Charlie Brooker’s You Have Been Watching started on Channel 4 last night. I won’t bother with a review: it was pretty good, I thought, but I think we’re getting a bit meta when we start reviewing shows that review shows.
But it was gratifying to see that he picked up on, Deadliest Warrior, which I nominated at the start of last month for the title of the stupidest TV programme ever. There weren’t any clips available on YouTube at the time, but there are now, since in case you missed it – and it’s still on 4oD if you want to give it a whirl – here’s the match you’ve all been waiting for: the IRA vs the Taliban, handled as tastefully as you’d expect from Spike TV.
The wonderful Zooey Deschanel and the perfectly acceptable Joseph Gordon-Levitt have a new movie out called 500 Days of Summer. I haven’t seen it, but I hear that despite them, it’s not very good. Oh dear.
But in the movie, there’s a scene where the two young lovers compare their relationship to Sid and Nancy’s. Here it is:
Cinemash is doing a new project in which various actors re-enact scenes from famous movies. So it’s appropriate that they start off with our Zooey and Joseph Gordon-Levitt re-enacting a scene from Sid and Nancy. Unfortunately, you can’t embed the vids (easily), so you’ll just have to go to Cinemash to watch it.
Also coming up: Cheech and Chong do Tron (seriously), Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes doing Oldboy and Will Arnett and Xavier from Adult Swim do Carrie. Should be interesting.
In the UK: Monday 6th July, 9pm, BBC1. Parts 2-5 airing Tuesday-Friday In the US: Monday 20th July, 9/8c, BBC America. Parts 2-5 airing 21st-24th
You know Apple, right? Makes iPods.
Well, it was set up by a guy called Steve Jobs. You know him, right? He has a reality distortion field.
Anyway, he got thrown out – and the whole company fell apart. When he came back, it suddenly became great again. Insanely great.
All of Apple’s intervening bosses said more or less the same thing: Apple has Steve Jobs’ DNA. Only Steve Jobs can run it.
I’m beginning to wonder if Russell T Davies is the Steve Jobs of Torchwood. He created it. It’s his baby. He wrote the first ever episode, which was really very promising. Since then, he’s had minimal input and it’s range from absolutely horrifically bad to not bad but still not great.
However, has it ever quite achieved the heights we thought it could achieve?
No.
Essentially, it’s an embodiment of all his obsessions and interests: sci-fi, soapy relationships, sexuality, Welshness, action and Doctor Who. Who else could ever work with those themes as well as he can?
Well, guess what? After moving from BBC3 to BBC2 and now to BBC1, Torchwood once again has Russell T Davies in charge for a five-part, nightly mini-series called Children of Earth. I won’t pretend episode one was an absolute classic of television, but it really was pretty good.
See what I mean? He’ll be creating the TorchPod before you know it.
