Watching too much telly

Podcast Galactica

When I rushed out and bought the Battlestar Galactica DVD on Monday (go on, treat yourself) I was profoundly disappointed by the lack of extras. OK, we get some vaguely interesting deleted scenes but that's about it.

Thankfully, you can get your hands on some DIY extras in the shape of the Sci Fi channel's podcasting experiment.

The Galactica podcasts basically give American fans the opportunity to download mp3 commentary tracks for episodes that haven't been aired yet. The idea being that you after you've watched the show you then have access to an immediate extra.

In fact, Battlestar is the first television show in the world to provide this service - and it's great.

I thought it could work with my DVDs as well but, alas, it's not that simple. This is due to the differences in frame rates between American NTSC and UK's PAL format. In a nutshell: our episodes run slightly quicker. So, a show in American might run for 44 minutes, while here we get approximately 42 minutes. I think this is something to do with sloppy transfers - I have a friend who won't watch UK transfers of Babylon 5 as he's convinced that all the characters sound like Mickey Mouse.

Anyway, trying to synch up the podcast with the Region 2 DVDs is a non-starter. Thankfully, the acts are broken up with beeps so it's fairly easy to hit the pause button now and again but it just goes to show that we are watching a slightly speeded up version of the best TV show of 2004. Which is a shame.

But there's another problem with Ronald D Moore's commentaries. Instead of recording them in a professional studio, he obviously does them from home. This is fine until you factor in his dogs which spend vast chunks of the episode barking and howling out of the left speaker. Add this to the helicopters, police sirens and general traffic ambience and you'll struggle to stay focused on what Ronald is banging on about. But let's face it, we're not missing much. In one episode he spends 30 minutes explaining why they choose to use old-fashioned models on a table to illustrate space tactics. It was obvious why they went down this route 30 seconds into the anecdote so why did he drag it out forever? Oh well.

So, podcasting - a nice idea with loads of potential.

I think the BBC should take note. How cool would it be to have a Russell T Davies commentary we could all download after the Doctor Who Christmas Special has aired (did I mention that Doctor Who has been commissioned for a second series and a Christmas special - on the strength of one episode and 10.5 million viewers? How cool is that?)

Let's start the petition now...

Rose

Can you believe that the BBC cocked up the transmission of Doctor Who! Incredible!

Anyway, loads of reviews and thoughts on the first episode are now available on the cunningly retitled Who-flavoured collaborative blog - Behind the Sofa Again.

Tachyon TV Who Hype Special

Yet another publication which has hitched a ride on the Doctor Who bandwagon - a new Who Hype Special Edition of Tachyon TV is now online.

Death on the Staircase

You know those exciting moments in fictional courtroom dramas when the jury are about to read out the final verdict? Well, times that feeling by 100,000 - give or take a few thousand - and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it's like to watch the final part of this compelling 8-part documentary series which just concluded on BBC4.

In a nutshell: a novelist is accused of murdering his wife on a staircase. The defence contend that she slipped and died accidentally. A documentary film crew gain permission to follow the prosecution and defence through the months leading up to the trial, and what begins as an interesting but seemingly open-and-shut case suddenly erupts into a complicated and thrilling roller-coaster ride through the American justice system. A ride that tests your opinions and convictions on a minute-by-minute basis. Just when you think you have it nailed, an incredible revelation rears its head to throw your world view completely out of kilter again.

For example, when we first meet the accused, Michael Peterson, he appears to have the perfect marriage. One week later we discover that he is a practicing bisexual, and the week after that we learn that a next-door neighbour "fell" down the stairs and died under similar circumstances sixteen years ago. And then the "murder weapon" suddenly turns up after "mysteriously vanishing".

The family is divided throughout. Michael's sons and daughters stand by him while his sister-in-law searches through an archive his writings to uncover deep-seated fantasies about death and murder which she plans to use against him if he ever takes the stand. Michael spends his time being philosophical as his skeletons are unceremoniously pulled dragging and screaming out of his closet for several vulture-like Court TV stations to drool over, and the lawyers make dead-pan jokes throughout. 

You couldn't have scripted it. No one would have believed you.

The final moments play out in real time and it's really hard going. The time it takes to seat the jury is seven agonising minutes! And my heart was racing through all of them. I don't think I've ever been so engrossed in a television programme since the OJ Simpson trial. Incredible stuff.

I won't give anything away, just in case you ever get a chance to watch this if you missed it the first time round, but the final moments will push your emotions to the limit.

Release the Balls!

Sorry, but I'm still up to my neck in the Doctor Who brouhaha. Anyone would think it was coming back or something. Normal service will resume in early April. Probably.

Incidentally, I'll be launching a new Doctor Who Hype Special Edition of Tachyon TV later this week. If you'd like to send anything for consideration please do so via email by 5pm on Thursday - thanks.

In the meantime, here's another quick round-up of what I've been watching between all the Doctor Who trailers and themed programming. I can't believe I set Sky Plus to record Blue Peter today!

Casanova (Sun, BBC3): I'm loving it. There's a great moment where Casanova invents the National Lottery (please tell me this little known fact is historically accurate) and the whole thing is brimming with wit and sophisication. Surprisingly light on the sex and very heavy on the romance, Casanova is brilliantly brought to life by Peter O'Toole and David Tenant. At first I couldn't see Tenant working (he isn't conventionally handsome) but he's perfect - charming, passionate and dynamic. And it's written by Russell (we've not worthy) the Davies, so it has to be great!

Nathan Barley (Fri, C4): Totally Jackson! I know the series has been slagged off for targeting a very narrow demographic but who cares! Sometimes it was so accurate it hurt. Some unforgettable moments in the series include: Dan accidentally killing the cat, the under-age blow-job ("I thought she was 13!"), Jonathon Yeah?'s mouth, and Nathan's incredible mobile phone (James Bond eat your heart out). The final episode was very bittersweet - the idiots won! Is it too much to hope for a second series?

Help (Sun, BBC2): The show just got better when it entered the realm of the surreal. The "real" magician had me in hysterics and the Gary subplot continues to take some interesting twists and turns. Last night's tea spillage incident was the funniest thing I've seen on television this year. And I can't wait to see what happens to Billy Connolly... grrrrrr!

The Apprentice (Weds, BBC2): Still hilarious. I was sad to see Lurch go but it was inevitable really - the guy was such a tit! Last week's instalment provided us with some of the best boardroom moments yet. The fight between Paul and Saira was electric and as juicy as anything I've ever seen on Survivor.

Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (Sat, ITV): I decided to check out the good Doctor's competition. And... I... enjoyed... it. Please God, just take me now. I didn't mean to enjoy it - I just succumbed. I wouldn't burn it to DVD or anything but you have to admit that they have the disposable, throwaway fun formula down to a fine art. Like it or not, they're a force to be reckoned with.

24 (Sun, Sky): Oh dear. A season too far, methinks. What began as an interesting re-boot has settled into the depressing routine of pressing a big, fat reset button (first Tony turns up and then... well, wait and see).

Jamie's School Dinners (Weds, C4): He's only gone and bloody done it! Yep, the cheeky cockney with a cabbage heart of gold has dragged the subject of school dinners back onto the agenda. He should be knighted for his contribution to the nation's health and for giving us one of the funniest and most heartwarming TV shows of recent years. Other news today is a lot less satisfying: George Bush keeping brain damaged Americans alive (presumably so they'll vote for him again) and Michael Howard threatening to remove people's caravans. Hey, wait a minute...

Super Supervolcano

I wasn't expecting much from this BBC co-production. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from watching The Grid. As expected, part one was interminable. We got the usual scenes of people standing in rooms arguing about whether or not something terrible was going to happen, and the only remarkable thing was that one of the heroes was a dour Scottish bloke, while the other was consistently wrong about just about everything. Including his haircut.

It plodded on with glossy and portents of doom and then, just when it was threatening  to become exciting (i.e. - something happened), it ended.

And so it was with a heavy heart that I decided to give part two a go. Boy, am I glad I did.

This was Threads for the 21st century; real end of the world stuff that we haven't really seen since the 1980s. And it was utterly believable too - it wasn't the result of some fictitious Al Qaeda cell or a political conspiracy - this could really happen. In fact, it will happen, we just don't know when.

I admired the conviction of this show - it killed some of its central characters almost immediately, America was left as a third world country and the overall prognosis was grim. And the British came out of it reasonably well for a change, even if we are a bunch of pessimistic bastards.

Quick Round-Up

Sorry if I've been neglecting this blog of late but I've been utterly consumed by the recent Doctor Who (pinch me, I'm dreaming) media blitz. We've had it all: cliches about Daleks and stairs, reporters walking out of the TARDIS, dematerialising presenters (including Jeremy Paxman!), sofa jokes, references to cardboard, scarves, jelly babies and anoraks. And we've also had an interesting debate about the ethics of downloading TV shows off the Internet, which is extremely handy as that's what I am researching for my real world job.

So, yeah, I downloaded it for academic reasons.

Anyway, I'm chronicling it over on the Waiting for Christopher blog if you are even remotely interested. No spoilers permitted though. Maybe I should rename it Waiting for the Others Who Are Still Waiting for Christopher to Catch Up?

In the meantime, here's a quick, stream of consciousness (in other words, please excuse the grammar) summary of the last few days TV:

Jamie's Kitchen: just gets better and better. You've gotta love him. He's trying. And almost succeeding too. God, I wish I wasn't so cynical all the time. I really, really want him to succeed now.

The Apprentice: brilliant. But I have to admit that I did fall for the blatant lie in the very first episode: these are not the best business minds in the UK, they are a bunch of complete no-hopers with personality disorders, with only a couple of decent brains chucked in to throw us off the scent. The most bizarre episode so far had to be that deranged woman and her Secret Signs toy idea - yeah, brilliant if it's the 1920s but the way in which she overruled the whole team (who wanted to go with fighting robots, fer christsake!) was simply surreal.

Banned in the UK: An excellent mini-season, so far. It's got everything I need from my TV: list based nostalgia coupled with socio-political commentary. Oh, and a really sardonic voice-over. The best of the bunch was on Sunday night - just an excuse to say the C word fifteen times in a row, or a serious attempt at charting the history of swearing in popular culture? Either way, it was hilarious.

Look Around You: I was a bit harsh on the first episode of season two but it's gone on to become the highlight of the otherwise grim morass that is Monday. The finale with Sir Prince Charles was a demonstration of fantastic CGI (so that award must have been real!), brilliant comedy (Nick Frost explains Hot Joe), and uncanny observation. The cut-backs to the continuity announcer were works of genius. The sharp intake of breath, the ominous drop in octave, the stand-by film about Birds, the sublim of the Bear and Skeleton. The best TV moment of 2005 so far.

Help: Episode 2 was even funnier than episode 1. You have to watch this show - Sundays BBC2 at 9:30pm. A gem.

Brat Camp: Yawn. Sorry, couldn't care less about them anymore.

Doctor Who - Episode One: Nah, better not...

Making Your Bloody Mind Up

When will we ever learn? The biggest problem with interactive television is that it isn't just open to people with a sense of irony or an appreciation for what makes good television. Unfortunately, you have to pay lip-service to the great unwashed masses who wouldn't know great TV if Dennis Potter started haunting them.

Sometimes the public can get it right (torturing Appleton), sometimes they get it wrong.

Last night, when they chose the UK's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, they got it spectacularly wrong. Now I'll be honest, the only reason I ended up watching this drivel was because I was hoping to catch a glimpse of a Doctor Who trailer, but once I started watching I just couldn't stop.

The format was quite brilliant. Hosted by everybody's favourite mad uncle, Terry Wogan, and the scary as f**k Natasha Kaplinsky it decided to both ape and pay loving homage to the Eurovision. It was pleasantly naff.

I was completely floored when I discovered that Jordan (sorry, Katie Price) was one of the contenders. But that nothing compared to the aneurism I nearly suffered when she took to the stage dressed as a heavily pregnant Barbarella.

The song was appalling, The singing was horrendous. The dance routine bordered on the pornographic. I haven't laughed so much in ages.

It was if an episode of Eurotrash had somehow seeped into the BBC schedules.

The other contenders had their own built-in backstories too. Two failed Pop Idol contestants (one of them had a sister in Steps), a version of G4 without a fat bloke, and Gina "just a little bit of talent" G!

The voting was quite tense in places but no, we had to go for the safe option, didn't we? So we're sending somebody half-decent but ultimately boring - again! She'll finish a respectable sixteenth and will never be heard from again. At least I can still remember Gemini! We didn't even see the writing on the wall when last year's winner, a vacant, yet attractive, big-boobed Russian took to the stage and giggled inanely for a bit. The template for success was practically sitting in the bloody Green Room!

If we'd only sent Jordan instead. What a laugh that would have been. Oh well.

Reality Bites

Jamie's School Dinners - you've gotta love it.

This PR disaster/book plug/ego rub is turning out to be even more compelling that his last one!

Your feelings towards Jamie change from moment to moment. One minute you want to strangle the chirpy, conceited twit for daring to imagine that he could just waltz in and replace Pig Fat Twizzlers with courgette ciabattas and bulgar wheat without anyone so much as batting an eyelid, and the next minute you find yourself wanting to give him a big fat cuddle, telling him that everthing will be OK and little Jimmy (6) will eat some lettuce without vomiting.

The reality of the situation - no money, ignorant kids, the drug-like quality of Twizzlers and Nora (batty) - is much, much funnier than Jamie's naive dream, and if the rumours are true then Jamie almost walked off the show half-way through in a huff. The scene where the kids start a petition to get him kicked out was brilliant (if a little staged).

His heart is in the right place, it's just that his frame of reference isn't.

This show also featured the funniest exchange on TV this week:

Jamie: What did you have for dinner last night?
Little Kid: Pot Noodle.
Jamie: And which one did you go for?
Little Kid: Chicken and Mushroom.
Jamie: So you like mushrooms then?
Little Kid: No.

Poor old county Durham. I live in the so-called unhealthiest county in England and while that is bad enough, seeing children in a school less than ten miles away mistake a potato for an onion was shameful.

But we get even more than we initially expect from this show. We watch, open mouthed, as Jamie's marriage start to fall apart. In a remarkably candid moment he tries to shrug off press suggestions that he's nobbed some waitress in Amsterdam, and in another peculiar moment Jules gives us a sneak peak into her own psyche as she neurotically insists that her family unit must be "perfect".

But you have to love Jamie. For all his faults you have got to admire a man who can give President Clinton the cold shoulder one moment, and run around dressed as a giant sweetcorn the next.

Torturous

I think Channel 4 tried to have their cake and eat it last night. Sure, Jon Snow was in it, so it must have been serious and topical and important, but, let's face its, it was incredibly titillating as well.

Come on, Channel 4, admit it - you went and took Reality TV to its obvious conclusion. You want to make this show - for REAL! This is essentially Big Brother set in Guantanamo Bay ("Call 0898 666 666 if you want us to attach the electrodes to the testicles of contestant number 3") as six blokes off the street sign the strangest release form in history before undergoing 48 hours of CIA-sanctioned torture. It's run by the bloke off Brat Camp. It's filled with wannabe TV stars getting humiliated and wound-up by inarticulate interrogators. It features non-erect penises.

The Guantanamo Bay Guidebook tried to pass itself off as journalism, when it's simply just car-crash TV for desensitised media junkies who get their kicks from downloading videos of Nick Berg and constantly rewinding traceuring accident tapes.

Sure, I watched it. And yeah, I felt strangely compelled by it. And yes, I didn't switch it off in disgust. But at least I recognised it for what it was. A eerie glimpse at television of the future.

But, alas, the show also pulled its punches. "We can not use some of the techniques used - like sleep deprivation - because they are far too dangerous," says Snow, sadly. Try telling that to the producer's of Shattered!

And what do we discover at the end of all this? That torture is bad. That torture is stupid. That torture hurts. Really? I never would have guessed.

At the end of the show all of the contestants said they were now completely against torture, even the reactionary idiots who weren't really bothered by the ethics of it before. But they would say that wouldn't they?

What amazed me was this: when the "exercise" slash "pilot" ended the contestants shook hands and hugged the same people who had, ten seconds ago, stripped, shaved, and shackled them. I would have punched them in the face! Exercise or not, they did this for a living - for real! And what's worse - they actually trained other people so they could do it too! The bastards.

The bald bloke with the headphones was almost certainly a sociopath with a salary. Scary, scary stuff.