Televisual Treats

SPOILER WARNING!

You Have Been Watching
The new TV outing for Charlie Brooker and the first not on a digital channel. This is, at first glance, a celebrity quiz show about TV programmes that have been shown that week. I say at first glance because, like Who’s Line Is It Anyway, the quiz element is there simply to justify the show while Brooker and his guests take pot shots at the shows in question. Thankfully, the show has chosen to acknowledge that. Some of the programmes featured are mad (more on that later) and if there is a way to embarass one of the guests it is taken. The star of the show is Brooker himself, making his usual caustic remarks (when they featured The Swan [on their weird TV episode] at one point Brooker shouts that the people who made the show are cunts) and, as a result, the whole thing seems like an hour long episode of Screenwipe with guests and an audience. Not that that is a bad thing.

Deadliest Warriors
I’m really not sure exactly what to make of this show. I was introduced to it by YHBW and decided to download a couple of episodes to see it for myself. The idea is that they take 2 legendary warriors, test out their weapons, crunch the numbers, feed them into a computer program and run 1,000 battles between the two to find out who comes out on top. On the one hand, it is actually quite informative as well as having a high gore and weapon count. But I can’t keep shaking the thought that it’s all a bit, well, bizarre. In one episode I saw (spartan vs ninja) they said that it is the ultimate locker room argument. And that may be the key to how the show was created. After a planning meeting, some execs went down the pub, got pissed, started one of these arguments and realised that this was their show. Though what the person who decided that the season finale would be the Taliban versus the IRa in a five a side fight was on is completely beyond me.

Torchwood: Children of Earth
Now, as some of you may remember from this entry I had problems with the first two series of Torchwood, to the point where I gave up completely. But, after hearing about the one episode a night structure and the fact that RTD was in charge again, I was looking forward to this. It didn’t disappoint. THIS is what Torchwood should have been all along. Cutting the sex n swearing down to a bare minimum and writing something that was dark. The way that the 456 used the children was downright chilling, some decent backstory for Captain Jack and Ianto and the reason the 456 wanted the children to begin with was imaginative and bizarre. The fourth episode kind of drags a bit but apart from that it was well worth it.

Young, Dumb and Living off Mum
As soon as I read what this show was about I knew I had to watch it. Basically, they’ve taken 8 spoilt young people (aged between 17 and 25), most of whom have never had to do anything for themselves, put them in a house together and given then work tasks chosen by their parents. Vote off the most useless each week and the winner gets a round the world trip. And they really are a useless bunch. There’s one who, at 25, has held 23 different jobs. Another one would live off cup a soup for the rest of her life if she could. Their first week shopping consisted of 8 youghurts, a bottle of vodka, 2 bottles of wine, 2 bottles of port and a Glade plug in air freshener. They are all almost universally crap at the work tasks as well. Part of it is the parents fault for letting them get like this in the first place but still. The best bit of the show is the narration by Robert Webb as he doesn’t care what he says. (For example, when a huge fight broke out in the house, he merely commented that if throwing tantrums was a career than the lot of them would be employed full time.) This is a perfect example of car crash TV (One of them decided to work on a farm she needed three cans of lager and two bottles of wine, for fucks sake).

My Big Decision
BBC3 is aimed at younger audiences (it was the channel that launched Torchwood) but the documentaries can actually be quite good and informative. Thus it is with My Big Decision. Each episode (apart from one) centres around two girls looking to make a life changing choice, and not always the one their parents want them to. So the girls set off with their mother and their gran/auntie/family friend for a five day road trip to find out more about what they want to do before deciding once and for all if they want to do so. The topics so far have incuded getting pregnant (which one of the girls admitted was because she had an abortion at 14), getting breast implants, losing their virginity and whether or not to give up binge drinking. On the way they get their eyes opened to a lot of things before making up their minds. The adults learn a lot as well. I do think it’s a wee bit suspicious that every single choice has gone the way the parents want them to so far, but I honestly don’t think it’s been rigged like that. Another nice touch is the one month/two month later updates. All in all this is a series that may surprise you if you give it a chance.

Will

Widgets & Flash Toys