Tuesday 27 January 2009

Do you want TV that would make an imbecile weep?



Has anyone seen this show, Total Wipeout? It's total and utter cack on a level with Hole in the Wall, with which I think it may bear some relationship to as they're both based on Japanese formats. I know it's supposed to be a bit of Saturday evening fluff, but come on. It features Roy Castle lookalike Richard Hammond, a man seemingly incapable of turning anything down. His performance is the very definition of 'phoned-in' as its made pretty obvious he's not there, he just does links from a studio. He's not there because it's shot in Argentina, and obviously our Richard's so busy making adverts and doing PAs that he couldn't possibly have the inconvenience of flying to South America. That bit's left to the personality vacuum - and former squeeze of no.5 in my list of irritating TV men Patrick Kielty - that is Amanda Byram.
I suppose the idea is that it's supposed to be like It's a Knockout. But whereas IAK had a little bit of charm, this is like staring into an abyss of idiocy and shame. I felt dirty after being forced to watch it and needed a bath when I returned home. Can't they show a few Tom and Jery cartoons instead?
Having said that, I've always fancied South America, so I might apply for series two. And you just know there's going to be a series two.

Anyway, what is good news is that I've caught the teaser trailers for Channel 4's Red Riding series. It's based on the Red Riding quartet of books by David Peace. I'm glad they're dramatising them because I lost interest a bit halfway through reading book two, but according to online reviews this isn't uncommon and the books hit their stride by book three. Watching the TV series might push things on a bit for me. I hope they do them justice, because I've got serious doubts about the film adaptation of Peace's The Damned United. Who knows, it might be great (and I hope it is), but Timothy Spall's playing Brian Clough's right hand man Peter Taylor, and he'd better be phenomenally good at accents as Taylor had the thickest of thick Nottingham accents. I've never heard someone born outside Notts do a convincing Notts accent. Certainly not Sean Bean.

2 comments:

Clair said...

I entirely agree. It's like having the News At Ten with a presenter shouting from the bog. And I fecking hate those 'I'M MAD, ME!!!!!' contestants. Never has there been a bigger televisual waste of time - well, not since that thing with Anton Du Beke in a silver leotard.

And if you can convincingly say 'home' in Nottinghamese, you've cracked it, I think.

Bright Ambassador said...

Don't you wish that the so-called 'Sucker Punch' would actually give one of the 'wacky' contestants a serious brain injury? No? Just me then...
Mind you, they'd probabaly say "I'm so wacky my friends say I've already got a brain injury. Arf arf! Oooh, I'm mad me!" What a bunch of Colin fucking Hunts.