Some TV
(and Radio)Some TV
(and Radio)Being a child of the late twentieth century, well 80's and 90's, it is to be expected that a vast majority of my life is spent in front of a glowing box beaming radiation at me, in the hope that I get some comfort from it, and when I've finished cooking the popcorn in the microwave I enjoy watching TV.
Now being only human, as so many of us are nowadays, I am rather partial to a laugh, thus, though it does not necessarily follow, I like sit-coms, and I feel that though America has produced a great many successful comedies, they are not always the best, and to start this section off I will go through British (and Irish) ones :
In my opinion, obviously the only one I am capable of offering, FT is the single greatest sitcom I have EVER seen. But for those who have not heard of it let me describe it. An ecclesiastical comedy set on a remote Irish island, about two priests, one who barely has a positive IQ, and the other just plain foolish (almost stupid, but not quite). This as many of you may be thinking, is not the most promising idea for a sitcom, and yet the surreality of it leads to classic moments of simple, yet hilarious humour, but to describe moments, such as a WWII film parody set with a dozen or so priests lost in a lingerie department, would entirely fail, such is the ability of the script-writers and actors to make it so watchable and yet indescribable. It's such a tragedy that Dermot Morgan, the eponymous star died, a talented actor and comedian, who will be greatly missed.
If I have been informed correctly this show was remade in America under the same title yet slightly erroneously. In the British version, the two main characters, Gary and Tony drank beer, farted, watched pornography, lusted over the woman who lived upstairs and generally treated women as sex objects, but basically did it all very badly... in the US version, from what I have heard they were quite politically correct, just drank a bit of beer and made the occasional crude sexual remark... this is probably where it failed (which I believe it did). The point being the men were meant to be so cliché-ridden as to be ridiculous, and yet so true to life to be almost painful to watch. With scenes such as Tony tattooing himself with 'Deborah I love you' to impress the woman upstairs, and not being able to stand the pain and only managing 'Pebs', it was sufficiently stupid to appeal to the base humour of the average man, and with it's basic satire that made it stand out above the rest.
From one of the more mature sitcoms, to a generally family affair, The Vicar of Dibley is set in a small rural English village, written by Richard Curtis (of Four Weddings and a Funeral fame), starring a great British comedian, Dawn French, as a woman vicar, with the usual selection of quirky village characters, and stupid traditions, such as the Easter bunny, with half the cast dressing up in furry rabbit suits and hopping around the village. A classic from the first episode.
Jim Hacker is a politician, not an exceptionally good, nor bad, one, in fact mediocre on a grand mediocre scale. Sir Humphrey is a civil servant, a Personal Private Secretary as I recall, and Bernard Wooley is er... he may be the PPS, I forget... Anyway, Hacker has two things on his mind, firstly to get re-elected and secondly to be liked, and only the latter because it helps the former. Unfortunately he's a bit of a prat when it comes to politics, and believes what he's told and expects people to do what he says.
Basically at the end of Yes Minister, by a freak of coincidence, mainly that he was mediocre enough to look semi-competent, and still be manipulable by the civil service, he became Prime Minister, and so he could be mediocre on a grand, world stage.
Set around a hotel in Torquay, the eponymous, Fawlty Towers. The hotel from hell. With stories such as... rat poisoning on the veal (placed down to catch the waiter's escaped hamster (rat... 'stroke that and you'll never play the guitar again') in the hope the health inspector won't find it, then feeding the aforementioned inspector the veal... incredibly funny...
Jack Docherty and Moray Hunter write and star in this extremely bizarre, incredibly surreal, and usually very funny sitcom, based around two friends who live in a warehouse (and why not?). Pretty standard fare so far, but what makes it so funny is the abstract way they look at life, for instance, when one gets an idea, a light bulb actually does light up above their head, and you know it will as they have manoeuvred around so it would be there. Then there's a scene involving building an office out of cereal boxes, then don eats them all, because he's nervous... it made sense at the time. Or there's cardboard suburbia... funny. Such a shame it was cancelled after only one series...
Right, everyone's heard of Friends. They know it's about six twenty something (must be near thirty-somethings now...) friends, and their lives, loves, hopes and dreams... or is it just about getting laughs out of an extremely low-humour level audience (belly laughs for anything remotely funny, yet missing the subtle...). But still it has some great writing, and the characters are all extremely likeable, and funny (important idea for a sitcom is likeable characters). Anyway that's it...
A sitcom, that has achieved much acclaim, and so I don't really need to sy too much about it, but the basics...
It revolves around Dr. Frasier Crane, notable radio psychiatrist, his former cop father, Martin (with a jippy leg, injured in the line of duty), Daphne Moon, Martin's physiotherapist and a part-time psychic, hailing from Manchester (though you'd never guess it from the stereotype), there's also Niles Crane, Frasier's brother, who though mostly married to Maris, is hopelessly infatuated with Daphne. Then there's Frasier's producer Roz, a more frank and open friend you couldn't, or rather shouldn't, have.
The trials and tribulations of being a single female in the city... and a cartoonist at the same time... and with your compulsory dysfunctional friends... The eponymous star, Caroline Duffy, I played by Lea Thompson, of Back to the Future I, II and III fame, as well as those classics Jaws 3D, Howard the Duck and Space Camp... anyway then there's Annie the slutty friend (basically, if you pardon my bluntness), Richard her colourist, Del her publisher and Charlie a messenger. There's kind of an off-off relationship between Caroline and Richard, though this has been more awkward since Richard got married to Julia, the Italian bitch from hell...
I'm rather fond of this sit-com, don't ask why, for fear I may tell you, but it just feels right, feels funny, feels comfortable, reminds you of how dysfunctional friends should be...
Everyone must have heard of Cheers, one of the biggest sitcoms of all time. With it's friendly bar setting, it's bunch of dysfunctional mis-fits who are always permanent losers. It was the show that people could relate to. Which could explain it's big success, with Darwin knows how many people watching the last ever episode.
A comedy pairing that I have really admired ever since their radio seris Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World, through Fist of Fun to their latest offering the spoof morning show This Morning with Richard, Not Judy. With comic creations such as The Curious Orange, The Ironic Review, the strangely cool Organ Gang, not to mention earlier outings with Simon Quinlag, A Day in the Life of Pestilence, classic Two Teacher sketches... and so it goes on, a rather surreal brand of humour, but most definitely the important word being humour, and funny they are.
Forgive my latin jibe, but some Americans have no understanding of the English language. Anyway, this a classic idea for a TV show. We all do it, we watch a bad film, (science fiction of the 50's are prime examples) and we just take the piss out of it all the way though, simply because that is the only reason it's worth watching it. Well MST3k basically does that for you, they choose an abysmally bad film and just watch it (you see their heads in silhouettes as in cinemas) while criticising it, with jibes about the scenery, acting, script or plot... it's so funny.
Those of you who looked curious when I wrote (and Radio) have now found that paranthesised (is that a word?) point. I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue is described as the antidote to panel games. And with rounds such as what's my barcode (where the chairman reads out barcodes and the panels guess the products... "Thick line, thin line, two thick, thin, thick, thin, thin, thin, and two thick." "Er... don't ask me how I know this, but it's Lillets...") But the ultimate round has to be Mornington Crescent, named afted a seeminlgy forever closed London Underground station, it is based around unimaginably ludicrously complicated rules, that only a select minority know, or of course it could be made up on the spot...
A show way too clever for it's own good. The first series concept was simple, get a single crime, follow it from start to finish, crime scene, through evidence and interviews, court-room scenes, judge, jury and verdict, all done through the eyes of the law firm representing the main suspect. Then by weaving the lives of the characters you could get emotionally involved as well as the mental fascination. With the addition of smaller cases to keep interest and offer humour it had class, sophistication and didn't patronise. It flopped in the US. I guess 23, 45 minute long connected episodes was above the twenty-five minute attention span of the sitcom society. It was a reasonable hit in the UK, often in the top ten for BBC2.
Of course after the second series débâcle a reorganising took place, the bald, fat, ageing, and in control boss of the firm left on 'indefinite leave' and a young, handsome and charismatic boss was brought in to take over. This time still reasonably ambitious with stories lasting five or six weeks, and overlapping, as in real life. Unfortunately the land of the free and the home of the brave weren't that brave enough and freedom of choice was reduced. C'est la vie.
Surely you know this show... you do? and stop calling you Shirley? fine... anyway, it's about Dana Scully, sceptic extraordinaire and Fox Mulder, gullible fool extraordinaire. Both FBI agents, both assigned to the X-Files division... well let's not mix words here, they are the X-Files division. Their job to investigate anything unexplainable by normal human FBI agents. And then there's the conspiracies, that aliens are not only here but are being helped by corrupt government members (oh, there is a token selection of foreigners in this conspiracy but as a rule all aliens ignore the everywhere but America...). There's an off-off romance between Mulder and Scully.
And that basically it. It's a big hit...
Love it though I do, it isn't hard to see why Dark Skies didn't make it past a first series, it was, as with too few shows nowadays, too clever, I know there are those who would disagree vehemently with that statement, however I firmly believe it to be true. Many people would suggest it was too ambitious as a compromise, which it was also, but it still lacks the punch of saying it was too clever. Maybe it was a little far-fetched, maybe slightly contrived, but isn't that what science fiction is all about, suspending disbelief long enough to get into the plot. And what a plot.
Starting in 1963, John Lonegard is a wannabe bigshot so he starts work as a general dogsbody in a senators office, and, due to a certain amount of general creeping, manages to get assigned to look into the funding of certain projects. From there he gets drawn into a conspiracy that will lead to the death of the President of the United States and uncovering, or being, the truth behind numerous famous historical events all tied in to the plot elegantly.
Gary Cole plays Sheriff Lucas Buck, evil incarnate, and sheriff of a small town in southern America, he rules the town with a strange success, and people don't mind. Then Caleb's sister dies (read, murdered by Buck) and her cousin comes in to town to look after him. She begins to uncover the truth behind Lucas Buck's power. Then there's the doctor a failure (to put it bluntly) who equally despises Buck. Unfortunately Caleb may be Buck's son and... it sounds like a bad soap-opera, but it was so stylised, so eerie so weird, the lighting, special effects and generally weird stories, it was just great...
An earlier Gary Cole incarnation, and in my opinion one of the best American series of the 80's, more mature than a lot of the shows we got from America at that time (The A-Team, Airwolf, Knight-Rider, Streethawk etc... funky and cool though they were). It seemed to have a social conscience, and dwell on story-lines in more detail than others. But for the concept...
Jack Killian, is a cop, and while on a routine chase, his partner dies due to a freak accident of silhouettes, when Jack shot him. Distraught he goes severely down hill and quits the police after six months he gets a job offer, work as a late night talk show host, he gives it a try and is a success. And so the show basically revolves around this Midnight Caller slot, and the people who ring in, and Jack getting mixed up in their problems, drugs, abortion, jail-breaks, bank-robberies, murder, stalking etc. But it's all plausibly done... for a TV series. And the sign off with it's preceding story epilogue is just too cool...
VR.5 worked, I don't know why. It was sci-fi, but very stylised sci-fi. It was vibrant, with it's lurid colours during er... interfacing moments. But as for the actual story behind it...
Sidney Bloom, telephone engineer, and computer expert stubles on a new kind of virtual reality, beyond total immersion, more like mental immersion, where the computer merely accesses the brain and let's that do the work, it gives the user the ability to interact with another's mind through the use of a modem... ok, kind of implausible, but so what. Anyway, it all revolves around her father, played by David McCallum (of Ilya Kuryakin (sp?) fame) and his work on early computers, and connects to a mysterious Committee, just to invoke a kind of conspiracy element. The problem was that it was too clever, it tried to delve in to a person's psyche and evolve a story, but this was beyond too many people, they needed their quick fix, which is why after 1 season it was cancelled...
This is family entertainment at it's best. Due South's funny, clever, original, a tad strange, but ultimately enjoyable. Revolving around Benton Fraser and Ray Vecchio (sp?), the former a Canadian Mountie on secondment to the Canadian consulate in Chicage (for obscure reasons) and the latter a detective with the Chicago PD. The methods of the two differ vastly, as always in these kind of shows, Ray is aggressive, seldom subtle and occasionally crosses 'the line'. Fraser is more of a gentleman, always polite, always trusting, always, well pretty much, right, and will stop at nothing to solve a crime.
Then there's Inspector Thatcher (I'm sure her first name is Maggie...) head of the consulate (second series onwards) who despised Fraser and demanded his transference... well anyway, that's the basic plot...
Leave ER, discharge from Chicago Hope, quit Casualty, and have a Cardiac Arrest. The single greatest medical drama ever.
To those of you ignorant of this classic show let me explain. It basically, very basically, revolved around a few (4 or so) young doctors, whose names, given the time since I last saw it, I forget, but they were, bitch, lapsing christian, asian, bisexual. Of course that's just their stereotypes, they were actual characters, you understood them, you felt for them, you liked them. It lasted for about three series' before it got cancelled after complaints saying it portrayed doctors and nurses in a bad light. However, it was written by a junior doctor, so it must have a smidgen of basis in truth. The thing was it was the way it was written was the reason of it's greatness, with things such as a junior doctor having been on call for several days gaffing on an operation because a consultant was playing golf and so unavailable, and the black humour, it worked, and sometimes it's best not to analyse why.
Incidentally, 'bitch' was played by Helen Baxendale, aka Emily in Friends and now starring in Cold Feet.
A classic children's TV show that didn't patronise nor preach, yet entertained while informing. The concept was simple...
Matt Kerr left Fleet Street to get back to his roots, the roots of journalism, in doing so he found he was approached by an old friend, now teacher, Mr Sullivan, who felt it a good idea to start a newspaper for the young and by the young... 'a voice for today's youth' as the result of this conversation, The Junior Gazette, proclaimed. Quickly installing, as Editor, Lynda Day and, as her deputy, Kenny Phillips, things were on a firm footing, the addition of the great would-be journalist Sarah Jackson, and the financial know-how of Colin Matthews, implied that nothing could go wrong... but then came Fraz, and Spike, to name but two who were given the choice of join or be expelled from school... after seeing Lynda on his first day Spike never (well, seldom) regretted his decision... and Fraz, lets say he knows all 12 star-signs...
Basically a site that searches for anything remotely connected with a TV show, guides, stars, sites etc...
A funky page that has loads of episode guides all accumulated on one site... sheer brilliance...
Page last updated on 12th November 1998
Maintained by Julian Fletcher (julian@innocent.com)
