UK TV

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

UK TV

The rubbishness of ITV proved for all the world to see

10 May 2006 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

A while ago, we obliquely touched on the poor quality of ITV programming of late. Now come a few hard empirical facts. In all the excitement about Doctor Who‘s success at the BAFTAs, ITV’s equally appalling night was pretty much overlooked – by all but my colleague Ian Jones at Off The Telly. Choice quote of the piece:

if you look at the BAFTA nominations (four for each award, hence a total of 76), how many do you think ITV notched up? A third? A quarter? Wrong on both counts. Surely they made it into double figures? Wrong again. They got a miserable, shameful total of seven. Seven nominations out of 76.

Astonishing.

Since I’ve mentioned Doctor Who, I guess I have to do this now:

David Tennant again

I’m off for a couple of days’ holiday in Glasgow tomorrow, so blogging is going to be reduced to somewhere between a little and not at all, depending on how good the promised Wi-Fi is and how much it rains in Scotland while we’re there (track record: 100% rain on all previous visits). So adios for now and I’ll be back on Monday or earlier.

News

Christopher Eccleston his own worst enemy

10 May 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Christopher Eccleston in Doctor WhoWe all heard the news that Christopher Eccleston may be starring in the forthcoming remake of The Prisoner. Now The Independents Pandora reports that CE may have had a bust-up with the producers and Sky are getting cold feet.

“Christopher did contact Granada earlier this year, when talks about the project began,” they say. “But since the casting process has only just begun, we are also looking elsewhere.”

Quelle surprise. Odd that he should have initiated contact with the producers, as he did with Doctor Who, and then mess everything up himself (assuming Pandora’s right). But it seems that if there’s a way to sabotage his own career, Eccleston will find it every time. Let’s hope he can pull himself together again and get back into the game.

UK TV

Remembering times past

9 May 2006 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Televisual May 2006My old alma mater, Televisual magazine, has its Intelligent TV Festival running today. Biggest news so far, according to the Media Guardian, is that the BBC is going to scale back on three- to four-part factual series in favour of longer-running pre-watershed documentaries. Which is nice.

More interestingly, from the same article, the Beeb is starting to regret cancelling Timewatch and other ‘strand’ shows:

“There was a period about five years ago when we lost a lot of strand titles,” Ms Benson said. “I do think it is a very good question – should we actually have a rethink about bringing back strand titles for documentaries?”

Doctor Who‘s back. The Price is Right is coming back. All sorts of long-forgotten stars, such as Noel Edmonds, are cropping up again. Commissioners are clearly starting to realise that maybe the old days weren’t so bad after all.

On the subject of which, this month’s Televisual has an interview with Russell T Davies and one of the guys down The Mill about the effects work on Doctor Who. If I were still there, it would have been me doing that and I’d have just got back from NAB in Las Vegas. Sigh. A la recherche du temps perdu and all that…

UK TV

Steven Moffat: comedy genius

9 May 2006 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

Steven Moffat, comedy geniusForget Coupling, Press Gang and Joking Apart: Steven Moffat proved his comedy genius on Saturday’s Doctor Who Confidential with this particular quote about the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour kissing:

“The Madame de Pompadour fans are going to be up in arms, because obviously it’s non-canonical that she snogged an alien. But I think the Doctor Who fans are going to be pretty relaxed about it.”

Tee hee.

BBC Four: Now comes with a bottle of Night Nurse aka A for Andromeda’s ‘Face of the Tiger’

8 May 2006 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Having trouble getting to sleep on a Saturday night? Well happy happy joy joy, this Saturday coming sees not only a repeat of the stupefyingly dull remake of A for Andromeda, there’s now the glorious chance to watch the only remaining episode of the original series, The Face of the Tiger, at the reassuringly late time of 10.40pm. Now, remember that the oh-so-dull remake clocked in at only 90 minutes. This is episode six and runs at 40 minutes. Oh my. Can’t wait.