28 April 2006
DROWNING IN SOAP
So the BBC has announced that there is going to be a spin-off from a spin-off of Casualty. A new police show is to be created that will tie-in closely with the goings-on at Holby City, headed by well-known soap writer Tony Jordan. Given that Holby City itself barely ties in with Casualty at the moment you have to wonder just how closely the two shows will be related (although the new show will most likely be made in London like Holby City is - unlike Casualty which is shot in Bristol - so the potential for tying stories together will probably be greater). The BBC will be hoping that the link with Holby City will ensure that the as yet nameless series lasts a little longer than the short-lived pair City Central and Mersey Beat.
Apparently part of the reasoning behind this development is the new plan of the BBC to make more shows in a familiar mould, and to run them for longer. Mark Thompson revealed the grand plan in his Royal Television Society Fleming Memorial Lecture the other day. In effect, what this is likely to result in is a further "soapification" of the schedules with the same types of programme on all year-round, although he does concede that "we will still find places to nurture one-off events and signature dramas".
Thompson claims that what the BBC intends to do is give the viewers more of what they love best "like EastEnders, Casualty, Holby City." Perhaps he fails to realise that the reason the public "love! these shows best is because they are currently on so regularly? There isn't a great deal of other stuff to watch on the two main channels. Holby City is now in its eighth series apparently, despite being on for 52 weeks of the year - how do they work that out? Do we really need even more of the same? The BBC should be making more shows that are a step away from the everyday humdrum problems faced in police stations and hospitals to ensure that there is a variety of drama for the public: Spooks, Hustle and Doctor Who have all succeeded admirably in this respect. Plenty of people like their fix of soap, but conversely, plenty of people don't. The other week Doctor Who was the highest-rated non-soap programme on BBC1.
Holby appears to be becoming the C.S.I. of British television with a proliferation of spin-offs. To complete the set all that we need next is a Holby series set in a fire station. Oh, then one set in a lifeboat station. And one set in a school. And one set in a supermarket ... etc, etc ...
Apparently part of the reasoning behind this development is the new plan of the BBC to make more shows in a familiar mould, and to run them for longer. Mark Thompson revealed the grand plan in his Royal Television Society Fleming Memorial Lecture the other day. In effect, what this is likely to result in is a further "soapification" of the schedules with the same types of programme on all year-round, although he does concede that "we will still find places to nurture one-off events and signature dramas".
Thompson claims that what the BBC intends to do is give the viewers more of what they love best "like EastEnders, Casualty, Holby City." Perhaps he fails to realise that the reason the public "love! these shows best is because they are currently on so regularly? There isn't a great deal of other stuff to watch on the two main channels. Holby City is now in its eighth series apparently, despite being on for 52 weeks of the year - how do they work that out? Do we really need even more of the same? The BBC should be making more shows that are a step away from the everyday humdrum problems faced in police stations and hospitals to ensure that there is a variety of drama for the public: Spooks, Hustle and Doctor Who have all succeeded admirably in this respect. Plenty of people like their fix of soap, but conversely, plenty of people don't. The other week Doctor Who was the highest-rated non-soap programme on BBC1.
Holby appears to be becoming the C.S.I. of British television with a proliferation of spin-offs. To complete the set all that we need next is a Holby series set in a fire station. Oh, then one set in a lifeboat station. And one set in a school. And one set in a supermarket ... etc, etc ...
24 April 2006
"IF I WASN'T SITTING HERE, I'D BE SITTING THERE WITH YOU"
It's long existed in name and theme tune only, but it still comes as a bit of a shock to learn that Grandstand is coming to an end after 48 years.
The writing has been on the wall since 2001, when Football Focus and Final Score became shows in their own right. In between, Grandstand has largely abandoned the compendium format of its heyday, and evolved into a programme devoted to one big event. The audience for a five-hour miscellany of sport in all its forms has all but disappeared. If you like snooker, you don't want it interrupted by scrambling. And if you're interested in football, you don't want to wait until 4.40pm for the results, when you can watch the scores roll in all afternoon.
BBC1 will still be devoted to sport on Saturday afternoons, but it's a pity that something practically everyone grew up with, even if they were only tuning in for Doctor Who, is about to disappear forever. The theme tune, the teleprinter, the pools news and the handwritten racing results ... enduring images, as Ron Manager would say.
Moreover, the end of Grandstand just about sounds the death knell for the classic all-round sportscaster. In the old days, the programme would be anchored by the same presenter, week in, week out - Frank Bough, Des Lynam or Steve Rider - live from a buzzing Lime Grove studio full of typists. Now, if Grandstand is covering tennis, it's Sue Barker, if it's rugby union it's John Inverdale, and if it's snooker it's Hazel Irvine. It seems a shame that we'll probably not see the like of David Coleman or Harry Carpenter bestriding the sporting globe again.
I think watching Grandstand is one of my earliest television memories. I remember being hugely amused at a rugby team being called Bath.
The writing has been on the wall since 2001, when Football Focus and Final Score became shows in their own right. In between, Grandstand has largely abandoned the compendium format of its heyday, and evolved into a programme devoted to one big event. The audience for a five-hour miscellany of sport in all its forms has all but disappeared. If you like snooker, you don't want it interrupted by scrambling. And if you're interested in football, you don't want to wait until 4.40pm for the results, when you can watch the scores roll in all afternoon.
BBC1 will still be devoted to sport on Saturday afternoons, but it's a pity that something practically everyone grew up with, even if they were only tuning in for Doctor Who, is about to disappear forever. The theme tune, the teleprinter, the pools news and the handwritten racing results ... enduring images, as Ron Manager would say.
Moreover, the end of Grandstand just about sounds the death knell for the classic all-round sportscaster. In the old days, the programme would be anchored by the same presenter, week in, week out - Frank Bough, Des Lynam or Steve Rider - live from a buzzing Lime Grove studio full of typists. Now, if Grandstand is covering tennis, it's Sue Barker, if it's rugby union it's John Inverdale, and if it's snooker it's Hazel Irvine. It seems a shame that we'll probably not see the like of David Coleman or Harry Carpenter bestriding the sporting globe again.
I think watching Grandstand is one of my earliest television memories. I remember being hugely amused at a rugby team being called Bath.
21 April 2006
"YOU IDIOT, LIZZY!"
Despite my disgraceful grumping about last Saturday's Doctor Who, I'm, obviously, still hopelessly devoted to the show and thus excited to an equally disgraceful degree when I get to interview any of the cast. This afternoon, it was a telephone call to Elisabeth Sladen. Yer actual Sarah Jane Smith!
She was lovely, but seemed a teeny bit ... I dunno ... fragile?
So, here are my two favourite bits.
On when she embraced the fact she'd never be free of her association with Doctor Who:
"It was after I'd been to America. I wouldn't do conventions here because someone else was playing the assistant on screen, so I did totally walk away. But in America they would show episodes scene-by-scene and you would be quizzed. Then, all of sudden, the videos were out over here.
"Then Jon [Pertwee] and I, at the beginning of the 1990s, did the radio shows together and he said, 'You idiot, Lizzy, you've got to get out and promote these!'. That's when I just started to think, 'Well, yes. It's not going to make any difference now'. So that was the turnaround."
On Stepping Stones:
"Oh it was great fun, I loved doing it. I went up to Yorkshire to do that. We had to wear our own clothes, they had no budget. So I got a bed jacket, a second-hand Oxfam thing, and I thought, 'They'll have to buy me stuff now, it looks so awful'. They made me wear it [Laughs]. I had to wear it! 'Oh, that looks nice!'. It was awful, green, pink and blue.
"I did that on and off for three years, and then it went into My World. "
She was lovely, but seemed a teeny bit ... I dunno ... fragile?
So, here are my two favourite bits.
On when she embraced the fact she'd never be free of her association with Doctor Who:
"It was after I'd been to America. I wouldn't do conventions here because someone else was playing the assistant on screen, so I did totally walk away. But in America they would show episodes scene-by-scene and you would be quizzed. Then, all of sudden, the videos were out over here.
"Then Jon [Pertwee] and I, at the beginning of the 1990s, did the radio shows together and he said, 'You idiot, Lizzy, you've got to get out and promote these!'. That's when I just started to think, 'Well, yes. It's not going to make any difference now'. So that was the turnaround."
On Stepping Stones:
"Oh it was great fun, I loved doing it. I went up to Yorkshire to do that. We had to wear our own clothes, they had no budget. So I got a bed jacket, a second-hand Oxfam thing, and I thought, 'They'll have to buy me stuff now, it looks so awful'. They made me wear it [Laughs]. I had to wear it! 'Oh, that looks nice!'. It was awful, green, pink and blue.
"I did that on and off for three years, and then it went into My World. "
20 April 2006
"DUTS"
Having seen some of the new series I have to agree with Steve in that it is great to see Bullseye back on the box (albeit stuck out of mainstream way on Challenge), and Dave Spikey seems to be a fairly good replacement for Jim Bowen, but isn't it a little annoying the way that he says "duts" instead of "darts"?
You won't be able to watch the show without thinking about that now.
You won't be able to watch the show without thinking about that now.
19 April 2006
BIT OF BULLY "UNBEATABLE" SAY LAB
Everyone in OTT Towers knows that the best line on Off The Telly is Ian Jones asking "Where are the quizzes?" while discussing BBC1's mid-'80s Saturday night line-up. The thing is, it can never be said enough, because the undemanding quiz show you can watch over beans on toast and shout out the answers to is, when it's done well, always welcome.
Hence why it's so great to see Bullseye back on our screens, albeit on Challenge and, bizarrely, at 10pm. The most interesting thing about this revival is that it's done completely straight. Bar host Dave Spikey expressing his excitement about getting to do Bullseye at the start, there's no irony involved at all, and it's almost exactly how you would imagine Bully would be were it still running today. Even the prizes are a bit ropey - but that's Challenge budgets for you.
Dave doesn't refer to BFH, says that anything is super or require two minutes to count out the cash - he simply hosts it as a conventional game show host doing a conventional game show. As such, it's still great fun, and a welcome lesson as to how to revive a TV programme. Why it's not on Sunday afternoons is beyond me.
Hence why it's so great to see Bullseye back on our screens, albeit on Challenge and, bizarrely, at 10pm. The most interesting thing about this revival is that it's done completely straight. Bar host Dave Spikey expressing his excitement about getting to do Bullseye at the start, there's no irony involved at all, and it's almost exactly how you would imagine Bully would be were it still running today. Even the prizes are a bit ropey - but that's Challenge budgets for you.
Dave doesn't refer to BFH, says that anything is super or require two minutes to count out the cash - he simply hosts it as a conventional game show host doing a conventional game show. As such, it's still great fun, and a welcome lesson as to how to revive a TV programme. Why it's not on Sunday afternoons is beyond me.
16 April 2006
SPEAK FOR YOURSELF
"When was the last time you used a phone box?" tittered one of the presenters on News 24 the other night. "Go on - have a think!" "Oooh," the other replied, hamming it up for all they were worth, "it must be at least 10 years. How about you? When was the last time you used a phone box?" "Probably ..." "Yes?" "... Probably around 10 years as well." "Now doesn't that seem such a long time ago?" continued the first. "But now, the weather. Darren, when was the last time you used a phone box?"
Presenters feeling the need to give us something of themselves as well as, and often instead of, merely discharing their stated duties is certainly nothing new; Clive James notes no less a figure than Alastair Burnet in 1978 interrupting a News at Ten bulletin to drawl of how "tomorrow is the longest day, which means the nights will soon be drawing in." What was particularly notable about this specific outbreak of chatter on News 24 was the sad fact it wasn't particularly notable. Presenters on News 24 now seem to be lapsing into the most banal and inconsequential conversations on an increasing frequent basis, with rarely-convincing enthusiasm and to ever-diminishing returns.
The trouble appears to flow from BBC Breakfast, whose twin hosts, no matter what combination, have taken the fine art of the witty aside and whimsical afterthought and flattened it into the basest of retorts and pointless of comments. They feel compelled to add their own verbal addendum to whatever report has just aired or topic they have just discussed. This wouldn't be a problem were there not two of them, meaning the one-line response always has to become a conversation, and were they able to think of something amusing and/or insightful to say. Instead the dullest of pleasantries are exchanged, or anecdotage swapped, or - most common of all - phrases repeated and recycled endlessly ("Interesting stuff there" "Yes, very interesting. Food for thought" "Most definitely ...")
Even when talking points are supplied via the great British public, they end up being treated in much the same fashion. Emails are read out on a particular topic - say, a ban on smoking in all public places - one of which will say it is a good thing, the other claiming it is a bad thing, after which the presenters will say "a mix of opinions there." "Yes, a real mix." "Do keep them coming in!" "Yes, we really do like to hear from all sides of the argument ..."
News 24 is hampered by a far higher quota of listless, somewhat lumpen presenters than its rival Sky News. They can't help but make the news sound boring, repetitive and, worse of all through the endless pursuit of the off-the-cuff remark, trivial. Sky News presently walks all over News 24 in terms of personality and flair, yet has its own drawbacks in being unable to report anything without screaming BREAKING NEWS all over the screen and flinging a dozen different graphic displays at you. Its presenters are self-consciously dwarfed by all the technology around them, and can't help but be overawed by the scale of operations and the sound of the Skycopter whirring off to the scene of the latest MAJOR DISASTER.
Rolling news has taken away from presenters the onus to be tightly whimsical and concisely capricious. Even after 10 years there has yet to emerge somebody new who can effectively work this format to their advantage and make it run on their terms. And as for the old guard, they really haven't a hope in hell of mastering such an open-ended, unpatrolled monster. You only need to look at Peter Sissons blundering and bungling yet another weekend shift on News 24 to see that.
Presenters feeling the need to give us something of themselves as well as, and often instead of, merely discharing their stated duties is certainly nothing new; Clive James notes no less a figure than Alastair Burnet in 1978 interrupting a News at Ten bulletin to drawl of how "tomorrow is the longest day, which means the nights will soon be drawing in." What was particularly notable about this specific outbreak of chatter on News 24 was the sad fact it wasn't particularly notable. Presenters on News 24 now seem to be lapsing into the most banal and inconsequential conversations on an increasing frequent basis, with rarely-convincing enthusiasm and to ever-diminishing returns.
The trouble appears to flow from BBC Breakfast, whose twin hosts, no matter what combination, have taken the fine art of the witty aside and whimsical afterthought and flattened it into the basest of retorts and pointless of comments. They feel compelled to add their own verbal addendum to whatever report has just aired or topic they have just discussed. This wouldn't be a problem were there not two of them, meaning the one-line response always has to become a conversation, and were they able to think of something amusing and/or insightful to say. Instead the dullest of pleasantries are exchanged, or anecdotage swapped, or - most common of all - phrases repeated and recycled endlessly ("Interesting stuff there" "Yes, very interesting. Food for thought" "Most definitely ...")
Even when talking points are supplied via the great British public, they end up being treated in much the same fashion. Emails are read out on a particular topic - say, a ban on smoking in all public places - one of which will say it is a good thing, the other claiming it is a bad thing, after which the presenters will say "a mix of opinions there." "Yes, a real mix." "Do keep them coming in!" "Yes, we really do like to hear from all sides of the argument ..."
News 24 is hampered by a far higher quota of listless, somewhat lumpen presenters than its rival Sky News. They can't help but make the news sound boring, repetitive and, worse of all through the endless pursuit of the off-the-cuff remark, trivial. Sky News presently walks all over News 24 in terms of personality and flair, yet has its own drawbacks in being unable to report anything without screaming BREAKING NEWS all over the screen and flinging a dozen different graphic displays at you. Its presenters are self-consciously dwarfed by all the technology around them, and can't help but be overawed by the scale of operations and the sound of the Skycopter whirring off to the scene of the latest MAJOR DISASTER.
Rolling news has taken away from presenters the onus to be tightly whimsical and concisely capricious. Even after 10 years there has yet to emerge somebody new who can effectively work this format to their advantage and make it run on their terms. And as for the old guard, they really haven't a hope in hell of mastering such an open-ended, unpatrolled monster. You only need to look at Peter Sissons blundering and bungling yet another weekend shift on News 24 to see that.
13 April 2006
GROAN UPS
So I've got sat here two preview DVDs with all eight episodes of Grown Ups on it. It's the new BBC3 sitcom "from the creator of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps", no less, which transmits on 9 May. On the basis of the ep I've watched, Susan Nickson isn't going to become famed for her versatility any time soon.
The writer is pretty much replaying the same old Two Pints preconceptions and ticks. In short, that's childish twentysomethings obsessing over sex and sherbet Dib Dabs. With Sheridan Smith. And, yes, it's as witless as that makes it sound, with not a single laugh over its 25 minutes.
This is hardly hold-the-front-page stuff, though, is it? It seems the critical knives are barely sheathed when it comes to Nickson's work, with even the BBC's comedy website coming over all snippy when referencing Two Pints. Granted, there's an element of precociousness to her that generally rubs people up the wrong way (bagging her first commission while she was still in her teens), but that doesn't come close to dismissing the weight of the prosecution's evidence.
That said, someone out there patently likes her stuff, if six series of Runcorn-based shouting are anything to go by, anyway.
"I'm incredibly lazy," said Nickson in a kids' Q&A sesh here, referring to Two Pints, "and just basically set the show in my living room, my local, and my mum's house. I really should get out and do something else if I want to write something new. Nah, can't be bothered."
And there you have it. On the evidence of Grown Ups she's still house-bound. As for me, shall I crack on with the other seven episodes? Nah, can't be bothered.
The writer is pretty much replaying the same old Two Pints preconceptions and ticks. In short, that's childish twentysomethings obsessing over sex and sherbet Dib Dabs. With Sheridan Smith. And, yes, it's as witless as that makes it sound, with not a single laugh over its 25 minutes.
This is hardly hold-the-front-page stuff, though, is it? It seems the critical knives are barely sheathed when it comes to Nickson's work, with even the BBC's comedy website coming over all snippy when referencing Two Pints. Granted, there's an element of precociousness to her that generally rubs people up the wrong way (bagging her first commission while she was still in her teens), but that doesn't come close to dismissing the weight of the prosecution's evidence.
That said, someone out there patently likes her stuff, if six series of Runcorn-based shouting are anything to go by, anyway.
"I'm incredibly lazy," said Nickson in a kids' Q&A sesh here, referring to Two Pints, "and just basically set the show in my living room, my local, and my mum's house. I really should get out and do something else if I want to write something new. Nah, can't be bothered."
And there you have it. On the evidence of Grown Ups she's still house-bound. As for me, shall I crack on with the other seven episodes? Nah, can't be bothered.
06 April 2006
THE FEAR FACTOR
Right, this'll be the last Doctor Who posting on here ... until the next one, at any road.
Anyway, I did mention I'd pop a Russell T Davies quote up here from the Cardiff launch. However, in the fast-moving, white-heat of showbiz news, you also have to factor in the - well - fact that I still haven't got around to finishing up my transcript of his Q&A sesh.
Nonetheless, the Who maw must be fed, so here's a little snippet from the 800 words I have written up thus far, where RTD talks about the "fear factor" in the upcoming episode "Tooth and Claw".
"That's as scary as it gets. I mean, it has to be said, in that episode there's no blood. You don't see a single drop of blood anywhere … You have to bear in mind, also, that Harry Potter has a werewolf in it now[and that's] the temperature of modern family film.
"We're very careful with the show. It looks scary, it feels scary, it is scary, but never terrifying - which I don't think is a bad state of mind to get into. It doesn't do any great credit to us to terrify people too much. We're genuinely careful with it. And we'd be daft not to.
"If mum and dad object, they switch off and that's the last thing we want. So we want children to have a little bit of a thrill.
"I remember when I was at school and I used to watch Fu Manchu films, and they were the only things my parents ever banned. But I tell you why, someone told them there was a beheading in it. I used to watch all sorts of sex and violence on telly, but when the boy next door said these films were the scariest thing in the world, they banned it. That was terrible. I hated it, it drove me mad. So we'd never want that to happen.
"You've got to be responsible about it. And everything we do goes to Jane Tranter and to the separate editorial policy board. So, we're careful."