Quality new television comedy has been sadly rather hard to come by this year.
But out of the quagmire of mediocrity came a BBC2 sketch show from those guys out of Peep Show and my what a beauty it was. Every Thursday we put ourselves through another half-hour of the self-absorbed, poe-faced Extras, but our reward was That Mitchell and Webb Look. Unashamedly high-brow one minute, incredibly juvenile the next, it’s a classic already in my eyes.
Everybody now – "That’s Numberwang!"
Autumnwatch made for golden TV this year. What could be better than someone (namely Kate Humble, Bill Oddie and Simon King) giving you a gentle prod and telling you about how great things are outside?
Okay, if you think I’ve gone completely soft on you, think again. I know I’ve been wittering on and on about a variety of nature programmes and green recycling shows… but Autumnwatch really did provide compelling viewing! I mean, what is soft about watching two huge stags, foaming at the mouth, fighting each other in a bloody brutal… a fatal… fight? Like nature Autumnwatch provide beautiful and savage moments of TV gold.
Having not cottoned on to The Apprentice until the middle of the first series, this year’s second run was a must-see TV event for me from the off. Another chance to laugh at the desperate antics, bully-boy (and girl) tactics and jockeying to catch the crumbs of praise and dodge the bullets of biting sarcasm emanating from Sir Alan Sugar, EastEnd barrow-boy-made-good and the entrepreneur whom all contestants are expected to aspire to emulate. After several months have elapsed though, exactly how many of the contenders to the not-so-glamorous title "The Apprentice" can you remember?
Quite simply, Time Trumpet is one of the most brilliant and funny things I’ve ever seen in my life. The show is simple in approach, but with that, incredibly difficult to pull off. Basically, Armando Iannucci is a genius. We’ve all seen I [heart] 1985 (or whatever)… well, Iannucci creates a show that looks back on dates that haven’t even happened yet… and somehow makes them topical.
After season one’s promising start, season two came as a bit of a disappointment to some Desperate Housewives fans. Incredible shrinking woman, Susan Meyer (Teri Hatcher) was so dappy it seemed incredible to think anyone would fall in love with her, Gabby (Eva Longoria) was still stealing all the best lines, and Bree was an alcoholic. An entertaining alcoholic, but still…
By the time we reached the two-part season finale, ‘Remember’, Bree was in a mental hospital, Lynette was in a hotel, convinced that her husband was having an affair (he wasn’t – he just had an illegitimate child. Phew!), Susan was in a caravan because her house had been burnt down by Edie, and Gabby was in the golf club, spending money. The episode ended dramatically, with Bree busting out of the psych ward just in time to save her daughter’s life, and Zach Young inheriting millions, which will surely set him up perfectly as the evil overlord he was surely born to be. There was also an opportunity to laugh at most of the cast as younger versions of themselves during the flashbacks, and Kyle McLaughlin playing creepy Orson. Roll on Series 3…
Desperate Cameos | Heather Mills McCartney wants in on Desperate Housewives | Eva Longoria to quit Desperate Housewives?
This year has been a big year for faux hippies trying to live off the land or whatever. Hugh and Monty have had a crack… and just about every other Tom, Dick and Crispin has been telling us to buy local. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it’s easy to preach when you’re loaded. Still, all that accounted for, I’d still rather watch a posh bloke build a water wheel than anything with Dawn French in. Thankfully, I got just that with It’s Not Easy Being Green.
It felt very important at the time, didn’t it – a non-celebrity winning ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother? Very subversive and ironic and all those things we consider most clever. Well, while it hasn’t changed the way we think about z-listers quite as much as we’d hoped, the fact that it felt important at the time is enough for me.
And you know what, I liked Chantelle. She wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, admittedly, but she certainly wasn’t the.. erm.. bluntest either. Plus, she stayed out of any bitching, gave her Kandy Floss (with a K!) persona a good try, and, of course, gave us the most bizarre but sweet Big Brother relationship since Helen and Paul (the original, and still the best). Seeing indie kid Preston fall for the charms of a chav – an admittedly lovely one, but a chav nonetheless – was priceless, and really rather life-affirming. She was a worthy winner of the best Celebrity Big Brother yet – roll on the next series… [annawaits]
Look at this picture here. 10 points for anyone who noticed that it was Julia Davis, more famous for being the loathsome Jill Farrell in Nighty Night.
Even though Nighty Night went off the boil a little, that’s not to say Davis’ has. In fact, her appearance in the Fanny Craddock drama, Fear of Fanny, may just have been a career high for the talented actress and writer.
The Convent was the surprise hit of the year for me. I tuned in looking for some relief from the banality of Big Brother and found it in spades. I didn’t expect to watch more than the first half of the first show. Instead I found myself hooked and reeled in by the journeys of the four women who agreed to live like nuns for 90 days, but even more so by the nuns themselves – kind, patient and humble, they were the real stars of the show.
The nation has long needed a sassy woman, sporting a catsuit, to bark back at the nation’s most annoying dogs. Thank god that someone gave Victoria Stilwell the job. In her show, It’s Me or The Dog, she’s tackled lardy bum dogs who don’t know when to stop chewing tidbits and held an event to get hundreds of pooches to "sit!" all at the same time. My word she’s good.
It doesn’t hurt her chances of success on the screen that she’s quite an attractive lady either. How does this help you may be wondering? Well, apart from getting men interested in a show like this, it’s not just stupid hounds that she has to win over… far from it. If you’ve ever seen the show, you’ll know that often, the doggies are not the biggest problem being posed… but the owners.
It’s been a bit of a day for Torchwood news, and coincidentally we’ve reached #30 on our "best TV moments of 2006" series and it’s…Torchwood. Now I admit I’ve become disillusioned with the show to the point where I’ve stopped watching, but 2.4 million people are still tuning in to one broadcast or another so for them at least it is a best TV moment.
Even though I don’t count myself among the show’s fans, I do remember the excitement and anticipation leading up to that first broadcast and as the first Doctor Who spin-off it surely does deserve its place in our Top 50.
How can it be? I’ve fallen for to ladies who spend most of their time surrounded by absolute filth. Of course, I’m not referring to the police force… or Manchester United… but actual grime and dirt. The two ladies in question are the impossibly marvellous Kim and Aggie from How Clean is your House?
After Kim Woodburn have revealed a tragic personal loss this year, it seems unfathomable that someone could be so… positive and full of glee all the time. However, with Aggie at her side, they camp it up in some of the worst squalor in Britain… and not a po-faced grimace or accusing scowl in sight. This is why How Clean is your House? is one of the best things on TV.
It’s not often someone as cruel as me can say what I’m about to divulge. Phillip Schofield is a genius. Yep, you heard me clear and true. Mr Schofield, once a dweller of a broom cupboard with a squeaking gopher provided this writer with a truly sublime piece of TV magic this year.
After being a thoroughly nice chap all these years… starring in musicals, being the good cop to Anne Robinson‘s bad cop on Test The Nation, to being a heat seeking missile in the face of a Royal grave-robber. Yessir, Mr Schofield decided to lay the smack-down on Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell and it was brilliant!
Well, if ever there were an instance in which you could use the phrase ‘not as weird as he looks’ literally, this must be it. Because David Gest was a bit of a revelation, wasn’t he? He was the butt of all the pre-‘I’m A Celeb’ jokes, but in the end, we found that he was… well not what we’d term normal perhaps, but then we are talking relative to other celebrities, and by that comparison he actually did rather well.
He was entertaining, told ridiculous (but very probably true) stories about his Hollywood lifestyle, and threw just enough ‘I don’t do dishes’-related diva tantrums to keep us interested. In short, he was the perfect jungle contestant, and could very easily have won. Wonders never cease. [annawaits]
There hasn’t been a new cartoon on TV that has made me laugh so hard that it becomes actually painful… for ages! So thank the stars for Modern Toss which appealed to my crude leanings in more than just style.
Modern Toss is, without question, some of the poorest drawings ever to grace a screen. Thankfully, that’s part of it’s huge charm. Child-like doodles with potty mouths. It’s a marriage made in heaven. Thankfully, the jokes aren’t just swear-words. They are a complaint about modern living in a fabulous off hand manner… Haiku’s for cynics. (Be warned, there is quite a bit of bad language if you read on).
Eurovision has always been good for a laugh, especially since Wogan perfected his unique brand of commentary, but this year in particular proved more amusing than most as the reaction to Finnish entry Lordi spread through the media, not to mention the audience. But if reaction to their entry was titillating, then reaction to their winning can only be described as hilarious. One thing’s for certain: no-one can ever legitimately call Eurovision boring again.
The demonic-looking Finns later claimed their music was more gospel than ghoulish. Take a look at this You Tube moment and judge for yourselves.
Have you ever worked a nightshift? I’ve done loads of jobs working throughout the night such as working in a newspaper printing press and even at one point, a security guard. Both involved lots of sleeping on the job and going slowly mad. This is why the people at Quizmania should be knighted. Of course, the presenters of the nation’s finest quiz show have already gone slightly ‘Nam mad ("the horror… the horror") but that is the very reason why everyone needs to sit down with Greggles (pictured), Debbie King and company… to see what a wrecked sleeping pattern looks like.
You’d think that all this alluding to mental health issues would result in my saying that all the presenters are on copious amounts of illegal drugs… but you’re wrong. These people are most certainly balanced… at least in chemical terms.
Rarely do second series achieve the same quality as the first. Exceptionally, they better them. Such was the case with this year’s Afterlife, which delivered even more spooky chills than the first series, but also added more texture and depth to the central characters. Alison Mundy (Leslie Sharp) trod the edge of sanity as the spirit of her dead mother threatened to overcome her, while Robert Bridge (Andrew Lincoln) rebuilt his relationship with ex-wife Jude only to have his new-found hope dashed when he discovered he had an inoperable and terminal brain tumour.
Unlike Have I Got New For You, which continues to use guest hosts (with extremely variable results) Never Mind The Buzzcocks this year took the plunge, and hired a full-timer – Simon Amstell. This perhaps wasn’t the biggest gamble (he made his name, of course, on Popworld, another irreverent music show) but still, people just don’t like change, do they? We needn’t have worried, though – he’s perfect.
Unlike on Popworld, where his co-presenter Miquita could do nothing but laugh hysterically, here Simon’s got the incredibly talented Phill Jupitus and Bill Bailey to banter with – but to be honest, he’s even showing them up. He’s just so darn quick, and any guest trying to out-wit him has found themselves completely defeated. He knows his stuff, and can be cutting and acerbic one second, and surprisingly endearing the next. Mark who? [annawaits]
One of the highlights of Big Brother this year for me – a Grace hater, but then, who isn’t? – came on Friday June 12th. Ah I remember it well. For our BB-documenter Amber, it was "the best moment in Big Brother history, bar none". Yup, hearing thousands of Big Brother fans shouting ‘Get Grace Out’ on eviction night was pretty special.
Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but you couldn’t feel even a teensy bit sorry for her, because it made no difference. Sure, she was upset for a while, or more accurately indignant, but it didn’t spur her into thinking why they wanted her out. Nope, oblivious as ever, Grace just kept on a-bitching… though I guess, really, that’s exactly what we wanted. Aren’t we fickle? [annawaits]
From:Coronation Street fans apply here