Here’s Looking At You

Well, Pick of the Day, according to the RT at least, for the “so-close-you-can-smell-Christmas” 23rd of December is the somewhat unfestive Spooks series 8 finale. I am still a few episodes behind in this run but I will be doing what I can in the work-free days that approach to rectify that. So far, the budget cuts have not really dampened by enjoyment of the show although the Section D offices do look rather pokier than usual. Over on C4 at 10pm, there is the finale (in case you missed it first time round on digital or even on DVD) of True Blood. Again, it’s another show that I can’t quite get in to but probably need to sit down with a boxset for an afternoon to really appreciate it. My personal recommendation for Wednesday night is going to be Not Going Out, the show first cancelled earlier this year and then recommissioned by the Beeb in last couple of weeks. If you’ve not seen it before, (a) where have you been?, and (b) give it a go now. It’s a gag-fuelled half hour of silly entertainment that, 9 times out of 10, hits the spot and warrants a chuckle.  Out in the wilderness of the digital only channels, there is another installment of 10 Minute Tales (Sky @ 10pm) the first of which was a joy (review soon but pic above to whet the appetite), the third Royal Institute Christmas Lecture (More4 @ 7pm) and fighting it out for my pick of the day is Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe (BBC4 @ 10pm) who undoubtedly will say many things that I wish I could be so eloquent as to write here. May be, just may be, the schedules are picking up.

Comics Brittanica Continuing to Entertain 

Friday nights are undoubtedly back to being the definitive “staying in night” of the week.  Of course, this meant that last Friday we went out to see some friends for dinner and had to postpone our viewing until Saturday but it was worth the wait.  QI made a welcome return for its fifth series on BBC2 and the second installment, as is fast becoming tradition, followed immediately on another channel (to encourage all the luddites to upgrade to digi).  Back on BBC1, I am delighted to report that Not Going Out, as I had hoped, is back to its best.  We also enjoyed a couple of Jonathan Ross vehicles during the course of the week: his Friday Night… show continues to attract A-listers but it was his contribution to Comics Brittanica that was my highlight of the week.  This has been a great series of shows over on BBC4 and, as Andrew Collins points out, is surely worthy of a repeat showing to a wider audience.  Also, yet again I broke that promise to myself to studiously avoid “list shows” by sitting through hours of The Most Annoying TV We Love to Hate but it was actually quite entertaining.  All in all, it looks like the autumn season is picking up nicely.

• Sun 23rd Sep: movie The Queen (8/10); Studio 60 OTSS “The Option Period”
• Sat 22nd Sep: Not Going Out “Librarian”; QI 5×01 and 5×02; Cricket Twenty20 Semi Final India v Australia; Friday Night With Jonathan Ross; The IT Crowd 2×04; The Most Annoying TV We Love To Hate – part 2
  
• Fri 21st Sep: No TV
• Thu 20th Sep: Channel hopping but didn’t watch anything of substance other than Spurs scoring six against some Cypriot outfit in the UEFA Cup.
• Wed 19th Sep: No TV
• Tue 18th Sep: In Search Of Steve Ditko; Friends “The One With The Flashback”; Cricket Highlights
• Mon 17th Sep: Nigella Express; Hell’s Kitchen Final

Staying In

Series one of Not Going Out was a delightful surprise. A Friday night, BBC1 comedy in the slot that had brought us the funny-for-five-episodes My Family and much other forgettable fayre, suddenly threw up a little gem. It didn’t baulk away from its comedy as so many other, more knowing, 21st century sitcoms tend to do and neither did it rely on extreme characterisation that encourages the audience to “laugh at” instead of “laugh with”. No, here was a comedy that was just a string of gags held together with that old sitcom stalwart, the flat-share. And it was brilliant. Lee Mack and Tim Vine had built a reputation on an older style of gag-driven comedy in The Sketch Show and so provided a great duo to head up proceedings as best friends, Lee and Tim (see what they did there?!). The dynamic was improved with the presence of Kate (Megan Dodds), who was Lee’s flatmate and the (secret) object of his affections. Simple set up, perfect execution.
So, the announcement of second series was met with widespread cheers but the question was, could it live up to series one? The first episodes (especially, the first “Mortgage”) were contrived around introducing a number of key changes: (i) Kate is nowhere to be seen and the role of flatmate now falls to Tim’s sister, Lucy (Sally Bretton), (ii) a cleaner called Barbara has been brought in, played by Miranda Hart, who has been funny in almost everything I’ve seen her in, and (iii) from episode 2, there has been the introduction of a boyfriend for new girl Lucy. Unfortunately, the result of these changes seemed to necessitate a re-launch of the premise, and the new characters’ roles have resulted in less screen time for Tim and Lee and more exposition. i.e. Less gags, less good.

Episode 2, was entitled “Gay” and that alone immediately made me begin to wonder whether the script was going to be a bit more Carry On than I would like. Fortunately, it was an improvement on the first episode and the gay jokes were generally inoffensive, although a little staid and tending toward the situation rather than the comedy. On the plus side the spark is very much still there. The dialogue is immediately worthy of second viewing as you are almost certain to hear a few jokes that you missed first time through. Also, now that the “new set-up” is established, the future is bright and it remains one to watch… twice!.

The Object of Angus Deayton’s Affection

Week thirty-six was decidedly forgetable. A few new series for the autumn season managed to sneak their debuts in with the chucklefest that is Not Going Out back for a second outing. I found that it was not quite up to the standard of last series and felt a bit like a reset because of the introduction of a replacement for Kate and the arrival of Miranda Hart as the maid. I’m certainly expecting it to get better as the show progresses. Friday nights are further bolstered by Jonathan Ross’s return with A-list guests and well scripted gags as well as news of the forthcoming “Series E” of QI, and the yo-yo’ing standards of the IT Crowd. Definitely becomming a night to stay in. Meanwhile, there was lots of cooking fun this week too with Nigella Express, The Restaurant and the rather watchable Hell’s Kitchen. All in all though, I found my memory playing tricks on me as I really struggled to recall what I had been watching from day-to-day over the seven days, so much so that I am forced into awarding the Show Of The Week prize to Marco Pierre White and his kitchen from Hell.

• Sun 9th Sep: No TV
• Sat 8th Sep: Cricket Eng v Ind 7th ODI (England cruise home to 4-3 win); Football Eng v Isr (England cruise to 3-0 win)
• Fri 7th Sep: Outnumbered; Studio 60 OTSS “Nevada Day. Part 1″; Not Going Out “Series 2, Ep 1″; The It Crowd; Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
• Thu 6th Sep: Cricket on Five; Doctor Who “Utopia”, “The Sound of Drums” and “Last of the Time Lords”
• Wed 5th Sep: No TV
• Tue 4th Sep: Outnumbered; Hell’s Kitchen
• Mon 3rd Sep: Nigella Express “Part 1″; Hell’s Kitchen new series (with added Marco Pierre White)

Hit, Miss or May Be

The Friday night comedy slot on BBC1 is always a successful one and, seemingly, this is regardless of the quality of the product on offer (see, My Hero as prime example).  The latest effort is After You’ve Gone, starring Nicholas Lyndhurst and Celia Imrie and it follows in the footsteps of the really rather good Not Going Out, so it had a lot to live up to in my book.  There were some positives such as Nicholas Lyndhurst.  He is one of those actors to whom I have a knee-jerk reaction ofquiet dislike, but any conversation about him ends up like that sketch in Life Of Brian:

“What has Nicholas Lyndhurst ever done for us?”
“There’s Only Fools and Horses”
“Of course, that goes without saying”
“And Goodnight Sweetheart”
“Well clearly, but other than those what has he ever done?”
“Butterflies”
“Yeah but apart from Only Fools, Goodnight Sweetheart, and Butterflies…” etc

Also, Celia Imrie was in it, which is usually a good sign too.  Despite these stars, my favourite performance was from newcomer Ryan Sampson as the son, he had great timing, good screen presence and got plenty of the best lines to boot.  However, the downsides outweighed the positives by a distance and the first one was a quite a substantial problem for a comedy… it really wasn’t that funny, the jokes were few and far between and the dialogue was just not snappy enough.  The characters were the plainest kind of stereotypes you could imagine: overbearing mother-in-law (Imrie), dopey but well meaning lead (Lyndhurst), cheeky son (Sampson), moody daughter (Dani Harmer) and so on and so forth.  And we’ve seen it all before, the “situation” in this sitcom was nothing new.  In fact, nothing at all was “new” here, it’s been done before and it’s been better before.

Surprising Success

British sitcoms that are both high quality and highly popular have been a rare breed in the last few years, so it was with some trepidation that I approached Not Going Out, the latest in a series of BBC1, Friday night comedies in the tradition of My Hero (awful since the first episode) and My Family (started well, but never the same after Kris Marshall left).  Penned by famous talking head from many a “list show”, Andrew Collins and sketch show regular, Lee Mack, they have created what is essentially a series of gags with a linking narrative but these gags happen to be genuinely funny (on the death of his gran, Tim: “I thought she’d live to be 100″, Lee: “Were you close”, Tim: “Well, she got to 94″).  So much for comedy, but it is the situation that adds a little depth to the procedings, there is an interesting love triangle between the three leads.  Tim and Lee are best friends; Kate and Tim used to date but broke up because Tim had an affair; and Lee has moved in with Kate for mutually beneficial financial reasons (although he holds not quite buried feeling for her too).  It may not be high art but there a laugh out loud moments every few minutes and that cannot be a bad thing.