Pete’s TV Review
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Please bear in mind that my reviewing TV is a little like a vegan reviewing bacon but I watched some TV and wish to review it.
Everybody Hates Chris is an American import shown on Five on Sunday nights. It’s based on the childhood reminiscences of Chris Rock growing up in Brooklyn in the early 1980s. While I don’t know much about Rock, Brooklyn crops up in a lot of the books I like so, prompted by a good write up in Charlie Brooker’s Screen Burn column, I determined to check it out. And thanks to Andy and Alex also wanting to watch it I didn’t get distracted and forget.
It’s very good. The humour is direct but surprisingly subtle, the characters rounded yet archetypal, the messages clear but never preachy and it has those nice magical-realism-esque snippets of daydream and fantasy that often crop up in quality American comedies and dramas, though I can’t think of any off-hand. It is good autobiography and I recommend it. Here be torrents.
After that A&A flipped over to watch the third episode of Planet Earth, Freshwater. A little of the hype for this flagship BBC nature programme had seeped into my consciousness and so I stuck around. I was quite disappointed. While it looked stunning the speed with which it darted from one fascinating thing to another meant actually learning anything was impossible. Not only that, by jumping around the world any context for the animals shown was lost, other than they live in water that is fresh. Added to this the insistence on showing us things never seen before combined with this desire to do so really quickly and just dwell on the pretty pictures and dramatic slow-mo bred a terrible cynicism in me. Freshwater dolphins? Two foot long salamanders (at least I think they were - it went by so fast) in mountain rapids? They’re making this shit up, I ventured. It may have taken three years to make but so does a Pixar movie.
Planet Earth, while by no means the sole culprit, demonstrates what’s wrong with mass-audience broadcast TV and why it must die. There’s no depth here, just spectacle that gives the illusion of education and value. If it was honest and announced itself as spectacle that would be fine but this bogus parading as being of some tangible worth the intellectual development of society just stinks. And it’s a terrible waste of some great camerawork (if in fact it is camerawork and not digitally created - the “making of” mini-doc afterwards did come across as protesting a little too much…)
Monday evening and I enter the living room to be greeted by a posh man in Cambodia. Around the World in 80 Treasures has passion and depth, dwelling long on the details and putting out some interesting ideas and questions. There was plenty of awe and spectacle but it was grounded with knowledge and the desire to impart it. Tellingly it’s on BBC2 at 7pm and there’s no dedicated page on the BBC site. Wikipedia fills the gap with many links to information about said treasures. Did you not see there was a gap there, BBC? Or were you too busy with your dumb shiny Planet Earth toy?
After that was a trailer for some programme where Cilla Black reminisces about the food that has played an important part in her eventful life. I shit you not.
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I’m mildly tempted to do this more often. Any suggestions for programmes you’d like me to cast my eye over?
This is the personal blog and main internet hub-thing for Pete Ashton. What you'll find here is a seemingly random collection of stuff I want to talk about and share. 
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“I’m mildly tempted to do this more often. ”
Don’t do it! It’s a trap! Pretty soon you’ll be wondering just how bad that Cilla Black piece is.
Good thing summer is nearly here - you’ll be able to get outdoors and away from the spell of the box.
To be fair to Planet Earth, Wildlife on 1 have done nothing BUT very focused series on specific subjects for the past 15 years. This is the only thing to be a mixed-animals type show since the last Wildlife On One series in like 1988 or something.
Rather than it being just for the sake of spectacle I think its more a case of “stuff we filmed that didn’t fit into our recent series”. It’s like a big flashy advert for their other, more studious shows.
If you want focused and educational you can watch Blue Planet, Plants, Insects, etc.
Did you see the shark bit on the first episode? You really need to see that. Now THAT is some specatacle.
Also - Around the world in 80 Treasures, did, I feel also succumb to the selection box problem in that it had a nice title / concept but then tried to pack far too much into each episode.
However, again, trying to be fair to the BBC, this showing is a repeat and I’m pretty sure that when it was originally shown last year it did have supporting detail on the BBC Website.
Planet Earth is a glossy photo magazine. Wildlife on one is the hobbyist journal.
I’m enjoying Planet Earth though, purely for the spectacle and imagery though, the scene with the midge larva hatching in the lake in Africa was fascinating to see… nothing I’ll see in my lifetime (probably) so it’s good to have these things brought to you.
Admittedly the one you watched was probably, visually, the poorest yet. Dig out the first one and BE AMAZED.
“Any suggestions for programmes you’d like me to cast my eye over?”
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Takeshi’s Castle, but I somehow doubt you can torrent that.
I used to watch Takeshi’s Castle back in Kingstanding when Sam had all the cable channels in the world in order to get the specialist baseball one. This was when I’d just got back from the farm and binged a little on bad TV.
TC was enjoyable purely because it’s mad Japanese TV which is always a good thing. It was nice to see something like this at length rather than the usual 30 second clips that crop up online which let the character of the piece really show, especially Mr Takeshi. However, after a few shows it all got a bit repetitive and I stopped bothering to watch.
The main problem was Craig Charles’ mildly xenophobic narration, not so much for the xenophobia but for the tedious mockery. There’s a line between finding Jap stuff fascinatingly odd and taking the piss and he crossed it big time. I’d have loved to see it presented “clean”.
Next?
Gordon has it exactly right - Planet Earth is a the big coffee table book version of wildlife programmes. It’s top - cop this! cop that! wow! check this out! dolphins in a river - woah! I’ve enjoyed the little how we did it pieces, although I’d have preferred much animal craziness. I’m also coming to the conclusion that the way to get “never before seen footage” is simply to wait, and eventually it’ll happen.
If you do this again can I vote for CSI, Boston Legal and Law and Order: Criminal Intent? They’re all shockingly mainstream, but I’m sure they won’t do you any harm.
CSI etc woud be a bit of a cop-out as I’m a sucker for dumb glossy America dramas like 24 and Alias. That said, these are a slightly different breed, no? They appear to be shown in nice large chunks on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays so that shouldn’t be too hard to stumble upon.
Gordon / Jez: If the BBC came out and said Planet Earth was just a gollygoshwow! thing and nothing more then I’d be cool with that but they have to justify the expense so it’s dressed up as something educational and worthy, which it isn’t, and that is my complaint. Not, I should add, that the BBC is lying in order to justify the license fee - more that this lowers the bar for acceptable factual programming and that is a bad thing.
(See also disclaimer in first paragraph!)
It is educational. It’s gosh-wow stuff, for sure, but that’s a completely valid and useful thing to do. You don’t inspire and enthuse solely through monographs. Every now and then, you need a flythrough the amazing stuff. It’s big, exciting, enthusing stuff. It’s trivia-tastic, certainly, but it’s bloody-hell-isn’t-the-world-just-amazing trivia not who-scored-the-winning-goal bollocks-trivia.
Also they just renewed the license fee on the grounds that they’d do more popular stuff rather than more educational stuff. The only beef they had with the BBC last week was that not enough of the taxpayer-paid-for programming was actually popular with said taxpayers. That probably translates as “make Celebrity Jim’ll Fix It” though. Erm…
Re: Takeshi’s Castle, it’s about 4 hours long or something in its original form. Or at least twice the length of a Gladiators. The main thing I find funny about it (apart from people falling down, hard) is that it stars an internationally acclaimed film director, playing himself as an evil games-baron. I wish Ken Loach would present a new series of Knightmare.
Boston Legal - watched a bunch of the first series. Was okay, kinda funny, but a bit samey after a while.
As for the BBC. I no longer watch broadcast TV and don’t pay a licence fee. The only time I get to see it is on a friday when I pop round to see my mum on the way home from work, and we watch the 6 o’clock news. WTF is with the camera man these days? Its all ‘arty’ camera shots and moving left and right and up and down whilst doing an interview or piece-to-camera. Also, why does it take two people to read out the news? And why so many outside broadcasts? A reporter standing outside in the cold, in front of a closed court building, telling us the result of a trial that finished at 1pm.
As for the ‘factual’ output from the BBC. Walking with Dinosaurs! That show put the nail in the coffin for serious BBC programming.
Yes, I watched about ten minutes of a Walking with Dinosaurs “show” and walked off in disgust. Virtual Reality is, unfortunately, an oxymoron.
Can’t help but agree with your regulars in the defence of Planet Earth - which is, in my opinion a quality piece of programming. If you want great depth and all that - go and buy/rent the Attenborough back catalogue and the like. Planet Earth is all about the global view. That’s why there’s all the chopping from one scene to another 1000s of miles away - its to give you that holistic feel.
The shark stuff in episode One was indeed phenomenal and quite frankly has put me off going even to within 10 feet above the ocean, let alone in it! And episode Two was pretty fine too - I mean getting the footage of snow leopards was stunning. There are only (about) 2,500 of them in existence (that’s just one tenth of the population of your beloved Bournville!). And they are found only where are there are damn big mountains, no roads and the words ‘armed-bandit’ are in all to regular usage! Quality.
Its the coffee-book explanation. The idea has to surely be that a new generation will watch glossy Planet Earth, then go and buy the back catalogue and learn something.
Well, I found it frustrating, but it doesn’t matter.
I take it no-one else saw Everybody Hates Chris then?
No, sorry I didn’t see it. Despite living within a mile of one of the largest and most impressive Radio & TV transmitters in the country at Crystal Palace Channel Five remains a complete mystery to my old and very stubborn TV!
And Pete - it does matter. If Planet Earth fails to inspire thoughful people like youself - then it has indeed failed, at least in part.
I’ve been waiting for Everybody Hates Chris for what seems like forever (its about 6 months I guess) and accordingly missed the first episode.
I’ll go and queue up for a torrent then…
Anyone else getting bored stupid with the second series of Lost. Episode 16 was DULL. The whole ‘we are all on an island with loads of wierd shot happening but we never talk about it because it’ thing is just wearing a bit thin now. Not sure i’m gonna bother with this series much longer unless they pull some seriously good episodes out of the hat soon.
does anyone know the background music that is frequently played on planet earth which is a wonderful show. would be perfect to relax to
I’m belatedly getting into “Curb your Enthusiasm” which is the only essential viewing in my week. you’ve probably torrented and digested it all by now anyway.
Planet Earth gets my vote too, although I missed last week’s episode. I still shed a little tear for the elephant in ep 1 who walked out of the sandstorm heading the opposite direction to the rest of the group. He seemed so happy…
Isn’t the music on Planet Earth all Coldplay?
Didja see any of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe? fairly obvious targets were being hit a lot of the time, but it was entertaining and random enough for me to watch all 3 eps. They’re running them again on BBC4 this week I think.
The Planet Earth music is by Sigour Ros and its called Hoppipolli.