For unlike in Celebrity Big Brother, these flailing stars haven't seemed to care that the camera's are watching them. Okay, so Rebecca Loos has refused to talk about her affair with Beckham most of the time, but bar that, it's been warts and all television. Presumably most of them have realised that this is probably their final chance to appear on tv, at least on a terrestrial channel, so have bared there souls in a desperate hope that they seem more likeable. And thus we've seen Stan Collymore open up about hitting Ulrika Johnson, Jeff Frazier explain just why he and Jade are no longer together, Vanilla Ice talk about his various drug dependencies, and even Debbie McGee's given some insight in to her marriage with Paul Daniels, however unwelcome that might've been. And,
Even more surprisingly, most of them have come across as pretty damn interesting people, with, for once, the weaker links removed by the public early on. If Richie Neville, Terry Christian, Paul Daniels and Victoria Harvey were still in it now, this review would probably be far more negative, but thankfully they're not, and so it isn't. Vanilla Ice has to be seen as the star of the show, it's like he watched an episode of Beavis and Butthead once and thought, yeah, I want to be like them, and has been ever since. Full of ridiculously inaccurate arguments, childishly annoying jokes and idiotic banter, he's someone I pray I never meet, but he has at least made the show a lot of fun. Rebecca Loos comes a close second, and not just because she's beautiful and I want to marry her, but also because of her relationship with Stan Collymore and the odd snippet she's coyly admitted (or refused to admit) about Beckham. The best of which suggests that whilst he may not take Posh Spice up the arse, Rebecca can't say the same thing. God, I'm such a celebrity gossip whore, it's embarrassing. But such insights do make me smile so.
And unlike most reality tv shows, it's not just been the personalities involved that have made it worth watching. However grim it might seem, seeing the daily life of a farm has been surprisingly fascinating viewing. Yes, it's concentrated on some of the more unusual elements of farm life, such as artificial insemination and castration, but it can't be said that it hasn't been incredibly intriguing to watch. Even if you do have to have your legs crossed at certain moments.
So for once it's a shame that a reality tv show's coming to an end. Something I've rarely thought. Hopefully we'll get another series - filled with celebs you can barely remember. Because judging by this, they definitely seem to be the best kind.
Monarch Of The Glen (8pm, Sundays, BBC1)
Damn you Tom Baker, Damn you. Because I'd never normally watch something as trivially bland as Monarch Of The Glen. The Beeb's answer to Hearbeat, with it's lush countryside views, slightly eccentric characters, and the fact that nothing ever really that bad happens, it's a programme clearly aimed at the a different viewing group to mine, ie. those that like their tv to be safe, secure and always predictable.
But now because of Mr Baker's presence, I've found myself tuning in. I didn't want to, but being a huge fan of the man, like most born in the Seventies, I just couldn't resist watching to see if he was going to act in it, or just churn out a slightly exagerrated version of himself yet again. And it's a mix of the two, yes, he's all cheeky comments and comedy anecdotes, but at times he's also vulnerable and self-deprecating, a side of Tom that hasn't been seen in his work before, at least not for a long, long time.
I can't compare how the show is now to how it was pre-Tom due to never having seen it, but it's far less twee and annoying than Heartbeat tends to be. The characters feel more real, less contrived, and the storylines less soapy. Monarch Of The Glen's never going to be a show I watch religiously, but whilst Tom continues to appear week in, week out, I'll probably catch it most of the time. After all, what else is there to do or watch on a Sunday night?
Sometimes in life you might find yourself speechless. You might see such a horrific event that you simply can't utter a word, no matter how hard you try. This is not one of those times. For Channel 4's latest unbelievably badly misjudged comedy series makes me want to write page upon page devoted to just how fucking awful it is. I'll try and restrain myself. But only a little.
Now British comedy is going through troubled times, once loved heroes are putting out crap, and the majority of newcomers manage to disappoint within five seconds or so. But this, this is the nadir of all recent comedy shows. I'm a peaceful kind of guy, against violence in all forms, but if I were to meet any of the cast members from this show, I really don't think I could control the urge to beat them severely. To the point where I'd only stop if they begged me to kill them. And upon arriving in prison I'm sure I'd be heralded as some kind of God for doing so. Because even the criminally insane must have noticed how appalling Green Wing is.
All of the characters, yes, every single one of them, is badly written and so annoying that if they were real doctors even amputees with no limbs left would want to somehow beat them. They're smarmy, arrogant twats who it's hard to watch without wanting to either cry or kill. You can do a sitcom with irritating characters as Seinfeld proved, but you have to make them likable at the same time. Green Wing's managed to put together ten or so characters all who deserve to be shot. If any terrorist group reading this is in the planning stages of their next atrocity, please make it the set of this show.
Even previously respected actors like Mark Heap and Tamsin Greig add nothing to it, and I presume they only appear because of gambling debts to the mafia which meant they'd have their face's slashed apart if they didn't pick up a paycheck quickly. The rest of the cast is made up of some of the least talented actors and actresses out there, including the twat from Hippies, the annoying posh one from The Book Club, and the overweight lass who was the only bad thing about Peep Show. Whoever produced this must have a severe drug addiction, a mix of cannabis, cocaine, ecstacy and heroine abuse, for surely no one in their right mind would ever have thought they were funny for a second.
Now again, you may feel I'm going a little over the top with this review, but it's so ridiculously infuriating. There are so many very talented stand up comedians out there who can't get exposure for love nor money, whilst this gets a stupidly high budget and a prime time slot. And that's why it deserves your scorn. Now go, go on to the streets of London, try and track down a cast member and then follow them around for hours, heckling them continually. It's the very, very, very least they deserve.
Friday Night With Jonathan Ross (10.35pm, Fridays, BBC1) / Parkinson (10.10pm, Saturdays, ITV1)
British chatshow's have never been quite as successful as their American counterparts. Most last a couple of years, occasionally even several, but none seem to have the staying power of Letterman or Leno. Which is quite surprising as most steal their formats wholesale and make few changes. The two which have been the most successful of late don't really deserve to be either, suffering from various faults which all add up to fairly disappointing viewing material.
The problem with Jonathan Ross's show is the host himself. Rarely on tv has there been such a self-obsessed, sickeningly egotistical, and painfully unfunny twat as Ross. Okay, actually there's been plenty of people on tv like that, but no one quite so horrendously bad as Ross is. His show's such a rip off of Letterman it's amazing he hasn't been sued, and it just doesn't work. The supposedly funny moments inbetween guests are so weak that even the studio audience only manage a vague chuckle, and having been part of a fair few tv audiences, trust me, they laugh at nearly anything. The writer's of the show should be blamed for that, but Ross's delivery is weak as well, he drags out an unfunny moment to shocking lengths. But the main reason the show's so unwatchable is that Ross is an incredibly bad interviewer. In a perfect world I'm sure he'd much rather interview a clone of himself, and spend hours if not days going on and on about just how wonderful / sexy / smart they are. For Ross it seems like those pesky guests he has on only get in the way from letting him talk about himself constantly, but this doesn't really stop Ross from talking about himself throughout. It seems that almost every question he asks a guest is only an excuse to tell another anecdote from his trivial life, or make some smart aside which isn't clever or funny. It's damn annoying because a lot of the time he gets great guests on, but of course they hardly ever get the chance to talk.
Parkinson's not that much better. His highly publicised move to the ITV hasn't corrected any of the faults the BBC show suffered from, which isn't surprising because the problem is that Parkinson's so cringe-inducingly sycophantic. The guests are usually of a decent enough calibre, but the questioning isn't. It never used to be this way back in the Seventies, but alas much has changed since then, nowadays stars will issue a list of things they will and won't talk about, but it would be slightly more barable if Parkinson didn't kiss arse as much as he does. Whilst with Ross you won't learn anything because of the constant ramblings of the host, here you won't learn anything new because it's all standard interview patter, repeated time and time again on various other tv shows or in magazines. At least Parkinson does give the interviewee the chance to respond in length, and every so often when they strike lucky and get a personality who's prepared to open up, or is naturally funny themselves, it can be an entertaining show, but this just doesn't happen often enough.
So what's the answer? Well, there's no hope for Ross, unless someone was to glue his mouth together and he could only write questions down for the guests to answer. But there is for Parkinson. If he thought, sod it, I'll ask leading questions, I'll ask the ones that the public want to hear whether or not the stars do, just like he used to do, it could be a great show. Okay, so some Hollywood stars might not wish to appear on it anymore, but considering the tiresome crap they come out with when they do, would that really be such a loss?
Alex Finch.
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