Charlie Brooker

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The Wire’s coming back soon: please watch it

18 August 2006 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

The Wire

I know I drone on about The Wire being probably the best TV show ever made rather a lot, but it’s coming back for a fourth season on HBO soon – the 10th September at 10pm to be exact – so I thought I’d commit some more droning into electronic type.

It’s brilliant. Watch it.

Not entirely persuasive, huh?

Okay, here’s someone else explaining why it’s brilliant. A choice quote:

Having devoured all 13 hours even before sitting down with Simon, I can say I have no need of a refund. If anything, I feel like I should be paying more than my HBO subscription rate for this show. It is the best drama in HBO history — all due respect to “The Sopranos” and “Deadwood.” “The Wire” is deeper, tighter and more ambitious — and one of the finest works ever produced for American television.

And here’s Charlie Brooker on last night’s Screen Wipe US special explaining why it’s the best TV show of the last 20 years. Y’all respect his opinion, don’t you?

Over here in the lovely UK, you’ll have to wait for FX to air the fourth season, but it should be arriving by year end. There’s one reason for a Sky subscription, anyway, since FX isn’t on FreeView.

Unfortunately, it’s not repeating any episodes at the moment, which is completely atypical of it. If you want to catch up, Amazon (average customer review: 5 stars) or a similar service is the way to go: you should be able to get a box set of each season for about £25 a whack, or I’m sure a DVD rental service will be able to oblige. It’s really, really worth watching. Promise.

There’s a trailer for the fourth season on HBO’s The Wire site, just in case you don’t believe me.

UK TV

Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe still holding up

11 August 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Screen WipeAfter praising last week’s Screen Wipe, I was wary that it was going to be pants this week, just to spite me. Fortunately, it was just as good, if not better.

Brooker’s pretty much nailed down the right combination of puerility, extended rants and incisive commentary. And where he is using other contributors, he’s now picking the right kind, such as David Quantick and Adam Buxton. Absolutely hilarious from start to finish it was. I particularly enjoyed the slating of the extremely rubbish Are We Being Served?, which was basically a bunch of complaints by stupid people who couldn’t read and who had an extreme sense of entitlement.

But Adam Buxton’s use of his old character, Ken Korda, from The Adam and Joe Show was interesting. On Adam and Joe, Korda was rather a pathetic figure (here are some YouTube examples of Korda in action). On Screen Wipe, he was doing a faux director’s commentary on The Mint, ITV Play’s rather awful late night phone-in show. It was all suspiciously similar to Rob Brydon’s 2004 series Directors Commentary:

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UK TV

Review: Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe

7 August 2006 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Screen Wipe Series 2

In the UK: BBC Four, Thursdays, 10.30pm (repeated later and on Fridays)

Ah, Charlie Brooker. Anyone with any sense and love of TV reads his Guardian ‘Screen Burn’ column every Saturday. It’s usually the funniest thing you’ll read that week.

However, his Screen Wipe review show, which pretty much translates ‘Screen Burn’ into pictures, hasn’t been so compelling. The first season, now entertainingly described as “three pilot episodes”, was all over the place, as I pointed out in my Off The Telly review at the time.

Watching this season, I have the oddest feeling he’s read it because he’s fixed most of the problems.

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Brooker’s back with more Screen Wipes

15 June 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

It may not have been as good as I’d hoped, but Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe is back for two more series: one this summer, including an entire episode dedicated to US television, and another in 2007.

Still, at least he’s honest:

For some mad reason BBC4 weren’t entirely put off by the three pilots we made earlier this year, so I’m returning with yet more puerile meandering and dispiriting misanthropy, which I intend to somehow pass off as ‘analysis’

I’ll be tuning in anyway…