Great TV Shows That Nearly Were: Part III...

My latest additions is:

Grand Designs: Some bloke who loves architecture shows moneyed but clueless middle-class twonks try to create a better home. 

Gran Designs: A lentil-eating, well-meaning gimp shows moneyed but clueless middle-class twonks how to create a better elderly relative.

The Other Woman also came up with the following: 

Through the Keyhole: Panel show that used to be presented by bespectacled vo-wel-el-on-ga-tor Loyd Grossman before he went off to make pasta sauces.

Through the Beyhole: A round-up of the idiotic nuggets spewed out of the ass of Beyoncé and other urban music stars. Russell Kane presents.

Great TV Shows That Nearly Were: Part II...

One-day International Cricket: Live! A full-day match featuring some cricketers from somewhere else other than England. That could mean Wales. Or even Scotland.

One-gay International Cricket: Live! A full 24 hours as the cameras film a solitary gay man or woman from another country playing cricket on their own. Richie Benaud and a token woman commentate. Other sporting talking heads pretend not to be homophobic.

Great TV Shows That Nearly Were: Part I...

The Other Woman refers to me as a Walking Filth Bucket but she can be equally disgusting, so I am inventing a new game.

It's called Great TV Shows That Nearly Were and the rules are simple: take a real TV show and switch one letter or add and remove one letter to make it a more interesting TV show. For additional points, you can also give a brief listing for the show.

Here is an example:
Great Canal Journeys: A well-famous actor enjoys another exciting adventure of discovery with his lovely wife.
Great Anal Journeys: See above.

This could run and run...

The Bridge: Season Three...

Goodbye Saga Noren. I am a huge fan and I hope we meet again. But, if not, thanks to you and your police colleagues for keeping me entertained, enthralled and thrilled for three seasons. Even better, for a show whose central characters teeter on the brink of personal disaster and terrible tragedy virtually every week, we even had a sort of happy ending. This, of course, could just be a happy ending and that's it... or it could be the springboard for a possible fourth season. Here’s hoping!

The Bridge is Noridc Noir, a generic description for the spate of superb thrillers such as The Killing and Borgen that came out of Denmark and won deserved worldwide acclaim. The Bridge is a Swedish and Danish co-production and, like the excellent The Killing, it's essentially a superior and intelligent police thriller that operates at its own pace and doesn't feel the need to explain every single thing or pander to its audience. 

The opening two series followed the chalk-and-cheese relationship between strait-laced, OCD-suffering and high-functioning autistic Swedish detective Saga Noren, played by the astonishingly brilliant Sofia Helin, and her Danish detective counterpart, the flawed Martin Rohde (Kim Bodnia).

The third season sees Saga work alongside a new partner, haunted drug-user Henrik Sabroe, played by Thure Lindhardt, as they hunt a serial killer who's targeting victims connected to a multi-millionaire and using his art collection for inspiration when committing the murders.

We also gradually meet the supporting cast of characters. Many of these, such as Saga's boss, Hans Petterson, and IT expert John Lundqvist, we've met before, but others, such as millionaire Freddie Holst and Saga's mother, Marie-Louise Norén, are new. 

I could wax lyrical about how the complex plot perfectly hangs together, or how the intrigue is consistently and tautly maintained, or how brilliant the scriptwriting is, or how excellent the whole cast are, or how the black humour is pointed and beautiful, or how the third season is every bit as good as the first.. But I’d probably end up boring myself and anyone else who chances on this and reads this.

Instead, give it a whirl. It’s ten one-hour-long episodes and it’s probably the best thing you’ll see on TV this year. I genuinely haven’t seen better. It has no weak points. 

A word of warning, though. The only problem with watching something as good as The Bridge is that it may raise the bar too high for pretty much anything you watch again ever. 

It is that good. 

EastEnders News...

EastEnders is a source of continual frustration at From Beer to Paternity Towers. Too often, it's Albert Square characters bashed into round plot holes, creating a mish-mash of stories and scripts where constant exposition is used to explain poor plotting and unlikely character development. 

But tonight's episode is excellent. I say excellent. It's actually pretty heartbreaking. It deals with Shabnam Masood's stillborn baby storyline and the whole episode focuses on this one story. 

The Pete Lawson script is simple and strong, Rakhee Thakrar and Davood Ghadami give excellent performances as the heartbroken parents, the always solid Nitin Ganatra is superb as Masood, and Bonnie Langford, yes, Bonnie Langford, is a revelation as Kush's grieving mum, Carmel. 

When Enders can do stuff that is genuinely this good, it only adds to the frustration that it can stuff that's so poor. You get the impression that there is still the kernel of excellence in EastEnders. But it takes a precision where the storyliners and the writers have to pay attention and respect to a particular storyline to create it, rather than indulge the creative whims of people who seem to have little respect for the characters and their histories.

If the same amount of attention had been paid to the ongoing bore-fest and plotting nightmare of the Lucy Beale murder storyline, then you get the impression it would have been much better... and not need to have every unlikely twist and turn explained to death and over-justified.

But Monday's Enders is excellent. It's EastEnders at its best. And, as a long-term fan, that's a huge relief.

Comedy News…

Two comedies currently providing much enjoyment at From Beer to Paternity Towers are Catastrophe on Channel 4 and Uncle, which was a sleeper hit on BBC3 last year and is about to return for a second series.  

Catastrophe is written by Sharon Horgan, who co-wrote the excellent adult sitcom, Pulling, a few year ago, and American actor-writer Rob Delaney. They play a Londoner and an American who find themselves parents-to-be after a passionate fling ends up with a baby en route.

It’s beautifully written and beautifully under-played, with none of the cast grasping for laugh lines. And even though it can occasionally mine uncomfortable territory (birth trauma, cancer, social awkwardness), it still manages to be very human with both central characters eminently likeable. It also boasts a cameo from Carrie Fisher, while the superb Ashley Jensen features in a supporting role.

Series two of Uncle gets under way any day now and Nick Helm still excels as the loveable but emotionally stunted loser of the title, with the excellent Elliot Speller-Gillott as his strait-laced and neurosis-laden nephew, Errol, whose own trial through teenage-dom continues to delight.

  

Catastrophe is currently on Channel 4 and is well worth a catch-up if you’ve missed it. Uncle is well worth a series record when it kicks off.

ITV Comedies…

ITV has been a wasteland for decent comedy ever since Rising Damp wowed a nation in the 1980s. Since then it’s been pretty awful fayre. Only the hit-and-miss-and-not-really-very-funny vulgar-thon Benidorm has offered any sign that comedy may yet have a life on ITV…

But recently there’s been a glut of new comedy shows on ITV with two big-profile shows and one lesser-heralded vehicle.

Vicious is the flag-bearer for the new ITV comedy renaissance. It stars Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi as two ageing gay lovers, with Frances De La Tour as their sex-mad fag hag chum. There’s also the hunky, young neighbour upstairs that the elderly trio want to ride like a Blackpool donkey.

The main gag in Vicious seems to be that the two old gays and De La Tour’s character are ‘vicious’ and catty and the laughs presumably are meant to come from the outrageous things they say to each other. But the problem with this premise is that the exchanges need to be more ‘vicious’ for this to work. And they’re not. Instead they’re gags that are so telegraphed I had time to leave the room, make a cup of tea then come back into the room and stroke the cat (not a euphemism) and beat the protagonist to the punchline before they delivered it. It’s that laboured.

Vicious is a really bizarre show. The acting talent attached is astonishing but it’s like the last 30 years of comedy have never happened and we’re in the land of comedy ‘pooftahs’… but without the genuine warmth of a John Inman in Are You Being Served. I genuinely wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a guest spot from a Black And White Minstrel. It felt that hackneyed and that dated…

The Job Lot is a sitcom set in a Job Centre with Russell Tovey as a disillusioned member of staff, Sarah Hadland of Miranda fame as his quirky, insecure and eager-to-please-and-be-accepted boss, and Jo Enright of Life’s Too Short fame as a monotonal, deskbound autocrat who takes great delight in belittling everyone around her, both staff and jobseekers.

It’s not terrible in the same way that Vicious is and there are some nice moments in it but it’s not either really funny or really clever. One scene saw Tovey quit his job then change his mind when he left the building and realised the new temp arriving for work was a stunner. The exit of Tovey’s character wasn’t painful enough or farcical enough... and the introduction of a Benny Hill soundtrack would not have surprised me at the moment he saw the new office temp. There’s a genuinely funny idea here along the lines of the BBC2 sleeper hit The Smoking Room but I’m not sure this is it.

Plebs is the third of the new ITV shows I’ve seen and it’s a sort of Inbetweeners set in Ancient Rome and it’s actually the best of the three, even though it doesn’t boast the prime-time slot of the other two shows and is tucked away at 10pm.

It’s a bit bawdy and a bit raw and not particularly subtle but the script is much sharper than the other two shows. Tom Rosenthal is also very good as the unlucky-in-love Marcus and Ryan Sampson is excellent as his put-upon slave Grumio

The distancing effect of setting it in Ancient Rome works well and allows the writers not only the chance to mine the seam of historical anachronism but it also lends the whole enterprise a certain charm along the lines of Up Pompei.

It’s the best show of the three and it deserves a wider audience. And while Vicious may be pretty poor and The Job Lot sort of OK, at least ITV is back investing in new comedy shows. So that’s good news even if the quality of the output is a bit questionable.  

Ancient Egypt: Life And Death In The Valley Of The Kings…

Sometimes telly isn’t always a horrendous pile of lowest-common denominator shite…

You know, the sort of lowest-common denominator shite that makes you want to reach for the nearest sharp implement to gouge your eyes out so your visual receptors never again have to be sullied by certain sights… certain sights such as some Big Brother contestant shoving a wine bottle up her chuff, or any TV game show fronted by Noel Edmunds, or Loose Women, or any storyline involving gangs of stage-school-children-acting-as-feral-youths in EastEnders. To nutshell it, the sort of stuff that makes you just want to give up…

To counter-balance the deluge of horrendous shows such as the above, though, there are times TV can produce something that elevates the viewing experience into something entertaining and educational and visually stunning.

Ancient Egypt: Life And Death In The Valley Of The Kings on BBC2 is a case in point. It’s essentially an examination of everyday life in Ancient Egypt 3,500 years ago and it’s fronted by the eminently likeable Egyptologist Dr Joann Fletcher, an academic with a strong Yorkshire accent and slightly mad red hair. And she’s simply besotted by her subject and it’s a fascination and enthusiasm that comes across in every frame.

In episode one, there’s a wonderful moment where she gets exclusive access to a tomb in the Valley of the Kings and, amid the examinations and theorising, she just turns away from the camera and bursts into tears at the sheer beauty and intimacy of what she’s seeing.

Telly-crying has become something of a hackneyed ratings-seeking money shot in recent years, with all manner of minor crises in any number of reality-based shows or talent contests stage-managing the waterworks when interest flags. Sigh… But with Fletcher, it was a genuine moment of intimacy and you forget that TV can still create moments like that. There was something quite pure and heart-warming about it.

The Missus is obviously hooked as it’s about Ancient Egypt, but I’ll be joining her on the couch for the other episode in this two-part series. It’s superior telly.

Derek...

Cards on the table. I like Ricky Gervais. I thought The Office was a superb creation and, alongside the ever-wonderful Peep Show and shows such as Father Ted and Black Books, it sets the benchmark for any new comedy series.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Extras and the podcasts kept me amused on many slow days at work. In fact, on one holiday myself, The Missus and The Boy spent several afternoons sat around a pool with our respective iPods plugged in loudly chuckling to ourselves as Gervais, Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington sort of set the world to rights. I like Gervais as a stand-up, too, and thought Life's Too Short was criminally under-appreciated, particularly with Warwick Davies showing a superb ability to do slapstick and physical comedy.

But I'm totally sold on his new show Derek. When the pilot was aired last year, Gervais came in for much criticism at writing a show about a man with learning difficulties (Derek) working in a care home. It was considered poor taste in some areas of the press and the blog-osphere. Personally, I thought it was quite touching and you could see there was the germ of an idea in there that could be brilliant.

Well I've now seen episode one and it could be the best thing he's done. Gervais is very engaging and doesn't overplay the role of Derek and Pilkington is surprisingly good as his handyman mate Duggie. The real star of the show, though, is Kerry Godliman as put-upon and caring care home manager Hannah, who in the opening episode is told she and the home are surplus to requirements and the old folk living there are going to be rehoused at other institutions.

The show's not laugh-out-funny but it's bittersweet and will probably be something that flies a bit under the TV comedy radar for lots of viewers. But it's beautifully written and takes a compassionate view of its subject, while also making something of a plea that we should value services like care homes in an age when many of the most vulnerable in society remain under attack from the Cameron government.

Give it a go. It's entertaining, rewarding and engaging TV.

Enders Watch...

The decline of EastEnders (or Shouty-Cockney-Land) has been much discussed in this blog. And, frankly, that's because it's utterly awful. And that's a shame because I still have fond memories of watching it in my soap-column-writing days and actually thinking it was quite good. It understood characters, plots and how to build big storylines that kept me interested because they were rooted in grounded and believable characters and the ever-escalating problems they endured.

Sadly, those recollections are now but a distant memory. Watching Shouty-Cockney-Land these days is like being forced to spend time with a once-elegant and entertaining wit who's now turned into a beer-fuelled pub bore. There he sits in the corner, hoping for the return of the days when people would fete him, while he repeats the same stories and insists on drunkenly shouting the punchlines in the hope that they will at some point regain their power to entertain.

The much-heralded Xmas special was a case in point. For months, the big reveal viewers were promised was the secret of what Max had got up to with brother Derek while 'Up North'. There were several good theories about this, including a possible tryst with the long-gone ex-lover Stacey Slater and potential involvement with some East European gangsters.

What we got instead was a convoluted story about Max being married, with the supposed-to-be-divorced bride turning up just as Max and Tanya were about to remarry. Then thrown into this mix was an unknown storyline about an aborted baby.

The second storyline involved the fallout of the Alfie and Kat split after her affair with Derek. If we were supposed to have some sympathy with Kat this failed because she's essentially been such a cow to one of the few genuinely likeable characters in Albert Square. The only sane response to this dilemma was the one Alfie took, namely 'Good bye to bad rubbish.' And it didn't matter how sorry Kat was and how much one of her voice messages pleaded for Derek to leave her alone.

The climax of the episode was the death of über-baddie Derek Branning. He left with some ridiculous speech about how he wanted respect and love, then tried to physically drag Kat out of the house to start a new life with him.

This could have actually been something very good. One of the many people who hated Derek could have killed him. Enough people had a motive and if two of three of them were involved it could have been collective guilt and secrets for the rest of the year. Instead he merely collapsed in the Square, presumably from heart attack or hair gel poisoning or as a tribute to Pauline Fowler. It was shit.

Watching Enders these days is like watching a badly done Aussie soap of about 30 years ago. A story is either introduced then resolved very quickly or it meanders after making unbelievable turn after unvelievable turn that has nothing to do with any character trait but everything to do with seeing out a poorly plotted storyline.

The Xmas episode was a case in point. To make the drama more dramatic we had a shock new character and new information turn up out of the blue, then we had to accept totally unbelievable character behaviour led to this situation. Think of old episodes of bad whodunits where the villain and several vital pieces of information are exposed at the last minute before the final reveal.

Well Enders at the moment is not that good. Or even that subtle. Not even the oft-derided Aussie soaps of 35 years ago do this any more. I'm giving up on Shouty-Cockney-Land for good. Home And Away is much more believeable and it's much better written. And it's sunny.

Enders is quite simply embarrassing.

Me And Mrs Jones...

Prime-time BBC1 comedy gets such a kicking these days that it’s sometimes difficult to remember this is the genre that produced Dad's Army, Black Adder and much-loved John Sullivan series such as Dear John, Citizen Smith and Only Fools And Horses.

True, it also produced the truly awful Only Fools spin-off The Green Green Grass Of Home and, more recently, the fuck awful (or ‘f-awful’ as the kids say these days) Citizen Khan, but that doesn’t mean it’s quite dead yet.

A case in point in Me And Mrs Jones, which kicks off a six-episode run on Friday 12 October. It’s in what’s known as the Outnumbered slot at From Beer To Paternity Towers and this romantic comedy is a similarly classy affair to the hit family drama.

The premise is Sarah Alexander (the blonde woman from Coupling) is a divorced mother of two small girls and one grown-up son who has to balance the needs of her family with the desire to also have a life of her own. Oh... and she falls for the best friend of her twentysomething son, too. Throw in a lovable clot of an ex-husband (played by Neil Morrissey – the one who was not Martin Clunes in Men Behaving Badly) and a single parent with the hots for her, and… you get the picture.

But don't expect crude farce and convoluted set-ups that end in OTT set pieces. It's a much smarter animal than My Hero or My Family. The gags come quietly under the radar rather than announcing themselves five minutes before they enter the room only to finally deliver a weak punchline.

Alexander is very engaging and sympathetic as single mum Gemma and Morrissey is nicely under-stated as her former husband, while there’s also a show-stealing performance from Nathaniel Parker as possible single parent love interest Tom. But it’s the script that is the real star.

Written by Oriane Messina and Fay Rusling, it’s just clever without bragging about it and it manages the balancing act between great lines and genuine comedy without reaching for the gags and losing any form of character integrity. It's a genuinely engaging and smart piece of writing.

It's very good and it deserves to be a hit. Enjoy…

The Apprentice: Episode 1 Spoiler...

The new series of The Apprentice kicks off with Lord Sugar warning the 16 new candidates not to treat him lightly or under-estimate his wily ways and bulging business brain.

'Don't fink you can play me,' warns the vertically challenged mogul, whose company is behind such hits as the E3 Email Superphone. 'I'm harder to play than a keyboard made of ice, a keyboard made of ice that has been situated in a very hot desert, a keyboard made of ice that has been situated in a very hot desert so that it has now melted into the sand and its watery parts are now sinking deep into the ground.'

In a surprise move Karren Brady is now joined by former Liverpool and Newcastle legend Peter Beardsley to shadow the contestants on their opening task, which is to utilise their own bodies to fashion a public convenience. The girls refuse the task point blank as they think it's degrading to allow members of the public to urinate all over them.

Chlamydia, the project leader for the ladies team on the opening task, also think it's an insult to business wimmin. Peter Beardsley agrees.

The men's team has no such problem. And no such scruples. Or any scruples.

Their team leader, former City trader Rory-Connery Spasticus, soon has all his troops lined up on the pavement with their heads at waist height ready to accept outpourings from the flaccid cocks of businessmen with bladders full from lunchtime drinking sessions.

Sadly the human urinals can't stop talking about themselves or their superb performances in previous jobs long enough to serve what should be their primary function.

Back in the boardroom, neither team has generated any income and an apoplectic Sugar spits several vital organs out on the boardroom table during a fierce tirade. Peter Beardsley is fired when Sugar mistakes him for the ugly progeny of banker types and inbred royaly.

I will not be watching episode two.

Rebranding Telly: Part I...

I've decided some telly shows need a title rebrand to more faithfully express their content and the people involved. So here are some I've decided on so far:

Cash in the Attic = Please Let me on TV I'll Do Anything
EastEnders = Shit Shouty Cockney Telly Land
Jamie's Dream School = Should Stick to Cooking, Geezer
Loose Women = Mad and Menopausal
Midsomer Murders = No Blacks, Please, We're an English Rural Idyll
The Model Agency = Nothing of Importance and Populated by Cunts

More will be added at a later date...

Why EastEnders Is Shit...

EastEnders has a new name at From Beer To Paternity Towers.

It's now called Shit Shouty Cockney Telly Land. It could just as easily be called Shit Shouty Cockney Telly Land Where Nothing Makes Sense And The Plots Have No Basis In The World Of The Characters but that doesn't trip off the tongue.

So Shit Shouty Cockney Telly Land it is.

I once liked Shit Shouty Cockney Telly Land in the days when it was good old EastEnders and it was well written and well acted. But those days are now nothing but a dim and distant memory, like thinking fondly of a relative who used to give you sweets as a child before you learnt he's recently turned into an alcoholic who shoots kittens with a crossbow then skins them for fun.

The new realisation ruins the fond memory but somewhere you hope the kindly old man is still in there. Although if the kindly old mad was an EastEnders character under the current regime he'd be kidnapping children and dry bumming them in the Vic cellar before having a sex change and mainlining horse. And that's a real horse. And that would happen in the space of one show.

Take the Christmas episode which was actress Lacey Turner's big exit storyline. Her character Stacey had an affair with her husband's dad Max that split up a family, killed a rapist, saw her husband Bradley plunge to his death and was diagnosed bipolar to explain the previous storylines so viewers would regain their sympathy for her. Then she had an affair with the father of her baby Ryan.

So lots of material... and all viewers got was some half-arsed love triangle that required lots of last-minute exposition, the worst stabbing in TV history and an escape from the police that made the events of cartoon series Wacky Races seem credible. Oh, and her dead hubby's dad Max declared his love for her at the airport as she was about to leave.
'So that's it? It's all over?' asked Max at one point.
Yes it is all over. And it was shit.

Currently Shit Shouty Cockney Telly Land features a cot death storyline. But that obviously wasn't considered moving or gripping enough so the producers tagged on a baby swap storyline to it as well. Double the tragedy, double the grief. It's like a cover line from Pick Me Up or some other awful real-life magazine.

Unfortunately Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie, Patsy Palmer and Maisie Smith (Tiffany), Jake Wood and June Brown are the only people who can actually act so watching the episodes when they are not involved is pretty gruelling work. It's like watching a local am-dram group who usually do melodrama suddenly have a go at theatre of cruelty for an audience of pensioners who were expecting farce. It's harrowing. But for all the wrong reasons.

The main problem with Shit Shouty Cockney Telly Land is that it's become drama-porn. In porn it's all about the sex and the money shot. Don't worry about little things like character integrity or creating believable stories. Just get to the action. In about 30 seconds, please...

And that's why EastEnders is Shit Shouty Cockney Telly Land. It's drama-porn. Forget the build-up. Just get to the action. And if two people going at it isn't good enough let's add some more and get them to scream a bit louder. In about 30 seconds, please...

You get the impression nobody involved on the production or the storyline side really cares that much any more. It's just another job in TV land. Unfortunately the show and its viewers deserve something better.

And if they do care and they think this is good... They need telling it's not. But on the plus side it's still not as bad a Come Fly With Me.

The Apprentice: Series Six...

'You've never met anyone like me... I'm totally unique...' spouts some posh halfwit on his audition tape for the latest series of The Apprentice.

Two points flop-haired, suit-wearing, twat-face...

Point one: You're not 'totally unique' because the word 'unique' is an absolute so it should never be qualified. It would be like saying 'You are the very biggest cunt in the world' or 'You are the last-ever person I would very ever speak to if all the other people in the world were utterly dead and my life depended on human contact to stave off a wish to end it all by driving six-inch nails into my forehead with a cricket bat.' You see how that works?

Clue: the qualifying words 'very', 'ever' and 'utterly' should not be there. Like 'totally'. And I bet your education cost thousands....

Point two: TV viewers have met many people like you before. Every series of The Apprentice features at least half a dozen of you corporate-soundbite-spouting oxygen thieves. On the plus side, however, the great fun of watching the show is that the audience can piss itself laughing as you brag about how fantastic a salesman you are... then struggle to sell fish or cheese at a street market because you've failed to understand basic concepts such as pricing. You wanker.

Yes. It's back. The Apprentice kicks off next week and, as per usual, I'll be enjoying the ride as the over-educated and pompous wannabe business folk are torn a strip off by the ever-ebullient Sugar until only a few decent candidates remain.

Having looked at the audition tapes on the BBC website, this year's intake look pretty much par for the course with the usual selection of bankers, totally bonkers, stockbrokers, entrepreneurs and salesmen. There does seem to be a large number of bullish, posh City rugger-bugger blokes and three potentially kooky women. But we've met clones of most of them before in previous series. And they were humiliated. And they will be again. Great.

The only sane two out of the new bunch seem to be a woman called Joanna Riley and a former Marine named Chris Farrell. But I'm sure other favourites will emerge as the series goes on.

So enjoy. And if you have a preference for City-type fellas who are bullshit-spouting corporate arse biscuits then your luck is probably in.

No wonder the economy has collapsed if several of these are the calibre of folk in charge.