Torchwood

Not much to say really other than I'm gobsmacked at the ratings the show has had this week.

It's not been as good as people have been saying - it's gone from thriller to sub Scooby Doo at times, but you cannot dismiss the 'talkabout' factor the 5 episodes, the fifth tonight, have had on the audience.

A hit, it seems the public want 'Who in whatever form and will view it.

Last of the Summer Wine

Back for another series in 2010. The worlds longest running sitcom - somehow, the BBC wouldn't be the same without it.

News article here courtesy Digital Spy

Setanta loses Football Deal

Just been announced on the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8109954.stm

I wonder if ITV might take the risk, the gamble in going for it? It's been a long time since that level of football was on terrestrial, 'free' television, and I wonder if it might be worth a punt from them for the potential revenue it may bring in?

Big Brother 10 UK

Just realised that I don't know the name of ANY contestant in this years Big Brother.

Amazingradio!

Just turning to DAB radio at the moment. It seems on the Digital One multiplex that the Birdsong channel has gone and been replaced by Amazingradio, which promises to play nothing but unsigned bands. It's set for a six month trial on the national multiplex and probably needs the best luck in the world to be honest to succeed!

The website is here - www.amazingradio.co.uk

Now, where is the 24 hour news and information station on DAB that has been promised for years? That really would be amazing.

Another ITV Diatribe

Following on from my previous post.

Krypton Factor It!

In the days when ITV had regions and wasn't the corporate one body mess it is now.

With little features like this, it shows the pride that ITV had in it's regional "sum of all parts" structure. Sad that it's all gone due to greed, incompetence and negligence.

Harry Worth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaTxTPAMduM

(unfortuntely the embedding has been switched off for this video)

Another fine find from Youtube.

Harry Worth was very popular in the 1960s but seems forgotten amongst the gems of Steptoe and Till Death. A great deal of his stuff is missing from the archives, but this is quite a funny example of his work. He wasn't there to change the world ala Speight and Garnett, just to entertain.

Bye bye Richard and Judy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8040368.stm

I don't think the case is that the viewers could find them, it's more the case that they are bloody well confused with the way that the channels have been rebranded and moved around on the platforms.

UK Gold became UKTV Gold, became Watch? But Gold is available now as G.O.L.D (Go On Laugh Daily) but on a different channel?

Queenie's Castle

What a find! Diana Dors was incredible playing these sort of sexy strong, near despotic women and was always quite an under-rated talent in the 1960s and 1970s.

The council housing seen in this series was the Quarry Hill estate in Leeds, famed for it's Art Deco 1930s appearance, which is sadly no more, pulled down probably a few years later on.

This site, funnily enough, now houses the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Kremlin style offices of the Child Support Agency, and the BBC Yorkshire Headquarters.

Finally Seen Reggie Perrin

Well finally seen episode one at last. Unfortunately my fears in an earlier blog entry were well grounded. There is a rather cynical feel to the whole production, Martin Clunes plays Reggie with no sympathy whatsoever; with Rossiters character you felt sympathy with the way his character began the decline due to the endless mononity of his life and his workplace - it was the point of the programme and hence the need to prefix the title with "The Fall and Rise...". The Rossiter Reggie daydreams would help get him out of this to seek humour within a boring situation, hence fantasizing over Joan his Secretary would allow him to get over his sheer boredom of dictating a letter, or thinking his mother in law was a hippo. There are fantasies in the new series, but there are ones that make Reggie look to be prudish, impatient and very negative.

Even Reggies wife, now called Nicola, is an independent woman who doesn’t really seem to back Reggie – with the Rossiter creation his wife (called Elizabeth) was there, at first as that constant area in his life, always with dinner that he didn’t want or a drink of something when he came through the door, but later on more of a partner, friend and confidant.

Neil Stuke is a good actor, but he is so trying to be John Barron’s CJ with none of the quirkiness or stupidity and vulnerability that he had; instead we get a kind of ‘forced eccentricity’ that doesn’t sit very well. Indeed CJ over the episodes of the original series becomes a cherished character, one that kept the mannerisms and character despite the many changes to his life which become entangled with Reggies. Somehow I can’t see this series lasting three.

What we have presented as Reggie Perrin is so incredibly soulless, cynical and modern, it’s lost the very elements that made the original different yet very very funny. Its like Star Trek without Spock or Eastenders without the dreariness.

‘Reggie Perrin’ 2009 style is just British Television being lazy again, exploiting old glories and not risking schedules with anything new.

BAFTA for Who?

I see Doctor Who is up for a BAFTA for the best drama in the 2009 awards (pity Graham Norton's jokes aren't going down well though with the audience!)

10, 20, 30 years ago, no one would have dared predict it. As Michael Grade put it in the Mail on Sunday, it was all about an eccentric bloke with a dumb assistant and polystyrene sets.

Wallander won it. A 'proper' drama. With a luvvie in it. Darling.

I must be one of the very few people who loves television with a passion but who doesn't actually watch much anymore.

Reggie Perrin, but I haven't seen the new one yet

Perrin without Sunshine Desserts?

Perrin without the Hippo and the other video inserts?

Perrin without the nervous yet subtle energy?

Perrin without not knowing where he got where he is today when CJ is now called Chris?

Perrin without the farting chairs?

Um, why oh why is this show still called Perrin?

Jill Dando

Just been on BBC London News that it is ten years to the day since the murder of Jill Dando, the BBC Newsreader. Where has all that time gone? What would she have been doing now?

London Bound

In London tonight and early morning tomorrow for business. Camera at the ready, I've been around taking some interesting TV inspired snaps as well as one that has to be here for ironic value.

So here, taken from a Hull Train service from Grantham to Kings Cross (not the train I should have been on but lets not go there) is Alexandria Palace - where it all started for television broadcasting in the United Kingdom.

From Tottenham Court Road is this quite nicely framed shot of the Telecom Tower, Post Office Tower, BT Tower, however you want to call it. I wonder if WOTAN is still in there?

Interestingly I took this shot from nearby Goodge Street tube station which seems to have closedown. Given that I used it regularly to get to some techie stores on the TCH, does anyone know how long its closure is going to be?

And the final photo today is an ironic one, taken close to Kings Cross Station.

Of course I'll leave it to you to work out the irony.

Channel One (London)

eBay is great. I'm not going to lecture you on just how you use it, but as you know, you can define certain search criteria and come up with a whole host of ridiculous, useful, useless or just plain barmy stuff.

Now, I lived in London for many years in the 1990s. When ending up in Cricklewood, above the Beaten Docket pub in a very strange flat, I had cable TV installed in my bedroom. This was an era of a lot of local television station attempts - indeed Diamond Cable in Nottingham did something similar with a very tall, gurning bloke who ended up on just about every piece of 'community' programming, until obviously they were taken over....

In London, they had L!VE TV, with it's Topless Bunnies playing darts with bouncing weathermen (or something) but also something else - that really was something else - Channel One. Channel One, owned by Associated Newspapers, was an attempt at a 24 hour news station for the capital and according to Rosenblum's blog, one based on NY1 in the United States.
My memories of this station was that it was actually very good, very slick and very well produced. Perhaps it had too much money loaded into it that it was never going to get the potential to do well in a market that didn't have much interest in a Cable TV station, which didn't show breasts or midgets.

Back to eBay - I typed in a week or so ago "Channel One". And found this, which is now part of the TV Studies collection (well OK it's the first item):

And it's a Channel One Sweater. Whats amazing is the quality, it's not like the usual mass produced tacky merchandise, the Channel One logo, with the number 1 making the 'hole' in the figure zero, is even tagged onto the back.

With spending money like this, it probably helped spell the end of a television station that had so much talent, but sod all people viewing. A damn shame.

Just Testing

Blogging on iPhone

Posted with LifeCast

Ashes to Ashes - 20 April 2009

Initial thoughts - better than last season. Keeley Hawes still doesn't quite convince as the Sam Tyler replacement. But is this her fault or the fault of the writers?

DI Alex Drake has a real need to get home - to get back to her daughter - but this very important and basic storyline seems to be constantly forgotten as she gets herself meshed in with Gene Hunt and crew. From a viewer point of view thats fine, it's entertaining and we want a bit of the glorious creation that is Gene, but forgetting this piece of characterisation is frankly, unforgivable.