Televisio Espagnol

So I was in Barcelona for the weekend and watched some Spanish TV. Indigenous, local television, like AXN, Fox and, er, Sony Television Entertainment.

They show programmes in English then have Spanish ads and idents. Que? But in the trailers, all the shows are dubbed into Spanish. I was a bit confused then remembered the olden days before Digiboxes, when the lovely Amstrad satellite box had an audio button you pressed on each channel to get different languages (if available).

Sometimes on German channels you got undubbed versions of US or UK shows, at very low volume. Often with the American content this was before it was on UK tv, so somewhat useful for episodes of, er Murphy Brown or 21 Jump Street, two particular favourites of mine. Google the first one, it caused a presidential stir...

Anyhoo, so I assume Spanish TV is doing that same thing when supplying hotels like the one I was in. I got to watch a CSI, not something I've managed to sit through before - OK in a flashy way - and Brothers and Sisters, which was full of very good-looking people either shouting or having sex with each other. With the most awful effects between each scene, the picture sliding off with a comedy sound effect, like out of 1980s sitcoms like Parker Lewis Must Die. Again, Google is your friend if my ancient US references are too much for you. Think Ferris Bueller, but more like the movie than the dreadful TV series, and on Sky before digital happened.

But the oddest thing are the commercial breaks, sometimes twenty solid minutes of ads in a block, and then nothing for an hour. Why? After fifteen ads they all blur together. Even BBC World News did it - every channel at the same time shows a block of ads. I s'pose it means you can't channel hop but it was so tedious. The German MTV clone showed the same ringtone ad SEVEN WHOLE TIMES in one break.

Err, otherwise there wasn't much new - except as I was in Catalonia, there were two soaps going on different channels at the same time, one in Catalan and one in Spanish. The only reason I mention that is they both had a plot with a lady in a green deep-pore-cleanser-type facial mask, where the green wouldn't come off. Maybe they've two soaps with the same scripts but different locations and actors for no reason - apart from to employ extra people. The Catalan one, by the way, had ugly actors, dreadful sets and laughable music. The Spanish one was merely shit.

And that was my adventure in Spanish telly. I thank you.

Cartoon sitcoms

I was lying on the sofa channel hopping at 11pm last night, as you do, when I found something odd. Family Guy was playing both on BBC Three and FX at the same time. They both had two episodes on in a row (although due to no ads, the BBC block was ten minutes' shorter than FX), both from around the same series.

(Nerdy Note: You can tell when it was made without Googling the episode title by the animation quality - worse on earlier ones, fantastic on newer ones with bits of 3D on vehicles, sets and the like... and also the occasional continuing story - ie Brian's girlfriend for a lot of eps later on. Also the newer eps tend to have the name of writer/producer Cherry Chevapravatdumrong at the front and you can't help but notice that one. She's just down as staff writer on old ones.)

Quite odd, scheduling the same show at the same time, although it came in quite handy for me as I'd watched one ep on Three and the next one I'd iTuned and iPodded a few days ago, so I could switch to FX and watch another one.

I'm not going to say Family is better than The Simpsons but I have to say it's certainly now up there as one of my favourite sitcoms. The Big Three - Family, Simpsons, Park - have now all made hundreds of episodes over decades of production, and despite the occasional lull (or in Family's case, cancellation and re-commission) they've all maintained a very high quality over this period.

How come? It's so hard to make anything funny, why have these three shows produced more laugh-out-loud comedy than almost every other sitcom on TV put together?

Here we go - making this up as I go along, in true blog style, so here are my x number of reasons. I won't even edit the 'x' out...

Firstly and massively hugely importantly - they're all run by the same people who invented the show in the first place. Groening, MacFarlane and Parker & Stone. Their original vision is still in place, from tiny insert into The Tracy Ullman Show from Mr Groening to rude crude web Xmas card from Matt'n'Trey.

(Nerdy Note: 50% of the creators are called Matt. Discuss)

These four people are, not to put to fine a point on it, geniuses. Groening because he managed to get Fox to leave him alone in the first place, then moved from a kidsy Bart-focused comedy to a Homer-centric 300 cast-list strong comedy epic. Parker & Stone because they revel in being crude and rude and un-PC, and in Eric Cartman they've created the ultimate anti-hero for television. And MacFarlane, lastly, because his show is simply funny.

Yes, Family Guy doesn't push as many boundaries as South Park, but it's much edgier than The Simpsons. OK, Matt'n'Trey did a fantastic spoof of Family in their show, focusing mainly on the habit of a character saying "I haven't been this impressed / depressed / shocked since..." and cutting to a flashback scene, and how it was written by giant sea creatures knocking balls around in a tank (season 10, Cartoon Wars p1 and II) - but you know what? That habit of Family Guy is damn funny. It makes it more into a sketch show than a sitcom.

Family Guy really pushes some gags until they break. And then some. An ep I watched the other night had Peter trying to scoop a dead toad up in a box as it lay against a wall. He failed for at least a minute, it kept flopping out. And, unlike my description, it was very, very funny. Like when Peter fought with a giant chicken for no reason, right in the middle of an episode, then went back to the plot after.

This went on for FIVE AND A HALF MINUTES. Watch it here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=02rlGHsqLOQ

They do this kind of thing all the time - it's as if the freedom they have from (a) being successful; and (b) having a powerful man the network love as showrunner from the start means they ain't scared of anything.

In other reasons-why-it's-good, I'd have to cite the lovely animation (Youtube does it no favours above, but look at the 2D/3D mixes in the background), great voices and - so important here - fantastic score. I think in the latter it bests The Simpsons. Although the latter's musical spoofs are just incredible - watch the Sherry Bobbins one for a perfect pitch Disney pisstake.

Anyhow, raise a glass to the two Matts, Seth and Trey - here's to many more years of sitcom-making tomfoolery. The Matts have said they won't be making any more movies to concentrate on the show, as it's too hard to do both. I understand that, but South Park: The Movie and Team America are two of my favourite films (musicals in a way, hmm, I see a theme). I loved The Simpsons Movie as well, unlike most people who said it was just an extended episode. Well, it was in a way, in that it was longer therefore 'extended' over the telly. In other ways - the animation and plot being just two aspects - it was much more complicated.

The only bad thing I have to say about these three series is that they set the bar so high that the rest of us who work in telly and/or cartoons shy away from competing. There have been efforts but they've all been more niche-y, smaller concepts, piddling away round the edges.

And don't get me started on why we can't make something like these shows here.

Please.

"Your eyes are bigger than your belly"

The title comes from something my Ma used to say to me when I'd ask for seconds of dinner then leave some of it on the plate. An old Geordie expression, no doubt, which I use in a more general sense when people's ambitions don't quite match their... er, um... I was going to say 'talent' but it's not quite the right word. When ambitions don't match reality perhaps?

I was thinking of this when reading about how Richard and Judy, morning titans and ratings' winners for many years on ITV, then successful in the afternoons on C4, are now watched by an average of 44,000 people on the stupidly-named channel 'Watch'.

(SLIGHT SIDEBAR - I mean, come on. Watch. Who thought of that? Bet he or she had a stupid name too, like Tarquil, Doodah or Ampersand. Whereas Dave is a good channel name, Watch is just idiotic. Probably repeating myself but Dave is similar to something in the US. Over there, yer Americans have two radio formats known as Jack and Jill, one more blokey, one more girly. You often hear "You're listening to KYFC, Jack 99.4 FM" or the like - it's well-known. So Dave was 'inspired' (ahem) from that. I should imagine. Don't sue me Mr UKTV bigwig. Anyway, Watch is still a rubbish channel name. Do they say "You're watching Watch" at any point? I don't suppose you, me or the 99.99% of the population who don't watch Watch would know. Rant over. Breathe.)

Back to R&J. So their eyes were bigger than their belly. They wanted primetime. They wanted, in effect, to lead a channel. More money was probably on offer too, and Paul O'Grady and Deal or no Deal were doing better for C4, so they maybe had little choice.

But their brand of television shouts daytime. Sofas, chat, small scale, no audience, etc. It was never really going to work at 8pm, was it? I suppose the high-ups at Watch thought the next afternoon repeats might do OK too, but I assume they're not. Slightly-warmed-up-last-night's-topical-telly wouldn't be top of my list of viewing.

So they were moved to 6pm but it hasn't helped the ratings. Expect them to leave amicably before their contract is up. A deal signed before the current downturn is probably cheaper to buy out than cruddy ratings day after day.

This happens all the time in tv. I worked with a really great presenter. He was clever and great on screen, popular with the audience of the show he presented, the people he worked with AND the channel the show was on (all three is very rare), and moving on up the food chain of the television world.

Series 1 of this show had been a minor hit, series 2 had done incredibly well, in the channel's top ten most weeks, rating much better than the low budget and pre-primetime slot should've got for them. So big cheers all round, here's to series 3!

Er, no. He refused to present it, as it was sponsored by a company he didn't like. He also wanted lots of other things too, feeling - quite rightly in some ways - he was a big part of the show's success and he'd been underpaid and overworked for two series, and that the show wouldn't work without him.

He was unceremoniously replaced. And you know what? The show didn't work as well without him, as the new presenter was an actor who knew nothing about the subject matter. I was a producer on this series, and spent aeons with this guy (a really lovely talented bloke who is now a big proper actor in primetime dramas) coaching him, scripting almost everything and preparing him, only for my boss to rip them all up the day before shooting and tell him to 'wing it'. Sigh.

Anyway, this show was a bit of a disaster. The content was better than ever, but the lack of the naughty humour of the previous presenter really showed. And it looked cheaper, a mixture of a crap location and hurried filming. The content was great though and the ratings held up OK until the format was revised yet again halfway through, into what became such a disaster lawsuits by people on the show were filed at the end.

Series 4, funnily enough, saw the return of the previous presenter. And it was great... but, it's funny, the time had somehow passed and it just seemed a bit 'been there, done that'. Ratings dipped, the content was weaker and the ladsy gags got grating, and the series slipped away almost unnoticed a few series later.

That's usually the way a show dies in telly but it's odd, that third series could've been a blockbuster, lifting the show into primetime, bigger budgets, greater ambitions and a much higher profile. But the presenter's eyes were bigger than his belly.

No-one ever seems to learn lesson one of appearing on telly - you're famous for Being On That Show On That Channel At That Time, not for being fabulous or funny or brilliant or beautiful. Be like Ken Barlow, stick around for ever and the public love you.

Don't go to a small channel from a big one, even if the money or hours are much better. Eamonn Holmes is watched by 10,000 people on Sky News in the morning, compared to a few million in his heyday on GMTV. It's a fact that 98% of the people staring at the ever-expanding Mr Holmes are in gyms panting on treadmills listening to their iPods, not his lilting Irish brogue.

And don't leave daytime telly - if you're good there, you can do it until you drop. Primetime is unforgiving, people get bored quicker; both the viewers and the commissioners.

The sad thing for Richard and Judy is they did all three.

Telly Twenty Oh Nine

It's annoying being nine years into a decade that doesn't have a name. The 'Noughties' never took off. The next one is the same - someone suggested the Teens but that won't include 2010, 2011 or 2012.

Tsch.

Anyhow, television. It's always a bit quiet in Jan when it comes to tvland, but it's worse this year due to the entire crux of capitalist society collapsing. My little company is as badly affected as most, with commissions thin on the ground and what is there being cut back to the bone.

The one fact most people agree with is that tv viewing goes up in recessions. Makes sense - more people can't afford to go out so they slump on the sofa and watch the box. But it's not quite that simple - subscription tv does well too, as people are willing to pay more money if they're around at home and think it's good value.

The trouble is the advertisers have run away like a bunch of scaredy cats. On fire. In a war. On the Moon. So there's little money around, even less for C4, Five and smaller Sky-type channels, as with budgets plummetting, the remaining advertisers can get afford time on ITV1, which still delivers the best bang for your buck.

With the public service broadcasting review from Ofcom investigating the sorry state of serious telly in the UK adding to the confusion in the industry, it's not a nice time in tv. A senior broadcaster - a man who NEVER swears - said television "is in the shit".

It's not just the current problems, it's that no-one can see a sustainable business model for telly in the UK in five years' time. Sky should be OK (can I bet on Sky1 just showing The Simpsons every half hour by 2014?), the BBC probably fine-ish (less original programming, more repeats), ITV... well, totally buggered probably, more cheapo quizzes replacing expensive dramas, C4... er, maybe worse; wall-to-wall pop factual or reality, no comedy or drama, Five... um, part of Sky?

Not a nice thought. It must be hard to, say, be someone working for Five and knowing that if you showed 4 eps of CSi every night instead of the current 2, replacing original, home-grown programming with an import, you'd (a) save money; and (b) almost certainly increase ratings.

In the current economic climate, the cheapest option will win every time, as it has in other sectors. That's not The IT Crowd, Doctor Who or even I'm a Celebrity (£1m an ep apparently - I'm sure it's profitable but that's a HUGE cost) - cheapest = Masterchef, Mastermind and something else with master in the title. They're good shows but cheap as chips.

Xmas indigestion...

So how was it for you? T'was lovely here ta, very nice and foody and drunky and friendy and that.

As for telly....

Er, well, wasn't Doctor Who a little disappointing? Having read Russell T's fantastic book on how he came up with it, I'm kinda sorta not surprised really. He had to rush it to film it at the end of the last series, through a horrible cold and nasty flu, genuinely finishing pages the morning they were about to be shot. Obviously the book didn't say much about the content but when you know that's the background, the general unspecialness of this special isn't unexpected.

The other doctor was boring - am I the only one not to rate David Morrissey at all, in anything he's been in? He was boring playing Gordon Brown in that thing about him and Blair (method acting?) and the worst actor in the otherwise sublime State of Play. He's just tall, blank, miserable and shouty. Mind you that didn't do Christopher Ecclescakes any hard (oooh, controversial!)

The story had a few hoho smiley bits in it, like the Tardis/balloon, but seemed like Who-by-numbers to me. Mrs M&S Dirty Voice was OK I s'pose, in the way that the bossy-evil-lady usually is in these eps (even when dressed as a giant spider in the two-Xmases-ago special), but again I've seen this before.

Don't get me wrong, I watched from start to finish and enjoyed it a lot, best drama on the box so far this festive season, but I'm very glad Mr T Davies is passing the baton on to someone else. Now write the Big Gay Thing you know want to, Russie, it's time for you to do something different.

Funnily enough I was with neighbours who'd never seen New Who - they don't watch telly at all... I know, it's a crime, but there you are -  so I got the Titanic Xmas Special from last year for them. Second time around, I loved this more than the first time, and they were amazed at how good the SFX were, how funny the script was, Kylie being in it and the whole disaster movie schtick. A good intro to the series - they're off to rummage for it on the cheap in the End Of The World sales currently on at every shop ever.

As for everything else I've watched:-

Royle Family - Dave and Denise's Xmas dinner was somewhat over the top in their stupidity but it was sublime from start to finish (although I missed the last few mins as friggin' EastEnders overran by seven whole minutes. Grrr)

Harry Hill - superb and peerless

Charlie Brooker - my Tivo took a dislike to him and recorded a repeat of The Soup instead. It's on again soon and it's set proper this time.

Wallace and Gromit - nicely nice niceness. Supernice. Nicer than Nannette Newman. Not that funny, or that dramatic, but just the perfect 8:30pm Xmas Day thing. With my Animationiser hat on... well, I take it off and doff it to Aardman in an exaggerated stylee. Wonderful. A few CG things, I noticed, just adding sheen to the superb handmade oddness of the thing. A Brazilian friend Facebooked me about it, never seen it before - despite being in the UK for 18 years - and thought it was quite the strangest thing he'd ever seen. "Eet is for kids, no? Why does doggie not speak? And that man, that Wallarse, he is an eeeeediot. Why does Eeengland like him, huh?".

(Promise not to write any more comedy accents)

The IT Crowd - not the strongest of episodes to be frank. Moss not being in it, despite the "you didn't even notice I was on my holidays" gag, doesn't help as he's the best character in it. Didn't seem to have much of a story and then kinda fizzled out. 

What else? Well lots of eps of Frasier and Will and Grace, as always when inside at Xmas, very good they were too. Have we ever had a sitcom as clever as the former, by the way? Erudite, clever, pompous (and revelling in it) but such great writing. The episode on today where old DJ Bulldog comes back, becomes Ros's babysitter and scares off her potential suitors, only to declare his love for her, was funny and yet intensely sad in the end.

Right, off now to run on a treadmill watching an ep of Family Guy. Having seen almost all of them in the last month or so, off of iTunes, the formula is obvious but it's still one of the most inventive and gag-packed things around. Makes the cross-trainer seem less of an instrument of torture and more a place of comedy and smileyness.

Happy oh-nine and that!

Festive Felicitations

Here's a seasonal round-up of what I've watched so far...

GAVIN AND STACEY XMAS SPECIAL

Er, didn't watch it - I watched a few from series 1 which made me smile vaguely in a 'ah yes this is somewhat amusing' way and haven't bothered with it since. 

BBC FOUR COMEDY SONG CLIPFEST

Proper good telly, in that it's well-researched, well-made and interviews the right people. To hear Spitting Image's 'I've Never Met A Nice South African' again was worth sitting through some of the less, er, comedy comedy songs. Stutter Rap anyone? I didn't think so... 

Anyhow, BBC Four normally repeats the hell out of things, so it'll be on again. Mind you, some of the clip shows don't resurface very often, probably because all that music clearance costs money. Their good series on advertising had hardly any repeat screenings that weren't in prime time, for example, and I normally record things at 2.30am when the other channels have gone to bed and there aren't any recording clashes.

QI XMAS SPECIAL

QI on BBC One! It's like telly is dumbing up! Miracles do happen! And it stays on BBC One for the next series. Yay! And it was a fab show, as ever. Although - small carpy comment - it is a bit sad how it's all just middle-aged men. Far be it from me to be too PC but surely they can book one ladywoman out of four guests? It's not that hard to find funny females, is it?

PETER KAY'S POP'S GOT THE EXTRA FACTOR ON ICE STRICTLY etc. etc.

I saw the end with the Xmas song video. I did smile at the 'you'll be singing this over and over and over again' on a loop bit, and it's for charideeee, well done... but there's something creepy about a fat Northern man dressed up as a fat Northern Irish transexual/transgender/whatever singing slightly funny songs in a voice that's been in no way changed for being a lady.

Maybe they could get Geraldine on QI, to even up the sexes?

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL

I accidentally caught some of this today - the first time I've seen Zac Effron actually speak as I've only seem papped shots of him on the interweb and never any of his, er, products. Boy this was lame. The Kids from Lame.

THE BBC ONE XMAS IDENTS

Ha hah! They've got Wallace and Gromit in them. And probably cost a trillion pounds. And look... um, well, boring really. Not very special at all. Lame direction and ideas and even the animation's somewhat workaday.

I'll still watch the Xmas special though. I'll be full of festive spirits by then so will no doubt think it's uproarious and/or tragically sad and sob all the way through. Depending on which variety of spirits I consume the most of. (Clue: whiskey - NO!)

COMING UP...

Well, Doctor Who obviously, that's got the lady off of the M&S ad voiceover dressed in red - "I'm not a comedy panto sci-fi villain, I'm an M&S top-of-the-range evil nasty lady with something hidden under my big red frock I reckon". The Royle Family, one of my fave sitcoms ever - hopefully no-one will die this time as last timedid have me (and the nation) bawling and sobbing like babies.

Shooting Stars is back for some reason, and I'll watch mainly because I used to adore Reeves and Mortimer, and the BBC have decided they're not funny any more and won't let them on telly much now. Boo hiss BBC! The Two Most Different Television Reviewer Cum Performers You Can Possibly Imagine - Harry Hill and Charlie Brooker - are in my To Watch list. Mr B had my eyes moistening with his wonderful tribute to Oliver Postgate. I disagree with some of his conclusions - the programmes haven't held up that well - but totally agree about Mr P's superb voice, pacing, sparse music (no doubt mainly because they couldn't afford it) and unique Britishnessnessness. The We Will Fix It song was perfect...

Oh, and the last IT Crowd of this series, loving it so much. I've got a feeling Mr Linehan isn't the world's best person at writing for lady performers (ooh look, the blog's got a lady theme now I've mentioned it three times, it's like it was planned and that). That Joker woman was a bit poor, and Jen isn't in it much despite being a fantastic performer, but you have to admit watching Moss pretend to be her husband was the bestest comedy treat for a while.

And, er, ummm, well, I'll end up watching EastEnders as it's on every hour over Xmas, and probably some crap fillums, and totally forget to watch something I really don't want to miss... and I have 3 eps of Survivors to catch up on too - I couldn't face them when ill with the flu, I even had swellings in my armpits just like the doomed victims in the show had...

So have a wonderful Winterval and all that. I'll more than likely post more telly ramblings over the inbetweeny period, such as why are there no decent end-of-the-year shows any more, just things with Nick Knowles or Jools Holland when we used to have Clive James (another person the Beeb just dropped for no reason) and Angus Deayton. 

Byebye.

Writing for tv

If you saw Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe t'other night, then you'll have seen a treat. If not, switch on BBC Four any time after 10, it's usually on. Or iPlayer, if you're technofancy. But sit on a proper comfy chair, zoom out to fullscreen and watch like you would a normal telly.

It was about tv writers - fairysnuff, Charlie is a one himself (confession: I didn't see his Dead Set thing as I was away and E4 ain't repeated it yet, but any show that zombifies Davina has gotta be good) but the thing that made this show stand out were the toppermost top names they had.

Russell T Davies. Them two wot writ Peep Show. Graham Linehan. Tony Jordan. Paul Abbot. All of them brilliant, brilliant writers, yet all so different. I can recommend (again) R.T.D's book on writing Doctor Who - ok, so it's geeky in the extreme about the series but it shows the labour and sheer bloody love that goes into every episode.

And it has Russell expounding on writing in a way that makes you want to sit down and write, something I've never encountered when reading about writing before. He's such a one-off, but full of funny advice.

Anyway, back to the writers with Mr Brooker. R.T.D. went on about how characters pop into his head fully-formed. Fascinating. Sam and Jesse off of Peep Show said they writ big detailed storylines for months. Tony Jordan said when he writes Spooks he loves to paint himself into a corner, with no idea why or how to get out of his plot. Then get out of it. Paul Abbott said how one ep of genius drama State of Play took three days to write, the next seven weeks.

They all said how they hated first drafts but by draft four it was easier, something I can't quite get to yet. Again, they all said it was good to learn the craft writing whatever, be it links or kids or sketches. That made me feel good, with 'many tens' of episodes of telly under my belt but none of them sitcom.

Here are some random bits of writerly advice that made me smile, laugh or nod sagely:-

Mr Linehan: "Writing is like doing a poo. You can't force it. You need to go away and read or surf the web or watch tv and think about the idea until you simply have to go"

Mr Davies: "Finish something. FUCKING finish it. Two pages is nothing. No-one is going to read it. Or love it. Or buy it. Or publish it. FINISH IT! You can't call yourself a writer until you do."

Mr Abbott: "I employ people to make me do the writing. I hate them. But I still pay them so it must work"

Mr Peep Show Duo: "We can't write unless we plan everything."

Mr Jordan: "I hate planning. I hate writing. I like it when it's done though."

Mr Brooker: "..."
(he didn't say much)

Mr Davies again: "90% of dialogue on telly is shit. Worst I heard, first line of a new drama series, a man said to a woman 'Happy Wedding Day, sis!'. I mean, what? No-one says that. No-one calls their sister 'sis'. Good dialogue are two monologues that occasionally cross. No-one actually listens"

Mr Brooker (in reply) "Yeahh. Sorry, wasn't listening. Was planning my next question..."
(hohoho)

Anyhoo, if you want to write for the telly, watch this show. Fascinating.

(And extra smiley-thumbs-uppies to Mr Linehan for last week's IT Crowd, sublime. The robbery stuff was superb.)