|
DEBUTS
JANUARY ...
After pilots in the Comedy Lab strand,
That Peter Kay Thing
and Trigger Happy TV
started their first full series ... The Wilsons was a sitcom based
around a dysfunctional family ... Shipwrecked
left a group of teenagers to fend for themselves ... Michael Gambon and
Jeremy Irons starred in prestige drama Longitude ... and Private
Parts, a series on sexual organs, was perhaps most notable for getting
the word "clitoris" in the Radio Times.
MARCH ...
Howard Goodall's Big Bangs examined
turning points in musical history ... Bernard Hill presented The Real
History Show ... there was new comedy from Da Ali G Show and
jam…while The Big
Brother Story invited viewers to take part in a new reality show.
APRIL ...
"Amusing" jpegs and mpegs were showcased
in the dire Dotcomedy ... Ewen Bremner starred in Paul Abbot's
The Secret World of Michael Fry ... Futurecast was a season
of "factually-based techno-thrillers" ... and the David Irving
libel case was dramatised in The Holocaust on Trial.
MAY ...
Dr David Starkey told the story of Elizabeth
... Location Location Location provided hints on buying property
... Tolstoy's Anna Karenina got the period drama treatment ...
Can You Live Without ...Television was the first in a series depriving
people of so-called "essential" items ... Lock Stock
was a dramatisation of the British film ... while the industrial revolution's
impact was discussed in The Day the World Took Off.
JUNE ...
Football Stories was C4's new soccer
documentary strand ... and extraordinary architectural feats from the
past were studied in Mysteries of Lost Empires.
JULY ...
Emma Kennedy fronted a new game show attempting
to choose Flatmates ... The E-Millionaire Show saw members
of the public showcase their ideas ... Alt TV was C4's new strand
for innovative film-making ... while something called Big
Brother started.
AUGUST ...
Movie Virgins followed prospective film-makers
as they attempted to make it in Hollywood ... Anatomy of Disgust
examined our human instincts ... racism in the armed forces was the subject
of New Model Army ... Family Century told the story of the
last 100 years through the lives of members of the same family ... the
acting profession was examined in Starstruck ... Family Guy
was the latest US animation import ... and Nigella Bites began.
SEPTEMBER ...
Angel arrived in the teatime slot ...
daytime staple A Place in the Sun began finding holiday homes ...
an Oxbridge student became a bouncer in the first Faking It … Paul
Tonkinson fronted student quiz Dicing With Debt ... Meet Ricky
Gervais span off from The 11 O'Clock Show ... while Black
Books and Futurama
began, the latter as part of C4's Animation Week.
OCTOBER ...
Stylish legal drama North Square was
criticially-acclaimed but little-watched.
NOVEMBER ...
John Simm starred as a debt collector in Tony
Marchant's Never Never ... and The Windsors traced the history
of the Royal Family.
DECEMBER ...
Big Brother's Nick Bateman hosted the game
show Trust Me … in The Gambler Jonathan Randell was given
£12,000 and told to make a profit ... while The Royal Institution Christmas
Lectures moved over from the BBC, with one transmitted live for the
first time.
FINALES
TFI FRIDAY
For the first year or so Chris Evans' teatime
music and chat miscellany was required viewing, helped no doubt by the
presence of Danny Baker on the writing team. Regular features like Freak
or Unique, Ugly Bloke and Fat Lookalikes really did get everyone talking
in the student bar or common room after the show. But four years on, the
show had become increasingly stale - the guest list always seemed to be
three indie bands and three of Chris' mates, and the regular features
were increasingly dropped to make way for extended slots filled with Evans
talking about himself. Research showed that the audience was getting older
and the younger audience felt it was no longer fashionable, and the programme
was regularly beaten by episodes of The Simpsons repeated for the
umpteenth time on BBC2. At the start of 2000 the only real innovations
were the depressing weekly Naked Parade - and the sight of Evans regularly
appearing in the nude probably made even his loyal fans switch off - and
two late-night live programmes (caused by cricket taking over its regular
6pm slot). It was then announced that the series would finish come the
end of the year, with a final run broadcast in the autumn. However Evans
decided to quit the show before this, presumably so as not to be associated
with a dying format, so the final seven episodes were each fronted by
guest presenters - including the Spice Girls, Big Brother contestants
and, on the last show, Elton John. Evans couldn't even be bothered showing
up for the final episode. While most were pleased to see it end, the question
was basically why it hadn't happened a few years earlier.
MISC ...
Victoria's Secrets saw Mrs Beckham front
a bizarre chat and documentary hybrid ... a special late night episode
of Hollyoaks was
screened in March, leading to many more spin-offs including the 90-minute
Hollyoaks: The Movie
in December ... Queer
As Folk 2 rounded off the series with two final episodes ...
Apocalypse Tube saw Donna Air and Chris Moyles front a one-off
revival at the Newcastle studios ... Channel 4 News became a seven-day-a-week
operation, with a new Sunday slot, although the Friday programme was cut
to 30 minutes ... a new performance of La Traviata was broadcast
live over a weekend in association with Classic FM, while "youth
opera" Zoe got a zero rating ... and the Tour De France was
covered for the last time.
ON SCREEN
DAVINA MCCALL
McCall's first association with Channel 4 came
almost a decade previously when she narrowly missed out on becoming a
presenter of The Word. Instead she began working for MTV, and via
a range of regional and off-peak shows gradually became a familiar face
on television. By 2000 she was already fronting Don't Try This at Home
on Saturday night ITV, but it was as host of Big Brother that she
really became a household name. Every Friday she'd hold the fort amidst
hundreds of rabid fans while another housemate was evicted, and these
noisy, chaotic shows gradually picked up healthy ratings. C4's biggest
audience of the year was watching on September 15 when Craig Phillips
was unveiled as the winner. Davina could often forget her lines, corpse
at her own jokes and come out with some hideously embarrassing TV moments,
but as the face of C4's biggest hit of the year, her profile increased
immeasurably. There was something about Big Brother that meant
it found, and sustained, success while other reality shows fell by the
wayside. Maybe it was Davina's "unique" presentational style
that did it.
JAM
Chris Morris' previous appearance on Channel
4 was, most media pundits reckoned, likely to be his very last on the
channel. Three years on, though, Michael Jackson was eager to point out
that there was a new regime in charge, one that welcomed maverick talents
however difficult they might be. jam was a television version of
Radio 1's late night series Blue Jam which mixed ambient music
with sketches, monologues and re-edited speeches (one such moment, which
altered the Archbishop of Canterbury's address at Diana's funeral, saw
the episode pulled off the air halfway through). Much of the radio material
was transferred to the television, with snazzy graphics used to try and
ensure it made sense (or maybe no sense) in a visual format. Indeed, there
was even a spin-off show late on Saturday nights, Jaaam, which
added extra graphics and sound effects to make it even more unusual and
unsettling. C4 also ensured that the programme was screened without a
commercial break and minus a credit sequence (the production team named
on a website). However the series itself seemed to disappoint many viewers,
and while exciting and clever for the first few shows, by the end it seemed
to be getting incredibly repetitive and dull. While it was interesting
to see Morris try something completely different to his previous work,
this wasn't an unqualified success.
OFF SCREEN
• C4 were said to have invested £10 million
in their websites, while 4 Ventures announced the launch of E4, an entertainment-based
pay channel to start in 2001.
• Countdown
and Brookside both
celebrated their eighteenth birthdays with special shows in November.
• C4 had to apologise after the live coverage of Party in the
Park on a Sunday afternoon in July featured a stagehand swearing profusely.
FOUR-WORDS
"Channel 4 has constantly to rethink
how to achieve its ambitions. It must remain a broadcaster, offering practically
everyone something they would like to watch at some stage in the week.
It is there to show that the popular and the entertaining are not the
enemy of the creatively ambitious and the good. Our programmes are at
their best when they recognise the creative freedom of viewer and programme
maker alike. They seek out the dangerous, the intelligent, the provoking
and the independently bloody minded."
- Tim Gardam, Director of Programmes, C4
"Over the past 10 years there have been
some extremely intimate documentaries about people's love affairs and
marriages. I don't think Big Brother is different, but its format
is revolutionary. It's up close and personal as we've never seen before.
It's pore-close TV and it will raise the stakes."
- Peter Bazalgette
MY FAVOURITE CHANNEL 4 MOMENT ...
THE ANATOMY OF DISGUST
(2000)
The Anatomy of Disgust was a three-part
documentary series, which explored the most neglected and under-researched
of all human emotions; examining not just the science of this most fundamental
and powerful self-preservation response, but also it’s role in politics
and the arts.
The series touched upon the significance of disgust
in Hitler’s propaganda campaign against the Jews, justifying the anti-Semitism
of the third Reich by portraying the Jewish population as unclean carriers
of disease living in rat infested ghettos. Nazism also formed the basis
of an experiment in which volunteers were invited to touch a soldier’s
hat bearing the insignia of the SS. While most reluctantly did so on the
understanding that it was a replica, almost all refused when informed
that it was in fact the genuine article. What amazed and informed me was
that most of the participants found it extremely hard - if not impossible
- to articulate why they found themselves so repulsed at the thought of
mere fingertip contact with a simple piece of militaria. Most understood
that the terrible historical connotations of the item formed the basis
of their reluctance, but were equally aware that to touch it would not
be physically harmful or symbolic of condoning fascism.
There were some lighter moments, such as an experiment
involving a bunch of toddlers and some chocolate made to look like dog
poo, and a U.S government crowd control experiment where hard-up college
students received considerable financial enticement to inhale scientifically
formulated noxious odours through a mask (The longest anyone lasted without
vomiting was a brave 90 seconds).
When we are disgusted by something our physical
and mental responses clearly display this, causing us to flee from the
source of our discomfort. However, most of us would be hard pressed to
put the cause of this violent and primal reaction into words. The Anatomy
of Disgust addressed exactly this issue, as well as explaining how
those in power use our most fundamental instincts against us, and how
those in the art world manipulate us in the same way, ensuring maximum
emotional impact for their work.
- Rose Ruane
|
