is now.
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Friday, December 22, 2006
Ho ho ho, bitches (again)
FESTIVE! Christmas Preview Part 2
Hopefully you've had time to digest all of the special festive telly we recommended yesterday, because we're going to jump right back into it:
Now it's December 28th (or it will be, quite soon) and the festive excitingness starts to die down a little, although it should be very interesting to see Marc Warren as Dracula (BBC1, 9.00pm) and those of you seeking something a little more stimulating (steady on, not in THAT WAY) might be interested in Is Benny Hill Still Funny? on Channel 4 at 9.00pm. We'd be inclined to say no, what with him being dead and all, but perhaps we're answering the wrong question there.
On December 29th we'll be stopping everything to watch The Lizzie McG
uire Movie (BBC1, 10.15pm), work or no work, but if you like your films slightly more stimulating (and we do sort of mean in THAT WAY this time), you can watch Will Young in the skinny in Mrs Henderson Presents (BBC1, 9.00pm). Also getting us ridiculously excited will be the terrestrial premiere of High School Musical (BBC1, 5.55pm), which will hopefully mean that we can understand what everyone's been going on about all this time.
Those of who who've stuck with Robin Hood all the way through (well done!) will no doubt be on the edge of your seats for the last episode in the series (damn, it's much easier when you're writing about American shows and can just say "season finale", isn't it?) on December 30th. Also worthy of note is the second part of Little Britain Abroad (BBC1, 9.15pm), Harry Hill's Christmas TV Burp (ITV1, 7.30pm) and the frankly bizarre-sounding Viewer of the Year 2006 (ITV1, 9.00pm).
On New Year's Eve we can assume you'll all be flicking between New Year Live and Jools's
Annual Hootenanny at the moment itself, but earlier on in the day you may find yourself enticed by The Big Finish with Graham Norton (BBC1, 9.00pm), or Frankie's big exit in Coronation Street (ITV1, 7.30pm). There's a terrestrial showing for the ace Fear of Fanny starring Julia Davis and Mark Gatiss (BBC2, 9.00pm) and Channel 4 will be counting down the celebrities that mattered in The 2006 Fame Review at 9.00pm. And if all the antici...pation is too much, ITV3 is showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show at 9.45pm.
And finally on New Year's Day there's...ooh, rather a lot. Matt Lucas, Bob Hoskins and Mark Gatiss star in The Wind in the Willows on BBC1 at 6.20pm, there's an excellent opportunity for some gravetop-dancing in EastEnders Revealed: Goodbye Pauline (BBC1, 8.30pm), the almost definitely last ever episode of The Vicar of Dibley (BBC1, 9.30pm) and another chance to relive the year in celebrity thanks to Five's Most Shocking Celebrity Moments 2006 at 9.00pm. And that's before we take into account the final two episodes of Torchwood starting at 9.30pm on BBC3. Excellent. Now how much longer till the new series of Doctor Who, eh?
And that is that, as Girls Aloud might say. We'll be back on January 2nd, so have a truly awesome festive period!
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Thursday, December 21, 2006
Ho ho ho, bitches
FESTIVE! Christmas Preview Part 1
First, the bad news: LOWCULTURE is going on a festive break tomorrow, so we can eat mince pies and roast our nuts over an open fire and all sorts of other festive things. We know, we know, you're utterly distraught about the very idea of having to cope without us, but rest assured: we'll be back with business as usual from January 2nd. In the meantime, we thought we'd provide you with a bumper preview of top festive telly, part one of which starts right here. Oh yes.
On December 23rd, or Christmas Eve Eve as we like to call it, there is of course Strictly Come Dancing - the Final, although we care now a lot less than we would if the Bunton were still in it, especially since we don't especially like Mark or Karen or Matt. Lilia's ace, though. There's also a very special Casualty two-parter to mark Josh's exit. He might die! But he also might not. On The Other Side, the gap left by The X Factor is painfully obvious, but we'll be clearing some time out to watch Whatever Happened To Gareth Gates?, and we hope Ray and Leona watch it as well.
On Christmas Eve there's...well, not a lot, to be honest. There's a decidedly iffy-sounding light entertainment show on BBC1 called Duet Impossible where apparently new technology makes it possible for stars to sing with their heroes of yesteryear. Yeah. Moving on, there's a bumper 45-minute Christmas special of Never Mind The Buzzcocks on BBC2 at 9.30pm, the network premiere of Calender Girls on BBC1 at 9.30pm, and over on Living TV at 8.00pm there's an America's Next Top Model special where previous winners including Yoanna House (cycle two) and Nicole Linkletter (cycle 5) tell you what they're doing now. Of course, you could just go down to McDonald's and ask them yourself. Also: for a repeat of the brilliantly ridiculous finale to Hollyoaks: In The City, watch E4 at 10.00pm.
Christmas Day brings us the new Doctor Who Christmas special, which is obviously all anyone cares about, so moving on...what? Oh, fine: other programmes on that day include festive editions of EastEnders, Coronation Street and Strictly Come Dancing, as well as comedy probable-finales from The Vicar of Dibley and Little Britain Abroad. We advise you to avoid Ricky Gervais Meets Christopher Guest on Channel 4 at 10pm, because frankly Ricky Gervais doesn't need any more attention than he's already getting, but we do advise you to catch the festive staples that are the Top of the Pops Christmas Special (2.00pm on BBC1, just in case it's never on again) and The Snowman on Channel 4 at 2.30pm. Obviously you'll have to tape one of them.
Boxing Day looks like it might have to be the day where you watch all your DVDs, but there is a very festive Chrissytittybangbang on BBC3 at 9.30pm. People who fancy Johnny Depp (that's everyone, then?) can enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl on BBC1 at 7.30pm. There's a fascinating-sounding Faking It Burlesque Special on Channel 4 at 9.00pm, and film-wise there's a lot of fun to be had from the double bill of Bedknobs and Broomsticks and the Jamie Lee Curtis/Lindsay Lohan version of Freaky Friday on BBC1 from 2.45pm. If you're truly desperate, you could watch The Charlotte Church Show Christmas Special on Channel 4 at 10.25pm, but we'd only recommend it to the terminally masochistic.
On December 27th we'll be mainly getting very excited about Billie Piper starring in Philip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke on BBC1, but also getting some of our attention will be How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?: Connie's Story on BBC1 at 6.30pm and a double bill of Hollyoaks on Channel 4 at 6.00pm where Craig and John Paul come to blows (and not in the way we'd like them to) over Swimbint.
The second and final part comes tomorrow - bet you can't wait, can you?
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