03.04.09
Telly stuff
You may know that I’m not a great telly fan but a couple of things or so have come to my attention recently.
I occasionally browse the “Points of View” message board on the beeb to see what the loons are saying about stuff. Normally there’s a thread about most stuff wots been on and it’s fun to see what your average beeb viewer seems to think about odder stuff like “The Stewart Lee Comedy Vehicle” for instance (it’s patchy but mainly ace).
Yesterday evening I was wandered on there to see the board in vague meltdown over that evening’s episode of Eastenders. Loads of threads all basically saying “U fiwfh! Hah cahn you du that to-wer? Fiwfh!”
It seems that something of dramatic import had climaxed and your very average viewer really weren’t too happy.
This struck me as a little odd.
I see telly as a way to educate me, make me laugh and occasionally show me something new. I’m not a great one for using it as a method of anaesthetising myself.
But it seems, yet again, that I’m in a very small minority.
It seems a little odd to me that people should be upset by something surprising and nasty. It does appear that their slumber shouldn’t be disturbed by having their preconceptions challenged in any way.
What a dull world they inhabit.
Next telly show is Genius. Nicked straight off the radio (but somehow “I’ve Never Seen Star Wars” got there sooner).
I wasn’t sure that it would translate to the telly and I’m tending to think I was right. I’ve seen all 3 episodes so far and whilst the ideas are as good as ever and the guests have been ok (although the creepy taxi driver coming on to Catherine Tate was rather uncomfortable) I just don’t think the show needs to be on the telly. That’s not to criticise the concept, after all they tried Just a Minute on the telly as well – great show, didn’t need to be on telly.
It also doesn’t help that I’m familiar with the radio series and they’ve nicked loads of the ideas from that to re-present again. So far we’ve had, weighing scales in shoes, symmetrical Isle of Wight, the full face razor, the science of opposites and 98m high running shoes. Now that’s more than a full episode’s worth of repeat ideas. Not that they’re particularly bad ideas just that I’ve already heard them. And I reckon they didn’t go as well on the telly. The model of the 98m high shoes just looked like a model. The image was better on the radio.
The best bit has been the “Genius Bin” part where they read some ideas that were rejected for the show. Some of these have been brilliant. But even then it’s a straight nick from the “ideas suggested by the studio audience” that they always did after the main show on the radio. (“Woolen gimp masks for winter gimping” remains my all-time fave of these)
Not sure on this one. Hmmm.
Last one is “Spiral“. Looking forward to this. I’ll report back later.