Here’s something a bit frisky for UKTV Gold. A new – that’s brand new – comedy from the US called The New Adventures Of Old Christine. That’s correct, it’s not a repeat or a piece of classic TV, just something new. For a channel that has built its reputation on repeats and classic TV, this is a bit of a bold step.
By all accounts it’s frothy, pithy, fairly middle-of-the-road primetime stuff and will suit anyone who was into Will & Grace (it’s written by W&G scribe Kari Lizer). Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, but one thing that might make me watch is its star – Seinfeld person Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Never liked this man. The sort of self-consciously wacky guy that some people love, but people like me (bitter, twisted and wracked with rancour) really, really dislikes. Shame really, because the show he fronts, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, is massive in the US (and across the UKTV channels here) and is pretty good, in a mawkishly sentimental sort of way. I may have an inexplicable soft spot for the show, but I turn to granite when I have to talk about Ty Pennington.
Yahoo! news reports that the man himself was been arrested at the weekend for being drunk up on booze and driving in a not-very-well fashion. I’m betting that he’s never had to design a prison cell-themed house before. He should use this experience wisely.
The list of films in which Julia Roberts is magnificent is long indeed, but her performance as the eponymous heroine Erin Brockovich not only won her her only Best Actress Oscar, but is also a dazzling, heart-stopping, career-defining moment. With touching and understated support from the excellent Albert Finney (also Oscar-nominated) as her long-suffering employer and a blistering script from Susannah Grant (*also* Oscar-nominated) this is a tour-de-force example of the “underdog fighting the system” movie genre.
For those that remember the original series of Jim’ll Fix It, one clip is sure to stand out – the cubs eating food on a rollercoaster. Why anyone would want to risk vomiting on one of these heinous things I have no idea, but then, as is now, that clip remains one of the funniest moments of my childhood. Chubby cub scouts trying to eat food and drink, erm, drink while battling G-Force and stomach-churning loop-the-loops isn’t necessarily a recipe for TV hilarity, but it worked. Oh how it worked.
In UKTV Gold’s opening show of Jim’ll Fix It Strikes Again, the scenario was recreated, with the same people (although they are now, as you will have guessed, 20-odd years older). If you must last week’s ep, here’s the clip in full.
Jibber jabber. Jabber jibber. Jingle jangle. Can you tell what it is yet? Yes, as reported some days ago, Sir Jimmy Savile is back, part of UKTV Gold’s relentless quest to overhaul some of our ‘classic’ TV shows from yesteryear. The way it has chosen to do this – mix archive clips, bring the old presenter out of retirement etc – is quite a novel way of doing things I think. There are enough old clips to keep nostalgia nuts happy, and some new stuff thrown in there to make it feel fresh.
Jim’ll Fix It Strikes Again basically looks back at the archives, meets people who originally had their dreams fixed by Sir Jimmy, and grants those who missed out first time around a chance to finally fulfill theirs. Each show has a guest co-presenter, and for tonight’s opener Mel Giedroyc takes her seat next to the Dream Maker General. We’ll see a girl who wants to tango with Strictly Come Dancing’s Ian Waite and Eighties pop stars, Go West, make a TV comeback to make someone’s dream come true. Or is that a nightmare?
Apart from news and reviews and previews and stuff, TV Scoop also keeps an eye out on some of the goodies the internet throws up. We’ve come across this online game, that lets you play some of telly’s greatest quizzes for free, and it’s dangerously addictive. The site offers you a selection of games to play – Countdown, Family Fortunes, Catchpahrase and Blockbusters. Yes, become a student again and go for the gold run!
Now, don’t blame us if you get told off for playing these too often. Click here to play.
Can you think of any politician who has been has work hungry as Al Gore after stepping away from the policies and ballots? No, George Galloway acting like a mental cat doesn’t count.
As well as his ‘An Inconvienient Truth’ docu-film, Gore launched Current TV, a channel launched in the States two years ago, kicked off this week in the UK.
Speaking at a press conference Gore described the channel as "TV for the internet generation."
Gore said: "Traditional television fails many viewers because it beams programmes at them with little regard for their input and no opportunity for interaction. Current instead facilitates a conversation with and among our viewers." Is this a format that will work?
If you’re feeling in need of a good laugh to round off the week, head on over to today’s OrganGrinder column in the online Guardian, which poses the question "Who will tune into the new look X Factor?" The column is amusing enough, but for real side-splitting entertainment, scan through some of the comments.
Or if you don’t want to stray from the warm familiar surroundings of TV Scoop, click through for my selection of the best half-dozen reactions.
People often associate actors with their characters, and it’s easy to assume that when a show isn’t on, the actors are still working on it – either rehearsing, shooting, or swanning around opening supermarkets as their alter egos. But there is life after telly. Take Equus for example.
On his excellent Manchester Evening News blog The Life of Wylie, Ian Wylie informs us that Shameless star Gerard Kearns hasn’t been kicking his heels between series four and five. Instead he’s been kicking ass – as an 18-year-old soldier in Iraq – in a new film drama entitled Mark of Cain.
Shameless creator Paul Abbott has hit out at TV chiefs – notably programme commissioners – for being "gutless" and unwilling to take risks, according to a report in The Stage. His main beef is that the standard initial commission for a drama series is now three or six episodes in the UK. His biggest hit, the aforementioned Shameless, is about to start recording 16 episodes but it’s taken four series and huge critical acclaim to get that level of commitment from producers.
Abbott’s point is that commissioners should take a flyer from time to time and shoot 16 episodes straight away. He reckons "… the audience will appreciate that investment, and they’ll feel well looked after." But with production costs spiralling and so many new dramas turning out to be turkeys rather than dinosaurs, where are you going to find producers willing to take such risks? Well, at NBC for one…
The Stage reports that the Beeb have done extraordinarily well in the nominations for this year’s Pioneer Audience Award. This is the only BAFTA Award voted for by the viewing public (the rest of the vote is open only to industry members) and could therefore claim to be the most coveted.
This year several BBC shows – Life on Mars, The Royle Family, Planet Earth, Dragon’s Den, and the Vicar of Dibley Christmas Special – have made the shortlist, along with Celebrity Big Brother 2006. But hang on. The award is intended to "honour the show that has helped to define television in 2006, receiving critical acclaim through its original approach and capturing the public’s imagination." So let’s just take a look at how those nominees stack up against that aim.
Some time in the next few hours, somewhere in New York, Titanic producer James Cameron and Jewish Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici will be holding a press conference to reveal three coffins that supposedly held Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. The pair claim they have DNA evidence, archeological evidence and Biblical studies that prove not only that the coffins belonged to these people, but that another coffin discovered at the same site held Jesus’ son Judah.
We all know that when you want a beautiful, well-written period drama, you go to Auntie Beeb and she’ll give you Bleak House, or The Ruby In The Smoke, or something equally brilliant. But this Spring, ITV are fighting back in quite a major way, with a Jane Austen season.
And you know what, I even think it could be good. For a start they’ve got two of the most engaging British TV actors working at the moment – the girl who can do no wrong, Billie Piper, as Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, and Spooks’s Rupert Penry-Jones in Persuasion.
Levi (aka Keith) Roots, who wowed the Dragon’s Den investors with both his singing and his product – Reggae Reggae Sauce – is going from strength to strength, once again with both his singing and his sauce.
His new-found cult status has come as something of a surprise to Levi, who has been using his sauce (an original secret family recipe from his chef grandma) at his Notting Hill "rasta-rant" for several years, and only started selling it on a small scale last year. Following his success on Dragon’s Den he is now in talks with Sainsbury’s for a deal to distribute the sauce nationwide.
Even more surprising is the public’s reaction to his song – written to expound the virtues of the sauce which "puts music in your food" – it could soon be available as a download.
The BBC has commissioned Endemol to create an interactive online show that aims to tap the youth audience that is increasingly turning away from TV.
Did you hear that? Ver yoof of Britain is avoiding TV like the plague? I’m a bit confused as I thought they watched too much telly… although, if they’re averting their eyes, then they have more brains than me who has to watch dross all bloody day.
Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of future media and technology, described the show, to be called Signs of Life, as the BBC’s "most ambitious internet format to date". Talking it up a bit aren’t you Ashley?
Imagine for a minute that you are disgustingly wealthy and completely mad to boot. What would you spend your money on? A gigantic hammer made from hair? Enough drugs to make you go blind? Well, if you were rich and mad, you could hire a TV personality from Pro-Motivate, like the tiny Richard Hammond (look at him stood next to the car in the snap… that makes him about two feet tall).
Hiring a Hammond will cost you £10,000+. Seriously. Pro-Motivate say that "our people will often be asked to host awards ceremonies, have an evening with a celebrity such as Eamonn Holmes, or simple Q&A sessions with a character like Phil Tufnell or Frank Abagnale of "Catch Me If You Can" fame." Sounds dreadful doesn’t it? Maybe you could get Hammond down for ‘Best Car Crash TV’ awards? If you’re a bit broke, Ben Fogle will cost you £4000… you could ask him about his dog… [Mof Gimmers]
Lovers of dark and brooding science fiction! Get ready to wet your pants! The Sci Fi channel is to put the first episode of the US smash Heroes online a week before the show debuts on TV in the UK.
The first episode of the show, which debuts on TV from February 19, is being made available to view in advance online from today, at Sci-Fi UK, for the next two weeks.
It is the first time the NBC Universal-owned Sci Fi has done this.
Time was when the nation’s libraries were full of people flocking to read Professor Stephen Hawking’s seminal work on relativity, space, time, the universe and everything A Brief History of Time. Well, the history was very brief and its time was ten years ago, because the (non-fiction) Lending List is now topped with a book that, according to a spokeswoman from the Public Lending Right (PLR) organisation, "…reveals our national preoccupation with self-image and our growing obsession with who we are and what we look like."
Yes, it’s "You Are What You Eat" by our favourite poo-checker, Gillian McKeith, and as if that wasn’t enough, her book of recipes also based on the programme appears in the list at number three.
Remember the days of Jim’ll Fix It? Kids would phone up Uncle (sorry, Sir) Jimmy Savile with all manner of weird requests and he’d pick the most entertaining and "fix it" for the boy or girl, team, school or scout group, to have their wish come true. And at the end of it all they would get a cheesy badge and their fizzog on the telly for a few minutes.
It was the highlight of Saturday teatime viewing for years and although I called the badges cheesy, they’ve long since achieved iconic status and their rarity value means that many people now treasure them as family heirlooms. But since the programme ended in June 1994, there have been no more fix-its. No more dreams made real. That letter that you meant to write but never got around to? Your chance is gone forever. Or is it?
Has anyone ever seen Aqua Teen Hunger Force? It’s brilliant! I’ve only checked it out due to it’s appearance in the news yesterday after Boston was put on high security alert because of a guerilla marketing campaign for the show. The bizarre debacle started after a marketing firm working
for Turner Broadcasting (the parent company of Cartoon Network) put up
electronic light displays depicting a one of the characters of the show greeting citizens and visitors with the bird (an upturned middle digit to those not up with the hip slang). Somehow,
the light boards were misinterpreted as suspicious devices and the city swung into a red alert, which saw law
enforcement agencies shut bridges and sections of the Charles River! No-one knows why a full security alert was called on
Wednesday over advertising devices that had been present in Boston -
and other major US cities including Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York and
Los Angeles – for the past two weeks, although Coakley attributed it to
the devices having a "very sinister appearance" and "wires". To see a YouTube video of the show, read over the jump.
The list of films in which Julia Roberts is magnificent is long indeed, but her performance as the eponymous heroine Erin Brockovich not only won her her only Best Actress Oscar, but is also a dazzling, heart-stopping, career-defining moment. With touching and understated support from the excellent Albert Finney (also Oscar-nominated) as her long-suffering employer and a blistering script from Susannah Grant (*also* Oscar-nominated) this is a tour-de-force example of the “underdog fighting the system” movie genre.
Some time in the next few hours, somewhere in New York, Titanic producer James Cameron and Jewish Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici will be holding a press conference to reveal three coffins that supposedly held Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. The pair claim they have DNA evidence, archeological evidence and Biblical studies that prove not only that the coffins belonged to these people, but that another coffin discovered at the same site held Jesus’ son Judah. 
Levi (aka Keith) Roots, who wowed the 
Imagine for a minute that you are disgustingly wealthy and completely mad to boot. What would you spend your money on? A gigantic hammer made from hair? Enough drugs to make you go blind? Well, if you were rich and mad, 
Time was when the nation’s libraries were full of people flocking to read Professor Stephen Hawking’s seminal work on relativity, space, time, the universe and everything A Brief History of Time. Well, the history was very brief and its time was ten years ago, because the (non-fiction) Lending List is now topped with a book that, according to a spokeswoman from the Public Lending Right (PLR) organisation, "…reveals our national preoccupation with self-image and our growing obsession with who we are and what we look like."
Remember the days of Jim’ll Fix It? Kids would phone up Uncle (sorry, Sir) Jimmy Savile with all manner of weird requests and he’d pick the most entertaining and "fix it" for the boy or girl, team, school or scout group, to have their wish come true. And at the end of it all they would get a cheesy badge and their fizzog on the telly for a few minutes.
From:Coronation Street fans apply here