Panel Beating

I fell firmly into the Jekyll camp on Saturday night. This was due largely to my long-standing belief that anything Steven Moffat writes will be brilliant and anything hosted by Ant and/or Dec will be dismal. (Whenever I see Ant and Dec I find that I like them and hate whatever they're presenting. I can't seem to help it.) I loved Jekyll, though I have to say it puzzled me somewhat. A comic writer and a cast best known for comedy (Peep Show, Coupling, the Yellow Pages ads, Green Wing, and so forth) come together to create a drama. Okay, I guess that makes sense. I look forward to seeing the BBC's new comedy made by newsreaders, and sports coverage done by classically trained actors.

But when it had finished, the television was left on, and thus watched BBC One's new comedy panel show Would I Lie To You largely by default. The show is a by-the-numbers panel game in the truest traditions of by-the-numbers panel games: one host, two regular captains, two or four guests, a theme, and no apparent desire to answer questions from either team. The only thing it appears to be lacking so far is one team that always wins.

To host it, the BBC have come crawling back to Angus Deayton. This seems strange to me. You will of course recall that they fired him from incredibly-similarly-named panel show Have I Got News For You some years ago, and since then Have I Got News For You has been running with increasingly dreary (and incompetent) "guest presenters". Now the BBC have apparently forgiven Deayton enough that he can host Would I Lie To You, but not enough to give him his old job back on Have I Got News For You. There's probably some reason of policy for this, and personally I expect him to appear as a contestant any day now. Meanwhile, the team captains are David Mitchell, the man who puts the Mitchell in Mitchell and Webb, and Lee Mack, who as far as I can tell appeared out of nowhere about a year ago and I'm very glad he did.

"We start, conventionally enough, with round one". It's like a quiz show virus. Eventually all shows will be announced this way.

As with all by-the-numbers panel games, the show consisted of five or six rounds, all of which were the same: determine if statements are true or false, under a thin guise of a "spotting lies" game. In one round, the statements were preceded by unrelated footage from the BBC archives. In another, they were read out by the other team. In one round, they brought on a guest to stand there while the statements were read out. Not a celebrity guest, mind. Just a guest. She was one of the panelists' mates. Each round is introduced by Deayton in his trademark style. You know the one, "we start, conventionally enough, with round one". It's his lasting legacy on Have I Got News For You, and he takes to to all new game shows he presents. It's like a quiz show virus. Eventually all shows will be announced this way.

The show was uninspired, formulaic, derivative, and brilliant. I watched Have I Got News For You for years, but now it just feels stale. Ian Hislop seems to have taken to just being mean to everyone, regardless of who they are, and Paul Merton is very clearly very bored of the whole thing. You can watch his face fall every time the latest novelty round is announced. The audience laughs out loud, but watch Merton. You can see it in his eyes. The show's lost its soul.

But Would I Lie To You is fresh, and the panel is new and shiny, and Deayton, Mack and Mitchell are all very funny people. You don't watch it for the format (which is tripe); you watch it for the panel. Just like you don't go down the pub to do the quiz on your own. At least, I don't. Apparently I stay home and watch panel games.

Britain’s Got Talent and the Relative Future of British Telly

So I thought I’d start off with a clever title, even though it has very little to do with the actual article I am about to portray, hell it probably doesn't even make any sense on its own. I just wanted to counter pretty much everything what has already been said about Britain’s Got Talent. I bloody loved it. I absolutely, positively, toe-tappingly loved it. And as good as Jekyll may or not be, Britain’s Got Talent is without a doubt the better of the two for Saturday night telly.

Saturday night telly is all about the silly, the wacky, and yes, occasionally, about a 9 year old flying about and uncontrollably smiling so much she’d probably been attacked with a botox needle the night before by her parents who saw their chance to be rich and famous. Think back to the greats: Brucie, Gladiators, even Doctor Who. At least they used to use their serious sparingly. Even then it’s either a salt shaker killing a tin robot or a muscle-bound lady getting smacked with a foam baton and breaking her neck on the floor below whilst a whole nation cheers and, deep down, hopes she can never walk again. Or maybe that’s just me...

Ant (left), Paul Potts (centre), Dec (right), Not Pictured - Bad teeth

Saturday nights in shouldn’t be about being immersed in a plot-rich drama. Whack that on a weekday and I’ll give it a watch. Saturday night is about laughing at someone make £250 for falling into a bin or aww-ing when a 6 year old goes on national TV and sings a lovely song, even though she is a bit shit, and being wowed by a man who apparently sold mobile phones for a living when he hits that note perfectly for the 8^th time this week. It’s what X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Pop Idol did perfectly. I’m just confused at why they spread it across a mere week when there was a Summer’s worth of Saturday night ratings wrapped up perfectly for them there.

Thanks to all of you, for the 4 minutes he sings, the Queen won’t be able to nod off and we’ll all have a cranky Queen.

So to end the rant abruptly, what did I think of Britain’s Got Talent? Well you already know I loved it, even though it had the depth of an empty child’s swimming pool. I honestly wanted the man and his monkey to win, purely because it’d probably send the Queen over the top and snap her out of the boredom coma she elapses into every night of the Royal Variety Performance. As good as watching a monkey dance to Earth Song again would be, seeing the Queen snap and grabbing a microphone to call her public “fucking morons” for putting this act on stage of the most prestigious of events whilst throwing chairs at the audience below in a fit of rage whilst denouncing the Monarchy and biting Camilla’s face off would… well it’d certainly stay on the Sky+ for a while. But no, we all decided to be sensible and put the good act on stage. Thanks to all of you, for the 4 minutes he sings, the Queen won’t be able to nod off because he’ll be so bloody loud and we’ll all have a cranky Queen. After the show, she’ll probably push a small child down some stairs at the end of the show. So I hope you now all realise that you’ll soon have a young girl’s cracked skull on your conscience.

Just once, please end the Royal Variety Performance like this.

So in summary: Jekyll, ace at any other time. But, if you air it against Tiswas Reunited, I think I'll pass.

Jekyll and Hyde on BBC, Heckling Jibes on ITV.

It's a pity, because I've heard nothing but bad things about Steven Moffat's latest drama, "Jekyll", which aired on Saturday night. This is possibly because nobody actually watched it and just assumed it was rubbish. I blame Anthony and Declan's latest "Who Can Sing or Juggle" reality show on the other side. Apparently, people aren't willing to give new dramas a chance. They'd rather be entertained by clapping non-entities and singing six-year olds. This said, there hasn't really been a decent BBC Drama since their "Only Human" series back in 1999 which nobody remembers.

This said, I decided to give both shows a chance. The new updated version of "Jekyll" starts James Nesbitt, the voice of the Yellow Pages, and is written by Steven Moffat. Moffat is responsible for twenty-eight brilliant episodes of Coupling, four fantastic episodes of Doctor Who and the more-than-silly Press Gang. He is a big fan of writing non-linear plot driven dramas. He also has a bloody sharp wit about him. This opening episode of his new drama is no different. We jump into the first episode with James Nesbitt already coping with his new life as two people, and he's oddly already used to it. He's got a family, Alan Johnson from Peep Show following him about, as well as two lesbians and a black van interested in his evil counterpart. And I've got to tell you: it was a bloody scary 55 minutes. If you've ever seen Moffat's Doctor Who episodes, you'll notice how brilliantly scary he can be without the need to kill anybody. Nowadays in Film and TV, the only way to scare somebody is to kill every third teenager who dares meddle with whoever the lead Psychopath is. Not true. Moffat's already succesfully given us scary gas mask children, clockwork androids and statues that only move when you blink; without even killing a single person! He successfully manages this brilliant formula to this new drama.

As mentioned in the script, this alter-ego is "a child in a man's body". Keep your dirty Gary Glitter jokes to yourself.

My favourite character is definately Nesbitt's interpretation of Hyde. It was a brilliant mix of Professor Snape and Jim Carrey's The Mask character. And, despite his violent streak, it's bloody adorable! As mentioned in the script, this alter-ego is "a child in a man's body". Keep your dirty Gary Glitter jokes to yourself.

So, on the BBC, we have great suspensful drama without the need to kill anybody. What have we got on ITV.

Oh.

"Britain's Got Talent."

Now, ITV haven't really had a successful Saturday night show since the days of You Bet. In fact, they've basically been screwed since the arrival of a certain Timelord on the other side of the airwaves. I will say this was entertaining. I'll also say that some of the talent displayed was particularly enjoyable. It's just... that infuriating Amanda Holden! It's always the same. She's a sucker for ugly people, old people and young children who think they can sing. She can't be a fair biased judge if her maternity instinct kicks in whenever there's a four-year old in the room. People always give Simon Cowell a hard time, but he always gives his brilliant opinion which is always fact. Then, people go on and rant "Oh yes, but Simon, you signed the Teletubbies to a record label! Ahahaha!". Yes, he did. But he made a truckload of money out of it. He makes smart decisions does Simon. He doesn't turn into a blubbering wreck of emotions like Amanda Holden.

Moving on, and we had.. oh.. a guy with a monkey. A miming monkey. What the jam-mastering hell is going on?

Still, I was able to catch the finalé in the pub last night. Little Miss Muffet who kept singing showtunes annoyed the blithering hair out of me. Was her speaking the lyrics to "I'm Getting Married in the Morning" whilst cockney-jumping around the stage a talent? There was also that little six year old girl who sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Which was... as good as her audition when she sang exactly the same song. That's not a talent, it's a party peice. Moving on, and we had.. oh.. a guy with a monkey. A miming monkey. What the jam-mastering hell is going on?

Still, we had a brilliant guy singing opera. He won, which was the only choice it could have been as he was the only person on the show displaying any sort of talent. Still, at the end of the day, this show is no different to Pop Factor or Any Show Will Do. Well, with the difference that people who can juggle bottles of vodka can apply to be on it. It annoys me that people would rather sit down and watch a bunch of nobodies sing rather than sit down and watch a good drama on the BBC.

Did I mention how brilliant Steven Moffat is? Okidokey.