Sunday, March 16, 2008

After skates

BOLERO! Dancing on Ice: The Final Skate-Off, ITV1, 7.00pm

Perhaps it's just us, but it feels like this series has gone on for a few thousand years. Indeed, we're not entirely sure we can remember a time when Dancing on Ice wasn't on. It scarcely even feels like that scandalous early elimination of Sarah Greene was in the same series that we're still watching. Which is odd, because this hasn't been on any longer than, say, Strictly Come Dancing, and indeed it's been on significantly less time than your average series of The X Factor. Perhaps the issue is that on those shows, the contestants have to straddle different genres, be they of song or dance, whereas here it's just more ice dancing, every week, with a new move, or occasionally PROPS. Not that we don't enjoy it, but it gets a little samey after a while.

Nonetheless, we are excited for the final, especially since Gareth Gates fell at the final hurdle last week. We're not being unkind, and it's not that we don't like him as a person, but we always found his routines a little boring (although it was fun to watch Maria grimace every time he made a jovial comment about how well they got on together). We assumed there'd be some kind of national outrage over his unexpectedly early ouster, if only so the tabloids could nickname the whole affair "Garethgate", but if that happened, we missed it. We'd even put our necks on the line to say that we think the right three couples are in the final: plucky upstart Suzanne Shaw, hard-working but ultimately doomed Zaraah Abrahams, and presumably pre-ordained winner Chris "we're not worthy" Fountain.

Tonight there will be flying, there will be the Bolero, there will presumably be death-defiance if Suzanne has any say in the matter, and there will doubtless be floods of tears from judge Karen, who's been surprisingly restrained this series, at least in emotional outburst terms, so we can only assume she's planning to let it all out tonight. We can only hope poor Nicky Slater in the adjacent seat has remembered to bring his pac-a-mac and umbrella. And don't forget that the team over at Bitching on Ice will be covering the whole shebang in detail from start to finish.

Labels: Dancing on Ice, ITV1, reality TV, TV

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Saturday, December 15, 2007

Your vote can make a Difference

FINALLY OVER! The X Factor, ITV1, 7.15pm

Oh, X Factor. Where did it all go wrong? This year you were the show that was talked about for all the wrong reasons, what with the vast majority of the acts that made it to the top 12 being utterly, irredeemably shit, the complete over-reliance on sob stories about people's fathers WHO ARE DEAD instead of contestants who can sing, knife-wielding zombie teenagers wearing blazers and berets, Sharon Osbourne throwing a strop at the end of the first live show because two of her acts were in the bottom two, Dermot O'Leary being utterly appalling at filling for time during the live shows, Sharon and Louis ganging up on Dannii Minogue like the nasty bitchy little children that they are...somewhere in the middle of all this ridiculously contrived "drama" you lost sight of the goal: to produce an entertaining show that actually finds a decent new pop act. Is it really any wonder people got bored and devoted their viewing loyalties to Strictly Come Dancing instead?

We've lost a lot of acts along the way, most of them barely memorable: brassy barmaid Kimberley was the victim of ITV's schedulers in the first episode after they moved the start time fifteen minutes earlier, meaning that most people switched on after her performance; then DILF Daniel got booted after a disastrous rendition of 'Build Me Up Buttercup'. Then the planned double-elimination got cancelled after Zombie Emily was discovered to be some kind of YouTube terrorist (and this from a girl WHO WAS BRIEFLY DEAD and therefore ought to know only too well the value of human existence) and withdrew from the show, then Futureproof lost the battle of the hastily-assembled-at-boot-camp bands against Hope. At this stage new girl Dannii, who according to Louis and Sharon knows absolutely nothing about the music industry and has never ever never had a hit record and has only just learned how to walk upright and has yet to be weaned onto solid foods, was the only judge with all of her acts left, so weepy Asbestos Andy was the next one to get booted after leaving it far too late to flash his washboard stomach at us. After that it was the turn of longterm bottom-two dweller Alisha to go home, the victim of one of nitwit Brian Friedman's many misfires of "creative" "direction". Following her was the booting off of Bellowing Beverley, much to the chagrin of mentor Louis Walsh, who clearly didn't receive the memo that the obligatory fat black woman never wins, or indeed the memo that she was rubbish and no loss whatsoever to the music industry.

Amidst rumours of backstage squabbles, and possibly because of the fact that only one of them could sing, girl group Hope were the next to go, and then in the sweetest of all possible eliminations right before the final, Niki (WHOSE DAD IS DEAD) got the boot after the public finally realised that Louis Walsh saying she was a brilliant and talented singer =/= her actually being a brilliant and talented singer. Farewell, you humourless old boot. Please take some time out to study the limitations of your voice; it'll be better for everyone that way.

This leaves us with three acts remaining to fight it out for the title, the first of which is Leon, this year's obligatory Jazz Twat, who is unspeakably dreadful, has absolutely no charisma, is of negligable talent and yet has never once been in the bottom two. Voting public, we do not understand you. It was bad enough that Ray came second last year, for the love of all that is holy. Alongside Leon in Dannii's category is Rhydian, the cavernous-lunged classically-trained singer with Max Headroom hair, who turned out to be quite a sweet bloke despite first impressions, but has been somewhat sandbagged by some uninspired song choices. He's the favourite to win, but we must ask ourselves: does the world need any more "popera" artists? Indeed, did we ever need any in the first place? We suspect not. Which leaves us with lowculture favourites Same Difference, a brother-and-sister duo from Portsmouth who are constantly cheerful, always watchable, and most importantly despised by Louis Walsh. Therefore a vote for Same Difference is a metaphorical kick in the teeth for that clueless grey git at the end of the table who couldn't win a battle of wits with an armchair.

Here, just to prove why they must win, is Same Difference performing the Scissor Sisters' 'I Don't Feel Like Dancing' in the fourth week of the competition:


Tonight, each act will sing a Christmas song, their favourite song from previous weeks in the competition, and a duet with a special guest star. Not that any of this matters, because whatever happens you should vote for Same Difference. Same Difference, Same Difference, Same Difference. We really cannot stress this enough. And if they don't win tonight, we'll probably be co-ordinating some kind of sabotage campaign on Monday to get everyone to download Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' to stop the winner getting the Christmas No.1.

Remember: every time you vote for Same Difference, Louis Walsh dies a little inside. We can think of no better incentive. (And if we can drop a shameless plug in, the team over at The Bitch Factor will be doing a live blog during both shows tonight, and imbibing dangerous amounts of vodka just to get through the evening.)

Labels: ITV1, reality TV, The X Factor, TV

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Monday, November 12, 2007

It's a Jungle Out There

LADY DICK! I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, ITV1, 9pm

It’s that time of year again, when a handful of people you’ve never heard of (and one or two you have) venture into the Aussie outback to eat bugs and suchlike. A ‘ratings winner’ on the beleaguered ITV network (we love calling it that), we can’t say this show is a true LC favourite (The thread for the last three series combined has only 3 pages in – compared to Any Dream Will Do’s 35, and X Factor series 4’s 44).

However, although we don’t usually make the effort with this one, we offer three reasons why this year’s may be more entertaining than most:

Cerys Matthews! Whose entry has made shock waves ripple through the messageboard. (Well, a few people were a bit disappointed she lowered herself to this), but who sould be entertaining and by virtue of Catatonia’s back catalogue alone, deserves to be Queen of the Jungle. With a new Welsh-lanugage album out, it’s clear she’s courting the Welsh market – and as we all know from BB, The X Factor and Strictly, regional goes down well…

Janice Dickinson! The star of America’s Top Model and (alleged) lover of plastic surgery should prove the most entertaining jungle star yet. If you haven’t seen her antics on ANTM, or that show she did with Abbey Clancy, you may have caught her mad romp on Jonathan Ross where she flirted shamelessly with Andrew Lloyd Webber (and decided she could marry him and become ‘Lady Dick’), pwned John Barrowman and talked about how ‘any hole will do’. In short, a wild, unpredictable bag of filfth.

Katie Hopkins! Well, perhaps. Tabloid rumours suggested the cold blooded killer from The Apprentice was going in. The official line-up doesn’t include her in it, but apparently she is in Australia right now. We can but hope. Janice vs Katie would make even the most bug-squeamish of us tune in.

Your other jungle-ites are: Gemma Atkinson (famous for Hollyoaks, Hollyoaks In the City, Hollyoaks LetLoose and taking her clothes off a lot), Marc Bannerman (Gianni Di Marco from EastEnders, famous for going out with Nadia Sawhalha. Presumably they are no longer an item, but if anyone knows, we’d love you to confirm), John Burton Race (the most wankerish of all the celebrity chefs who sullied the reputation of Dame Angela Hartnett, kitchen goddess, by appearing with her in the admittedly rubbish Kitchen Criminals), Lynne Franks (famous PR lady), Rodney Marsh (something in sport), Anna Ryder Richardson (the one off Changing Rooms who always used Barbie pink in every room she did) and ‘J’ from Five (the sort-of-fit-sort-of-ugly one with the buff body who looked about ten years older than the others). Malcolm McLaren has already walked out, the big wuss.

We can’t promise it’ll be the most entertaining ‘reality’ show of the year… but it’ll surely be better viewing than this year’s Celeb BB was….

Labels: Bugs Janice Dickinson, Cerys Matthews, I'm a Celebrity, reality TV

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Friday, August 31, 2007

Little bother

FINALLY OVER! Big Brother, Channel 4, 8.30/10.00pm

We vowed at the beginning of this series that we would pretend this show wasn't even on, so entirely over it are we these days. Amusingly enough, we can't have been the only ones feeling that way, since this series has by many accounts been lacking the must-see factor, and having a considerable number of viewers remembering the advice of a certain kids' TV show of a bygone age, switching off that TV set and doing something less boring instead. Perhaps it's the curse that strikes every fourth series of Big Brother and renders it utterly unwatchable, or perhaps it's just that really, no one gives a toss any more.

We can't even say that we can remember any particularly amusing events from this year - indeed, Emily's early faux pas notwithstanding, there hasn't even been any racist horseplay for the tabloids to froth over. Sometimes this show is bad, but this year it was worse: it was boring. The early promise of the all-female household was quickly squandered, producers insisted on throwing in more and more contestants in an attempt to prolong the show, but forgetting to give any of them a personality beforehand, and as the show squeaks embarrassingly to a close this week, it definitely seems to be lacking the sense of anticipation that usually accompanies the finale.

Compare this to last year, where our initial resistance to the show was worn down by the gradual emergence of the awesomeness of Aisleyne, who clearly scored the moral victory of the series by going on to become best chums with Charlie Brooker and memorably accompanying him to Glastonbury in a tent from Argos - a feat infinitely more interesting than anything that happened inside the actual Big Brother house this year. As of tomorrow, we get our schedules back, and with Celebrity Big Brother "resting" in January (read: not coming back until they can absolutely guarantee that none of the housemates secretly harbour massively racist views that will embarrass both them and C4/Endemol when broadcast), the prospect of respite is even more blissful. Cheerio, Big Brother. Don't hurry back. Now, anybody know how we can take down The X Factor?

Labels: Big Brother, Channel 4, reality TV, TV

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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

A spoonful of Sugar

HIRED! The Apprentice, BBC1, 9.00pm

Every so often, we swear we can still hear an echoed cry of "what the fucking fuck?" bouncing around our living room walls, which was something akin to our response during last week's episode when Katie apparently developed a heart of some kind and realised that she couldn't possibly leave her children to go and work for Sralan Sugar, thereby "stepping down" from the interview process. You know, the same children that she'd repeatedly suggested quite strongly that she didn't really give a flying Fauntleroy about roughly ten minutes previously. We cried bullshit, and if Tre's exit interview is anything to go by, we're not wrong. Then again, Tre thinks he has offices in 15 countries across the world, so who knows what's true anymore, eh?

Anyway: this is it, bitches. After tonight, either Kristina Grimes or Simon Ambrose will be The Apprentice, and will have an extremely glamorous job along the lines of recycling old office supplies in Brentwood, the lucky lucky things. The smart money would seem to be on Kristina, on the grounds that she's displayed such qualities as resourcefulness and competence (swearing on air during the teleshopping task notwithstanding), rather than on Simon, who rather went to pieces over the past few weeks, who unintentionally draws attention to his penis on live television and turns into a six-year-old girl during interviews, but who looks nice answering the phone in his pants. But that's the thing with this show, because not many of us were betting on Michelle this time last year, and look what happened.

This year's final task is a little more low-key than previous years: Kristina and Simon are asked to come up with suggestions for what Sralan might want to do with the ground he'll obtain when he demolishes a building that he's just bought on London's South Bank, and present their ideas to a crowd of 100 property experts (dear show: please let one of them be Sarah Beeny). It's not quite as dramatically satisfying as the gala party event from last year, but it probably makes more sense from a "who's most likely to be better at the actual job" perspective. So, who'll win? Who knows? That's half the fun. Team Kristina! (Now watch as Simon romps to victory, since we always get these things wrong.)

Labels: BBC1, reality TV, The Apprentice, TV

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Monday, June 11, 2007

But it's also got Terri Dwyer, which balances things out nicely

VARIETY! Britain's Got Talent, ITV1, 9.00pm

Yes, we know, this actually started two days ago, but we can't be doing with making updates at the weekends. It's far too much like hard work. So, slightly belatedly, we turn our attention to nouveau variety show Britain's Got Talent, in which Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden play the judges to everyone in Britain who thinks they have a talent which presumably falls outside of the casting requirements for series four of The X Factor. It's actually weird to be considering a TV talent show that doesn't necessarily require you to sing or dance, or already be a celebrity of some kind.

The show follows the successful (as far as we understand) run of America's Got Talent on NBC last year, with Piers Morgan, pre-car-crash-drama Brandy and pre-floor-eating-insanity David Hasslehoff as the judges (with Sharon Osbourne replacing Brandy in the second season for obvious reasons), which was won by Bianca Ryan, an 11-year-old girl with a scarily big singing voice. Since most of the people who entered an actual dedicated singing competition in the UK last year were astonishingly underwhelming as it was, we're rooting for the knife swallowers and baton twirlers already.

We're slightly intrigued that the whole thing's airing on consecutive nights over the course of a week, which has a whiff of let's-just-get-this-over-with about it; we were expecting it to be a big Saturday night primetime thing. This way it feels a bit more Soapstar Superstar than it does The X Factor. So far on the messageboard only David Hunter and Smudge have admitted watching it, with David Hunter pointing out that "anything with a Michael Jackson theme got through" and Smudge noting that it was "a shame that old man didn't stab his daughter". On the strength of these recommendations, we're planning to tune in tonight.

Labels: Britain's Got Talent, ITV1, reality TV, TV

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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Reality check

WTF! So You Think You Can Nurse, Five, 8.00pm

When lowculture isn't busy watching television, writing about television, dreaming about television, or occasionally, having sex while thinking about television, we like to come up with new reality show formats. In much the same way as The Daily Mail-o-Matic or The Julie Burchill Random Recycler, reality TV show titles (and to a similar extent, concepts) seem to stem from the art of taking seemingly unconnected words from a set group of enablers and skills bases and throwing them together until you come up with something that nobody's done yet. In our own endeavours, we were quite proud of Strictly Come Whoring (Jodie Marsh, Linda Barker, Rebecca Loos, Kate Lawler and Calum Best* learn how to turn tricks from professional hookers, one gets eliminated each week until the victor remains, with all profits from phone votes and actual punters going to charity) and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Chlamydia? (Gillian McKeith, Rebecca Loos (again), Jon from S Club 7, Joe Pasquale, and Gareth Gates* all try to come up with new ways to enhance the British public's awareness of STIs, with the person whose district has the lowest decline in infections each week getting booted off).

With that in mind, we were still rather stunned when we learned of So You Think You Can Nurse, wherein Gail Porter, Sean Hughes and Janet Street-Porter are recruited as nurses despite an apparent lack of prior training and expertise, and let loose on actual patients (we're assuming with adequate supervision, otherwise this would be lawsuit central, surely?).

What really flummoxes us about this is the title. We understood So You Think You Can Dance because a lot of people go through life under the misapprehension that they have rhythm when they don't. However, we have yet to be accosted by someone at a party who drunkenly assures us that they could totally be a nurse if only someone gave them the break. It doesn't appear to be one of those professions where people sit at home and think "tsk, those gadabouts. I could do better than that." Of course, the point of the programme could be to highlight the growing hardships faced by nurses working in the modern-day NHS, but then we can't help thinking that this isn't exactly the most effective way to tackle it. But then, what do we know? This got commissioned, while Celebrity Exorcism with Terri Dwyer is still stuck in development hell. That's TV for you.

* NB. The above celebrities have yet to be approached.

Labels: Five, reality TV, So You Think You Can Nurse, TV

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