Cadbury's have two recently famous adverts. One, in which a gorilla plays drums along to the tune of In The Air Tonight, and a second one in which colourful airport vehicles race alongside each other to the tune of Don't Stop Me Now.
They've just aired both those adverts, in full, in a row. With two major changes. The gorilla advert is now dubbed with Total Eclipse of the Heart, and the race is now dubbed over with Living on a Prayer.
Why? Why waste 3 minutes of advertising with existing adverts redubbed? It just seems wasteful, and the only reason I watched both adverts in full is because I assumed there'd be some sort of twist. Like Bonnie Tyler in the gorilla costume. Sadly, no.
Very pointless.
Friday, 5 September 2008
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Dead Set
Charlie Brooker, that guy who rants about TV on BBC4, has finished writing and filming a fantastic-looking new series for E4. It's called Dead Set, and seems to be about contestants on Big Brother leaving the house to find a zombie apocolypse on the outside.
Here is the trailer.
I'm looking forward to this quite a lot. There hasn't been a good horror series since Jekyll.
Here is the trailer.
I'm looking forward to this quite a lot. There hasn't been a good horror series since Jekyll.
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
How to deal with the Doctor Who gap year: An Easy Guide
Certain corners of Doctor Who fandom is absolutely terrified of the Gap Year. That's understandable. I mean, how will they survive without their fix of thirteen brand new episodes of Doctor Who? Well worry ye not, faithful readers, for I have formed an idea.
Here's what you do:
Here's what you do:
- Beginning from Saturday 3rd 2009, watch an episode of New Who on DVD every Saturday at 7pm. Don't watch more than one episode.
- Assuming that the planned specials will air on Saturdays at around 7pm, postpone the viewing of your next episode for the following week.
- Postpone the viewing of your next scheduled episode for the Eurovision Song Contest. Log on to Outpost Gallifrey's forum to complain that your viewing of Doctor Who has been interrupted, then watch the Eurovision anyway.
- Optionally, write a review of Eurovision Song Contest on Outpost Gallifrey as if it were an episode of Doctor Who.
- That's it.
Friday, 15 August 2008
Philled With Confidence
The BBC Doctor Who site reports that producer Phil Collinson, who is a producer for Doctor Who, managed to come up with two ideas during one season run of the show, and manage to run the article praising the guy throughout.
I'm pretty sure "coming up with ideas" is what a producer is meant to do.
Reading the article, I begin to think that Collinson may be some sort of editor of the BBC site. Either that, or the editors of the website are getting sick to death of praising Stephen Moffat every fortnight.
Not that I see how that's possible, of course.
I'm pretty sure "coming up with ideas" is what a producer is meant to do.
Reading the article, I begin to think that Collinson may be some sort of editor of the BBC site. Either that, or the editors of the website are getting sick to death of praising Stephen Moffat every fortnight.
Not that I see how that's possible, of course.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
It seems CBBC is better than BBC3.
Is there any reason why a CBBC sketch show called I'm Sorry, I've Got No Head is smarter, cleverer and made me laugh more times than a BBC3 sketch show called Scallywagga.
This is YouTube's first clip if you search for I'm Sorry I've Got No Head:
That's pretty funny, albeit the punchline has been given away by the preview picture. But go on YouTube and search for more sketches from the show. Most of them are really good, with collaberations from great comedians such as Marcus Brigstocke and Mel from Mel and Sue.
Here is the top rated clip for Scallywagga:
Oh. I. I see. I understand why this is meant to be funny... they're making fun of sketch shows with pointless catchphrases within a sketch. But they're sort of repeating that Colin Hunt sketch. But they've turned the fake catchphrases into a catchphrase.
It's all very confusing and odd.
This is YouTube's first clip if you search for I'm Sorry I've Got No Head:
That's pretty funny, albeit the punchline has been given away by the preview picture. But go on YouTube and search for more sketches from the show. Most of them are really good, with collaberations from great comedians such as Marcus Brigstocke and Mel from Mel and Sue.
Here is the top rated clip for Scallywagga:
Oh. I. I see. I understand why this is meant to be funny... they're making fun of sketch shows with pointless catchphrases within a sketch. But they're sort of repeating that Colin Hunt sketch. But they've turned the fake catchphrases into a catchphrase.
It's all very confusing and odd.
Sunday, 27 July 2008
"I Said to Beethoven 'I Can Rattle off a Tune', he said 'Pardon?'"
Despite it not technically being television, the BBC Proms this year showed a little mini-episode of Doctor Who as part of their Kids-Centric Proms. They showed this little episode...
It's quite funny, and I suppose it'd be greatly appreciated in the Albert Hall with lots of children talking to the Doctor. All in all, I loved it. It publicised the Doctor's love of music, it interacted well on a pantomimic scale (especially when listening to the Proms on Radio 3). The ending is a bit.. sappy, but it's all round fun entertainment.
But... I'm going to guess that a lot of people won't. In the comments section of this post, I would like you to find a link of every source you can find which complains about this little mini-adventure for the following reasons:
- It surely can't be canonical
- The Doctor breaks the fourth wall!
- They didn't credit Jimmy Vee!
- Pah! It's far too kids-centric now!
That's your task. Go.
It's quite funny, and I suppose it'd be greatly appreciated in the Albert Hall with lots of children talking to the Doctor. All in all, I loved it. It publicised the Doctor's love of music, it interacted well on a pantomimic scale (especially when listening to the Proms on Radio 3). The ending is a bit.. sappy, but it's all round fun entertainment.
But... I'm going to guess that a lot of people won't. In the comments section of this post, I would like you to find a link of every source you can find which complains about this little mini-adventure for the following reasons:
- It surely can't be canonical
- The Doctor breaks the fourth wall!
- They didn't credit Jimmy Vee!
- Pah! It's far too kids-centric now!
That's your task. Go.
Saturday, 26 July 2008
Censor Sensibility
The Channel 4 franchise is rubbish. Well, that's a lie- it's excellent, but it's rubbish in one field. Why do they feel the need to censor programs at 2pm because they contain questionable words?
Let me explain further... the other day, they showed an episode of Friends where Ross and Rachel throw their daughter a 1st birthday party. They get her a novelty cake which is supposed to be shaped like a bunny. But it isn't. It's shaped like a penis. Hilarity ensues. However, if you're airing that episode on E4 at five in the afternoon and won't allow the word penis on air, the plot does lose a bit of sense.
The end scene is supposed to go like this:
Here is E4's version of that scene:
Making no sense at all, but at least the kids watching at home won't question what a penis is.
There seems to be something vulgar about the word "Penis" in the land of Channel 4. Watching The Nutty Professor the other day on Film4 (and being slightly freaked out at the fact it was made twelve years ago), they cut out the line after Professor Klump gets thin for the first time, looks down at his trousers and exclaimed "My penis! I can see my penis!". However, what they decided was perfectly acceptable for 1pm is the scene where the newly thin Klump goes to a comedy club and defends a comedian, claiming his date to "give the nigger a chance"- and then later calls a piano player Niggeraci. What are Channel 4 trying to do here... be too sensitive? Worry that if they edit that out, people will be more offended?
And despite cutting out jokes that end up creating an episode that makes no sense (seriously - try watching a Scrubs episode called "My Dirty Secret" on E4 in the evening. The episode is about Eliot accidentally giving a patient an orgasm during a pelvic exam and then focuses on her inability to say rude words - the edited episode is something like 12 minutes long), Channel 4 still continue this tradition- to the point that they're now airing Desperate Housewives at 2pm, which when recorded without the adverts is now 35 minutes long.
I just don't know who they're trying to protect with most of these bizarre edits. Are they worried that an unattended 8-year old is going to be watching Friends at 5pm and then ask his parents what a penis is? It's silly is what it is.
Let me explain further... the other day, they showed an episode of Friends where Ross and Rachel throw their daughter a 1st birthday party. They get her a novelty cake which is supposed to be shaped like a bunny. But it isn't. It's shaped like a penis. Hilarity ensues. However, if you're airing that episode on E4 at five in the afternoon and won't allow the word penis on air, the plot does lose a bit of sense.
The end scene is supposed to go like this:
(Rachel wipes away some tears.)
Ross:
What's wrong? Are you okay?
Rachel:
Oh yeah, nothing! These are happy tears! This is just what I wanted.
Phoebe:
(pointing at cake) Hey, you made it into a bunny.
Joey:
(looking worried) What is wrong with me. It looked more delicious when it was a penis!
Here is E4's version of that scene:
(Rachel wipes away some tears.)
Ross:
What's wrong? Are you okay?
Rachel:
Oh yeah, nothing! These are happy tears! This is just what I wanted.
Phoebe:
(pointing at cake) Hey, you made it into a bunny.
Joey:
(Looking worried) What is wrong with me. It looked more delicious when it was-
(Cut to bizarre audience laughter)
Making no sense at all, but at least the kids watching at home won't question what a penis is.
There seems to be something vulgar about the word "Penis" in the land of Channel 4. Watching The Nutty Professor the other day on Film4 (and being slightly freaked out at the fact it was made twelve years ago), they cut out the line after Professor Klump gets thin for the first time, looks down at his trousers and exclaimed "My penis! I can see my penis!". However, what they decided was perfectly acceptable for 1pm is the scene where the newly thin Klump goes to a comedy club and defends a comedian, claiming his date to "give the nigger a chance"- and then later calls a piano player Niggeraci. What are Channel 4 trying to do here... be too sensitive? Worry that if they edit that out, people will be more offended?
And despite cutting out jokes that end up creating an episode that makes no sense (seriously - try watching a Scrubs episode called "My Dirty Secret" on E4 in the evening. The episode is about Eliot accidentally giving a patient an orgasm during a pelvic exam and then focuses on her inability to say rude words - the edited episode is something like 12 minutes long), Channel 4 still continue this tradition- to the point that they're now airing Desperate Housewives at 2pm, which when recorded without the adverts is now 35 minutes long.
I just don't know who they're trying to protect with most of these bizarre edits. Are they worried that an unattended 8-year old is going to be watching Friends at 5pm and then ask his parents what a penis is? It's silly is what it is.
Shut Up, D. Fitzgerald
I do love people who write letters into magazines like TV Choice:
Shall we look at this logically, D Fitzgerald? You've counted up six people there. Working in a pub. Now, let's say for argument's sake that pubs are usually open from 11am til 11pm - about twelve hours a day. That's 84 hours a week. Divided by the seven staff means everyone's working about 12 hours a week. However, most the time, there's usually two staff members working, so if people are sharing shifts, that makes on average that the usual working week for any one member of staff there can be 18-24 hours. When I worked at a pub, this was usually my regular amount - and we had a small pub in a village called Holdingham that was staffed by about nine people. Nine people. AND we served food as well, much like the Rovers Return.
I may be thinking about this too much, but I can't get over why stupid people write in to magazines complaining about this sort of thing.
Why on earth does a backstreet boozer like Corrie's Rovers Return need so many staff? They've got Steve, his mother Liz, Michelle, Betty, Sean and Becky!
D Fitzgerald
Staffordshire
Shall we look at this logically, D Fitzgerald? You've counted up six people there. Working in a pub. Now, let's say for argument's sake that pubs are usually open from 11am til 11pm - about twelve hours a day. That's 84 hours a week. Divided by the seven staff means everyone's working about 12 hours a week. However, most the time, there's usually two staff members working, so if people are sharing shifts, that makes on average that the usual working week for any one member of staff there can be 18-24 hours. When I worked at a pub, this was usually my regular amount - and we had a small pub in a village called Holdingham that was staffed by about nine people. Nine people. AND we served food as well, much like the Rovers Return.
I may be thinking about this too much, but I can't get over why stupid people write in to magazines complaining about this sort of thing.
Sunday, 13 July 2008
Cotton Wool Brains
On More4 just now was a show called Cotton Wool Kids. It's about parents, and children of parents, who think that the world is so dangerous that they simply can't let the kids out of their sight for even a second.
There's a guy who will stalk his son in his car whenever he lets him go anywhere (although he's rubbish at it), a woman who has conversations with her daughter that start "see that man? He's a stranger, isn't he?", and a woman who is having her children "chipped", like... God, I don't even know -- we don't even treat animals that way. Anyway, she's having GPS things put in them so she'll always know where they are and how deep the nasty man has buried them.
Partly it's just gullible, tabloid-trusting paranoia, which on its own is stupidity in such massive amounts that it's frankly verging on becoming a punishable crime, but as well as that it's the most god-awful selfish hypocrisy -- they were perfectly happy to run around free when they were kids, and let's not pretend their parents weren't at all worried, but now it's them doing the worrying and their kids' freedom at stake, suddenly now they flip into overprotective mode and keep the kids locked up where they can be monitored at all times by their parents and thirty-two satellites. All this, and the kidnappings they fear (largely on the back of one case that was almost certainly just the parents drugging the girl to sleep, overdoing it, and hiding the evidence) haven't actually got any more common in 20 years. Apparently. They want it both ways, and it's just selfish and stupid and pathetic.
I'm convinced they're busily wrecking any chance their kids might have of growing into useful members of society. They have good intentions, certainly, but so do the anti-MMR-jab whack-jobs and and suicide bombers, and they're all going to ruin and shorten people's lives. These people need to be fucking told.
There's a guy who will stalk his son in his car whenever he lets him go anywhere (although he's rubbish at it), a woman who has conversations with her daughter that start "see that man? He's a stranger, isn't he?", and a woman who is having her children "chipped", like... God, I don't even know -- we don't even treat animals that way. Anyway, she's having GPS things put in them so she'll always know where they are and how deep the nasty man has buried them.
Partly it's just gullible, tabloid-trusting paranoia, which on its own is stupidity in such massive amounts that it's frankly verging on becoming a punishable crime, but as well as that it's the most god-awful selfish hypocrisy -- they were perfectly happy to run around free when they were kids, and let's not pretend their parents weren't at all worried, but now it's them doing the worrying and their kids' freedom at stake, suddenly now they flip into overprotective mode and keep the kids locked up where they can be monitored at all times by their parents and thirty-two satellites. All this, and the kidnappings they fear (largely on the back of one case that was almost certainly just the parents drugging the girl to sleep, overdoing it, and hiding the evidence) haven't actually got any more common in 20 years. Apparently. They want it both ways, and it's just selfish and stupid and pathetic.
I'm convinced they're busily wrecking any chance their kids might have of growing into useful members of society. They have good intentions, certainly, but so do the anti-MMR-jab whack-jobs and and suicide bombers, and they're all going to ruin and shorten people's lives. These people need to be fucking told.
Is it just me, or is there some really horrible stuff on TV? That nobody notices?
Claire cut off her toe on Heroes, and that was done brilliantly, but it was underplayed, I think, presumably because it play it as it would be would have been horrific. Of course, that was nothing compared to what happened to Jack in Torchwood after that. He was buried. In a hole. For hundreds of years. And when he came out, had he gone mad? Had he even lost his accent a bit? No. On his own, unable to breathe or eat or talk, for centuries on end, and the moment he's dug up he's straight on the job again, without missing a beat. I'm not buying it.
We've all seen the reports of torture in Guantanamo. It's becoming pretty apparent that you don't need to go to anything like those lengths to break someone's mind, at least for a while. We all know now that an hour feeling like you can't breathe and you're going to die is spectacularly awful enough to render most people useless for at least the remainder of the day. Unless you're Captain Jack. Earlier in the same series, Toshiko was basically date-raped and nobody said a thing. Even Jeremy from Peep Show can spot date-rape when it happens. (I did like that Toshiko didn't think of it that way, as she still 'loved' him, but I'd have thought Owen would have said something.) And don't get me started on the incredible stunts Jack Bauer pulls shortly after undergoing literal physical torture or while recovering from a heroine addiction or something.
It's so inconsistent, too. Staying in series two of Torchwood, because I think that has a lot more scope to do horrid things to the principal characters than most shows, when Zombie Owen went a bit mad and started breaking his fingers at Toshiko, she all but broke down. I thought that was great TV, and the final scenes between those two were also fantastic. (I'm struggling to think of a reason to watch the show without those two.) And yet, that was the same episode that Jack was dug up after apparently failing to notice that he'd been buried for longer than anyone else lives.
I don't know. It always seems fine at the time -- it's usually only after the show that I think "hang on, that was actually pretty fucked up" -- but even so. Maybe it's just really, really hard to write good TV without this kind of thing happening once in a while. Or maybe it's just lazy.
We've all seen the reports of torture in Guantanamo. It's becoming pretty apparent that you don't need to go to anything like those lengths to break someone's mind, at least for a while. We all know now that an hour feeling like you can't breathe and you're going to die is spectacularly awful enough to render most people useless for at least the remainder of the day. Unless you're Captain Jack. Earlier in the same series, Toshiko was basically date-raped and nobody said a thing. Even Jeremy from Peep Show can spot date-rape when it happens. (I did like that Toshiko didn't think of it that way, as she still 'loved' him, but I'd have thought Owen would have said something.) And don't get me started on the incredible stunts Jack Bauer pulls shortly after undergoing literal physical torture or while recovering from a heroine addiction or something.
It's so inconsistent, too. Staying in series two of Torchwood, because I think that has a lot more scope to do horrid things to the principal characters than most shows, when Zombie Owen went a bit mad and started breaking his fingers at Toshiko, she all but broke down. I thought that was great TV, and the final scenes between those two were also fantastic. (I'm struggling to think of a reason to watch the show without those two.) And yet, that was the same episode that Jack was dug up after apparently failing to notice that he'd been buried for longer than anyone else lives.
I don't know. It always seems fine at the time -- it's usually only after the show that I think "hang on, that was actually pretty fucked up" -- but even so. Maybe it's just really, really hard to write good TV without this kind of thing happening once in a while. Or maybe it's just lazy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
