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Never believe what you see on television. Particularly if it’s Gordon Ramsay

16 July 2007 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Gordon Ramsay, out hunting rooks

I don’t know, what’s the world coming to? Blue Peter‘s being fined for faking phone quizzes. The Beeb (and RDF) has had to apologise for distorting footage of the Queen. Richard and Judy are apologising for their phone quiz. To update Sarah Jane Smith for a new medium, “Never believe what you see on television.”

Michael Grade reckons it’s all the fault of the training system in British television, which doesn’t teach young recruits that lying is wrong. You’d have thought they’d have learnt that earlier in life, but apparently not.

The very, very latest person to have to apologise for faking footage is Gordon Ramsay. Naughty old Gordon pretended to catch fish when actually he didn’t. Naughty Gordon. He’s not much different from other fishermen in exaggerating his catching prowess, but this is a Channel 4 entertainment show and higher standards are expected, apparently.

Whatever next? Big Brother distorting the footage to portray housemates in particular lights chosen by the producers? Top Gear reshooting scenes to make everything look more impressive and entertaining?

Nah. Too improbable.

It’s not going to do Gordon much good in the US of A, of course, where even before the show airs, Ramsay’s Kitchen’s Nightmares (US) is being accused of faking footage by one of the people featured in it. Ouch. Who’s going to believe him now when he claims it all happened just as you saw on TV, honest m’lord?

Ironically for me, no matter whether he faked the catching of fish or not, Gordon Ramsay’s F-Word did have one effect on me this series – for the last month, I’ve been vegetarian, thanks to Gordon killing off anything that moves in his vicinity. And that was even before he took one of his lambs off to the abattoir. I didn’t actually watch that – my wife narrated it while I hid my eyes. “Oh my God, they’re cutting it open. You can see its pancreas. God, there’s its liver.” Could I have coped with seeing it? Not a chance. Poor little lambs.

PETA, I know you think Gordon is the enemy, so chose to dump all that stuff on his doorstep, but as you’ve now realised, he’s actually doing your work for you…

Monday’s news of squee

16 July 2007 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

Doctor Who

  • James Marsters talks a bit about Torchwood. Plus Alan Dale (Neighbours, 24, Ugly Betty, Lost et al) will be making an appearance, too
  • John Barrowman does lots of interviews including this one which is going to make lots of fan fic-writing fangirls very happy (if they like James Marsters and John Barrowman, that is)
  • Anthony Head talks Who and more

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US TV

Third-episode verdict: Burn Notice

15 July 2007 Rob Buckley 6 Comments
The Carusometer for Burn Notice
2, a partial Caruso

Oh dear. And it started so promisingly. I really had high hopes for this but the deadening hand of the USA Network has struck again.

The first episode showed promise. Burn Notice could have been a very good spy show with a quirky side. Instead, it’s now a quirky show with a slight spy side. The balance is all off. Worse still, Bruce Campbell has almost nothing to do.

True, Gabrielle Anwar dispensed with her rubbish Irish accent in the second episode, but she replaced it with an American accent that was only slightly better. The arcing “who gave Jeffrey Donovan a burn notice?” plot is now restricted to just a couple of minutes at the start and finish of the episode, while the “let’s help a loser using my special spy powers so that I can learn about family” guff is now the predominant theme of the show. Blurgh.

Still, there’s just a hint of dark left to the show, with Donovan and co willing to bump off, blackmail, fire bomb and generally do anything underhand that they like in order to right wrongs, which can”t be all bad. I suspect that as the arcing plot gathers momentum, we’ll be back to the original promise of the first episode, although I’ll probably be proved wrong.

So The Medium is Not Enough has no great pleasure in declaring Burn Notice a two or “Partial Caruso” on The Carusometer quality scale. A Partial Caruso corresponds to “a show with two walk-on cameos by David Caruso as a self-proclaimed master spy. He will try to get his character, Mick McGrady McMurphy, to explain the history of the Irish Republican Army. Unfortunately, his only only reference material is a copy of Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games and a box of Lucky Charms cereal. Before he can ad lib a scene in which he decides to bomb the ‘train between Dublin and London’, the producers send him a swatch book for his trailer decorations and they are able to recast him before he’s chosen ‘ultramarine’”.

US TV

Review: Eureka 2.1

15 July 2007 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Eureka

In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, SciFi

In the UK: Sky One at some point, cunningly retitled A Town Called Eureka

Eureka bored me. I saw the first few episodes and there was pretty much nothing remarkable about it. Tuning in for the first episode of this second season, it almost occurred to me that I had been wrong and the writers and producers had started to give this generic sci-fi show about a town of government scientists some depth and edge.

Whoops. My mistake. It’s just the same as it always was.

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US TV

Review: Psych 2.1

15 July 2007 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Psych

In the US: Fridays, 10/9c, USA Network

In the UK: Probably Hallmark, as per season one

Kids? What do they know? If they need to waste an hour, they’ll get out an XBox or poke each other to death on Facebook. Plus they’ve got no cash anyway. So it’s no wonder that Psych has slowly targeted itself at thirtysomethings – people who can remember the 80s fondly rather than hazily and sat through enough hours of Riptide, Simon and Simon and Tucker’s Witch that they can spot a format aimed squarely at them.

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