Year: 2006

UK TV

Another board game gets turned into a TV programme

8 June 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Leslie Grantham as Colonel MustardRemember Cluedo?

No, not Cluedo. Cluedo.

It was an early 90s bit of ITV fluff, “a unique game show in which celebrities try to deduce which of the classic characters commited a murder by watching a short film and interviewing the suspects”. Yes, celebrities interviewing other celebrities to find out whether it was Lewis Collins/Leslie Grantham (aka Colonel Mustard) or Derek Nimmo/Christopher Biggins (aka Reverend Green) who killed the butler. It was actually quite star-studded, as a quick glance at the cast list on the IMDB will reveal.

It died off after a few series, never to return to our screens. But it seems the world wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the “gameshow based on a board game” format, because Monopoly is about to be turned into Monopoly. And in an inspired piece of casting, they’re getting Donald “Go to directly to Jail. Do not pass ‘Go’. Do not collect $200” Trump to host it (or something – no one’s quite sure what he’s doing, yet).

You know, that actually might be quite fun, done right. But why stop there? How about Guess Who? Or Operation? Playdough Barber Shop anyone? “Tonight, Desmond, I’ll be pushing playdough up the backside and out the head of Tricia!”

UK TV

A new secret code: Welsh

8 June 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Chorlton and FenellaIt was only a matter of time before Glyn and Imogen came up with a plan for having secret conversations that no one else in the Big Brother house will be able to understand: speak Welsh. Well done guys. Pure genius. Of course, since half the time they sound like the ‘Scorchio!’ bunch* from The Fast Show because Welsh has so many borrowed English words, it’s not always that hard to work out what they’re talking about, even if you can’t speak a word of Welsh. But it’s still a cunning plan.

Anyway, let’s see if they overstep the mark and start breaking the rules in Welsh, thinking they’re the only Welsh in the village – forgetting that Endemol could well have hired an actual Welsh speaker in preparation for such a cunning plan being hatched.

Actually, I’m impressed that Imogen, who’s from South Wales, was fluent enough to converse with Glyn from North Wales, who’s so patriotic he’d probably have had “Wales” tattooed on his eyeballs if he could. Most of ’em can do hymns and that’s about it. So good on you Imogen, even if you are a bit of an evil witch, it turns out. Cue references to Chorlton and the Wheelies.

Footnotes

Paul Whitehouse
* Fast Show co-creator Paul Whitehouse grew up in Rhondda. He says he based ‘Scorchio!’ on the Welsh-language television he watched growing up. You can read all about him in the BBC’s South East Wales Showbiz Hall of Fame. Yes, there is such a thing.

Don’t know enough about Doctor Who yet?

8 June 2006 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Go on. You can feel it, can’t you? The obsessiveness, the need to know more, the constant worry that perhaps you’ve missed some subtle reference in a story that actually speaks volumes – International Electromatics, Jamie McCrimmon? If only you’d known what the Doctor was talking about.

Give in. You know you want to.

The Beginner’s Guide to Doctor Who has arrived at the BBC web site. Lots of lovely Flash animations, no text to read, just handy narration plus Daleks on badly animated flying things. Everything you could hope for and a whole lot less (thankfully).

Five’s plans for new channels are going badly wrong

8 June 2006 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Well, they may have invented a channel just for me, Five US, but no good deed goes unpunished. It looks like there won’t actually be any programmes on it, according to Broadcast.

Five’s new US acquisitions channel is facing an autumn launch without a number of its biggest hit shows, including House, Grey’s Anatomy and Law and Order.

Living TV owns the exclusive rights to Grey’s Anatomy, which it licenses to Five but does not want to share with Five US. Hallmark, meanwhile, is not prepared to give up multichannel rights to popular Five series House, Law and Order, Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent.

Five is also locked in a bidding war with Living over the multichannel rights to its highest rated series CSI with US producer Alliance Atlantis. Living is believed to hold the rights to the most recent series of the show but older episodes coming out of licence are up for grabs.

So what can we expect to see instead?

Five US is expected to launch its limited hours primetime line-up with recently purchased series it owns exclusively, male-skewing Hollywood movies, music shows, US documentaries and US sport.

Aargh! That’s not a TV channel just for me! That’s a TV channel expressly designed to ensure I never watch so much as a second of it! I have visions of Five US turning into ESPN 8, aka “the Ocho”, from Dodgeball: “And now, live from Arizona, midget-tossing!”

Oh well. Maybe something better will come along.

Emu lives

8 June 2006 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Curious news. Emu is to come back in a sitcom for kids, with Toby “Son of Rod” Hull as the hand behind the beak this time. Hull has apparently already appeared on stage with the puppet bird a couple of times, so it’s not without precedent, but is licensed sexual harassment and physical assault the best thing for kids these days?