Channel Hopping
Talent by numbers
I’ve heard you, you snivelling Macbook Pros, reclining in some avant-garde coffee shop behind a milky, pretentiously shaped cup of frappe-twatting-cacachino, with your smug little mouths simpering the sentence, ‘well it’s all so formulaic, isn’t it?’ like you and your weighty statements are the only ones who can access some higher mental plane populated by lensless glasses and wet farts.
Any lackaday sod can tell you that Britain’s Got Talent works to a formula. But I’ve teamed up with Steven Hawkins, Brian Cox, and Carol Vorderman to cook up the actual numbers. So, you with the Christmas jumper, why don’t you stick that in your pipe that you actually own, you pretentious arse.
As the Voice becomes more and more popular, Cowell has become increasingly worried. Like a genocidal despot, the more insecure he feels in his throne as king of talent shows, the tighter becomes his grip on all things BGT.
For episodes two, three, and four Cowell has been in the editing room fiddling away furiously right up to airing, intent on shouting louder than the voice to maximise ratings. And up ‘til now, BGT has out-decibelled the competition, albeit in the same way that a Vuvuzela is louder than a flute.
But the tabloids, typically reserving their pertinent analysis and accurate factual research to patently unimportant subjects, have picked up on a certain change of tone in BGT; namely, there has been an exponential increase in the positivity of the programme. Think back to the first week. It started with the hopelessly pathetic and got worse. Whereas last Saturday’s episode was chock full of insipid niceness, and the buzzers were relatively scarce. In fact, the few unanimous ‘no’ votes were sandwiched into a mere two-minute montage in the middle of the programme, precisely at the lowest point in viewer attention.
Don’t take my word for it though, take a ratio of ‘yes’ to ‘no’ votes for each show and then plot it on a scatter graph in Excel, for five marks. Here’s one I made earlier.
I don’t need to spell it out for you. The brains of all the cretins that were reading this have already melted at the word ‘ratio’. I will however point out that the balance tipped from more nos than yeses to the other way around after week 2, where it was positive on average by a smidgeon of 1 ‘yes’ vote, before soaring off into a massive ecstasy trip in the following weeks.
Obviously this does not mean that Brits suddenly got more talented from March to April, or that the judges were off their respective tits on miaow-miaow – although David probably was.
This result does mean that the heavily edited compilation of acts and feedback has been skewed more and more towards a positive angle. Unless your mind has utterly blown too, you will see the strong correlation between the average viewer ratings of the voice (red) and the positivity ratio (blue). As the number of viewers for the voice has risen, the response has been to make BGT more positive. We can make this crystal clear when we add an element of direct competition between the two shows – the ratings war in the 20-minute overlap between 8pm and 8.20pm. The green line is the BGT viewers minus the Voice viewers in those fateful 20 minutes, which mirrors the positivity ratio almost exactly.
So without too much chin stroking and academic wankery, we can conclude that Simon has been trying to emulate the less critical nature of the Voice to try to capture that illusive, happy-go-lucky BBC audience, who are growing in number as the BGT audience shrinks.
After all, the unique selling point of the Voice over BGT is that only ‘quality’ acts are shown, and the whole blind audition set-up is geared to avoid the ancient-Romanic sadism of Cowell’s show. It is clear that he wants to reel that slice of the pie into the fold. It sounds messy, but that’s showbiz for you.
But is it working? Carol Vorderman is punching away at her calculator furiously, while Steven Hawkins dictates. Brian Cox is in Venezuela.
…We have a result. And I’m afraid it’s a No Simon. In competition with the Voice, the exponential increase in positivity in the editing of BGT has not prevented a loss in viewers to the Beeb.
The next graphical orgasm plots the respective BGT ratings minus the Voice ratings. Where it goes negative, the Voice has overtaken BGT. I offer no apologies to the colour blind here. You brought it upon yourselves.
In fact, where the increase in positivity was biggest, the loss of viewers to the Voice was greatest. And where positivity is at its highest, in week 4, the voice is winning in overlap, ITV+1 inclusive, peak, and average ratings. All in all it looks like a bigger cock-up for Cowell this week than Pastygate and panic-buying was for Cameron.
What the self-styled Mr Nasty should take from this is that we 10 million odd who watch BGT are in for the kill. There is a reason we watch this god-awful rubbish. For better or for worse, we like watching people suffer. That is why such shows attract so much interest in the tabloid press, an institution that survives on manufacturing human suffering into bite-sized scandals. BGT was so successful because it tapped into that age-old entertainment formula. The Germans have a word for it – well they would wouldn’t they? It’s called schadenfreude. Use it when around the coffee shop sorts I outlined earlier. They might buy you a vegan latte.
And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for: the golden formula. Where V is average number of viewers in millions, and p is the positivity ratio (total number of yes votes divided by total number of no votes):
V = 0.7(1.03p-2)^3 + 1.2(0.97p-2)^2
Try it next episode if you want. Show it to all your friends. They’ll think you’re really cool.
Ofcom the clothes
Plastic sheets cover the sofa. A boxy, squat television set dominates the room from one end. There is a side table, offering up a corded telephone and three magazines, precisely stacked.
A woman perches next to it. She has let the grey of her tightly raked hair spread to her personality. Now her lips, pursed tighter than an angry fist, are all that is left to define her. Even the cat, bare-ribbed and sagging with age, seems not to notice her presence. The only memory of warmth it retains is in a tepid, semi-skimmed saucer.
But the television still mutters to itself, casting glares at the woman. She can’t take her eyes off it, and her grip on the reassuring arm of the sofa betrays a mutual distrust.
On screen a temptress without scruple or shame leans lustily away from the audience, pulling each tooth from the zip of the lock-jawed skirt she flaunts. The judges are laughing. The audience are clapping. The woman’s fingertips are white now from the pressure, nail pressed to cuticle with painful urgency. The other hand, a cornered viper, darts for the telephone. She dials a number that eventually comes breathless to the forefront of her mind.
“I wish to register a complaint…”
Vox popping the BGT bubble
The second instalment of Britain’s Got Talent spattered onto the nation’s TV screens again on Saturday, sporting more cringe-worthy contestants, unconvincing sob stories, and an impressive silver medal in the two-horse race for viewers during the ‘crucial’ 20-minute overlap with BBC’s The Voice.
Again, a totally bizarre sequence kicked off Saturday’s episode – but this time Britain’s Got Talent outdid itself by including absolutely nothing to do with either Britain or Talent. Ant and Dec were achieving Brian Cox levels of unrelated-situation-presenting, introducing the show from the cockpit of a stunt plane in some uncoordinated, farcical attempt to justify the high-octane tone of the programme’s trailers. Though I’m usually indifferent to the chipper Jordy duo, this scene made me wish for a Nigel Farage-style aviation mishap. ITV’s PR department must be run by five-year-old boys, as their strategy for winning over the BBC audience seems to consist of jumping up and down and shouting ‘look, it’s a plane!’
The opening audition this week was in Blackpool, the city where ice cream vans go to die. In fact, despite its desolate nature out of season, I think Blackpool represents most closely the nostalgic foundations of variety and talent shows with its tradition of street performance and fairground shows, and unique history of sand-chafed show business. So it is very telling of the BGT breed of talent show, that it is Simon’s least favourite audition venue.
In the standard edited story arc, the auditions begin with the mediocre and proceed to the shambolic, reaching the first ad break with the downright awful. The pace picks up towards the end of course, and this show brings us another three serious contenders in the form of The Mend, Ryan O’Shaughnessy, and the Twist and Pulse Dance Company, as well as a little posh tottie on the side with Beatrix von Bourbon.
What strikes me after watching this show is that the hopefuls with any hope in hell are already successful, or well on their way there, contrary to the vox pop, straight off the street story that Simon’s heavy editing force-feeds us.
The Mend insist “we’ve all got problems at home, and we’re going to keep on doing music until we sort those problems out”. It is implied that Manchester mums will sort out their burgeoning debts, kids will put down knives and pick up books, and the council estates of the north will become sparkling palaces of prosperity, if only these four Mancs can make it. But it is also implied that if they don’t win they will have no choice but to go back to mugging grannies to feed their smack ‘n’ crack no-hopery. Yet these boys have been more than scouted. Former Take That manager Nigel Martin-Smith put them together. They have a prosperous future ahead of them and exposure on BGT is simply more PR.
Taking disingenuousness to the end of the rainbow, Ryan O’Shaughnessy is another “bashful troubadour” that is carefully cultivating his amateur image. He has caused controversy by already signing a contract with The Voice of Ireland before appearing on BGT. In response, the BBC spinoff threatened legal action before petulantly insisting that they didn’t want him anyway, as he was promptly voted off. To top it all, his résumé includes a starring role in Irish Soap ‘Fair City’.
Surprisingly, his erstwhile love (about whom he deftly crafted a story to add value to his product) does actually exist, according to the Sun. She outed herself on Twitter, romantically posting, “#noname woooooo it’s me #lolololol”. What a cracker he’s bagged there. Must be the luck of the Irish.
He of course is an equally valuable human being, full to the brim with undying love. “If things don’t work out with this girl, I’d love to go out on the pull with Simon. He could be my wing-man!” …Heart-warming.
There were no pretences of timidity with the blue smarties variety of street dance performed by the Twist and Pulse Dance Company (TWDC), who shamelessly used the fame of their BGT 2010 runner-up choreographers to boost their profile. A lovely bunch of kids it seems, who are right to be ambitious with the leadership of such a successful duo. Having said that, they will always be compared to Diversity, previous BGT winners who incidentally were already huge in street dance spheres before entering the show. TWDC was a bit like a neurotic ostrich. It was fast, and it was both aggressive and funny, but the brains behind it were smaller than Carmen Electra’s vocabulary.
My god she is an empty vessel on this programme isn’t she? A cheap female Hasselhoff, crammed into the panel like some kind of bland, 70 per cent plastic cavity filler from a knock-off American brand, inserted to occupy the space from which limp, tepid banality must continue to emerge despite Amanda’s absence.
Like characters of an Aesop’s fable, even the Hippo and the Wagtail – Subo 2bo -have a little more to them than meets the eye. Charlotte attends the Arts Educational School in Chiswick, and Jonathan the London Royal College of Music, both of which are specialist schools renowned for producing successful and popular artists. This is no side-salad and tap water. It’s a supersized Big Mac, albeit with a Diet Coke thrown in for free.
So what does this tell us about Britain’s talent? I could look at my glass of vodka and lime and decide that it’s half full. Perhaps it shows that real talent shines through, no matter what, and so it is only to be expected that those successful in the show were successful before it too. But my glass isn’t half full. It’s empty. I finished the bottle hours ago. These people were successful because they could be marketed and sold. They do well in BGT for precisely that reason. Not because BGT hoists up what the vox populi demands from the bottom to the top, but because Simon designed BGT to churn out what people can be sold.
Simon is constantly ostentatious in his criticism of popular acts but eventually ‘gives in’ to the audience, because BGT sells itself as a platform for ordinary people showing other ordinary people how extraordinary they can be. But the choices we as consumers of showbusiness make are limited by what’s on offer, and we can see that what is on offer – what makes it to the TV cameras and into the homes of millions – is limited to a narrow set of products both in BGT and in the wider industry. Still, better this than being a hipster.
Uncovering the judges
Perhaps you are a banner-waving BGT fanatic. Or perhaps instead of watching you would rather smother your own leg in mayonnaise and gnaw at it until all that remains is a bloody, eggy stump. But it’s what everyone else is watching, and you’re all out of mayo.
Whatever your attitude to the show, you have to admit that it is a masterpiece of slick editing, sculpting the contestants, their performances, and the audience and panel reactions to precisely fit the specifications dictated by the dastardly mastermind behind it. If anything in the show appears in a certain way to us, it’s because Simon Cowell wanted it to. If we have an opinion on anything in the show, it’s because he sold it to us.
Even I am not strong enough to resist his crafty Jedi mind tricks – I love to criticise the contestants and judge the judges. I wait, wallet in hand and tongue on chin, to be sold the cynics’ special: Simon Cowell, the man we love to hate.
But this mystery shopper would also like to do a little product research first. Let’s get under his skin. Let’s walk a mile in his shoes. The first step towards digging under the editorial veneer of BGT is a little analysis of the judges’ body language. Besides the glossy drivel that is wheeled out of their mouths on cue, what are they actually saying when they’re on camera?
Cowell is characterised by several classic physical traits. Perhaps you have seen ‘The Pigeon’. His eyes widen, he shrugs his shoulders, and extends his neck, with his head moving downwards. Normally it would be interpreted as the classic ‘I dunno’ gesture, yet the edges of his mouth never turn down, as is the usual accompaniment to this expression. More importantly, his palms do not turn face-up but remain unexposed. This gives it a defensive overtone that suggests insecurity with the view he’s espousing or the situation he’s in.
“Relatively insignificant!” I hear you cry. Well, if we take the confrontation over the Sugar Dandies, we can start to peel back some layers. Like an onion. Or bad sunburn. At the beginning of their act, his hand is covering part of his face – again, a defensive position where he wishes to conceal his true feelings of an instant dislike of the couple. He leans over and widens his eyes to the other judges, looking for similar negative reactions, but finds no such confirmation. In fact, seeing them smiling he realises he must smile too. However his eyes still flick between them and the Sugar Dandies, calculating, beginning to realise that his reaction to them may not be the public reaction. Of course by the end he has the audience reaction mirrored, and is the picture of joviality. He turns to David, and there it is! The Pigeon. It is intended to communicate ‘they’re great, who knew?’ but here and at every stage we can see a rejection of the situation. Go on Youtube, see for yourself. You have to look closely though; it’s not like any Mutley can catch The Pigeon.
Simon was unhappy with the whole situation. Notwithstanding his latent homophobia emerging from the closet, he can’t make money out of one foxtrotting couple. But the audience loved them. It seems the Sugar Dandies had Cowell over a barrel.
Now, it is in BGT’s interests to show a little ‘power of the people’ triumphing over the robber baron, to prop up the façade of choice. But here I believe we can see a real loss of control, which is both extremely interesting and rather affirming of the national attitude towards homosexuality.
What about the ‘bromance’ though? Cowell gets on great with Walliams. They said so on the telly. And he’s as flamboyant as a flamingo in feather boa.
Take another look at the scene in the dressing room, where David kneels down with a flourish and kisses Simon’s hand. As David rises he laughs, and insists, “Well, you know, that kind of works for me”. All very droll and chummy. But even as he says it, Cowell makes a ‘shoo’ gesture with his hand, which clearly reveals his discomfort.
My verdict? It’s fairly obvious that the judges aren’t as fraternal as the show suggests, mainly due to the addition of David Walliams. What’s more interesting is that under the surface we are seeing Cowell put in positions outside the carefully moulded comfort zone of the show.
But this only makes me want to watch more, if only to see the (for Simon) challenging acts that don’t fit the mould go further. And isn’t that exactly what he wants?
Britain’s Got Talent
It’s Saturday night, and I settle down on the sofa armed with a pen, paper, and some chocolate digestives. The anticipation is only heightened by the fact that 9.4 million people are watching with me, though luckily I only have to share my biscuits with two of them, my little brother and sister. Britain’s Got Talent is back on our screens, and this Nouse blog is here to bring you the gossip, the stories, and the drama – from my sofa, to yours.
The opening sequence rolls, and from the very beginning we see the effects of a little healthy competition between BGT and the BBC’s rival talent show, The Voice. Rather than cutting straight to the titles and theme music that has come to represent everything about human beings that can be manufactured and sold by Simon Cowell, instead he has gone that extra mile this year to make BGT the one to watch. And watch I do, with increasing perplexity as a curious scene begins.
The inimitable Ant ‘n’ Dec march down a non-descript terrace, with terrible lip-syncing to Queen’s classic ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. I relax, expecting a predictably rousing sequence where they are joined by an auspiciously representative selection of Brits from all walks of life culminating in some endearing ensemble performance to kick-start the show.
But what’s this? The dynamic duo suddenly decide to burst into one of the houses, accost the understandably surprised-looking man watching the programme and steal his dog, the purpose of which I can only suppose is some sick criminal adrenaline rush to get them pumped for the imminent show. But by the time they get to Trafalgar Square the poor pooch has vanished – just another casualty of the cutthroat industry that is showbiz.
But who cares, when this year the stakes are so high. There’s a whopping £500,000 and a performance at the Royal Variety up for grabs for second place, and a long-term musical career worth millions for the winner. Or did I get those two mixed up? In any case, we begin with the Manchester auditions that have drawn thousands like moths to the limelight.
And in true BGT style, the first contestant is monumentally hopeless. I don’t know what 57-year-old heavy goods driver Anthony thought was going to happen. That the judges would succumb to the awesome power of Hans Zimmer’s Gladiator soundtrack, and ignore the pathetic iron clad moron trembling apologetically before them? Next.
The speed with which we moved to the following act, Skate of Mind, to keep up the comedic pace signalled that all would not got well for these imbeciles on wheels. And it seems they went into their routine a little too fast too, impressively train-wrecking into the wings, accompanied by some heavy irony to the tune of ‘It Takes Two To Make A Thing Go Right’. Perhaps their act would be more appropriately named ‘Skid Mark’.
Now new kid on the block Sam Kelly is usually just the kind to bring out venom-spitting cynicism in Yours Truly, and it was easy to see the dollar signs ringing in Cowell’s eyes when Sam walked on stage with his guitar and his cheekbones. But I must admit that his performance was actually highly accomplished, and although his whole ‘lonely farmer with feelings’ thing is rather contrived I couldn’t help but feel a little touched, especially by his relationship with his mum. Having said that, I wouldn’t go as far as Amanda Holden, who said she had “never felt quite so moved”. I pity her husband, Chris Hughes; evidently the moment he proposed to her comes a close second to this particular poster boy.
Let’s breeze over Two of a Kind. They were bang on the money if by ‘freestyle’ they meant free of, completely lacking in, and devoid of any style whatsoever. The less said about that Butlins act the better.
The Sugar Dandies were less orthodox than Sam but equally touching, though I agree with some critics that perhaps their routine lacks mileage. What annoyed me was Simon’s reaction: horror. These men performed a skilfully executed American Smooth, with palpable emotion, which really was very romantic. The humorous picture of the tall, thin man and short, tubby ‘woman’ (in terms of roles in the dance) gave it a charmingly hilarious aspect too. Yet Cowell’s only real response was that it was ‘different’, and criticised the reciprocation of the lifts the men gave each other. David Walliams came into his own here, challenging Simon to put himself and Walliams in their shoes. It was of course done as a joke, but many a true word is spoken in jest, and I think really he was challenging Cowell’s latent homophobia. They weren’t the best ballroom dancers in the world, but they were excellent, and I doubt he would have had as dismissive a reaction to a man/woman couple.
The show of course proceeded to capitalise on this exchange trying to manufacture some ‘bromance’ relationship between Simon and David – which seems to me to be nothing more than David taking the piss out of Simon’s prudish attitude. But maybe I’m giving too much credit to a man who, on the BBC’s Sport Relief show, agreed to dance in speedos with the ridiculously awkward and annoying pear-shaped excuse for a mid-life crisis that is Miranda Hart.
And what of the highlights from London? ‘Pance’, of course, who lived up to Simon’s dubbing by being incorrigibly useless. However, they gave possibly the funniest interview in the history of BGT. This opening line caused me to spray semi-masticated biscuit all over myself:
“I started writing poetry, and it all started when I had a Siamese cat and it died”.
Then there was this gem:
“we’re not in a relationship because he looks like an owl, doesn’t he?”
At that moment you could see the light die in his eyes. I have a theory that he had an incredible piece of interpretive dance planned, but after that scathing blow he decided to drag her down with him, and so proceeded to destroy any self-respect he still had left, in what looked like a poor attempt at T’ai Chi. But all is not lost. I’ve heard she’s got a job giving James Carney poetry lessons.
We were all learning lessons from Subo 2bo, the operatic duo who are my tip for the top this year, as long as Miss Pop-Girl in the side car pulls her finger out. Charlotte, 16, tells us that life for her is all about “not judging a book by its cover”. So you decided to enter the superficial meat-market that is Britain’s Got Talent? Looks like you got the wrong show love, The Voice is over on BBC One. And I’m afraid I agree with Simon on this one. She’s OK. She’s great TV-jingle material. But she’s not a patch on the Pavarotti-in-pyjamas standing next to her. There is a certain symbiosis in their relationship, but it is one of an awesome hippo, wallowing in the water-hole, whilst an annoying little wagtail picks at the insects between his ears.
All in all, it was a predictable but engaging start to the 6 week mega-event. We had a little bit of spice with the opening sequence, and then it proceeded to pan out as a standard BGT romp. But that’s just what we want. It’s a great formula, and this blogger can’t wait to see next week’s cohort of gut-wrenchingly incompetent, self-inflated tripe trawlers, squeezed out from the rear end of society. After all, if anyone can polish a turd, it’s Simon Cowell.
The One With The Real End Of An Era
The end of the Friends era, I thought, was in 2005. After a decade Rachel and Ross had finally wasted enough time in getting it together and that was, sadly, the end of that. Joey would have to find someone else’s fridge to scavenge out of. But an additional seven years of Channel Four reruns proved me wrong.
Tomorrow, Channel Four are finally ending our daily doses. I, like millions of others, have watched every one of the 236 episodes countless times. Now I have to actually buy them? The outrage!
What made the incessant Friends broadcast acceptable was that it was reliable. In the midst of channel hopping desperation, the Friends would be crowded round that Central Perk sofa. (Except that one time.) Everyday at 5pm, they were there. If you missed it, e4+1. If you were getting home late, the 8pm and 9pm showings. Excessive? Yes – but valued nonetheless. Simply searching “e4 Friends” on Twitter presents a torrent of disappointed fans wondering what they’ll do with their time instead.
e4 will arguably lose a large percentage of habitual viewers to other channels, but for those lucky enough to have Sky or Virgin television packages there is a silver lining, as Comedy Central will be showing Friends instead. To the unfortunate masses, e4 are providing Scrubs and My Name Is Earl as evening replacements. In the most endearing sense, the best of reruns are mindlessly entertaining. Scrubs requires just a little too much mental energy, and My Name Is Earl is…well, not quite as welcoming as Monica’s purple walls or a well turned “how you doin’”.
While the Joey spin-off was as much of a success as could have been hoped for (let’s not go there), it looks like a feature-length film won’t be happening for Friends. It’s probably for the best, as it would most likely take the ‘ten years later’ format, and just look how that turned out for both the book and the film of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. The sight of Jennifer Aniston with ‘realistic’ wrinkles would definitely undo the careful work of all that sneaky botox.
It’s alright though, of course it will be. At least e4 are ending it on The Last One. The theme tune will just have to take on another meaning. “I’ll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour/I’ll be there for you, like I’ve been there before/I’ll be there for you, on DVD too.”
How to test whether you’re a ‘real’ Friends fan:
- You know Chandler’s bank account number
- You can recite Rachel’s monologue to her Dad about being ‘a shoe’
- You’ve watched all 82 hours, back to back
- You know the lyrics to the rest of I’ll Be There For You
- You bought a special edition Central Perk mug to be used for commemorative purposes only
- You can make any words work to Phoebe’s Smelly Cat tune
Graduating from Glee
SPOILER ALERT: the following article includes information about future Glee episodes
A latecomer to the entire Glee obsession, the reason it took me over a year to reluctantly accept the constant shine of a cast of 24 year olds (supposedly 18) was its two principal characters: Finn Hudson and Rachel Berry.
One can sing with the power of a small tornado, the other attempts to dance without looking like they have a severe stomach ache – but both have mastered that perfect ‘emotionally pained’ facial expression that tells you they’re about to launch into some form of lovesick ballad. Whether they’re in a relationship, not, or the grey area inbetween, they are arguably the dreariest lead couple in recent mainstream television.
When it was confirmed that the pair will graduate at the end of the third series, I couldn’t help but rally a sense of joyful relief. Some of the other characters might get some precious air-time. Finally! But the joy didn’t last long, after realising that Quinn, Mercedes, Kurt and Puckerman look like they’ll be graduating too. (Anticipate stereotypical aspirations and career paths now.)
Like many, I don’t watch Glee to find out whether they’re visiting Breadsticks yet again – is there only one restaurant approved by the American equivalent of the Food Standards Agency where they live? – but for the covers of mostly mainstream songs, usually performed in laughable musical outbursts. The introduction of a cappella group, The Warblers, and bottled musical power in the form of Sunshine Corazon in Series Two marked the moment I started paying real attention.
They, along with these videos, prove that the comparatively small-fry characters give the best performances:
Brittany cracks out the dance moves in Slave 4 U
Lucky: ballad from someone other than Rachel and Finn – who’d have thought it would ever happen?
Puckerman on guitar and Artie perfecting his rap skills – Billionaire
Mercedes and Santana battle it out in River Deep, Mountain High
Maybe it’s purely because they’re a refreshing break from the lead duo, but there’s surely a spin-off series waiting somewhere amongst Glee’s supporting characters.
Unfortunate as all these graduations will be, the programme’s creator, Ryan Murphy, has made sure that there’ll be plenty to compensate for it. The third series will include a two-hour tribute ‘tv-movie’ episode, introduce four new characters, script Broadway mega-mistress Idina Menzel in for twelve episodes, and make Mike Chang a regular. One of these lucky American wannabes will also be introduced as a new character as Sue Sylvester’s archenemy – and who said Glee was just about drafting in Eve and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Just to keep everyone on their toes on the celebrity front – Anne Hathaway has been confirmed to appear as Kurt’s lesbian aunt, and rumours of Julie Andrews as Kurt’s grandmother. A Princess Diaries reunion? Looks like there’ll be no time to think about the impending loss of Rachel and Finn after all.
The Essentials: Breaking Bad
Creating a new TV network in America must be a bit like trying to get into the oil industry – there isn’t much to go around and the people that produce it currently are quite keen to keep it to themselves. It is astounding then that AMC, a relative fledgling when it comes to original programming, have carved themselves a distinctive and well respected niche with their output.
First they made Madmen, a show which you can rest assured will be discussed on these pages, and went on to follow it with the equally sublime Breaking Bad. Far removed from the lush environs of Madison Avenue boardrooms, Breaking Bad takes place in the parched sands of Albuquerque, New Mexico and follows the earnest, intense story of chemistry teacher Walter White, played with explosive aplomb by Brian Cranston.
At the show’s advent he is diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and given little chance of survival beyond a couple of years. Marooned in the financial sinkhole of his job and with a baby on the way, as well as his wife Skylar (Anna Gunn) and son Walter Junior (RJ Mitte) to support, his desperation turns him to selling methamphetamine and a life of crime – in effect he “breaks bad”.
Just as with the Sopranos a summary of Breaking Bad sounds like a high concept show gone awry. Despite the simplistic nature of the teacher turned drug dealer dynamic Breaking Bad has consistently produced some of the most moving television with a monolithic central performance from Cranston, better known to British audiences as the hapless Hal from Malcolm in the Middle, that deserves every shred of the award ceremony hype and critical acclaim showered upon it.
Centrally it is a show about masculinity and mortality set in the heightened wasteland of the American city. In this case the sun ravaged streets of New Mexico make a nice change from the staple sheen of east coast American cities. As Walt becomes hopelessly embroiled in the world of the drug trade, his skills as a gifted chemist make his ‘product’ highly desirable for a number of unscrupulous people, a tragic tale of remarkable scope is played out.
The father–son relationship that ebbs and flows between Walt and his ex-pupil Jesse Pinkman, played with caustic brilliance by Aaron Paul, who acts as his conduit to the criminal world, is so beautifully rendered as to leave you with the impression that the show could easily be a two hander – a savage odd couple show.
This though would be to do a disservice to the ensemble cast that make Breaking Bad special, especially Dean Norris as Walt’s Brother in law Hank and Bob Odenkirk as the deliciously corrupt lawyer Saul Goodman, a man who makes the Wire‘s Maurice Levy look like an angel.
They play an increasingly integral role as the three currently available series progress and become complicit in the dire sprawl of Walt’s rapidly out of control money making schemes. Breaking Bad’s strength lies in the fact that it is constantly and fluidly shifting the very heart of the show. The manner in which season three ends, literally and figuratively with a bang, is inconceivable when you first set out with Walt into the heart of darkness. In keeping the show relevant, unknowable and dangerous Vince Gilligan, the show’s creator, and his team have created a rare alchemy – and one of the greatest TV shows of all time.
All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
Adam Curtis, who has been well represented on TV screens since most students were at nursery, unleashed his latest three-part series on Monday. While his style is quite familiar by now, it still provides plenty of cranial stimulation, marrying his experience in television and as an Oxford politics tutor to craft deep political stories.
Each episode paints a relatively self-contained section of an overall narrative, carrying the audience alongside with its blend of illuminating, yet not always literal, archive footage and interviews. By the end of each series the viewer is confronted with something far more complete: an even bigger picture than anticipated, telling a story not lacking in captivating characters or implication. Using roughly the same template since the BAFTA-winning Pandora’s Box in 1992, he has returned to BBC Two with All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace.
The most recent previous efforts of Curtis have investigated terrorism and modern freedom, but this series runs several stories of technology and powerful people alongside each other until they smash together, making an almighty and terrifying mess. The first strand looks at the dreams the pioneers of Silicon Valley had for their computers, and the power to not only analyse the vast activities of humans, but also to deliver them into a predictable stability despite continuing on as individuals.
In the second storyline, we follow Ayn Rand, the objectivist political philosopher, as her thought attracted both criticism and admirers in Cold War America. Amongst these admirers was up-and-coming economist Alan Greenspan, who would later find himself at the ear of President Bill Clinton at the start of his presidency, as well as the Silicon Valley computer industry leadership. The presidency of Clinton forms the last tale, charting his initial hopes of utilising politics for positive ends turning into powerlessness and reliance upon Greenspan’s technological visions.
All of the stories eventually come together, as new concepts for computer-led and individual-freeing American prosperity are tested on East Asian countries such as Thailand. While the failure is dramatic, the size of the impact escalates when these policies are flipped over by China onto the United States and other western financial centres. It’s the best part of the episode, and made for a fantastic “ooh, er, crap” moment of realisation.
Curtis’ familiar obsession with the tragicomic lives of important figures did not disappoint. Had her philosophies not be so closely associated with the financial crash later in the episode, the portrayal of Rand’s romantic problems could have elicited real sympathy in the viewer. Her personal life reflected her own struggle to reconcile her philosophy with personal relationships to miserable consequence, despite her own outward appearance of firm belief. The confessions of her inner circle about the state of Rand’s life into the camera lens seemed almost cathartic for them, as they reminisced on their failings as a group.
The first episode took longer to get wrapped up in than the previous series did, but perhaps that’s a reflection of the fact the bigger picture being immediately available, the programme having already aired its full run. Viewed independently, the first episode only grabbed completely when it used what it had explored as an explanation for the 2008 financial crash. For what seemed like a slow start, it had a great pay-off in the end.
Regardless of whether the audience wants to nod along enthusiastically, disagree, or simply be taken along for the ride, Adam Curtis has once again made something worth watching, providing the thinking cap is firmly on. The next two parts will be interesting, as there’s plenty to still expand on. The biggest wink to the Facebook-enabled viewer was the discussion of how online interactions can be self-commoditization for the benefit of others, and it probably won’t be the last we’ll hear of that. The first episode is available on iPlayer now, while the next two episodes air the following two Mondays at 9pm on BBC Two. Meanwhile, I’ll be wondering whether to post a link to this on Facebook or bury my laptop in the woods.
The Essentials: The Sopranos
When television is made properly it has the ability tell sprawling, intricate stories like no other medium. In modern television history the viewer has been blessed with an abundance of series that are so well written and acted that they are amongst the most important pieces of pop culture ever created.
The Sopranos
Mainstream popular culture is so saturated with notions of gangsterism that it is impossible to create a world that isn’t at least partially indebted to monolithic mobster movies. It figures then that the commissioning editors at American channel HBO were hesitant when producer David Chase came to them with the idea for a show about a crime boss and his therapist. On the face of it this idea seems a bit hackneyed; like a high concept movie where the premise has been thought of first and the content second. They ran with it anyway, and it spawned The Sopranos: a true American epic about family, race, relationships, capitalism…and gangsters.
Nominally it is the story of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano a man who is simultaneously Fat Tony, the cliched Italian American from the Simpsons, and a robustly human presence for the audience to invest their support in. But really The Sopranos is a lovingly made, beautifully written Greek tragedy. We follow Tony through marital strife, career difficulties and the problems of raising children and making a dollar in modern America. What is so ground breaking is that the Soprano’s are superficially a normal family. Desperate for their daughter to go to an Ivy League college, Tony and his wife Carmella agonise over whether she is studying hard enough while she deals with the suffocating pressure of being a put upon house wife and he makes his money through racketeering and illegal book making.
There is little adherence to the rules of network television from The Sopranos, in much the same as the similarly lauded The Wire. Episodes invariably end in innocuous circumstances with a simple fade to black. Unforseen stimuli is the main force that ignites drama; a drunken call from an ex-mistress to a wife midway through an episode, an unexpected drunken fight between formerly firm friends to kick an hour of the show off – these are the devices that power the story. Ragged strange pieces of human relationships that cause tidal waves of repercussions through communities are what the viewer is demanded to enjoy. There are no neat trajectories or heavily foreshadowed arcs to lean on, just a rich tapestry of, admittedly heightened, human experience is what is on offer.
All of this is acted with such incredible skill and nuance that it is little wonder American TV is so far ahead of it’s British equivalent. James Gandolfini is superlative as Tony, the bullying, brash but flawed boss. Edie Falco is one of the only likeable characters as Carmella, playing her role with a mixture of pathos and New Jersey swagger that it is impossible to at least feel some empathy for. The less endearing characters, who almost universally populate the show, really steal the show. Robert Iler and Jamie-Lyn Sigler as Tony and Carmella’s spoilt, repellent, odious children and are almost entirely without redeeming features. You still enjoy watching them as though powered by some macabre fascination, just as you do for Tony’s sister and mother – actresses Aida Turturro and Nancy Marchand. The two are whirlwinds of malevolent scheming anger, utterly and totally deplorable. Witness the episode where Janice, Tony’s sister, incites the son of a love interest to play a ouja board after the death of his mother so as to scare him and allow her to rush in and save the day, much to the admiration of his mourning father, and try not to shudder.
For every gallingly believable portrayal of those in and around the modern Mafioso, there are some quirky portraits of old school Italian Americans to fill the void. Largely though The Sopranos is a slow, languorous take on the modern American family and the economic pressures and forces that force each constituent member into the roles defined for them. It’s about love, hate, depression, sex – and gangsters. And it’s among the most important, brilliant pieces of television ever made.
Next: Breaking Bad
An International Torchwood
The last few weeks has seen the first details begin to emerge about this summer’s long-overdue season of Torchwood, and it’s understandable that the reactions have been more ambivalent than anything else. Aside from anything, it’s been a long time since Torchwood graced our screens – two years, in fact. Also, we’re seeing another format change.
The BBC seems to like trying new things when it comes to their sci-fi property. This is the first year in the entire 48-year history of Doctor Who that they’re splitting the season into two parts (the current season will break after Episode Seven and return in the autumn), and they’ve been known to use the genre to do other weird stuff before. Back in 2005, shortly before starting the role that would get countless teenage girls shaking with uncontrollable joy, David Tennant appeared in a live remake of The Quatermass Experiment for BBC Four. No-one watched it, because they were all too busy watching the Pope’s funeral, but it was pretty revolutionary considering the subject matter.
And now this – Torchwood, a show already known for undergoing a massive format change with its last season, is doing it again. We last saw it on our screens when the five-part story Children of Earth aired, which was its chance to shine (the show went on to win a few awards, and elevated it to new heights). As to whether or not it will this time is debatable. The big change is that it’s now a US co-production, something the Beeb doesn’t do often – a large share of the financing is coming from Starz, the company behind Spartacus: Blood and Sand. There are also a lot of American cast members. In the trailer attached to this post you can see the girl who played Sierra in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, but there are few other familiar faces too – Dr. Greg Pratt off ER, and the guy who played the President in Independence Day are in it (huge stars, I know).
This, to an extent, makes sense – for those who follow the show, most of the British cast are deceased – but you can’t help but hope that at least some of the cast might be Brits. It also looks like the primary filming location is Los Angeles, which is bound to give the show a new flavour – it’s hard to tell whether it’ll be good or bad, but certainly new.
As to how it’s going to run, that part’s still murky. It sounds like it’ll be one large story arc again. The current press releases state that the premise of the show (subtitled Miracle Day) involves an event where no-one on Earth dies, and the ramifications of such an event occurring, good and bad. It’s also going to run for ten episodes, and that’s what makes this interesting – for those that remember, Children of Earth was a five-part serial, and ran over the course of a week. Whether they’ll try and integrate a monster-of-the-week element to the show or not remains to be seen, but you can’t help but hope that they won’t; doubling the length of the series while keeping it focused and energised is a tough job to take, but it could make for brilliant television. Either way, we don’t have long to wait – Torchwood: Miracle Day graces our screens this July, giving Whovians at the very least something to tide them over before the autumn season.
The BBC Summer drama trailer: with a Torchwood teaser
The Wonders of the Universe
If you’re prepared for your understanding of gravity, time, and the notion of infinity to be pleasantly undermined: Brian Cox is your man. And he’s ready to talk to your TV/laptop screen about those ideas.
The Wonders of the Universe covers the laws of the cosmos, about time and space, following his previous series The Wonders of the Solar System. The four episode series will be available for the next month on BBC iPlayer.
Cox illustrates the vast timescales of the universe, and the way we fit into it today on planet Earth. The first episode uses sea turtles, glaciers demonstrate the movements and continual sequential nature of events through time. Rather than describe (as so many other programmes do) the effects man has had on the earth, or the discoveries humans have made about the cosmos, Cox presents a much larger picture of the universe and our current understanding of it.
Are we insignificant? Perhaps, but there’s not much we’ll ever be able to do about it because of the vast physical distances between us and the next ‘undiscovered’ thing. (not to mention the small detail of finding a solution to evacuate our planet before the Sun burns up). The series is less about human contribution within the cosmos than its own infinity – and maybe that’s the way it should be, as the series overlooks and embraces our material insignificance.
With the ‘arrow of time’, Cox describes how the future will always be different from the past. He explains the terms of modern physics whilst showing us some of the greatest ‘mysteries’: the nature of time, what we are and where we come from, light, gravity.
If it all gets a bit much and you do end up feeling a little ‘small’, The Wonders of the Universe also heralds some beautiful landscapes. So whenever you get lost in the overwhelming details of what Brian is talking about – there’s usually something ‘pretty’ to look at in the background. Or, you’ll find yourself overcome with the thought of Cox’s need for a long overdue haircut.
The Only Way Is Essex (Series Two)
The second series of The Only Way Is Essex will be hitting our screens tomorrow night on ITV2. If you missed the first October series, there’s only been ten episodes so far, but more “modified situations” await on Sundays and Wednesdays at 10pm.
Rather than attempt to explain the show, here’s a hit list of what you can expect (and mentally prepare for):
1) The evolution of the vajazzle. Apparently Katie Price devotee Amy wants to take it a step further and introduce ‘pejazzles’. Her consumer target is Russell Brand…but will she be able convince her own cousin Harry to get one?
2) Not so coincidental look-a-likes. TOWIE’s main character Lauren bears a striking resemblance to Lauren Conrad of The Hills fame. The only real difference – fake vs. natural tans, in two not-so-different programmes.
3) More from Cousin Harry. Expect him to be doing the splits in inappropriate situations, sporting a constant pout, and a well-scripted ‘shut up!’ from the 17 year-old.
4) Arguments that aren’t really arguments. The TOWIE cast are well rehearsed in rhetorical questions. And walking away from each other before conversations are over.
5) Nanny Pat. Adorable in hard-hat, Nanny Pat’s spontaneous Shepherd’s Pie is enough make to Gordon Ramsay “well jel”.
6) ‘Glamour’: whether that means modelling or sequins…or both.
And if that’s not enough – follow them. After all, they’re real: @RealJames Argent, @LaurenGoodger, @theonlynannypat, @SamanthaFaiers, @kirk_official, @MarkWright_, @HarryDerbidge and @MissAmyChilds.
The first series was a Marmite programme – but even if you hate it, there’s no denying The Only Way Is Essex is entertaining. Even if it’s because you can’t figure out whether to take it at all seriously or not. Real-fake people, fake-real situations…and a micro-pig.
The slow death of American imports
If you’ve been to the cinema, switched on a television or – dare I say it – browsed any of the ad-supported YouTube channels lately, you probably won’t have failed to see Dustin Hoffman looking all smooth and talking about “how some stories are so good we wish they’d never end”, and a load of other sentimental claptrap designed to sell you a satellite package. But underneath Hoffman’s crooning voice and zen expression, things have been changing when it comes to our access to US quality TV.
I don’t own any Sky package – the prerequisite to acquiring access to Sky Atlantic – and I’d be willing to bet that neither do the majority of students. It’s not that it’s an exorbitant price; I’ve just found British TV to be perfectly adequate before now. But Sky Atlantic throws all of that out of joint, and here’s why.
The new deal behind Sky Atlantic, so far, includes exclusivity rights on all of HBO’s catalogue for the next five years, as well as other excellent US dramas like Mad Men. HBO, for those who aren’t quite so clued up, is the company who made (amongst others) The Sopranos, The Wire, Bored to Death and The Pacific; they’re a force to be reckoned with when it comes to premium TV. And the deal that secured Mad Men is likely to butter AMC up in the future; amongst their other output are the hit shows Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead.
So what? After all, both Band of Brothers and The Pacific had their UK premieres with Sky, and shows like the Danny McBride-starring Eastbound and Down, while not secured by Sky, are still exclusive to another pay channel, FX. And it sort of makes sense; HBO, after all, is a subscriber-only channel in the USA, so it makes sense that the UK home of their shows would be the same.
But this hasn’t always been the case. You’d have to be hiding under a rock for the last decade to have not heard about The Wire, a TV show so powerful and brilliant that it’s not pretentious to call it art. In the UK, we were lucky enough to have it air on BBC2 (though, admittedly, after the original broadcast on FX), at the ridiculous hour of 11:20pm – but it was still there. We were still, to all intents and purposes, paying for it with the licence fee, and it was a fantastic investment. We also had the first four seasons of Mad Men, a show of an admittedly different calibre and pace, but still one that commanded respect and had much higher production values than a lot of other TV drama.
It seems like the BBC has capitulated, though: it seems that they provided no alternative bid for the HBO catalogue, and reportedly offered around 25 per cent less than Sky for Mad Men. This is in line with their new vision to spend less on outside shows and more on in-house productions, but American output has long been an important and more than worthy part of terrestrial scheduling; it gives us a sense of perspective. To see the flipside, there’s a reason why PBS is one of the most respected (if underwatched) network channels in America; it’s because they import a lot of BBC programming, most recently the smoothly titled TV adaptation Sherlock.
Of course, having said all this, it might not be too late. We can’t ignore that the BBC has been collaborating more and more with the Starz network, behind Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and the latest incarnation of Torchwood (currently filming). Shows like The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad still remain free from any exclusivity clauses, so in theory the BBC could put in a bid. But I doubt they will. As Rupert Murdoch’s septuagenarian claws slowly close over BSkyB, things are only likely to get worse for people who just stick with the licence fee.
Skins USA: having a continental deja-vu
Whether you like the newest generation of Skins or not, cast your mind back to its 2007 neon-clad originals.
Don’t you remember Cadie, Stanley, Abbud, Eura? No: because the original cast has now been reinvented for American teenagers, premiering last month on US MTV.
Regurgitated is a more accurate description of Skins’ US rebirth. Cassie has now been cast as ‘Cadie’, Sid as ‘Stanley’, Effy as ‘Eura’ – and they didn’t even bother changing the names of Tony, Michelle and Chris. Skins was never a programme to be taken entirely seriously, but its regurgitation actually lends itself more to satire than teen drama.
It gets worse. The US pilot episode is a freakishly intentional replica of the UK version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyqBWtV_RvQ. Tap dancing is replaced with cheerleading, Bristol’s terraced houses become suburban streets, and ‘what’s the damage’ gets uttered in an American accent. And it sounds even more outdated than its painful, and thankfully, short-lived UK usage.
It’s not surprising that the programme doesn’t seem to be to the States’ liking. The pilot had 3.26m viewers, and since then viewing numbers have gradually dropped to 0.97m. Maybe the show and its British style is impossible to successfully translate into Americanisms, or the storylines are just ‘so 2007’. Or maybe parents are stopping their under 18’s watching it. The Parents Television Council (yes, it’s a real thing) wanted to bring a child pornography charge against the US Series: who ever said that Brits were the prudish ones?
In the UK, viewers have been gradually increasing to a stable million for the average episode, with Series Three and Four (the Effy/Freddie generation) proving the most popular. The latest has taken a dip, maybe thanks to a sense of try-hard diversity. Over the past four years Skins has covered issues of sexuality, race, gender equality, substance abuse, mental health…now entering its fifth Series, scriptwriters seem to be running out of semi-realistic adolescent plotlines.
Even the characters’ names have gone beyond belief – Mini McGuinness, Aloysius Creevey. Maybe it’s time to follow some of the characters past Sixth Form onto (un)employment or university life – if only to get its middle-aged producers to give our generation some newly exaggerated stereotypes to rip apart.
For more laughs at Skins’ US counterparts, take a look at their character profile trailers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evadjaiLQkQ