A Better Title For That Post Would Have Been "Pulling Daisies"

Friz will doubtless be thrilled.

The episode of Pushing Daisies that ITV1 absurdly chose not to show will be screened after all: on their website. Well, clearly that's good enough.

I might even watch it. I watched the first one, and it was very good, but then I found out the second one wasn't going to be shown and didn't bother to tune in for the third. I want to see them in order -- there's enough good TV around at the moment I can afford to be picky. If they get round to re-running the show then I might watch from the third that way.

I don't know why TV companies go to such lengths to stop me watching their shows. Last night, I recorded The Apprentice and went out to see some live comedy, and when I got into work today, the BBC News website told me the result! Right there in the headline! I couldn't have avoided that if I'd wanted to.

Surely anyone who wants to know would want to find out by watching the show?

Shunning Daisies

Pushing Daisies. It's good. We like it. A lot of people like it. It's won a lot of award because of this. It's first episode aired Saturday on ITV1. People liked it. It's a well-liked show.

Then why in buggering biscuits aren't ITV showing all the episodes?

ITV has decided not to broadcast the second episode of its latest drama series Pushing Daisies. The episode titled "Dummy" will now not air during this current run, which means that episode 3 "The Fun in Funeral" will be shown next.

Oh?

An ITV spoksman explained why: “Unfortunately due to scheduling restrictions we can only screen eight of the nine programmes in the current run. Episode two is the only one we can take out at this stage with out disrupting the flow of the series but it’s a great ‘stand alone’ episode, and one that we will broadcast later this year”.

What?

"Unfortunately given the high profile nature of the 9pm Saturday slot, we only have eight windows at the moment and have therefore made the decision to show the second episode at a future point."

Whu- What? The amount of advertising ITV have done for this new show... and they didn't have enough weeks to air all the episodes? Couldn't they find a chance not to schedule tedious murder dramas, ridiculously thought-out game shows or Celebrity Mr & Mrs?

That's like hyping up 24, and only having seven weeks in which to air it. It's stuff like this which is the reason why people download and stream so much TV. If you take it away from them, they are going to steal it.

Duel or No Duel

Oh, ITV1. We've given you nothing but praise over the past few weeks, and how do you repay us? By scheduling another hour-long quiz show that is quite tedious to watch.

Today was the premiere of greatly-advertised Duel, a game show which despite getting a lot of publicity all week didn't tell us anything about the game itself. Presented by Nick Hancock, a man with as little charisma as a toe, it breaks the mold of question-and-answer game shows by having the option for the contestants to reply 'all answers' to each of the questions. Let me explain further.

"Welcome to the Duel Arena" exclaims Hancock, "where over the next few weeks and months, we will be making dreams come true". It's sweet to think that the show will be lasting months. Nick introduces us to the first two contestants, Matt and Karen. I'd have given them hilarious nicknames if they weren't so horribly dull. An attempted explanation about how the game works is provided by Hancock; "We'll give you one question between you and four possible answers. You are then given ten chips, and you must place a chip on your answer. If you're not sure about an answer, you can put your chips down on more than one answer. You then can lock down, or accelerate the gameplay. Each chip that is on a wrong answer is then eliminated, but the prize fund is then increased by £1,000". See. If only Deal or No Deal was that simple.

The first question is asked. "In a game of cricket, how many balls are bowled in an over?". Matt puts down his answer, 'B. 6'. Karen puts down her answer. 'A. 5, B. 6, C. 8 and D. 10'. Karen thinks she's playing Battleship.

The game plods along. Because Karen used four of her chips for her answer, she uses three of them. This game begins to make a lot of sense. Obviously, whoever runs out of chips first loses, making the other person the automatic winner. Not so. You have to win four games in a row in order to win the jackpot.

Four games in a row? Statistically, this game could go on forever. I'm glad Nick mentioned that it'd go on for months, otherwise I'd go crazy. If I was a game show fan, that is. Which I'm not.

So, Matt wins the first round. He can now choose his next opponent. Unsurprisingly, he goes for the young attractive woman. She is Sherise, a flight attendant. The game is over quite quickly, with an odd moment where Sherise seems pretty happy to think that having a knowledge of the Sugababes is more worthwhile than knowing what 7 x 6 is. Then again, she is a flight attendant.

Luckily, after Matt wins two games in a row, he's given two options: keep playing for the grand total jackpot prize, or walk away with £10,000. At this point, orchestral music is used for dramatic effect... quick camera shots of Matt's face and the cash prize are juxtaposed. Anticlimactically, Matt takes his prize and walks off apathetically, leaving Nick Hancock to quickly announce the winner of the first episode.

I left it at that point. When I noticed that what was happening was the same thing over and over again, my brain switched off. I also realised that for a high-stakes fast-paced quiz show, only eight questions were asked. Why can't TV quiz shows be about questions anymore? I miss Wipeout.

Thank God It's Here

If you hadn't noticed, ITV1 have recently started making a decent name for itself. They've revamped the schedules for the weekends to make them more entertaining. Gone are the dreary game shows and occasional "Celebrity" reality shows, and here are the shows purely made for entertainment value. Saturday nights are finally as entertaining as they were fifteen years ago.

Tonight was the first night of the revamption. Yes, I'm allowed to make up words as I go along. Firstly, Harry Hill's TV Burp returns. It's as excellent as ever. Then I sit through a lovely hour to come up with the conclusion that Primeval is as rubbish as it ever was. Oh well. Can't get them all right.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire churns out the 430th 'Celebrity' episode. I'm a bit disheartened at this, as ITV1 promised they would stop 'Celebrity' versions of game shows. And the fact that this was followed by another 'Celebrity' game show doesn't give me great hope for the future of ITV1.

But sometimes, I can be wrong.

What I forgot was that the channel were finally airing the UK Version of Thank God You're Here. The show, if you haven't seen it, is a brilliant hour of improvisation where four celebrities enter a room in costume and haven't the foggiest about what is going on. Living with a housemate who downloads all the latest American shows, I had already seen the US version of it. Across the pond, our Stateside friends cancelled it after only thirteen episodes. This is a shame, because the show has such great potential. (The previous two sentences can also be used for many other great US shows, mainly Studio 60 and Clone High.)

What I must congratulate ITV on is their brilliant timing to schedule this show. A few months ago, Freeview veiwers were introduced to Dave. And with Dave came endless repeats of Top Gear, but more importantly, repeats of Whose Line is it Anyway. These repeats have made the nation remember how good television was in the early 1990's, and how brilliant improvisation shows are. Not only that, but when the only competition is BBC1's The One and Only, it's definately one of Saturday Night's gems.

Congratulations, ITV1. And, when you finally start airing Pushing Daisies in the next few weeks, you may be one of my favourite channels. Just don't start airing another series of Vernon Kay's Celebrity Family Fortunes, okay? Thank you.

Solve for X

The X Factor certainly do like to dish out drama where there is no drama. At the beginning of this year, the entire gimmick was that Louis Walsh was not coming back. Then, lo an behold, he returned. This didn't really come as a shock to the viewers; mainly because all the adverts running at the time had Simon Cowell looking forlorn into the camera, muttering "I think we should bring back Louis", as if that decision was made then and there.

They've decided to pull this routine a second time by having Sharon Osbourne "storm out" of the show. The reason they gave for Sharon's supposed exit was that "she was upset as two of her acts faced the judge's vote". What a rubbish reason. Thing is, we must remember after the whole BBC controversy about the Queen documentary that the phrase "storming out" doesn't usually mean what it implies. Lo and behold, Sharon has agreed to return to the show.

Well, it certainly was a roller-coaster of high tension drama. I'm so glad we all got through it.

So, how is The X Factor this year? Well, we've finally got through the watchable 'audition shows' where we get to laugh at talentless people have their hopes and dreams squashed through a wave of sarcasm, pity and Irishness. Now we appear to be at the stage of 'Live finals'. These 'Live finals' aren't final enough, for we appear to be having one of these shows every Saturday until Christmas.

For once, I watched one of these live shows last Saturday. Are these really the twelve best groups that auditioned? Who was the scary Aryan-race character who sang Meatloaf? His name sounded like some venereal disease... Rhydian! That was it. It turns out that he's alsobeen through his own bit of drama this week. As TheXFactor.com reports in an enthralling piece of news, "Rhydian Quits X Factor and Then Changes His Mind". Astonishing news.

I was also witness to Brother and Sister combination Same Difference, who manage to turn The X Factor into The Steps Factor. It was pure nauseating nonsense. But, it still gets ratings. I'm surprised.

I wish there was a talent show that would only show the rubbish auditions. They are always funny. And, I also suggest to the producers of the show not to cause random bits of drama and suggest that a member of the show is "walking out". Not a single member of the panelists or singers have ever walked out of The X Factor for good. It's as if you're teasing the people who actually do care about the future of pop music in our country. And, it's also a little patronising.

And Now, CCTV footage from Australia that Shows a Clerk's Misunderstanding of a Customer's Request for "Fork Handles"

Through no fault of my own, I ended up watching the slightest bit of Tarrant on TV the other night. Now, you'd have thought with the entire "Why is television lying to us?" scandals that have been happening throughout the television nation that ITV may have tried to tell the truth a lot more often. This wasn't the case.

Chris "I Can Do Stuff Other Than Millionaire" Tarrant introduced a "hilarious advert" that apparently originated from South Africa. Cue an advert for a shampoo designed for pubic hair called "Short and Curlies". Oh what hilarious penis jokes those South Africans have! Such wit.

If only that was the case. You see, the hilarious "advert" was actually a sketch from American Variety Show "Saturday Night Live". One of the actors in the advert was comedian Will Forte. But of course, the British public have no idea what or who this is, and ITV1 know it.

Tarrant on TV seems to have been going on for fifteen years or so now, and I'm surprised that they needed to lie about the context of the advert. Why not introduce the clip as "here's something intentionally funny from America". No. That wouldn't work. It becomes more hilarious if we think the product is real and then we can toss our heads back and laugh merrily and the thought of South African's needing a product for their pubic hair. Ha! Hahaha! Oh, ITV1, you truly are hilarious.

The Factor of X

I've been working with a mathematical theory recently. It's nothing too taxing, it's just my mind tends to wander when my C:\Drive explodes leaving me with no internet to rant about television with. Basically, I've been watching The X Factor recently and have realised how formulaic the show is. Not the show itself, we all know that's formulaic as hell. I'm on about the actual episodes themselves.

Dermot O' Leary introduces the city we're in. We see 4-5 rubbish auditions. The judges voice their concerns about how this city is rubbish for singing ability. Then, we get a good singer, followed by 6-7 good singers all being accepted into "boot camp".

We then get a couple of weird people. Dermot interviews one of these weird people whilst stifling his giggles through clenched teeth. We then see their hilarious bad audition.

Ad break. We're introduced to a new city. Repeat previous formula until the last audition we get to see which includes some heart-tugging back story about how the person trying out for the competition was inspired by their dead mother who has no legs, but also had to sell their dog on eBay just for the bus fare to get to the audition. They then sing, and the judges are wowed.

Every. Single. Bloody. Episode.

Top Five Thursday #1

Welcome to the first Top Five Thursday. This week, I'm looking at the Top Five Discussion Topics for Jeremy Kyle this week (ITV1, Weekdays, 9.25am)

1. "If I Stop Drinking and Hitting You, Will You Take Me Back?"
2. "Is My Parner Ignoring Me Because I Slept With His Mate?"
3. "Can I Marry A Man Who's Lost Half A Million Pounds Gambling?
4. "Should I Let My Dad Back In My Life?"
5. "My Jealous Daughter Has Stopped Me Seeing My Grandchildren!"

Can I Poke a Friend on Facebook, Chris?

A new series of blog favourite Deal or No Deal started on Monday. (I use the phrase 'blog favourite' only to annoy everyone else who contributes to this blog.) I found it slightly disturbing watching it really. You see, I occasionally have dreams where I'm watching TV shows, and these shows are invariably different in subtle, slightly freaky ways. These are really astonishingly mundane dreams, but that's not the point. The point is that Deal* has been made slightly different in largely the same way. These are not changes what would concern any normal person - the set is slightly new, the opening credits are a bit different, some new incidental music, and the phone-in competition has been changed to appease ICSTIS (see How Dare You Mislead The Very Stupid? below) - but they concern me. Why can't everything just stay exactly the same?

In a move desired to drive lovers of routine and of slightly tired game show formats to nervous breakdowns, the same has been done to ITV1's premiere quizzer Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, only, this being ITV1, they've done it to a much less forgiveable degree. When Millionaire* returns on Saturday (with a special celebrity edition of course; this is ITV1) some changes will be afoot. Most notably, contestants will only have to answer 12 questions to win the prize. Cleverly, this has been accomplished by removing the first three questions that are pathetically easy anyway, so that the first question is now worth £500. Hopefully, this has been done with an eye to getting through more contestants and more interesting questions, but a more worrying and likely scenario is that it is so the show can be padded out with more crap like the 'text game' that has blighted recent series.

Not content with this change, the middle rungs of the money ladder have also been messed with. instead of the pleasingly mathematical-looking £4k-£8k-£16k-£32k-£64k-£125k-£250k-£500k-£1m, it will apparently proceed: £5k-£10k-£20k-£50k-£75k-£150k-£250k-£500k-£1m. While I can see some kind of logic in switching things around to put a smaller increase after the last milestone (now £50k) where there's no effective risk anyway, this clearly is just change for change's sake. It's wrong. I'm personally too old to be said to have grown up with Millionaire, but I assume kids today are born with an innate knowledge of the rules of the show in the same way I was with The Crystal Maze or Family Fortunes. I'm sure ITV1 will say they're trying to 'refresh the format' and 'shake things up', and the falling viewing figures may seem to justify this. That's all well and good with The X Factor. But there's a higher responsibility here. ITV are messing with our culture! (More specifically, 2waytraffic are, having recently bought the rights to the format from creators Celador. Just so you know who to write in to.) I frankly don't care if their viewing figures fall to three people and their pets. This sort of fiddling isn't going to help. Neither is finding contestants by audition as is now going to happen - it would take an entire new rant to cover what's wrong with that.

So stop it, ITV. Stop being useless. Please.


*Why anyone uses abbreviations like DoND and WWTBAM is beyond me. Look how stylish I look referring to Deal and Millionaire like that. Lovely.

Paul No Grady

Well done ITV1. In order to make sure viewers feel comfortable with the timeslot Paul O Grady left when he moved to channel 4, you've decided to give the campest man on your network his own hour-long show where he basically dies on his own arse.

That Anthony Cotton Show (Weekdays 5pm, ITV1) has just finished it's first airing. Not my own choice of watching, but since starting this blog I've started to give new shows a chance. His style of interviewing is original, if not odd. Instead of talking with the B-List celebrities about future projects, he muses about their life and tells them his favourite projects that they've been in. There's your typical "banter-with-the-audience" section, where a few members have gifts for Anthony, and it's up to the audience to decide which gift will be diplayed on Anthony's "nik nak shelf". I swear to you the following dialogue occured:

Anthony: "So, which gift should go on my shelf? The cake, the sphinx or the foot-warmer?"
Audience: "The sphinx!"
Anthony: "Well, I didn't like the sphinx. Should I take the cake?"
Audience: "Yeah! The cake!"

Oh brilliant. We've got an audience full of nodding dogs.

Near the end of the show, we have our typical family-show messing around at the end. Here, we had a nudist painting who printed up a flower by painting her body parts. It must state somewhere in Anthony's contract that he must say something every fifteen seconds, because he wasn't letting the poor woman have a word in edgeways, simply by repeating the last two words of everything she said.

Painter: "And I use non-toxic paint"
Anthony: "Non-toxic paint.."
Painter: "For the petals I paint my forearms"
Anthony: "Forearms, yes..."
Painter: "And for the centre, I'll have to improvise"
Anthony: "Improvise, of course."

It got to the point where I was able to predict what he'd say next at the same time of which he said it. It's quite an odd interview style.

Paul O Grady he isn't, but I must say the show was entertaining... albeit for the wrong reasons.

Street Wise

Browsing a Non-Specific TV Guide, I discover the storyline of tonight's Coronation Street (ITV1, 7.30pm)

"Blanche stakes out the Rovers toilets to trap the smoker"

Tense stuff!

ITV1's Summer Schedule

Looking good!