TV reviews

In the US: Thursdays, 8/7c, NBC
In the UK: E4, Channel 4, at some point. Assuming there aren’t any cutbacks

My Name is Earl used to be quite a cool show. Well, maybe not cool. Sweet maybe. Maybe a little patronising to red necks, but the general idea of nice things happening to a guy who decides to make amends for all the bad things he’s done was lovely and usually enjoyable to watch, even if it was a little low on the belly laughs.

Season three messed that up, by sending Earl to prison and generally looking at the darker side of things. No one liked that much. I believe that a UK TV executive even cited it as a show that had lost its way – “it’s like a road movie but it’s forgotten to have any jokes” was his general summing up of it.

Is season four back on the right side on the road?

Continue reading “Review: My Name is Earl 4×1-4×2”

In the US: Wednesdays, 8/7c, NBC

Knight Rider was one of those shows, back in the early 80s, that everyone of a certain age watched. Only having four channels, no games consoles, DVDs, PCs worth mentioning, etc, might have had something to do with that. But watch it, we did.

The story of one man trying to make a difference, armed only with a leather jacket, some curly hair and an indestructible, super-intelligent, slightly camp, talking car, Knight Rider didn’t so much suck as live down to the expectations of primetime teenager-oriented television of the time.

I think it’s worth bearing that in mind, before anyone waxes too lyrical about the original, because although this new Knight Rider series has the IQ of Nuts magazine crossed with a bucket of KFC, it’s really just as good (or bad) as the original. Although it doesn’t have the Hoff in it yet.

Continue reading “Review: Knight Rider 1×1”

In the US: Mondays, 9.30pm ET/PT, CBS

What’s the lowest form of wit or comedy? Some say sarcasm, but clearly they haven’t read anything by Charlie Brooker. Maybe it’s any studio-based comedy about ‘friends’ or work colleagues where the dialogue consists solely of people making increasingly unpleasant remarks about each other in an attempt to get a laugh. That’s pretty low down the list, I would have thought.

But, no, the answer is obvious. Farce is the lowest form of comedy. It consists entirely of utterly implausible situations and ridiculous coincidences and elicits laughs purely through embarrassment.

And Brits are to blame for it. It’s our fault. Can I just say sorry to the rest of the world for that?

Sorry.

If we’d kept it to ourselves, maybe we wouldn’t have so much to answer for. But now we’re exporting it to the world. The Worst Week of My Life was a pretty dreadful BBC1 farce starring the normally talented Ben Miller and Sarah Alexander. The Beeb/Hat Trick sold the format to Germany – twice – and now CBS in the US has remade it as Worst Week.

And it’s absolutely dreadful. Should I apologise for that, too?

Continue reading “Review: Worst Week 1×1”