UK TV

An archive of blog entries about UK TV programmes and production.

News of the morning

1 December 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Just a few snippets of early morning news fun

UK TV

Review: The Secret Millionaire

30 November 2006 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Secret Millionaire Ben Way

In the UK: Wednesdays, 9pm, Channel 4

In the US: Not acquired yet

Ben Way is a tosser. Or at least, you take one look at him and think “What a tosser”. He has that posh-boy haircut and posh-boy voice. He has a posh suit and posh monogrammed cufflinks, one marked B, one marked W. If it weren’t for the fact that someone seems to have done it already, you might be inclined to punch him.

But that’s prejudice for you. Millionaire he might be, but he’s from a poor, single-parent family and is a self-made man, having spent the last decade building up his own business. And he’d like to give some of his riches to some deserving causes. To this end, he goes undercover on a Hackney council estate to decide which person most deserves thousands of pounds of his money – all while escorted by a film crew.

Continue reading “Review: The Secret Millionaire”

News

David Tennant to host The Friday Night Project

30 November 2006 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

David Tennant in velvetThe Sun reckons David Tennant is going to host the first episode of the next series of The Friday Night Project. Did he do something wrong in a previous life? Did he build a house on an Indian burial ground?

Incidentally, Daniel Craig is now saying the next Bond film should have gay scenes*, potentially involving 007. He cites Doctor Who as an example of their new-found acceptability with the masses. Who knew Craigy was a Who fan?

* No explanation of what exactly a “gay scene” is. Gay sex scenes? Bond noticing two gay men walking around? Talk about hedging your bets…

News

One British network gets vodcasts

29 November 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

History Channel vodcastAll the talk of late (at least, among certain groups of people. Probably not in Tescos though) has been about podcasts and how great they are. Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Lost and others have all got their own variants. But despite being about tele, few of the regulars have embraced video podcasts (aka vodcasts), with only Lost producing a vodcast and that was a one-off.

One network has gone further though. The History Channel. Weird, huh? The ubiquitous Adam Hart-Davis* has put together four vodcasts to accompany his show, How London Was Built, that give you a guided tour of London. You can either watch them online or download them to your MP3 player (aka iPod) and watch them as you tour the streets of London. How useful’s that, history buffs?

* To be fair, he’s ubiquitous because he’s very good.

Sectarian violence starts tomorrow, thanks to MTV Dance

28 November 2006 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Ofcom has been investigating a few complaints again. For some reason, The Baby Mind Reader was given the all-clear, despite being obvious rubbish. Maybe the fact it was on Five lowered their standards a little.

But more interesting is the complaint against MTV Dance. This, apparently, has been letting some dodgy text messages get through, unvetted, from viewers.

One complaint was received after “all u Fenons [Fenians] out there – die” was shown on screen. The complainant also noted that there had been references to Bobby Sands and the UDA.

So the first thing of interest is that the moderators would have stopped this if they’d known what Fenons meant. Yet they let it through because they thought it was just a regular message of death. Okay…

But why exactly are those little scamps using MTV Dance as a conduit for political propaganda, do you think?