UK TV

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

Review: The Adventurer

26 March 2006 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

The Adventurer – The Complete Series
by Network

I’ve been “radio silent” for the last few days. Judging from the fact I used the phrase “radio silent”, you might have thought I’ve been enjoying myself watching some gung-ho escapism like The Unit. You’d have been wrong. I’ve been watching the four DVD set of The Adventurer, prior to its release on Monday.

I’m not exactly sure what I did to deserve that particular fate. Like Earl in My Name is Earl, clearly I’m balancing out some particularly evil act in a former life – I’m hoping it was in a former life, because otherwise there’s an act of genocide from my 20s I’ve repressed and you’d don’t want to be bottling that kind of thing up.

Anyway, 26 half-hour episodes of quite some of the worst early 70s television later and I’m ready to rejoin the living again. You can read my review after the break, if you want. I’m going to be out and about most of next week, so I probably won’t be blogging much, but you never know.

Continue reading “Review: The Adventurer”

Jess gets her own series. Good news? Bad news? I don’t know

21 March 2006 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

I’m not sure whether my heart should be warmed or chilled by the news that Jess the cat from Postman Pat is to get her own show.

On the surface, “Ah! How sweet! Cats!”

Underneath, the terrible fact it’s going to be computer-generated.

In the wake of the terrible Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin debacle, can we assume there’s some new international school of soul-removal that children’s TV executives are being sent to?

Am I now a “BBC4 viewer”?

20 March 2006 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

It’s a question I’m grappling with on two fronts.

Front one: I’ve an invite to a BBC4 audience focus group, in which BBC4 viewers can comment on the network and be paid £50 for the experience. I’m grappling with the ethics of that one: can I, a media journalist, not only influence the content of a channel but be paid for it?. I suspect, despite the allure of £50 (there’s very little I won’t do for £50), that I’ll have to duck that one.

Front two: A new BBC4 game show is on the way, according to The Stage. Hosted by Julian Fellowes, Never Mind the Full Stops is all about the exciting world of punctuation, bad grammar and misspellings. Hmm. Must avoid severe temptation to mock pedantic middle-class gameshow hosted by a man called Julian.

However, I’d quite like to watch it. When I wear my sub-editing hat, these are exactly the kinds of issues I have to watch out for (hey, I’m off to the Royal College of Nursing next week to ensure all manners of naughtiness don’t sneak into their magazines). A nice show with pointers like this is just up my street.

So does that make me a BBC4 viewer? Am I becoming one of ‘them’? What a worrying idea.

Hardware horrors or à la recherche du temps perdus

16 March 2006 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

I don’t know why this place is suddenly filled up with Who news, but it is. This one’s here, not because it’s Who news, but because it’s my past coming back to haunt me (hence the lack of Tennant picture, I’m afraid).

Prepare to be bored.

Anyway, according to Broadcast via Outpost Gallifrey, production on the next series of Doctor Who has gone tapeless thanks to investment by BBC Wales in a Unity.

Oh the unmitigated horror. Back circa 1999 and 2000, talking about this kind of thing was my job – I was technology editor of Televisual. Trudging around Soho, talking to every post-production house under the sun about what new kit they’d just bought: doesn’t sound brilliant, but they paid me; they’d send me to Las Vegas and Amsterdam every year for the big conferences and I got to find out about all the new programmes before they happened. Sounds a lot cooler now, doesn’t it? Sigh.

Back to the topic in hand, though. Back then, Unity was just being introduced and virtually all the big post houses already had at least one. Tapeless workflow? Jeez. It’s amazing six years on that a flagship BBC programme would be done on anything except a tapeless workflow system. Still, that’s the regions for you. Backward, backward, backward.

Oh dear. My wife’s coming to kill me for that. She’s from Swansea, you know. Just like Russell T Davies.

There’s no link there that I know of.

UPDATE: This blog entry is hereby renamed “The too much red wine blog entry”.

News

An offer you can’t refuse

15 March 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Darren Day

Fancy being trained by Olympic athletes in sports like water-skiing, kendo, running, diving and cycling? Fancy getting really fit without having to pay for a personal trainer? How about a free holiday in Egypt?

Nah. I fancy sleeping in a car and playing snooker down the pub.

Because I am Darren Day.

Well, I’m not. But you know what I mean. Instead of turning up for training, the man decided to kip in his hotel room and do anything rather than lift his finger. The producers eventually had to throw him off the show.

Given all the opportunities afforded by The Games, how could you not want to take advantage of them, particularly when you’re up a certain creek like Darren clearly is? The man has problems.

I like The Games. I’m not a great sports fan. I’m not a great reality TV fan. But watching a bunch of people actually try to develop a talent – and sensibly, unlike all those dancing and singing shows that try to get everyone up to scratch in a week – is really uplifting. I’d much rather see someone rewarded for hard work, than see the likes of Chantelle rewarded for living in a house for a few weeks. Admittedly, the competitors are a little more C-list than last year’s, but it’s great to see Peter “Dib Dib Dib” Duncan on tele again. Plus the martial art this year is kendo: outstanding!