Xmas TV

OK, so it's not technically over but here's my view on the telly supplied to us over the festering period.

THE LUMP OF POO AWARD FOR WORST CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
A commendation of the My Family Christmas special - it was shit but as no worse than a standard episode, a mean feat when the running length is doubled, spoiling the evident perfection in the half-hour running time. The easy winner here is To The Manor Born: Look, Some Of Them Are Still Alive!

I s'pose I was only a wee babychild when the original series aired, but I had fond if not overly hilarious memories of it. But this was genuinely car-crashily awful. Even the premise doesn't work, a fact that didn't seem to matter in the 70's (a decade taste DID obviously pass by). Let's go through the 'sit' in the 'com' again - Audrey, the awful, pretentious, inconsiderate, ugly and pompous lady of the manor is made homeless by Richard the charmless, rich, flashy wideboy... and then they fall in love!

Hmmm. Both main characters are hateful - not a good start. To be fair, I think in the original there was Brabinger, the 154 year-old drunky butler, and "Mrs Poo" (oh what an appropriate name), Richard's 132 year-old Czech mother, who was nice if batty. They're both long dead - cue graveyard scene with Richard talking to his mother's gravestone, asking for some guidance and then - wait for it! - his phone rings!!!1!!1! Fucking hell, that's desperate.

Add in a storyline that was predictable within two minutes of starting (surprise 25th anniversary party for the couple, him secretly managing a company that's put all their local farmer friends out of business, her leaving him) alongside oddly old-fashioned gags about immigrants and 'raves', with side stories that didn't go anywhere (Audrey's soppy friend fancying one of them out of Armstrong and Miller who was 'far too young' for her - ie not 60+ like everyone else - but went nowhere; some "immigrant workers from Czechosolvakia - a country that doesn't exist any more - learning English badly)... well, it was a mess.

And all resolved happily in one of the most rushed and pat endings I've ever seen, which even included a cute puppy.

Manor... proves you should never bring back old shows*

THE MR HANKY THE CHRISTMAS POO AWARD FOR BEING FUNNY AT YULETIDE
Slim pickings this year - I laughed at two things. Harry Hill, as always, and Catherine Tate. The latter was the same old same old, but it's still got actual setups and gags in it. And George Michael. And Kathy Burke. And she killed off 'am I bovvered' Lauren, for no particular reason - well, apart from the fact Ms Tait ain't no youngster and she was looking even more like Dick Emery dressed up as a teenager.

THE CHANNEL 4 AWARD FOR GIVING UP AT XMAS
David Starkey's Monarchy for being genuinely interesting, and having the controversial conclusion that Prince Charles will save the Windsors.

THE 'THEY DON'T MAKE THEM LIKE THAT ANYMORE' AWARD
Not Morecambe and Wise for once (UK Old managed to spoil the best Xmas shows ever by putting talking heads on telling us how good they were, alongside dull home movies and a stupid 'ooh what's the best sketch ever?' format that was pointless). No, for me it was More4's repeats of all of Father Ted. Utter bliss, even if I've seen it a gabillion times.

THE 'IT DOES WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN' AWARD
Doctor Who. OK, so it was cheesy, a mix of The Poisedon Adventure and Titanic. In space. With Kylie. But, still, a joy from start to finish, from the remixed title tune to the trailer for the next series coming up.

Small quibbles - err, the background music and scoring was even more over-the-top than before, far too intrusive for an oldster like me. And Brave Kylie, bless, looked like Catherine Tait as Lauren in a minature form - a forty year-old woman in a waitress costume pretending to be young and wanting to see the universe.

But these are mere details. You know when you're watching Doctor Who you're watching a set of professionals at the top of their game. Exec producers, writers, producers, directors, actors, special effects which are finally up there with the best telly has ever done, it all gels to be more than the sum of its parts. Even the what-are-they-doing-THAT-for? addition of Catherine Tait won't spoil it**. I hope.

So I haven't mentioned the Extras special 'cos it ain't been on yet, and I am kinda looking forward to it, but I can't help but feel Mr Gervais is, like Tony Blair and myspace, a bit 2005.

OK, footnotes - I hope you paid attention:-

*OK, this is wrong - two shows came back better than before. Who, of course, and Top Gear (a joke show watched by almost no-one and boring even to petrolheads like me). They did that solely because they were brought back and reinvented by people utterly obsessed with getting them right - Russell T Davies on the former, and Andy Wilman and Jeremy Clarkson for the latter.

**The thinking is, according to people who pretend to know these things, that Ms Tait is popular with da teens and da yoots, and this'll fill the gap in the audience for Doctor Who as it's loved by kids and adults but, like everything on telly, a bit meh for dem pesky hooded youths.