Change Your Image
tjhyb1
Reviews
Bread (1986)
Tarring the masses
Hugely popular when it first appeared, but after two or three years, the "lovable Scouse" veneer began to wear a bit thin and audiences saw the Boswells for what they really were - a bunch of whinging benefit scroungers who were more than happy to jump the queue whenever there was something of benefit to be had. And boy did they whinge! If it wasn't Jack whinging about his pitiful love life it was Adrian whinging about the world's lack of appreciation of his artistic talents. And if it wasn't Billy whinging about his failure to get along with the mother of his child it was Grandad whinging about the late arrival of his pudding. At a time when thousands found themselves thrown onto the employment scrapheap by an uncaring government, seeing the likes of Joey Boswell pushing his way to the front of the dole office queue to wangle yet another undeserved benefit for his kith and kin was simply an insult. And then there were the blatant double-standards of "Ma" Nellie Boswell, insisting on prayers before dinner and loudly proclaiming "She Is A Tart" whenever errant husband Freddie's bit-on-the-side's name was mentioned, yet who became involved in an illicit (if innocent) relationship with another man.
The hippy-trippy values that permeated the latter series were, quite frankly, thirty years out of date and the sort of thing that had earlier managed to kill off "The Liver Birds" (an enjoyable sitcom erroneously credited to Carla Lane alone), from where Lane obviously derived the Boswell family from (although that particular Boswell family had been likeable).
According to tabloid news reports of the time, residents of the street used for exterior filming of the Boswell's home were less than happy to be associated with the show.
Are You Being Served? (2016)
No we're not!
Missed this first time round, caught it by chance when UKTV ran it instead of one of the original episodes. My first thought was how awful it was. Which was also my second thought. Why bother remaking an old favourite if the actors - some of them well known from other shows - simply attempt to impersonate the original cast? Why set it at a time which contradicts the original show's sequel? John Inman's Mr Humphreys was never as camp as Jason Watkins' version. Arthur English's Mr Harman was never as boorish as Arthur Smith's portrayal. Writer Derren Litten appears to have depended entirely upon second-hand memories of the original show for his inspiration rather than going back to the original episodes and seeing how they were put together for himself. And what on Earth is the audience on? Hysterical shrieks of laughter for some mildly amusing aside? God help them if they ever get to see an original episode, there'd be mass coronaries everywhere.
Bull (2015)
A load of
It's not often that the title of a show is also part of it's description but in the case of "Bull", I think you will find it hard not to imagine yourself thinking what a load of bull---- this is. A typical, modern "sitcom" in the loosest sense of the word. It has a situation, i.e. an antiques shop, and some people think it is a comedy. I'm afraid I belong to that group of people that thinks comedy needs to be funny. I found very little funny about this. Maybe if you're the kind of pretentious lamebrain who thinks the constant repetition of a particular word or phrase is hysterically funny, then you will probably find this so. Personally, I left that kind of humour behind before my eleventh birthday.
Having "Bull" showcased on a channel that regularly screens "proper" comedy in the form of "Only Fools and Horses", "Fawlty Towers" and "Open All Hours" isn't doing it any favours. Maybe it should have gone out on Dave. After Midnight. When something good was on another channel. I'm all for variety in comedy and the encouragement of British-made TV, but this is little more than elitist undergraduate sniggering-in-the-wine-bar comedy of the type most normal, everyday folk find utterly immature and plain stupid. Robert Lindsay and Maureen Lipman, both veterans of classic British TV sitcoms, deserve better than to have this kind of puerile garbage on their CVs.
Maybe it's the setting? After all, "Never the Twain", also set in an antiques shop, or rather two antiques shop, was hardly a classic despite featuring two fairly good comedy actors and it, like "Bull", featured a dimwit assistant. Then again, Victoria Wood's classic "Acorn Antiques" skit was also set in an identical situation so maybe it's just that "Bull" isn't very good after all.
New Tricks: Glasgow UCOS (2012)
Weak
Can this be construed as Redman and Armstrong's punishment for daring to publicly criticise the show's writers? Although Jack Halford missed a couple of episodes following the acquittal of Ricky Hanson in Series 5, this is the first time Sandra Pulman has been absent, not to mention Brian Lane. And it shows. Although Waterman and Lawson have managed to create a working partnership out of nowhere, not even that is enough to carry through what is probably the weakest episode in the show's history. The plot wouldn't be so bad if there weren't so many "coincidences". Steve's partner just happens to have been in care at the same time as the mysterious disappearances, as did, surprise surprise, the Glasgow DCI responsible for getting UCOS involved in the first place, whilst the now retired officer in charge of the original investigation just happens to be the man responsible for Steve's marriage break-up. Maybe Redman and Armstrong were better off out of it.
New Tricks: Part of a Whole (2012)
More Spooks than New Tricks
If any episode was proof that Redman & Armstrong's fears that the writers had veered far from the show's original concept were well-founded, this is it. The four regulars feature almost as bit-part players with Strickland and arch-slimeball Stephen Fisher promoted to centre stage in what appears to be an old script left over from "Spooks". "New Tricks" it certainly isn't. Solving unsolved "civilian" crimes is pushed to one side to deal with the unravelling of a conspiracy involving sleeper agents and a plot to systematically wipe them out. Earlier delvings into the sinister world of security service dealings had been fairly well tackled; secret drug tests on serving soldiers in "Mad Dogs", illegal rendition in "The Truth is Out There", preventing the loss of potentially valuable scientific methods in "The Gentleman Vanishes", all these worked well within the show's remit as they were believable and could be related to everyday life. "Part of a Whole" on the other hand is so far removed from what most people would regard as normal it simply doesn't fit into what "New Tricks" was all about, i.e. retired police officers using their skills to solve seemingly insolvable crimes. If this episode was designed to teach Redman and Armstrong a lesson over their well-publicised criticisms of the direction the show was taking, it failed. If, instead, it was an example of the way the show was heading then maybe they did the right thing in leaving when they did.
Bullseye (2006)
Pathetic
When I first heard Challenge was reviving Bullseye, I thought "great!". Then I saw it. What a let down. The standard of contestant is abysmal. The original featured quizzers with reasonably good general knowledge and darters who could at least hit the board. Many of them were county players. Most of the new crop would struggle to get into their local pub dart and quiz teams. And whoever thought it would be a good idea to get the only man in Britain who can't pronounce the word "Darts" properly to host a show based on darts deserves to be placed in front of a dartboard when Phil Taylor is practising. All-in-all a sorry affair totally undeserving to be associated with the classic Jim Bowen-hosted original. That may have verged on the shambolic at times but it had a veneer of class.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (1998)
In the end, too much of a good thing.
Without doubt one of the greatest quiz shows of all time unfortunately ultimately spoilt by a combination of over-exposure, ITV's obsession with celebrity versions of every game show they have, and constant fiddling with the format in the final years. First reducing the number of questions from 15 to 12 smacked of dumbing down. Changing the amounts to win made some of the steps drastically uneven. Dumping the Fastest Finger Round in favour of off-screen auditions because it was thought older people were at a disadvantage robbed the show of the chance selection of contestant. Then finally, and in total contradiction to the earlier change, the introduction of time limits in the very next series which, more than any Fastest Finger, penalised the older contestants. In the end, it was these "improvements" and Chris Tarrant's increasingly irritating habits - the sharp intake of breath seemingly after every sentence, the repetitive "jokes" about people looking "frightened to death" - which killed the show off. That, and the suspicion that some contestants may not have been selected entirely at random as claimed. With the benefit of re-runs on "Challenge", it's surprising how many "randomly selected" contestants were veterans of other quiz shows. If you're not convinced, ask yourself how it was Charles Ingram followed not only his wife and brother-in-law into the hot seat but how he and his wife had featured in a married couples' special some months earlier. Maybe a change of host and a return to the old format would have been advisable. Who knows? Can I 'phone a friend?
The Chase (2013)
For US Eyes Only
A typically, and horribly, OTT version of the more sedate British original. The audience hysterics apart, what really irks me about this inexplicable Challenge import is the way Mark Labbett is constantly referred to as "The Beast". That is simply a nickname given to him by British host Bradley Walsh in the same way Ann Hegarty became "Frosty Knickers" (can't imagine the Yanks going along with that!). His proper title is "The Chaser". The clue is in the title of the show for goodness sake. All well and good for an American audience, but why on Earth buy it back to show to a British audience that has had the benefit of seeing the original? One other annoyance is the fact that most of the questions are understandably American-orientated. Is it fair to expect Mark Labbett to be as knowledgeable about American issues as the American contestants? How would an American Chaser get on being asked questions like "The Oval is the home ground of which county cricket club?" or "Who was Foreign Secretary at the time of the Falklands War?"? Not fair to The Chaser.