Review: Peter Serafinowicz and Flight of the Conchords

Much more of a Look Around You feel to last night’s The Peter Serafinowicz Show, I thought. It’s definitely getting weirder and funnier with the hit/miss ratio getting much more acceptable. "Check your poison sockets", "Limpy has cancer": these things should be T-shirts.

As for Flight of the Conchords, I’ve stuck with it for three weeks and I’m still not getting it. It’s been pretty much the same two jokes (one of them says something, the other picks him up on it, then keeps picking him up on it for between four and five more exchanges; New Zealanders aren’t very worldly, but hey, neither’s anyone else really) plus some songs for these three episodes.

But I think I know where it’s falling down. I had my suspicions when I got more laughs from their web site than from the TV show and since Mark mentioned it was a radio show, I tried closing my eyes while I watched it. You know what? It’s a whole lot funnier without pictures. Really, try it and see.

Essentially, Flight of the Conchords is a wordy radio show that someone has incorrectly added pictures to. So I might keep listening to it – is BBC4 actually Radio 4 if you keep your eyes closed while you watch it?

Of course, The Carusometer won’t since it mercilessly mocks the masculinity of anyone who would listen to the radio. I think it might have even used the word ‘wieners’ when I suggested it. Although now it says that only wieners use the correct spelling of weiner.

It can be so harsh sometimes.

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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