Amazing Greys with their hammer of comeuppance

 Do you know what's cracking good fun? Laughing at other people and TV show creators just know it.
Many modern entertainment programmes are based exactly on that premise, making us all feel better about ourselves as we sit watching TV every night getting slowly older, balder and full of aches which must be nothing...not worth bothering the doctor about surely.
The Only Way Is Essex? Ha, they lack primary school level syntax. Deal Or No Deal? Chortle, some people think chanting will change what they will find in a box. The Jeremy Kyle Show? Well, you get the picture.
Laughing at social groups or 'show title first, show format second'. That's the secret to TV success. I know the rules, but just don't want to exploit them to my own ends...
Amazing Greys (ho, ho) fits both of those categories - a pun title and the mild titillating thrill that you'll get to laugh at a segment of the social strata - this time the older generation.
The premise of the show is a strapping young person, cocksure and fancy-free, strides on to Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway stage (decorated slightly differently) to take on a series of challenges where he or she will take on a person who experienced food rationing, the Suez Crisis and men always wearing great hats.
Said young person is seemingly encouraged to make a series of thrusting pronouncements the jist of which he will beat someone who has 50 years on him/her at any game - making them look less confident and more of a bullying 'banter-saurus'.
The show sets you up to think the young person will sweep all before them and take home £10,000. I mean, look at the opposition. Take a good, long look at them. They're old! They like slippers and read the Daily Express and wear fantastically ironed trousers.
But, wait, hold the phone, all is not as it would seem. This older generation are all experts in their fields (like a 1940s-born version of Eggheads but far less annoying). They make amusing cracks and jokes. Some of them aren't even grey!
And lo! More often than not they wipe the floor with their opponents and it is wonderfully life-affirming.
Not the fact older people are showing off mad skillz, bur rather arrogant Take Me Out-standard knobheads usually getting their comeuppance handed to them from someone three times their age.
They even get the chance to be given a 'headstart' in one of the games and get gimme questions about Katy Perry or TOWIE and still they fail.
Ha ha, screw you young people with your sexual promiscuity and your haircuts and your Daily Star and your skinny jeans - you got beaten by people with decades of experience in their field, a field you presumably have very little experience in. Ha ha! Oh.

The Voice vs BGT

Say what you like about the state of the British tabloid newspaper and what ‘it’ regards as ‘news’ currently but it doesn’t pick a front page story if it isn’t going to engross a potential reader into picking up the paper and then parting with some change to read said story.

And lo, it came to past yesterday that a dispute between a middle-aged man, a septuagenarian man, a woman that says “beautiful” a lot and two TV shows and TV channels was splashed across the front page of the Daily Mirror as the “battle of primetime, Saturday talent shows” started to warm up.

This is the TV equivalent of Blur vs Oasis back in 1995 with Amanda Holden launching a “death slur” at Sir Tom Jones (“death slur” certainly being an out of proportion description), Jones biting back about the essential purity of his show and Cowell sitting back ala Sir Alex Ferguson, pulling the strings and making his puppety rivals, and indeed his own puppety people, do exactly what he wants them to do; generate some 'buzz'.

But here’s the thing, ITV and Cowell are obviously rattled by the BBC’s challenger for two reasons. Firstly, Cowell sat out Britain’s Got Talent last year in what was widely perceived to be a failure of a series but whose launch still got more peak viewers than last night's party starter. You don’t return from the USA to bolster a show that was still pulling in the viewers if there isn’t an exterior challenge to your superiority.

Secondly, Britain’s Got Talent historically began towards the end of April, reaching a overblown conclusion as May drew to a close. This time around, it began on exactly the same day as The Voice was launched, presumably in  a bid to nullify the effect of the latter reaching its final stages when the former begins in earnest. It’s all about viewer numbers of course.

But, well, actually, it isn’t now, what with on-demand services and Sky+. The figures may show that Britain’s Got Talent had a higher peak audience and that The Voice had more viewers in the 20-minute slot in which both shows were being broadcast but all of that is neither here nor there as, in the world of Sky+ and on-demand, people can and will watch both shows. 

There is no real winner here. Britain’s Got Talent will inevitably get a higher peak viewing figure as it’s in the optimum slot where people are not eating dinner, the kids are still awake, people on a night out are still at home and so on.

The Voice probably got that 20-minute slot of dominance as viewers wanted to watch the end of it whilst Sky+-ing through the adverts of Britain’s Got Talent to catch up. One wonders whether advertisers will continue to pay extortionate fees to advertise on Britain’s Got Talent if so many viewers of both shows (4 million or so with some basic maths and assumptions using these figures) can Sky+ through the adverts to catch up with the broadcast (hence the peak five-minute slot being around 9pm) or go on-demand, but that’s another story.

The really interesting part to come out of last night is just how different two things that are essentially the same can be.

The Voice has made a big song and dance out of its format of the ‘coaches’ (like judges but not) not being able to see the contestant and so judging them solely on their voice (an admittedly ingeniously simple idea in marketing and pitching terms). This concept of it as a ‘nice’ alternative to Britain’s Got Talent´ is continued as very few acts are sent home and even the ones that are packed off are lavishly complimented on their talent and given a handshake from will.I.am for their troubles. Perhaps the only nasty thing about it is the logo which occasionally gets spun around over the visuals, inferring a solid “up yours” directed at Cowell in the most ostentatious attempt at subtlety ever and the balls-out lying about there being no sob-stories. There was. Lots.

On the other end of the scale, Britain’s Got Talent powers on over the seas of ordinary people’s dreams, captained by the Dark Lord Cowell, crushing the hopes of people all around the country with said people giving up their time voluntarily for the privilege. Even the good ones are ridiculed for their looks before they display their depths of talent (note Jonathan the operatic singer last night), showing how Black Mirror wasn’t a dystopian parody but actually a documentary about contemporary life (to paraphrase a Daily Mail line about 1984). But hey, come on, we don’t always like ourselves for it but we come back every week as it crushing a soul underneath a size-9 does make some good TV. Michael McIntyre was just too nice and we can’t be having that so back came Cowell and in came David Walliams who does a good line in bastardry beneath the cheeky exterior.

In many ways the two shows complement each other perfectly and in whichever order one watches them (Sky+ again) can probably provide you with an insight into what kind of person you are. If you watch The Voice first, you need the dream destroying aspect of Britain’s Got Talent to get over all of the faux-niceties of the former. Meanwhile, observing them vice versa provides you with a nice fluffy detox.  It’s all up to you.

James Corden’s World Cup Live- ITV1- Everyday @9.30pm- 6 out of 10

Roll up, roll up for the greatest display of attempting to copy an already successful format since Glee, Sky News and indeed this blog. This is Baddiel and Skinner's Fantasy Football-lite henceforth known as James Corden's World Cup Live. Using his amazing contacts with the England team, Corden sets forth to make a watch-able football show not seen since Baddiel and Skinner, obviously, and sadly, using his own style.

However, there is but one problem, Corden knows nothing about football, for starters, calling the German coach their captain. That's great thinking by ITV, we've got a man who knows nothing about football, so let's give him a TV show about football. Next week, a documentary on World War Two hosted by Melinda Messenger and Marvin from JLS with contributions from Jodie Marsh.

As can be expected, its all very much populist TV, a "come on England here" a dig at ze Germans here, kind of like a 45-minute broadcasting version of the Sun newspaper just not owned by Murdoch. Every now and then it works, usually depending on the guests and what they add to the whole thing. Its all very lowest common denominator.

The real issue is Corden who can be funny but at times over-the-top which doesn't work as a sole TV host. Give him someone next to him who knows what he's talking about. Get a bigger desk if you have to. Pull your fingers out producers! Or at least get him to be less of an arse and name-dropper by talking about his time hanging out with his England team mates. The little odd interview things with England players out playing golf or camping etc do work but Corden can be a right bum-licker with them, almost as if he's trying to bed them.

Meanwhile, operating as some kind of sidekick for Corden is Abbey Clancy (of having Peter Crouch inside her fame), a woman whose voice you want to broadcast to Martians to tell them to back the fuck off cos this is the kind of weapon we possess.

Despite all this, it is strangely compulsive viewing, perhaps because I'm a football fan and at this kind of year I want everything I can get my eyes on football-related. Oh and I am indeed supporting the "Back the Beard" campaign but that's because I'm lazy and shaving is a pain in the arse. Though I bet Corden won't do it else he'll have a beard down to his desk by July and that won't get him laid. The tit.


 

The Whole 19 Yards- ITV1- Saturdays @7pm- 5 out of 10

ITV Saturday night primetime slot, the Holy Grail for producers. From 'You've Been Framed' which finishes at 7pm to some drama type show at 9pm, there is two hours to fill which no producer has yet been able to fill properly.

What ITV appears to like doing is some kind of 'revolving door' meets 'Clark Kent's phone box' type system where shows go in and out and return slightly re-packaged than they were before. For example, 'Britain's Got Talent' is just 'X Factor' with the field of performing arts being thrown open wider. 'Take Me Out' was 'Blind Date' gone somehow more wrong, 'All Star Mr & Mrs' was 'Mr & Mrs' sprinkled with z-list celebrity star dust and 'The Cube' was a vision of the future world government where we must all undertake challenges in a Perspex box.

Which all brings me on neatly to the next game show attempting to fill this void, 'The Whole 19 Yards' which basically brings together 'Total Wipeout' but puts it indoors, not in Argentina and gives its contestants crotch-hugging outfits. Oh, and loveable everyman Richard Hammond is replaced by punchable Vernon Kay, this generation's Chris Tarrant, albeit a Northern one, but 'the-unquenchable-desire-to-host-gameshows' gene is mostly definitely present. Whilst his co-host is your bog standard, generic orange-skinned colloquialism addict in a tight, short dress.

What follows is a brief play-by-play of how the hour long show will unfold. Contestants introduced. First obstacle course revealed. Questions asked. Contestants tackle obstacle course when they are certain they know the answer to one of the questions. Commentator makes inane comments and laughs when contestant C falls over. Contestant A (usually male) reaches end of obstacle course first. Kay greets him like he is a long lost friend feared dead in the Amazon. Contestant A answers question. Orange sex-object in dress consoles losers. Repeat until one contestant is eliminated each round.

The questions are so fiendishly difficult that a man living in a cave, surviving off the moss of the walls and eating his own hair could answer them. Yes, I didn't know some of the answers. So what? Bugger off.

The finale consists of a bizarre spectacle where we find Kay on what appears to be horizontal stair lift with a big red buzzer attached haphazardly to it which moves away from the contestant at a speed which can only be recorded using a calendar. Anywho, the contestant has to answer five questions to win a cool hundred grand before the stair lift reaches the end of the 19 yards. So simple, man in cave or indeed I can understand it.

Overall, another fun way to spend an hour which you could otherwise be doing something constructive for humanity. Like writing a blog on how much you don't like something, something important to civilisation like that. I'm off for a cry now at my own hypocrisy. Til next time people!


 
Dan

Marco’s Kitchen Burnout- ITV1- Fridays @ 9pm- 7 out of 10

Chefs. Don't you love angry ones. Ones that can multi-task. Ones that can cook, appear on TV, shout at people and swear like a sailor all at the same time, like a drunk man at a fancy dress party. My personal favourite is Marco Pierre White and his show, egotistically titled Marco's Kitchen Burnout.

Basically, what happens is three people (I refuse to call them celebrities on grounds of honesty) are let into White's restaurant to cook for regular punters. This time around, the three untrained chefs are comedian Jason Byrne (who somehow is given that job title without being funny), 'actress 'Debra Stevenson and professional wife of a football manager Nancy Dell'Olio who resembles a disenfranchised hawk. Stuffed with botox.

But of course the real star is White himself, who we find wearing a scarf that occasionally becomes headwear for some reason only known to Marco himself, although it does make him look a bit like a younger, less walnut-like Keith Richards.

Marco really is a scary example of a human being who shouts and goads like an insane man awaiting the arrival of a bus whilst completely oblivious to the fact he is stood next to a tree and not a bus stop. "How's my sea bream?! How's my sea bream?! How's my sea bream?! Table one! Table one! Table one! " he exclaims at no-one in particular.

The show is narrated by Alexander Armstrong, who I imagine sat in some kind of Blaine-esque Perspex box over the action, commenting on it like it's a bizarre kind of social experiment where people are subjected to torture by kitchen at the hands of a merciless chef, which is basically what this show is in fact.

The series consists of a series of heats, cos the show is called Marco's Kitchen Burnout. Get it? Yeah I did too, sadly. Continuing the semantic field, there are a lot of fires in the kitchen, although that might be more to do with the contestants cookery skills.

For their main challenge, contestants get to pick out ingredients from a mobile larder type thing (basically the fruit and veg aisle in Tesco, just in the back of a truck). The fact that three people, without training, can pick out enough variety of food for making 3 course meals for 24 people is rather impressive, or perhaps not strictly accurate. Surely they have professional help, for health and safety reasons at the very least.

Anywho, after the three contestants serve, and don't kill the customers, Marco gives them a score out of 100 and the two highest advance through to endure more torture sessions before an inevitable breakdown culminating in one of them committing the ultimate sin using a spatula. But they won't broadcast that. Cowards.


Dan

Britain’s Got Talent- ITV1- Saturdays @ 8pm- 5 out of 10

In more joyful times, ITV could go more than 4 months without a vehicle for Simon Cowell. Sadly, this is no longer the case so this week we welcomed back with (forced) open arms the happy-clappy (but sadly not slappy) Britain's Got Talent.

Sob as Take That's What About Now is dubbed over a fat Brummie who lost his toe in a pizza delivery accident. Laugh at a deluded Scouser who sings like a dog with its bollocks caught on an open can of Pedigree Chum. Count the number of facial expressions Amanda Holden can pull (it's three). Question the relevance of a civilisation that puts Piers Morgan on a show that has talent in its name.

Yes, you can do all this and more in this annual combination of laughing at people and yet still being able to come out of the end feeling good cos you supported that small child who was rubbish but had a good backstory, ya good person you. "Quick, dub some Keane
Somewhere Only We Know over the top of this" yell the producers as the kid tells the world his sad story.

Of course, this is the paradox of this show. It brings out all the things you want to feel from a TV show; laughter, sadness, curiosity and so on. And yet, you can openly laugh at someone who clearly is made of sterner stuff than you because they actually go on a show like this in front of so many people and perform, whilst you sit there guffawing at them. But the negative feeling you should be feeling about this concept is quickly offset by the fact you can claim that you are a good person because you felt bad after listening to the aforementioned sob story. Genius!

Anywho, aside from this and on to other points.

Firstly, will there come a point when there will indeed be no talent in Britain because of this show? Logic dictates that there is only a certain amount of talented people in the field of performing arts so the talent should all be hovered up soon, correct?

Secondly, what a lovely addition walking jolly magnet Louis Walsh was for a portion of the show. As incapable as he is at recognising talent, aside from singing, (he is to talent searching as I am to architectural surveying), his jolly smile lightens up any room, likewise the never wearisome Ant and Dec with their cheeky chappy faces that are half punchable half huggable.

Finally, more dancing dogs please. There's nothing I like more than entertainment that can also be construed as animal abuse. Oh and play some Coldplay over it so I don't feel to bad. Thanks.

Dan

Push The Button- ITV1- Saturday @ 7.25pm- 6 out of 10

Note the presenters, the time the show is on, it's opening sequence and it's advert. You don't need me to tell you what Push the Button is all about, but I'm going to do it anyway because that's how a review works ya see?
Push the Button works like this. There are two teams (usually families), some strange games and the target is to win money, kind of like Family Fortunes meets the Crystal Maze in a blender, with lots of studio lighting and perma-grinning thrown in for good measure. Basic premise is that the families are given £100,000 at the start and the challenges take a certain amount of time to complete. In this time, the amount of money you have dwindles. Less time you take, more money you get. You can also take money off the other other family, which adds a healthy Machiavellian streak, disappointingly missing on most cheerful TV shows.
The families appear to have to be Northern with a sense of fun. It is a complete surprise for them when Ant and Dec travel up to their town to say they are on their show it is quite heart-warming seeing people's reactions to see Ant and/or Dec, like having a Cup-a-Soup after a long walk in the cold or seeing a person you hated at school working at McDonalds.
What follows is a bit of meeting the families filler, with establishing shots showing just how much they want to win and how it will "change-their-lives". Shot in black and white, naturally because that makes it mean more and wants us to care.
Each person in the two teams have a specific 'skill' that doesn't seem to have any relevance at all to the way the show works. For example, one says his 'skill' is tanning. Another is 'waxing' leading me to believe there would be a salon round in which Ant and Dec are stripped naked and the two teams compete to see who can "back, crack and sack" one of them fastest. Ant would be harder because he's got a fatter arse but Dec is hairier, possibly.
Meanwhile, Ronnie Corbett does the voiceover for some reason unbeknown to mankind, like he was being held hostage by the producers for their own amusement.
Of course, Ant and Dec are always entertaining in a lowest common denominator way. It's cliched but you just can't resist their Geordie charm and faces that don't age, looking like they've walked off the set of Byker Grove in 1990, via the medieval torture device the Rack to stretch them a bit.
Ultimately, there's something for everyone. For the elitists, you can laugh at people who don't know where Saint Basil's Cathedral is, or indeed what it is. For everyone else that isn't a complete bastard, it's a fun, cheery, good-natured show that will entertain on a Saturday night.

Dan