If you can find something from within yourself to stomach yet another programme about food without immediately self-harming your innards with household bleach, then you’ll be thrilled to know that this week sees another series of River Cottage (Channel 4, Thursday, 12 November, 8pm). While it’s perfectly reasonable to say that TV is overloaded with far too much food these days, it’s not fair to say that they’re all rubbish. They’re just mostly rubbish.
Posts Tagged ‘tv blog’
Set The Video: River Cottage, Channel 4, Thursday, 12 November, 8pm
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009TV Review: The Execution of Gary Glitter, Channel 4, Monday, 9 November, 9pm
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
The Execution of Gary Glitter (Channel 4, Monday, 9 November, 9pm) is, quite possibly, the strangest set-up for a show I’ve ever come across. Let’s look at it. Take a very real celebrity with a criminal record… and stick them in a fictional Britain and execute them. Yep. That’s really rather weird and anyone who watched the show last night without squirming has a lump of dead coal where a heart should be.
Premier League football on your iPhone
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
BSkyB has struck a deal with Apple which will bring live sports to your iPhone. Presuming you have an iPhone that is. As of today, Sky Mobile TV will be made available to iPhone and iPod Touch owners via a new application at the Apple App Store. Via a Wi-Fi connection and the app (which is free to download, incidentally) users will be allowed to stream live TV from a range of channels including the Sky Sports, Sky Sports News, ESPN, At The Races and Sky News.
First Look: Angela & Friends
Friday, November 6th, 2009
Sky 1 are bringing a new, live daytime chat with Angela & Friends. The show gives us Angela Griffin (Cutting It, Waterloo Road) – who surely everyone likes? She’ll be presenting daily entertainment and discussion and all those daytime staples. Alongside a rotating cycle of three well-known co-presenters, Angela will get to grips with the latest showbiz stories, lifestyle trends and viewer comments, as well as welcoming celebrity guests to the studio every day. Angela’s co-hosts include Sara Cox, Lisa Faulkner, Zoe Salmon, Jayne Middlemiss and more. Click over for a sneak peak of the show.
Happy 40th Sesame Street!
Friday, November 6th, 2009
Sesame Street is 40 years old. As such, it seems like a perfect time to muse over it at some length. Why? Well, you could argue that it’s the greatest thing that has ever been shown on television. Y’see, Sesame Street never once felt like learning, despite the fact that the whole point of the show was to teach you stuff. In amongst the alphabet and numbers line, it also taught you about the world at large.
X Factor versus The World
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
The X Factor is the most brilliant thing on television. That’s not to say that it’s well-made or credible. Who cares about the latter anyway? Idiots, that’s who. But it is the most dazzling polarising show on the box. People react to it like it’s a football team. X Factor is the Chelsea FC of TV land that clearly has too much money and ruthless with it. Of course, it’s prone to turkeys, but it’s also likely to throw out the gold.
Related: More X Factor
The Heather Brooke Story comes to BBC Four
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Before I even begin, apologies to anyone who arrived at this article expecting to see that woman who has starred in many internet videos showing her, *ahem*, lack of gag reflex. Alas, this article is about something very different indeed. Basically, this isn’t about fellatio, but rather, the untold story behind the MPs’ expenses headlines that will be revealed in a new humorous drama for BBC Four written by Tony Saint (Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk To Finchley, Micro Men) and directed by Simon Cellan Jones (Generation Kill, The Trial Of Tony Blair, Our Friends In The North).
First Look: All new Modern Family preview
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
America’s answer to Outnumbered continues apace this evening on Sky 1, and we have some preview clips of Modern Family (Sky One, Tonight, 29th October, 8pm) for you to chew on until it transmits. Tonight sees Phil getting buddy with his father-in-law and Phil has problems with a model airplane and “threading the needle”. Click over to see the vids!
We know what John and Edward are singing on this week’s X Factor
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Okay, if you’re going to have kittens about a spoiler, then walk away now. Seriously. We’re potentially going to ruin a secret for you because we completely stole the news from a newspaper we found out all by ourselves which song is going to be butchered by the mighty John and Edward on this weekend’s rock special X Factor. Of course, the news is over the jump so you don’t read it by accident.
Barbara Windsor to leave Eastenders
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Barbara Windsor has announced that she is to leave Eastenders next year after 15 years strutting around Albert Square. Windsor, who plays Peggy Mitchell, stated that she’s looking forward to spending more time with her “old man”.Ain’t that sweet? But whose going to spar with Pat Butcher and get drunk in ice-cream vans now?
Related: More Eastenders
The people of television on Twitter…
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Okay, you’re probably aware of the amount of people from TV who are on Twitter, thanks to our Telly Twitter section, which rounded up the best sleb Tweets each week. However, we’ve had a bit of bother and not done it for ages for reasons so dull that if I told you, you’d probably fall asleep and ‘pass away’. However…
Cilla Black joins Loose Women!
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Loose Women has become a byword for everything that’s wrong with television. It’s also become a byword for everything that’s wrong with women as well. Yet, in the face of all this hurled criticism, the show continues to attract generous audiences as the cackling harridans twitter on about all manner of things. Well, now, the queen of the cackling harridan is about to join up with the show… step forward, Cilla Black!
Set The Video: The Restaurant, BBC Two, Thursday, 29 October, 8pm
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Despite my moaning about the sheer mountainous volume of foodie shows on TV, I’m actually looking forward to The Restaurant (BBC Two, Thursday, 29 October, 8pm). That’s because this show knows how to do it and do it exceedingly well. Even better than Mr Kipling. With it’s air of sophistication, it melds the cool with the white hot tension of The Apprentice, without all the needless showboating and ranty put-downs. In Raymond Blanc, they’ve got a man who doesn’t think of himself as a TV personality, but a man who knows about food who just happens to have a camera in his face. This new series kicks off with The Pitch…
In praise of The X Factor
Monday, October 26th, 2009
I’ve got scabs on my retinas. That’s because I’ve spent a weekend in the company of The X Factor and the spin-off shows (various times, various ITV channels) and was treated to the most eye-ball stripping show I’ve ever seen. From the minute the show starts with its high-octane, heart palpatating music, with it’s flaming sent-from-ye-gods symbol evaporating the very clouds that protect us from the sun, to the garish light show of the stage, to the judges impossibly white gnashers, my eyes were destined to be damaged forever.
Related: More X Factor
Teletext RIP
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Teletext is going to be put to sleep by television doctors with a lethal injection. It was 17 years old and a victim of the internet. Teletext launched in ’93, taking over from Oracle which kicked off in 1974. There, you could get news, reviews and play Bamboozle by pressing buttons on your remote. As a kid, it seemed like the most futuristic thing in the whole world. “We investigated and researched every means to keep the news service going but in the end we couldn’t find a viable option,” said Mike Stewart, the group managing director at Teletext. “The continued fragmentation of television audiences and the boom in online use for news, information and commercial services have contributed to a significant reduction in Teletext’s viewing figures over recent years.” Of course, sites like ours are part of the demise, but that won’t stop me reminiscing.
Deadliest Warrior: Coming to British TV?
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
If you saw You Have Been Watching on Tuesday night, you might’ve seen the most insane programme ever made. So insane was it that I suspected that it was a very elaborate and expensive ruse, invented by Charlie Brooker. The show is called Deadliest Warrior and the premise is almost too ridiculous to believe. The show pits history’s hard men against each other in a fictional battle to see who wins. So, you get a Zulu warrior having a stab-off against William Wallace. Or The Taliban versus the I.R.A. Seriously. You jerk in astonishment and rub your eyes like you’ve just been maced. Well, the news is that it may well be arriving on British television screens very soon.
Related: You Have Been Watching review | Charlie Brooker interview
Review: It Felt Like A Kiss by Adam Curtis
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
“And we are here as on a darkling plain; Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
Adam Curtis is a genius. He’s been making documentaries for television and leaving all destroyed in his wake. He’s given us The Century of the Self, The Trap – What Happened to our Dream of Freedom, the incredible The Power of Nightmares and provided a short documentary which appeared in Charlie Brooker’s News Wipe. Now, taking TV Scoop into new territory, along with the Punchdrunk Theatre Co, he’s made a documentary that you can’t see on TV… but worth covering on these pages all the same.
Related: Our Charlie Brooker Interview | News Wipe Review
Gladiators’ Flack to co-host Something For The Weekend
Monday, June 29th, 2009
What is there to do on a Sunday morning? Sit down and think of leafing through the papers and having a really swish breakfast, only to realise that 99% of the stuff in newspapers is set to bore you half to sleep and that you forgot to buy bacon and sausages. And then you remember you’re rubbish at poaching eggs and they come out looking like squids that have lost a scrap with a combine harvester. Invariably, you end up eating coco pops and watching the box. This leaves you with a toss-up between the Hollyoaks Onmibus and Something for the Weekend. If you gun for the latter, you’ll have no doubt noticed that Amanda Hamilton has been presenting with a rather large bump on her. No, it’s not a massive spot, but rather, she’s about to provide the world with another little human. So, providing maternity cover will be Caroline Flack. Who?
Is Glastonbury just an annual knees up for the BBC staff?
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Glastonbury was all over the box this weekend with the usual hyperbole about this year being ‘the best ever’ and apple cheeked presenters fawning over the appalling dadrock of Bruce Springsteen. Despite the many drawbacks of the coverage (I’m looking squarely at you Zane Lowe – will we ever see the day where you actually fellate yourself with smugness between Glasto sets?), I really wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s not enough music on TV, so even bad coverage is better than none. However, not everyone feels the same way with some quarters having a pop at the BBC, implying that it’s all one big knees up at the tay payer’s expense. The TaxPayers’ Alliance (no, me neither) told The Daily Telegraph (oh, them) that Glastonbury has become an “annual jamboree for BBC employees”. Chief executive Matthew Elliot said: “It raises very serious questions because it leaves the licence fee payer with the impression that it’s an annual BBC junket. All 407 staff can’t all be there doing proper work.”
Related: Glastobury 2009: The TV Verdict
What To Watch This Weekend
Friday, June 26th, 2009
What a weird few days it’s been. Too many deaths, the build up to the Glastonbury Festival, glorious weather meeting thunderstorms head-on. Of course, the talk of the weekend will be the untimely passing of Michael Jackson which has put a really weird spin on proceedings. Anyway, let’s get back to the business of television. Let’s have a see what the best of the weekend television is.
Tonight: Michael Jackson: the King of Pop, Channel 4, 8pm
No Place in the Sun tonight as it’s been replaced with a tribute to Michael Jackson, who died in LA yesterday at the age of 50. No-one saw it coming so it’s all a bit weird isn’t it? Hopefully, this show will not focus on the negative aspects of MJ and use the video, archive footage and interviews to celebrate most amazing and influential pop music ever made.
Read over for the rest of the best…
From:Set The Video: NASA: Triumph and Tragedy, BBC Two, Wednesday, 24 June, 9pm