Entertainment For Lively Minds
Now it's all over
Posted by Simon Ford on 1 January 2009 - 9:43am.
Wasn't tv rubbish over Christmas? No great films, no great dramas. Very lazy programming everywhere (QI and Great Big Quiz repeated at prime time in the same week). BBC3 seemed to have The Most Annoying People on every night. As ever Five had CSI/NCIS on every night. At every turn whenever they seemed to run out of ideas they trundled out another Olympian for us to witness their non-personalities. Did anyone see anything worth watching?
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Xmas Tv
Simon, i gave up on the hope of good tv on at xmas many years ago. I think ever since the big xmas movie became a thing of xmas past, the whole of tv has followed, and everything now revolves around the soaps.
The halcyon days of the 70s have long gone, when a show could look forward to 20 million plus viewers. Now there is the lure of games, dvds and of course hundreds of other channels to choose from.
Agree there has been some extremely poor programming on the part of the beeb, shooting stars is on tonight...it was only on two bloody nights ago. How poor is that?
And no, ive not seen anything good, although last lead balloon was rather good.
Attack Of The Were-Rabbit
was the best thing I saw all Xmas. The new Wallace & Grommit was second.
Crooked House on BBC4
Fantastic ghost story from Mark Gatiss. Should have been on BBC2 so more people could've seen it.
I hope it will be
...or at least repeated on BBC Four. I didn't have enough room on our ancient Sky+ to record that and all the other family members' requests.
Stuart, was it a Christmas-only deal, or would it bear repeated watching in, say, February?
(And I'm aware it may be on the BBC iPlayer, but I'm not sure I can sit inert afore a computer screen for that long...)
If it's on BBC4...
...then it's a safe bet to say it's gonna be repeated several times this year. It didn't have a Christmas theme so a mid-year repeat should be fine.
Agreed
It was generally a pretty poor festive period. My family and I enjoyed: Dr Who; Wallace & Gromit's new one; Gavin and Stacey; and that's about it.
I've never been a fan of The Royle Family but my wife tells me the new one on Christmas Day was very poor. One or two friends have said that they enjoyed the BBC's version of 39 Steps but we didn't catch it. Did we miss much? We'll probably watch Jonathan Creek tonight, but I'm not sure we'll last the full two hours after last night's revelries...
We saw Inkheart at the cinema between Christmas and New Year and I'd recommend that to anyone with kids aged 8/9 and above. All four of us loved it.
Happy New Year to one and all.
My GLW sides with thine
We tried the Royle Family tonight but turned off, weeping, after half an hour of excruciation described by my wife as "like watching someone else's dull Christmas, crap jokes included". When did Denise and Dave become quite so two-dimensional? When did Jim's repertoire shrivel to "my arse" and annoyed stares? At what point did an unexpected doorbell ring become the trigger for a tired two-minute farce? And what the hell must Tom Courtenay have thought of the fag-packet sketch of a "character" he'd been given?
The final straw for us came with a self-reference so smug we almost clashed heads reaching for the Off button. Unfairly, it was delivered by the excellent-as-ever Sue Johnston, whose long-suffering air has always suited to perfection the show's effortless comedy, and continued to do so tonight as it slid into gormless inanity. In response to a mention of the Queen's Speech, she said wistfully that "I love the Royal family". And I used to love the Royles, but I won't be back.
Wallace & Gromit, on the other hand, had me crying with laughter: although it wasn't as well-plotted as previous tales, there was the usual attention to detail in something which requires careful observation at every stage. That used to also be the Royle Family's strength (and I should know: in my north-western working-class house, I was the Antony). I'm sad to see it go.
On another tack: just watched half the Shooting Stars documentary. Don't those Britpop guests look baby-faced?
the royale family special
was shocking, it was too long and under written. They seemed to have forgotten that you don't need to show us everything just get teh character to tell us about it. You could tell they were short of material when they sang two songs to bo effect it was quite sad really.
apart from w&g anf dr who xmas tv was rubbish
39 Steps
39 Steps. Having not seen any previous film versions nor read the book, I had nothing to compare this against and really enjoyed it.
The Royle Family was OK, not amazing but enjoyable. We had Early Doors on DVD - miles miles better than that. The documentary on Shooting Stars was much better than the new show, which looked a little forced even though it had its moments. Wallace & Gromit was good, even if placed at a barmy time-slot.
I don't think I watched anything else.
Wallace & Gromit
was on at a silly time for a family programme. We were an hour ahead here, so it was too late for our little ones, but even 8:30 isn't great for the smaller ones who have been up since 4 on Christmas Day. Apart from that and the odd film there wasn't much in the way of "family entertainment". In the old days everyone used to watch Only Fools & Horses, but I can't really see many families watching this year's Christmas Specials - Bread & Gavin & Stacey.
The Royle Family
certainly stunk the house out on Christmas night. Really disappointing!
Rab C Nesbitt's new offering was brilliant earlier in Christmas week, nothing was going to live up to that standard.
It's back on tonight
Rab, that is. I dare say Milford won't be watching.
Has Mark Lamarr...
...fallen out with Vic and Bob? He was in neither the Shooting Stars documentary nor the edition of Comedy Connections which dealt with the show...
Has he fallen out with life?
Walked from Shooting Stars, walked from Buzzcocks... does he still do the odd show on the radiogram?
He was always an odd choice
A comedian playing a straight man, someone who looked like they'd auditioned for a bigger part but got given that one instead. I like Mark Lamarr but he's too cool for school sometimes, a guy who thinks highly of himself when in fact no-one really cares about him one way or another.
Mark Lamarr
Think he does a bit for radio 2, predominantly rock 'n' roll stuff i believe. He used to stand in for Ross when he was off on holiday, was expecting him to be filling the Ross slot, but i guess even he's a bit too much of a loose cannon for R2 now