The Mitchell And Webb Situation

BBC2 have just finished rerunning The Mitchell And Webb Situation (the title having been suggested by Robert Ludlum), a TV sketch show that essentially became That Mitchell And Webb Sound on Radio Four and then That Mitchell And Webb Look on BBC2 again.

It's strange. It's very clearly Mitchell and Webb. You could tell that from a transcript: many of the ideas are ones that turn up in their later work and there's a lot of the clever poking of fun at ridiculous aspects of life that sets the pair apart from the catchphrase monkeys who make drivel like Little Britain. And it's very funny, technically, I think. It just doesn't make me laugh.

I can't watch That Mitchell And Webb Look without laughing. It's too good. But this I can. I watch a sketch, and I can see the joke, and it's clever, and I get the point, but there isn't the big impact punchline you get in their later work. It's like the it's entirely comprised of sketches rejected from the new show because nobody could quite make them work properly.

Quite interesting to watch, though. I feel like I've learned something about how comedy develops.

Heroes is back!

...And with it, Sylar, the most redundant baddie in TV history!

Sylar is a great character -- he's a murderous psychopath, but the writers have still gone to the bother of fleshing him out properly, with motives and consistent weaknesses and everything else that excites Greg Grunberg so much. And yet, he's never really used. In the first series he was always there, being a threat, but the nuclear bomb was a bigger threat. In the second, he played second fiddle to a deadly virus, and this year it looks like a large explosion, a troupe of even mentaller people, and a crazy Patrelli from a future that might not be the future.

This is arguably a waste of a good baddie, but that's why Heroes is great -- they come up with enough great stuff to fill the series, then they come up with a bunch of extra great stuff and put that in too. And then they do it again for the next series. And let's face it: we've not lost anything -- as if any of the hacks on other shows would use him any better.

A Glass and a Half of Effort

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.

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.

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:

1. Beginning from Saturday 3rd 2009, watch an episode of New Who on DVD every Saturday at 7pm. Don't watch more than one episode.
2. Assuming that the planned specials will air on Saturdays at around 7pm, postpone the viewing of your next episode for the following week.
3. 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.
4. Optionally, write a review of Eurovision Song Contest on Outpost Gallifrey as if it were an episode of Doctor Who.
5. That's it.

With fifty-five episodes of New Who in the can, this should take you all the way through 2009 and part of the way into 2010, with mere months - or maybe even weeks! - to go until Series Five starts. Good luck, Fandom.

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.

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.

"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.

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:

(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:

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.